(Activision)

Well, here's a real sea change in Internet culture: In a quarterly earnings call yesterday, Activision's CEO revealed that 1.3 million gamers have bailed on World of Warcraft since January. 

It's almost like they all realized they could really use some IRL sunshine!

According to the Wall Street Journal, WoW subscriptions have dropped from 12 million at their peak in 2010 to 8.3 million today. Most of the losses were in "eastern regions of the world," but westerners are leaving, too. In hopes of stemming the tide, the company plans to "push out more content, such as new story lines and experiences, at a quicker pace."

CEO Bobby Kotick did a pretty dismal job of sounding upbeat about their prospects:

"'While we do believe further declines are likely, and we expect to have fewer subscribers at year-end than we do today, "World of Warcraft" remains one of the most successful franchises in the history of entertainment,' Mr. Kotick said on a conference call."

Sorry guys, but no golden age lasts forever. (I learned that from Lord of the Rings.)

(Photo: LiveLeak)

What do you do when you lack the technology to create your own simulation of New York City under missile attack? You use footage from video games, of course!

Kotaku reports that a new space race propaganda video put online by North Korea's propaganda arm Uriminzokkiri depicts a city that looks an awful lot like New York being struck by missiles. Buildings begin to burn as an American flag waves overtop the footage. The video is couched as a dream sequence, showing the dreaming man aboard the rocket the country successfully tested in December.

"Somewhere in the United States, black clouds of smoke are billowing," reads the caption, according to LiveLeak.

But as Kotaku points out, the footage of New York in ruins is actually borrowed from the popular video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Even more bizarrely, the video is scored with the popular Michael Jackson/Lionel Richie song "We Are the World."

Is this some sort of ironic jab at the imperialistic nature of American pop culture, or do North Koreans just really really like MJ? Kim Jong-un does kind of seem like he'd be into all-night COD marathons.

We've reached out to COD publisher Activision for comment, though we have a pretty good feeling North Korea didn't reach out to them for permission.

Update:

Yup, Activision was none too happy with North Korea using its bestselling video game for propaganda purposes. The BBC reports that YouTube has taken the video down after a copyright complaint from the video game publisher.

Via Reuters:

Activision said in a statement on Friday its biggest holiday title had sold 6.5 million units, which breaks last year's record of 5.6 million units, or $360 million in sales.

They also go on to mention that last year's Call of Duty release made $1B in two months. Still not convinced about the whole crazy thing? In Denver, this happened:

Lomon Sar, 31, was angry Tuesday when Best Buy wouldn't sell him a special "Hardened Edition" of "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" at a midnight release event even though he had pre-purchased the game. "I put my hands up to my head and I'm like, 'God, now I'm mad.' I said, 'I am so pissed right now I can blow this place up,'" Sar said. He now admits it was a "poor choice of words," but says he didn't mean it literally.

For some reason we get the feeling that if this were, say, Super Mario Sunshine, people wouldn't have taken him as seriously. That said, this is a total realistic first-person war sim, and yet, Call of Duty isn't nearly as peppered with the kind of parental outrage that accompanied games like DOOM, which is about battling the demons of hell, as opposed to humans of other nationalities, who we've, like, actually been to war with as a country.

As opposed to demons of hell, who we have yet to go to war with, officially speaking.

Basically, Call of Duty gets the culture-shaming pass because it's thinly-disguised jingoism and propaganda as entertainment. They just sold $400M worth of this thing in one day.

Just sayin'.