wasn't it 800k subscribers? not trial accounts?
People would see more expensive ore and crap on AH then and never heard anything about that
They're one phone-call away from QQing to Kotick who can barely do anything to pressure Blizzard, and who doesn't want to pressure Blizzard because Blizzard is a gold mine, and with Diablo 3, HotS, and MoP all coming out next year Blizzard will probably make more money than the rest of Activision-Blizzard.
Eh, I'm one of the 800k that left. I've been playing since launch and just don't really find this game all that entertaining anymore.
Don't get me wrong, I really like Cata. It is just that this game hasn't really changed all that much over the years. I'm not a big fan of an Asian themed expansion, Pandarens, poke-battles, or BoE pets for gold.. This game's target audience just isn't me anymore.
"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
"Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"
"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
"Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"
And they're going to fire someone with one of the best track records in the industry? WoW is still making them probably as much as all of the other significant MMOs combined, and they have Diablo 3, HotS, and MoP coming out...
Edit: A no one seems to factor in micro transactions which have probably made Blizzard more money than the money they are losing from the loss of subs, and have been steadily increasing.
Given that most of the subscriber loss is from China, and that China is not very profitable for them, I don't think that financially this will hurt Blizzard very much.
However, it is a huge slap in the face for them, and it would seem they recognize the problem: Cataclysm content (or lack thereof) being consumed too quickly. Now to see if they actually fix said problem...
That's something that people would rather not discuss since it gets in the way of their argument that their particular beef with Cataclysm or whatever is the reason that subscriptions were lost. There's a lot of evidence to suggest that over the last year all subscription-based MMO's have seen reductions in their subscriber base. This logically leads to the conclusion that all games like WoW are having their problems at the moment and that Blizzard's numbers are only so large because WoW's subscriber base is so much larger than anyone else.
Whatever the case, there is no one reason to explain all of this; it's a number of things including the state of the economy, gaming culture in the Far East which is very different than NA/EU, the age of the game, not enough content at 85 to sustain interest for as long as previous years, and on and on. It's nothing ridiculous like "MOLTEN FRONT SUCKS!! and that's why people are leaving."
Cata was just released in China(in summer I think), how is that possible that they lost most of the players in China? :S
Blizzard gave us a 5 level expansion with almost no content in it and they're learning now that we can't sit for a year and play that type of content. If they want to release 5 levels of content it better be every 12 months.
If they release Mists of Pandaria in the summer, I'll be honest, some people will say it's too fast, but... They should announce the next expansion in October. I know that could only be like 5-6 months after Mists release, but, really, Expansions need to come once a year. This games simply too huge.
And they're going to have to release really cool shit too. They can't just give us 5 more levels and nothing else. Imagine how that would sit after giving us a new race and class this expansion.
Yep. To keep WoW relevant they're going to need to step up each expansion.
Last edited by LordRayken; 2011-11-09 at 04:46 PM.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gaq62VCcnew
Nevar 4get Exarch Cyn.
The Horde and The Alliance haven't changed since Warcraft 2. Pandaren are the first true change to either faction for 12 years.
I'm really going to be curious to see the results of MoP beta... I'm really wondering if Blizz is going to come through with their promise of "more endgame content". And it had better equal that of all of 1-60s world revamp + the new Cata zones... otherwise people are going to be REALLY peeved that they're getting even LESS in MoP than they did in Cata!
The other issue here is that people have more or less caught on to Blizzard's way of hyping even the most dull shit like FL dailies. They sold us Cata that way and this time around for MoP I have a feeling that it won't be as well recieved as Cata was initially in terms of sales.
Nice hole they dug themselves into.
Amount of content is a problem, but simply speeding up the release rate may not help.
I think one big problem is that gear resets too easily and too often, and so the rewards for getting it are diminished. New content patch with 101 fabulous ways to get new gear? Great! Followed a few months later with 101 ways to make the gear you just got practically worthless? Ummm...then why should I bother to get the gear now?