Doing a similar thing to my Season 1/2 Data Dump for seasons 2 and 3. In season 3, a few servers were merged, such as Latin America going into North America. I've merged this data from season 1 and 2, to make this data consistent.

(S2 is Season 2, S3 is Season 3)
na is North America, eu is Europe, kr is Korea, cn is China, sea is South-East Asia.

Total players that placed in the 1v1 gametype, and players that placed in any ladder gametype.

		1V1 PLAYERS			ALL PLAYERS
	S2	S3	% diff		S2	S3	% diff
na	428,201	381,855	(89.2%)		597,561	551,524	(92.3%)
eu 	406,608	366,478	(90.1%)		540,810	506,616	(93.7%)
kr 	157,580	159,532	(101.2%)	241,545	248,954	(103.1%)
cn 	190,302	91,791	(48.2%)		242,082	113,701	(47.0%)
sea	46,627	39,320	(84.3%)		64,293	55,633	(86.5%)

China had the same drop-off that all the other regions experienced going from season 1 to 2, because Starcraft 2 was released in China at the start of season 2. Everyone else stayed close to where they were before, even when season 3 was a month shorter than season 2!

Here are graphs of players over time. Brown is season 1, silver season 2, gold season 3. Season 1's data starts a month past release.

+ Show Spoiler [Graphs!] +

North America
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Europe
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Korea

China

Southeast Asia
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Here are players with at least 25 wins (b.net doesn't track loses yayyy!) in 1v1, and all gametypes. Season 2 data has been time-modified (see bottom of post for details).

		1V1 GAMES			ALL GAMETYPES
      S2	S3	% diff		S2	S3	% diff
na    136,395	120,779	(88.6%)		237,884	259,278	(109.0%)
eu    140,974	123,365	(87.5%)		233,675	253,706	(108.6%)
kr    50,408	55,030	(109.2%)	77,404	109,113	(141.0%)
cn    77,843	35,735	(45.9%)		72,201	57,555	(79.7%)
sea   15,367	12,423	(80.8%)		25,390	26,087	(102.7%)

Graphs of similar data, between 0 wins (everybody) and 200 wins.
Brown is season 2, silver is season 3. Season 2 data is once again time-modified.
+ Show Spoiler [More Graphs!] +

North America
1v1
[image loading]

All

Europe
1v1
[image loading]

All

Korea
1v1
[image loading]

All

China
1v1
[image loading]

All

Southeast Asia
1v1
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All

Attrition rate.
This consists of players that played in previous seasons, who returned in season 3. China didn't have a season 1, so its historical data is limited to season 2 only.

     TOTAL PLAYERS      RETURNED FROM     % RETURNED IN SEASON 3 FROM
      s2        s3        all       s2       all      s2      s3 new players
na  655,751  551,524    476,235  430,924    41.67%  65.71%      13.65%  75,289
eu  588,015  506,616    435,159  397,139    44.66%  67.54%      14.10%  71,457
kr  270,220  248,954    199,158  172,744    29.78%  63.93%      20.00%  37,418
cn  260,235  113,701    76,283   76,283     29.31%  29.31%      32.91%  49,796
sea 70,238   55,633     49,088   44,691     36.57%  63.63%      11.76%   6,545

EDIT: there were 210,505 new sc2 players in the last 3 months

This one's moderately complicated, here's a short explanation.
In North America 65.71% of players that played in season 2, also played in season 3. 41.67% of players that played in seasons 1 or 2, also played in season 3. 13.65% of players in season 3 (of which there were 551,524) did not play in seasons 1 or 2.

edit: What is "time-modified" data?
Since season 2 lasted almost a month longer than season 3, the numbers for games played doesn't match up properly. I modify player numbers based on how many people I had logged at a time matching up to the length of season 3.
For example, Korea actually has 56,393 people with 25 or more wins, while my numbers in the table state 50,408. Season 3 lasted 90 days, while season 2 lasted 118 days. (118 - 90 = 28) At the end of season 2, Korea had 221,819 players. 28 days prior to the end of season 2, Korea had 198,281 players, which is 89.38864blahblahblah%. Multiply 56,393 (real number of >= 25) by this percent, and you get the value in the table of 50,408.
edit2: added labels to my graphs.
edit3: new players per region in attrition rate

tl;dr china plummets as expected first season, everyone loses a little total players, gains a little active players, korea beats the curve, worldwide quarter million new players

Zarjax

United States44 Posts

October 29 2011 19:49 GMT

Glad to see growth in Korea, even if its just a little bit. It is the only region to not see loses.

Zzzapper

1790 Posts

October 29 2011 19:55 GMT

The decrease in Chinese players is quite worrying. Over 50% of the players gone from s2. That's really many. I don-t think the numbers on the other servers are very bad though... 6-8% really isn't that many

Kira__

Sweden2672 Posts

October 29 2011 19:57 GMT

On October 30 2011 04:55 Zzzapper wrote:
The decrease in Chinese players is quite worrying. Over 50% of the players gone from s2. That's really many. I don-t think the numbers on the other servers are very bad though... 6-8% really isn't that many

The explanation for that is in the OP. It was the same as seen on the other servers after their first season.

Icekommander

Canada483 Posts

October 29 2011 20:00 GMT

More or less the same thing has already happened to the other regions already. It would/will be considerably more worrying if the suffer a similar drop from seasons 3 to 4. Also good to see Korea growing. I never realised that they had significantly less players than the other regions though.

Ashfalt

Canada83 Posts

October 29 2011 20:02 GMT

I hope that the number of 1v1 players jump up once HOTS comes out.

Even though its only a 10% difference of a drop for this season, its depressing but expected that more and more players are not staying active in ladder.

Zzzapper

1790 Posts

October 29 2011 20:02 GMT

On October 30 2011 05:00 Icekommander wrote:

Show nested quote +

Wasn't the it more like 30-35% who dropped out in the other servers? Maybe i just didn't remember this correctly...

Edit: Just looked it up. It was only EU that had a 35% decrease. The other servers had at least 40'ish

sebsejr

213 Posts

October 29 2011 20:02 GMT

Hmm, this doesnt seem good? what do people think? is this killing esports?
<3

decaf

Austria1797 Posts

October 29 2011 20:04 GMT

KR actually having more players in S3? I find that hard ot believe.

Megaliskuu

United States5123 Posts

October 29 2011 20:04 GMT

#10

Tons of people get discouraged from ladder so they just play customs, and you can't really account for that. Also lots of people that watch sc2 don't play, so I wouldn't get too worried lol.

leveller

Sweden1840 Posts

October 29 2011 20:06 GMT

#11

thats actually more players than I thought, thanks for the statistics!

Childplay

Canada263 Posts

October 29 2011 20:06 GMT

#12

i stay really inactive since season 2, playing about only 100 games per season, but i still follow the pro scene and play customs =D

windsupernova

Mexico5280 Posts

October 29 2011 20:07 GMT

#13

On October 30 2011 05:04 Megaliskuu wrote:
Tons of people get discouraged from ladder so they just play customs, and you can't really account for that. Also lots of people that watch sc2 don't play, so I wouldn't get too worried lol.

This, people abandoning the ladder after a single year. Its pretty common in all games. Numbers still look healthy though. Some games are a wasteland after 2-3 months.

HwangjaeTerran

Finland5967 Posts

October 29 2011 20:08 GMT

#14

Yeah, <5% drop a season isn't worrying in the slightest this soon after the release.
Also I'll bet money it's going to jump again after HotS is released.

redeux

United States148 Posts

October 29 2011 20:09 GMT

#15

Well, on that note, I'm actually returning to the scene after a long break (only played 2 placement matches for season 2).

Tommylew

Wales2717 Posts

October 29 2011 20:10 GMT

#16

On October 30 2011 05:04 decaf wrote:
KR actually having more players in S3? I find that hard ot believe.

a lot of americans are playing on the server too

Jetaap

France4814 Posts

October 29 2011 20:11 GMT

#17

On October 30 2011 05:10 Tommylew wrote:

Show nested quote +

a lot of americans are playing on the server too

The number of 'pro' players that play on KR is not going to change significantly the stats, there are 150 000 players on kr.

legaton

France1763 Posts

October 29 2011 20:20 GMT

#18

The NA numbers, do they count the accounts from the merged latin-american server?

Also, pretty shitty results for SC2.

Rannasha

Netherlands2398 Posts

October 29 2011 20:22 GMT

#19

Those are really small decreases in player count for a 1yr old game. Some decrease is to be expected, but the overall playerpool seems to remain remarkably stable. Good stuff.