Has Blizzard's over-diversification permanently damaged WoW?

[Deleted]

Fairly sure they're making more money than ever thanks to branching out and catering to more than one type of gamer. Business at work yo.

You are discussing a good working business model with RDA.. really.. just don't even try.
Its a waste of your brain cells and breath.

[xanzul]

The mmo genre is pretty much dead, being the biggest mmo is not that big an achievement anymore.

WoW is still massive, but it is rapidly declining and blizzard is very aware of that. It's clear that they're trying to move away from WoW slowly but surely.

And yet the fact remains that Wow is wildly profitable and is in no danger of losing developer support as that would result in less profit not more. Again this just simply isn't how companies operate.

[rda]

You are discussing a good working business model with RDA.. really.. just don't even try.
Its a waste of your brain cells and breath.

It's working so great that WoW managed to lose half of its players to the point that they decided to stop reporting subs, and god knows what else will happen come Legion.

WoW turned from a flagship product into a half-dead mess. In return they got a card game that tries to be an esport but fails like no tomorrow, a completely meh 'also ran' MOBA, and a shooter which might or might not pay off, but certainly won't be a success on the level of WoW when it appeared.

Well done, Blizzard, way to go.

[Barnabas]

Are you fucking kidding me? Are you for real? Did you seriously just say Wow is at the end of its life cycle and then immediately turn around and say that you didn't say that in the first place? What the fuck is wrong with you?

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Yes because Blizzard totally didn't exist as a company prior to Wow and they definitely don't have other games or anything. Blizzard could shutter Wow servers tomorrow and call it a day and do just fine as a profitable company long term.

I don't think they ever could before hearthstone. It's their money maker now. So of course they could today.

[xanzul]

They're adding other properties to keep people engaged with their brands during content droughts or other periods where they'd typically lose players. 16 month raid tier? Go play heroes of the storm for a while! Don't like the way your favorite heroes are balanced at the moment? There's always Hearthstone or Overwatch! New expac, finally? Back to WoW for a couple of months!

Different games for different markets not to mention the fact Blizzard has always been actively developing other games for the entirety of Wow's lifespan.

[Deleted]

WoW made 800 million dollars in an OFF year.

'nuff said, they're nowhere near close to done with WoW. Having more games raking in cash is only a positive and only retards would ever think that a company would make sure to kill off one profitable product for...what? Exactly? Because those retards are tired of the game on a personal level? Please...

Totally agree with your point. As I see it, Blizzard making Hearthstone and Overwatch is (for me atleast) something to do when WoW is in downtime.

[Tuesdays]

Never put all your eggs in one basket.

With that being said, even if the mmo dies, the universe is very much alive, besides that we ain't getting any younger.

[Barnabas]

It's working so great that WoW managed to lose half of its players to the point that they decided to stop reporting subs, and god knows what else will happen come Legion.

Well done, Blizzard, way to go.

You don't need to report subs to attract investors when you have other games that actually make the money.

[Queen of Hamsters]

You are discussing a good working business model with RDA.. really.. just don't even try.
Its a waste of your brain cells and breath.

Starting to realize that. Only complete morons would try to argue with the FACT that even on a bad year (content and thus sub count wise), WoW made absolute bank on its own.

[xanzul]

I'm not sure they have much of a clue where there are going with wow now. They had a clear plan of replacing wow with titan but we all know that died. Wow still makes plenty of money and they don't want to actively kill it, but I am not sure they are as clear as to where it is going as they used to be. Plus most of the good lore has been used now, so they are going to have to do whole expanisons on either a) new lore b) small parts of the lore that havent been covered yet. Personally I'm looking forwards to warlords of deathwing's armpit.

Once again companies don't kill profitable products in order to make a new profitable product.

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I had the same feeling when N'zoth was introduced in Hearthstone and not wow. Seems wow has become an afterthought, or the less important product.

What? N'zoth was introduced in Wow. Where exactly do you think the characters and story in Hearthstone came from?

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This pretty much. As much as we'd love for Blizz to just invest resources into WoW (and quite a bit of us here are biased I would imagine to WoW only and not caring about their other products, this is an MMO board after all), from a business perspective WoW is in a decline and inherently cyclical; subs top out generally at the launch of an expansion, then decay over time until the next one is ready in 2-4 years. Whereas with crap like Hearthstone, they can launch "expansions" on a whim really and on a more steady basis, and while they can't sucker everyone into dropping $50 on several dozen packs at once, they can sucker people into buying 1-2 continually; I know we WoW players want more expansions faster, but I really doubt most of us want to play $50 every year for a new expansion, especially with WoW's current state. Not to mention with their other P2W titles, they can rake in dough on all the microtransactions that go on, whereas with WoW, I think most of us would revolt and quit if the game ever hit P2W.

Or basically, all these other crap games in the end help keep WoW running as WoW running purely on subscriptions isn't as attractive of a model anymore. None are MMORPGs that directly compete with WoW, so it's safeish in that regard.

Wow doesn't need Blizzard's other games in order to remain profitable. Wow pays for itself many times over and that profit is why we have these other games not in spite of it.

[Deleted]

I don't think this damages WoW. I see the danger in a different aspect: Transferring concepts which work in their other games into WoW without thinking about how they would dilute the RPG part of MMO-RPG. Having a D3-transmog system transferred to WoW is a good thing, because any MMO-RPG on the market has some kind of a wardrobe feature. They are making some mistakes in the implementation of their wardrobe, but this is another thing. They constantly make such implementation mistakes when they copy features.

Ability pruning on the other hand is cancer for an RPG, especially in regard to 2 other games in their portfolio which can handle the action / hack & slay aspect better (HotS and Diablo 3). There is no need to prune WoW to the bones. There is no need for spec fantasies replacing class fantasies. The other stupid thing is D3 random itemisation which had come to WoW some time ago. It's bullshit. In any RPG, you know exactly what you craft when you are not experimenting but following a pattern. You know exactly what you get from a boss - and if you don't know exactly the loot table, you know at least what items there are and are not surprised by the stat distribution. These 2 things have damaged WoW.

I also think they could have done better with social / community engineering, but this has nothing to do with diversification at all, but with poor community management.

[Deleted]

It's working so great that WoW managed to lose half of its players to the point that they decided to stop reporting subs, and god knows what else will happen come Legion.

WoW turned from a flagship product into a half-dead mess. In return they got a card game that tries to be an esport but fails like no tomorrow, a completely meh 'also ran' MOBA, and a shooter which might or might not pay off, but certainly won't be a success on the level of WoW when it appeared.

Well done, Blizzard, way to go.

Maybe because MMO's are on a decline as a whole and blizzard put their focus on games that are getting more and more mainstream and bigger?
I know I would do that exact same thing.

And don't start with that FFIXY bullshit, that game is shit its still lower in player base then WoW even though WoW lost half its subs.

[xanzul]

Who needs wow when they have the money printing machine known as hearthstone.

Some of you really need to take a business class or at least graduate high school and learn how the real world works.

[rda]

You don't need to report subs to attract investors when you have other games that actually make the money.

Sure. The point is that they traded off their biggest asset for a couple of meh projects and the value of that trade is quite questionable.

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Maybe because MMO's are on a decline as a whole and blizzard put their focus on games that are getting more and more mainstream and bigger?
I know I would do that exact same thing.

And don't start with that FFIXY bullshit, that game is shit its still lower in player base then WoW even though WoW lost half its subs.

"MMOs are on the decline" exists as a saying because WoW is on the decline.

If WoW wasn't losing subs (and it has been losing them because of stupid decisions and little content), we wouldn't be talking about how "MMOs are on the decline".

[xanzul]

I feel that all the devs with passion moved to these other games a simple glance at the games pretty much confirms this; So whilst they have effected WoW they have not directly effected it. The new wow guys just need to get their love of the game back and not just look at it as another pay check.

There is no paycheck if there are no customers and Blizzard knows this. Putting less resources into a product which means less profits which means a smaller paycheck. Again this just simply isn't how companies operate.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Ability pruning on the other hand is cancer for an RPG,

I don't know, the game seemed to be doing just fine during times when it had even less abilities and synergy/relevance in specs than it does now/will in Legion.

Spec fantasy and having each spec relevant and fun > ability bloat where tons of abilities remain in the spellbook and some specs aren't close to viable. I'd really like to see in what way that WoW has been "pruned to the bones"...

[Deleted]

Sure. The point is that they traded off their biggest asset for a couple of meh projects and the value of that trade is quite questionable.

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"MMOs are on the decline" exists as a saying because WoW is on the decline.

If WoW wasn't losing subs (and it has been losing them because of stupid decisions and little content), we wouldn't be talking about how "MMOs are on the decline".

Every person I know quit because they got tired of MMO's and all switched to different games.
They did not quit for "lack of content" or any of the other bullshit stories you come up with on your daily whinefest which you been continuing for the past 2 years.

Anyway, im done.
Discussing anything with you is like talking to a brick wall.

[rda]

Starting to realize that. Only complete morons would try to argue with the FACT that even on a bad year (content and thus sub count wise), WoW made absolute bank on its own.

You aren't listening for the second post.

If they kept everything on WoW, it is entirely possible they'd have made more.

Your "made absolute bank" does not contradict that (nor is it very useful, because it's a relative statement).

[xanzul]

Ignorance, google that word. WoW devs were used to jumpstart / fuel all other games starting with HS.

Care to provide any proof of that? No? Then sit down and shut your trap.

[rda]

Every person I know quit because they got tired of MMO's and all switched to different games.
They did not quit for "lack of content" or any of the other bullshit stories you come up with on your daily whinefest which you been continuing for the past 2 years.

Anyway, im done.
Discussing anything with you is like talking to a brick wall.

Every person you know quit because they got tired of WoW. They switched to games they think aren't "MMOs" because WoW got closely associated with the word.