Iranian gamers may be freaking out about losing access to World of Warcraft, but apparently the game as a whole is falling from its nerdy perch, according to an interactive chart by Paid Content's Robert Andrews:

Andrews used data from WoW developer Activision-Blizzard's majority owner Vivendi to make the chart. If you go to the original, you can roll over dots to see the exact number of subscribers in each quarter. In the latest quarter, the game had 9.1 million subscribers, which is nearly the same as the level five years ago.

Blizzard CEO Michael Morhaime said in an earnings call that the drop in users was coming from the East, which Andrews explains may be due to a competitive gaming market in China.

Despite its decline, WoW is still the biggest subscription-based multiplayer online role-playing game in the world, Morhaime said. So active WoW players need not worry about losing friends. Well, unless you're Iranian.

To explore the chart more, go to Paid Content.

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Serena Dai