edit: Data collected with my own battle.net spider (it's not very user-friendly).
Keep in mind, this only tracks ladder games, custom games are not looked at in any way. All data was updated at least 12 hours prior to the end of each season, numbers should be considered low by 0-1% based on trends of new players and games per day.
us is North America and Latin America, eu is Europe and Russia, kr is Korea and Taiwan, cn is China, sea is South-East Asia and Oceania.
(S2 is Season 2, S3 is Season 3, S4 is Season 4)
Total players that placed in the 1v1 gametype, and players that placed in any ladder gametype. Season 3 data is time-modified (see bottom of post for details).
1V1 PLAYERS ALL PLAYERS
S3 S4 % diff S3 S4 % diff
us 335,388 279,119 (83.2%) 484,411 418,949 (86.5%)
eu 319,146 268,808 (84.2%) 441,186 387,052 (87.7%)
kr 133,279 132,729 (99.6%) 207,986 207,067 (99.6%)
cn 79,475 49,991 (62.9%) 98,446 63,600 (64.6%)
sea 34,328 27,812 (81.0%) 48,570 41,110 (84.6%)
Here are graphs of players over time.
Brown is season 2, silver season 3, gold season 4. The difference in season lengths is clear here.
+ Show Spoiler [Graphs!] +
Here are players with at least 26 wins in 1v1, and all gametypes for seasons 2, 3, and 4. Percents are comparing season 4 to 3. On average, each player has played 50 games, but more platinum/diamond/masters players are represented compared to bronze/silver, because losses cannot be factored in. Seasons 2 and 3 data have been time-modified (see bottom of post for details).
1v1 players all players
2 3 4 % diff 2 3 4 % diff
us 114,521 106,081 80,346 (75.7%) 162,919 174,745 172,407 (98.7%)
eu 118,187 107,432 83,381 (77.6%) 164,559 175,381 172,464 (98.3%)
kr 41,787 45,974 39,774 (86.5%) 53,410 71,801 79,113 (110.2%)
cn 67,233 30,940 19,275 (62.3%) 50,599 29,735 31,903 (107.3%)
sea 12,889 10,845 7,988 (73.7%) 17,320 17,216 16,517 (95.9%)
Those percents remain similar across the whole range of games played. Below are graphs of similar data, between 0 wins (everybody) and 200 wins.
Brown is season 2, silver is season 3, gold is season 4. Data of seasons 2 and 3 are still time-modified.
+ Show Spoiler [More Graphs!] +
Attrition rate
This consists of players that played in previous seasons, who returned in season 4. This is raw data, not taking into account the different season lengths.
total players ------------returning-------------This one's moderately complicated, here's a short explanation.
s3 s4 | s2/3 s3 %s2/3 %s3 | #new %new
us 551,524 418,949 367,333 346,153 (47.32%) (62.76%) 37,164 (10.74%)
eu 506,616 387,052 345,480 326,502 (49.53%) (64.45%) 30,604 (9.37%)
kr 248,954 207,067 166,933 156,859 (48.19%) (63.01%) 29,688 (18.93%)
cn 113,701 63,600 48,881 44,989 (16.42%) (39.57%) 14,719 (32.72%)
sea 55,633 41,110 36,859 34,538 (45.40%) (62.08%) 2,712 (7.85%)
In North America there were 418,949 players in season 4. 62.76% of players that played in season 3, also played in season 4. 47.32% of players that played in seasons 2 or 3, also played in season 4. 10.74% of players in season 4 did not play in seasons 1, 2, or 3.
Total new players: 114,887
New players average per day: 2,064
Compare to the season 3 new players: 240,505 (average 2,646 per day)
edit2: On request, a table of which league a player was in in season 3, if they did not return in season 4, from no 1v1 games, to bronze, to grandmaster.
Remember that Battle.net splits the active players evenly into bronze, silver, gold, plat at 20% each, 18% in diamond, and 2% in masters.
total no1v1 bronze silver gold plat diam mast gmast
us 205,371 86,740 35,609 29,840 24,760 18,977 7,365 2,065 15
eu 180,114 70,772 41,461 27,738 21,182 12,787 4,791 1,375 8
kr 92,095 44,503 14,777 14,766 9,662 5,718 2,006 654 9
cn 68,712 15,622 20,912 11,985 7,934 6,363 3,952 1,907 37
sea 21,095 8,269 5,469 2,885 1,969 1,466 747 278 12
total no1v1 bronze silver gold plat diam mast gmast
ALL 567,387 225,906 118,228 87,214 65,507 45,311 18,861 6,279 81
fin
What is "time-modified" data?
Season 2 lasted almost a month longer than season 3, which lasted 5 weeks longer than season 4. The numbers for games played cannot match up properly due to this time difference. I modify player numbers based on how many people I had logged at a time matching up to the length of season 4.
For example, Korea actually has 56,393 people with 26 or more wins, while my numbers in Table 2 state 41,787. Season 4 lasted 55 days, while season 2 lasted 118 days. (118 - 55 = 63) At the end of season 2, Korea had 221,819 players. 63 days prior to the end of season 2, Korea had 164,370 players, which is 74.100956blahblah % of its end-season amount. Multiply 56,393 (real number of >= 26 wins) by this percent, and you get the value in the table of 41,787.
Look at the first set of graphs (all players over time per season), and ignore everything to the right of the shortest curve. That's baseically what this process does.
tl;dr Total players drop on par with previous seasons, Korea holding strong. More(ish) active players, fewer active 1v1 players. 114,887 new players worldwide in the last 8 weeks. The new season starts at Christmas, will be intresting to see what happens.