Psychological explanation of current direction of Wow development

[HuxNeva]

Flying doesn't remove 'immersion'.
It's just that Blizzard have become cheapskates.
- Making a world that feels 'big' cost more when you can travel in straight lines and at higher speed, so they remove flying
- Making new armor models cost more than just using a single model and reuse it with 'radom stats', 'upgrades', 'warforged', 'titanforged'
- Making new instances cost more than just reusing the same in multiple difficulty levels
All the 'other' justifications for doing this are just them covering their cheapskate arse.

[Caolela]

When a company is young, they trive on enthusiasm and putting out great stuff based on their gut instinct. By players for players. When a company grows, it attacts many different types, imports bureaucracy, and everything has to become accountable, leading to committees, KPI's, measurements, team bonus incentives etc. So it is no longer about just making great stuff, it is about hitting the targets. Team K's KPI for the release is to have x% user participation in feature S which they are responsible for. Teamlead Z of team K will negotiate in commitees to make S more prominent, to advance the prestige of the group and the career of Z. Meanwhile S turns out to be not so great. Instead of saying guys, this isn't what the game needs, he does not want to fail and will argue to tie to S all sorts of things that are certain to increase the particiation % (part of epic quest-line, heaps of gold, progression gear). Now, players 'have' to do the content, but they don't like it. They just do it for the loot. Players dissatisfied, but team K hits their KPI and gets to take on more important features next release cycle, Z gets promoted with a fat bonus. Disillusioned, the original developers that loved the game leave or get frustrated and cynical. More 'yes men' are hired. You're down the slippery slope that ends in selfie cams, garrisons, heirlooms and facebook logins.

This is exactly what's wrong with WoW, and most of Blizzard's games today. They're made by a large corporation with a corporate mindset, which means maximizing profits at the expense of all else.

They send their PR people out on various media to peddle marketing propaganda, or their devs are told to spin what they're doing as a good thing for the game and the customer, when often it is just the opposite, or they make all kinds of excuses (lies) as to why they "had" to do this or that with the game..."we were getting behind schedule and had to drop A or X feature/content, but maybe we'll get to it in the next patch, xpac,..."

To try to excuse Blizz for such terrible game design, many diehard fans have fallen into the meme that they're just being "lazy", when in fact they're anything but lazy since they're putting in or removing just what they want. Producing less content or more fun/interesting features because it saves overhead is not laziness; it simply costs less to do and thus increases profit margins.

[Aleksej89]

The % of "stable/constant" subscribers is probably really low.
WoW no longer offers content that would entertain most such constant subscribers.

Also there are MANY other games vying for gamer's time/money, so it is unlikely to keep a lot of constant subs for long periods of time.
If WoW offered something fun to do beside raid and organized PvP (like ultra-hard timewalking 5mans/raids or quests), perhaps ppl would stay subbed.

[TheVaryag]

TL;DR Blizzard try to cater to short term "Cyclical" players in order to maximize profits, but screw up stable long term players, so there is a high risk of losing entire player base.

I've read Bartle "Designing Virtual Worlds" and realized, what Blizzards' plan about direction of development is. Bartle says there, that there are dedicated "Achievers", "Explorers", "Killers" and "Socializers". BUT! Every player can change his archetype, depending on how long he have been playing this game/xpack/content patch through it's service life cycle.

I.e. when game/xpack/content is NEW - every player can act like a "Killer" - i.e. just do some random stuff and enjoy process of playing itself. This period has duration from 1 week for new patch to 1 month for new game.

Then player gets bored of random stuff and becomes "Explorer" - he starts explore this game, searching for more new stuff, that isn't lying on a surface. This period has duration from 1 month for new patch to several months for new game.

When there is no content to be explored, player becomes "Achiever" - he starts to set some long term goals and accomplishing them. This process can least for several months and even years - longest period.

And if there is no more goals left in this game - there is no other option, than to search for communication with other players, i.e. to become "Socializer". I.e. game turns into paid "Green" chat. This period may be long for more social players, but usually it's rather short, cuz social players are usually minority. "Socializers" - is usually last players, who quit the game and the reason usually is "my friends no longer play it". But majority of players quit much earlier - when there is no things to do in game.

So. When you perform transition from Newbie to Veteran - you also perform some long "Killer" -> "Explorer" -> "Achiever" -> "Socializer" transition. When new content is released - you perform the same cycle, but shorter one. It's duration usually depends on your true archetype, you settle on at the end, and how long you've been playing this game. Also with time you usually perform transfer from "Hardcore" to "Casual".

So, it becomes obvious, why MMOs are so popular both among players and developers - they have things to do for all 4 archetypes, so keep players subbed for longest possible time. It's also obvious, that at the end majority of players become "Achievers". "Casual Achievers".

This is real truth and really happened with me. This also explains "Vanilla" problem. When game was new, every player was "Killer" - they enjoyed some random stuff, like spontaneous WPVP. But with time they all become "Explorers" and then "Achievers". They no longer enjoy just doing some random stuff in game. But they still have nostalgia about it and think, that this time can be returned. No, it can't. Veteran player just can't all of a sudden become Newbie again.

But not all players have true "Achiever" archetype. Approx half of players are "Killers" and "Explorers". The problem with this category - is that they're very short term players. Those ones, that are referenced as "Cyclical" by Blizzard. Game is new and fresh? No? "Killers" quit. There things to explore? No? "Explorers" quit. For Veteran players this may happen after just a month of playing after release of new xpack.

As you might have noticed, at some point Blizzard started to cater to Casual Veteran players. Playerbase was stable, but was slowly declining with time due to age of the game. But due to some reasons Blizzard can't just accept it and want more. At some point Blizzard decided to try new dangerous strategy. Now they cater to new players, "Killers" and "Explorers". For example, who needs no flying? Newbies, "Killers" and "Explorers" - it's obvious. "Achievers" don't need no flying - they were completely happy with flying during 3 xpacks in a row. How Blizzard will do that? They want to try to make more changes into game and release content more often and in smaller pieces in order to keep game "fresh" and "new".

Why this strategy is so dangerous? Just because catering to "Killers" and "Explorers" - is extremely terrible idea. They are too "Cyclical" and unpredictable. "Achievers" - are Blizzards' stable player base. What if this strategy would fail and "Killers" and "Explorers" would quit after month of playing anyway? What if Blizzard would also lose "Achievers" too? Simply due to loss of their trust in Blizzard? What if Blizzard will lose entire player base due to this risky maneuver? This is, what happened with WOD. But Blizzard want to try it again.

So. What do you think? Do you think, they have backup plan for Legion? I.e. if Legion will fail after month, they'll instantly make 180 degrees turn? Or will they abandon it, alongside with development of Wow?

Quite a fascinating read as someone having psychology In class, alongside working In a hotel. I think I'd find myself after 10 years as an Archiver, While cycling through killer and explorer, and while I was forced to stop playing because Blizzard bans their players for things they did not commit, I still see that with this catering to Casual more these last few expansions will be their downfall, and the less content they plan to release In lesser timespan.

For example, on Mmo-champion right now, you can see Blizzard plans to release a 7.1 patch with ONLY a dungeon, but a mega dungeon.... yey? So just like 6.1 aka selfie/garrison patch, It'll be an Inferior patch. And while the argument that not all patches have to have a new raid tier, why not? It's been this way forever, people got used to It, and raid tier + new pvp session Is a good thing to have each patch. Whatever they want to do with dungeons, mega dungeons or whatever... It'll become boring to do the same bloody dungeons over and over again, no matter which mutation the mobs have, either more HP and attack, or quicker enrage timers, or one mob dies, other get stronger mechanic... It won't work anyway.

@Caeli, I agree, to quote you "Playerbase did not decreased slowly in my opinion, it rapidly decreased just after the removal of the old world"

That Is also a good point, for me as well as someone who played the game before, you know what's a neat little and sort of Insignificant thing you could do In the Old World that you cant anymore, but it was cool so you could do It? Go to Caer Darrow City (Where Entrance to Scholomance), and with a certain Item you could see the ghosts of the city. Can't do that anymore... as far as I'm aware, I think I have the item on my Paladin still but I can't check cause as I said before - Blizzard bans you for being hacked, and whatever the hacker did Is blamed on me for some reason, hey, Blizzard knows the best right.

Another thing, which I feel Is the most touching quest on WoW - the Darrowshire questline with the Redpaths and many MANY more things left destroyed since they decided to remove the old world... I can't imagine how they could mend It, but I'd like that certainly! And not being banned for batshit crazy reasons would also be nice...

Overall, I think this way Legion will fail, after a few months the subs will drop and before 2017 even begins, It'll be as low as the other MMOs are on subs - but we won't know that, as they don't tell us the sub numbers since Q3 of 2015, which was 5.5 mil, and the estimaated current subs around 3.2 mil by some smart mathematical people and/or anonymous blizzard scources.

[HuxNeva]

Producing less content or more fun/interesting features because it saves overhead is not laziness; it simply costs less to do and thus increases profit margins.

Exactly. Vanilla was built from scratch on $64M. WoW used to have a ARPU of $100/y, and that has gone up. Even at $100, with a claimed 5M subs, they pull in $500M/y, yet we have to be played like 'oh, that would cost a raid tier'.

[WowIsDead64]

This video just confirms, what I've said. The sole purpose of Suramar - is exploration. So, it's not for me.

Scaling system? Leveling has always been about progression. And progression - is one of the most important things for "Achiever". Experience - has always been the best reward for any player, while leveling. That's why purpose of leveling zones has always been - to give players experience for leveling. If you can reach level 110 within just 1-2 zones, then the whole purpose of the rest ones - is exploration and lore. And leveling - has always been my favourite kind of content in Wow. Cata - is my favourite xpack due to this reason. Blizzard simply shift focus towards endgame content, trying to minimize leveling, which is disaster for me.

Mythic 5ppls? No LFD? Premades only? Content for socializers only? Totally not for me.

[Magnagarde]

The immersion Warcraft had is gone, that is the problem. The main reason why that many players even decided to give WoW a try in the first place was because of the immersion Warcraft 3 offered. They wanted to see more of that world and from then on the ball just kept rolling.

They thought the ball would keep rolling if they gave in to the average gaming logic of the present and they stopped nurturing the immersion, the story and the world, relying on making simplified gaming mechanics in order to attract more and more players without taking into account that the new generation of gamers they are attracting hasn't been immersed into the game like the previous one/s. I believe its become a sandbox Call of Duty now, oversimplified and uncompetitive, where content is rolled out just to feed a continuity of updates.

[Jerichofr]

WoW's outrageous success was a combination of 2 things... Right place/Right time & the lore the game drew off of.

Let's take these one at a time.

First, Right place/Right time. What I mean by that is that WoW came into existence right as MMOs as a genre were really starting to find their footing. Until WoW came along, MMOs were looked at as a genre that only people that had unlimited time, and/or no lives played. Getting up at all hours of the night to fight a spawn that the group had been camping for a week, etc. WoW came along and changed the paradigm. Now, anyone could get into an MMO and enjoy it without having to commit to it full-time. There's a reason players of older MMOs at the time called WoW "A MMO for children.", because it started the casual trend right when the internet was really getting big (beyond things like AOL/Compuserve/etc.) and when broadband was starting to take hold in the marketplace. It being a "MMO for the masses" along with these other factors, allowed it to really take off.

Secondly, the lore... There are many people that played the original RTS games, and many others that knew the lore and characters like Illidan and Arthas without ever having played the game. Azeroth drew many people in with the stories and bad guys. The world was immense. To see places we'd fought at in the RTS games come to life with NPC, creatures, quests, etc drew us in even further. And, the CGI story-telling of the artists made it that much sweeter. That's part of why things died down moreso after Arthas was killed. Many players thought the story from the RTS games was complete.

WoW's massive 10-12m subscriber numbers were more of a "flash in the pan" than anything else because they put out WoW just at the right time, and did enough to make it appeal to everyone. (It also had very little in the way of MMO competition for casual gamers, as no other MMO at the time was as casual as WoW.)

[Lilija]

You claim, that my argument is anecdotal, but use appeal to authority argument by yourself. Great move.

I claim that you have no data to prove your claims. Your own experience is not enough.

[RedGamer030]

What is this? A psychological explanation of a developer's game cycle without actually conducting psychological examinations of the developers themselves and then gives a random generic statement that has already been said before? SO ACCURATE!!! /s

[Lilija]

First time my guild decided to go horde was in MOP, they did so, also changed server to one of the popular pvp servers. I hated it. I left. I went back to ally and to an ally pve server. Again in WOD I had a guild leave for horde and another server. I said good luck for them and let them go while I stayed ally. I'm not gonna pay again to play a faction I hate lorewise after what they did in Cata, with ugly garrison and most races not appealing to me especially after Forsaken new model. Horde racials aren't even that good as they used to be in MOP.

I feel me enjoying my characters is what I pay sub for, not to be forced to roll something someone asked me to. And about "sticking to friends", well I did so back in Ulduar, had a choice to stay in my guild or join one made by my friends, they kinda emotionally blackmailed me (what kind of friend you are if you don't join us yadda yadda) so I joined, the guild crumbled horribly shortly after, since then I always follow my own common sense and not some "friends", most of them have no clue how to run a guild anyway.

I have no idea why nowadays anyone would be forced to reroll horde. Server transfer is cheaper than faction change still and racial advantage since WOD was always pointed in context of "humans and pvp" and not horde.

When you are in a national guild you end up having no choise. For some magical reason all high end raiding for Polish players happens on horde side. My guild didn't want to go horde at all but noone wanted to join us only for the reason of being alliance (and transfers are costly for us). I actually didn't follow my guild at first and joined an international ally guild. But I missed my friends and at that point all of them were on Horde and I had noone to play with outside of raids. I would love Blizzard to make raiding x-faction one day (tbh there isn't any lore reason not to do that and that already starts sort of happening in pvp matchmaking)

[Darkeon]

They do what they can in order to maximize profits accordingly to the resources invested into it.

Someone, in there, at some point, made the math and came to the conclusion that this new direction brings them the most profit than the previous one. Be it box sales over subscriptions, or having more resources to shove into their other games, etc and whatever reasons they might have.

"From players, to players", "Done when it's done" and other similar mentalities that Blizzard might have once hold, towards their games and players, have long been replaced for corporate ideologies.

Now, should we cry and moan about it, while throwing tantrums because their plan changed? No, I don't think so. It's their company after all.
What we can do is stop supporting them, if we are displeased with the product we are receiving; While voicing our criticism, preferably in an eloquent and reasonable matter, because we never know who might be listening and something might be put on the table for discussion.

[Lilija]

There is one desire that resides in all gamers, with different facets, but overall the base idea is the same: Greatness! People want to achieve greatness, like those awesome characters in the trailers, they want to be awesome.

Now comes the problem: you're as awesome as other see you. For example if you are wearing tier 5 priest set in TBC, everyone in the main city would inspect you n shit and would whisper you "nice gear mate, wow one day i want to be like you", but for example if your grandma sees your character (male human for ex) in the selection screen she would say "what a nice looking lady".

Joke aside, the main point is that while "fake greatness" can be achieved through solo content, your "immersion" breaks when you see other players, as chances are that they are better than you, whether it's PvP, better gear, more achievements, and then sadness comes in, greatness goes out the window. Real greatness comes from hard, exclusive content that only a handful of people can do, and even in that handful of people there are huge differences between the people at the top, inbetween and at the bottom.

So a new player starts WoW, he is a "killer" and in doing his stuff interacts with other people, people that have more achievements, better mounts, toys etc, he decides to try and grind something, if he succeeds he becomes an "explorer" with one foot in "achiever" if you want, or he doesn't and quits the game. After grinding a certain thing, he realizes that in order to do the hardest content, which has the best rewards, he has to cooperate with other players and thus start to climb up the social ladder, becoming a "socializer", OR doesn't because of shyness, or egocentrical behaviour, or fear of failure or whatever the fuck stop people from doing stuff in a virtual environment (like if any1 gives a fuck about what you do, everyone fails, it's part of the learning curve). The most efficient players are achievers and socializers, a successful hybrid, doing stuff like solo grinds while waiting for their friends to come online so they can do hard group content. This type of "superplayer" is the one that achieves greatness, or maybe a glimpse of it, this is the player that doesn't get bored, or that gets bored very very hard when he/she has exhausted most of the content. That's how i see it atleast.

yup, you get it

- - - Updated - - -

But it is not the players changing, it's blizzard not targeting the same people, which is something totally different.

That doesn't make any sense at all. Do you want to tell me you are exactly the same person you were 11 years ago? Ofc players are changing. The market is changing. The game has to change to stay relevant. Nowadays, I would never touch a game that was like Vanilla or TBC. 11 years ago I was a different person, I was younger, I had much more free time.

That's not true, first and foremost, WoW was a RPG. And RPG have been around for decades.

Actually, WoW was never that much of an RPG. It used the RPG progression model. But the fact that you cannot really makes it differe a lot from typical RPG games.

[Mlz]

That doesn't make any sense at all. Do you want to tell me you are exactly the same person you were 11 years ago? Ofc players are changing. The market is changing. The game has to change to stay relevant. Nowadays, I would never touch a game that was like Vanilla or TBC. 11 years ago I was a different person, I was younger, I had much more free time.

Since you seem to be as clueless as some other people around here and project your personal life on the playerbase in general, I'm going to copy-paste something I typed before.

Now I would like to stop at the "10 year old game" concept that you and some others seem to love. This theory usually presumes that the decline in the playerbase is due to 3 things:
a) Game concept (mmo) is too old-fashioned and therefore doesn't attract interest.
b) People don't want to play games anymore.
c) People don't have time to play games anymore.

A lot of people seem to point out that mmo as a genre is dying. Probably one of the easiest ways to see how the genre is doing is to study its sales. Well, in 2009 (WoW's prime time) the sales in role-playing computer games took up 5,4% of the total (see graph 8, the original study is inaccessible at this point but several secondary souces cite the same data) while in 2015 role-playing was the third best selling computer game genre, taking up to 18,7% of the total. That's more than triple than it was at the time of Wrath, if you couldn't find your calculator.

Let's move on to the amount of people willing to play games. Every county is a bit different of course, for instance - UK saw only a 1% rise amongst the gaming community between years 2012 and 2015, while in Germany it was 16% (2012 vs 2015). In 2008, the average percentage of people defining themselves as gamers was roughly 31% (research conducted in the EU). Mobile games like Candy Crush have become increasingly popular, true, but even in 2015 the top device for the games was PC. You can also see that more than half of the frequent players play multiplayer games at least weekly. It's pretty much the same in the EU where PC is still the most popular gaming device by a mile or a close second just behind the consoles.

Lastly, people are having as much free time as they had 10 years ago (you can find different studies pretty easily), as a matter of fact, they actually have a bit more leisure time now. You could see that on the launch of the WoD - a massive amount of people were ready to invest their time in this game (WoD was the 9th best selling computer game in the USA). People playing WoW 10 years ago also had jobs, families and so on. For instance, in 2009 (WoW's prime time, I remind you) the average age distribution amongst the gamers was roughly the same as it is now (2009 vs 2016 - differences are within 2%). Also, already in 2009, the average age for a gamer was 35 years, shocker!

* Most of the data used was either about the USA or EU but I'm sure a bright boy like you can find more sources if needed.

The only thing you can say is that the game is 10 years old but not that the age is the natural cause of people leaving. People still play games and gamers are still as old as they used to be. MMO genre popularity has actually risen (and is amongst top 3 computer game genres) and PC is still the most used device in most of the countries. Furthermore, people have even more free time than they had 10 years ago. So stop saying that WoW is not as popular because it's 10 years old - stop trying to find excuses why the game itself sucks.

and

In 2010 there was a study "Why MMORPG players do what they do: Relating motivations to action categories" which you can find here. People didn't play WoW back then mainly because it was the only thing that determined gaming. I quote - Players were highly motivated by the Achievement component and Immersion showed to be the weakest motivating component. Immersion being discovery, rp, customisation and escapism. People mostly liked mmo games because they offered them the sense of progression and advancement, also mechanics (having an interest in analyzing the underlying rules and system, in order to optimize character performance)- maybe, just maybe that is one of the many reasons why WoW is in the shithole it is now. Also, as you can see, Socialising itself under the Social category wasn't as motivating as the Teamwork component, for instance. If anything, WoW could have been "just another game" already back then, especially considering it had a sub-fee in addition to the box price and other mmorpg's (like EQ II) coming out roughly at the same time.

Just to draw some comparisions - there was another research published in 2015 that looked at different motivations for gaming (the study that included over 140k players is here). The highest 3 motivators across all regions were completion, strategy and challenge - still, after all these years

TLDR; you may find mmo-s boring after 10 years and leave that game genre, fine, but it doesn't change the fact there is still a huge potential playerbase ready to play mmo-s and WoW in particular.

[Lilija]

Since you seem to be as clueless as some other people around here and project your personal life on the playerbase in general, I'm going to copy-paste something I typed before.

TLDR; you may find mmo-s boring after 10 years and leave that game genre, fine, but it doesn't change the fact there is still a huge potential playerbase ready to play mmo-s and WoW in particular.

Do you have the study for the age of WoW players 10 years ago and now? People who were around 30 in Vanilla, didn't play the same way teenargers and 20 year olds did. People, who started playing WoW in their 30s, mostly don't play it anymore because an mmo was hard to put into their schedule. People who started in their 20s are in their 30s now and those people have less free time. Not much has changed for the youngest group from 10 years ago. The question is, if the number of teenargers playing WoW nowadays is in any way similar to the numbers 10 years ago.

Now as for the studies you have shown. You are talking about games in general. That doesn't reflect the MMO market in particular which isn't doing that well compared to 10 years ago. It is being pushed out by other, more accessible and less time consuming gernes. So while games sales are increasing, that doesn't have to translate into MMOs which I haven't found being included in your links. You Put WoW as an RPG game. WoW is mainly an MMO game with some RPG aspects (but isn't a fully RPG game). MMOs have completely different dynamic than a single player game.

Show me data for MMOs in particular and we can discuss. Showing data for whole gaming doesn't reflect anything is this case.

[High Marshal Sigismund]

My only problem with Legion is the class design. I think they went too far in the simplification of classes.

[FelPlague]

your name instantly discredits you....


but to be logical, blizzard wants to bring in as many people as possible, having alittle bit of everything, but some people dont like that, and being a jack of all trade is not great either...

for example, vanilla was a game perfect for hardcore people who were willign to spend hours and hours and HOURS playing

these days there is mythic for those players, and normal/lfr for casuals, and heroic for the midteir, and pet battles for the pokemon fans, etc, so many things, meaning overall there is so much to do overall, but much less to do for each specific group, if they got all the work they put into normal, lfr, and pet battles, and pvp, and put it into mythic/heroic raiding the game would be SOOOO much better, tons more raids, and lots more content, but the pvpers would leave, and the more casual players would leave too, meaning maybe a increase in hardcore players, but decrease in casual players... and who says what side is right?

- - - Updated - - -

Flying doesn't remove 'immersion'.
It's just that Blizzard have become cheapskates.
- Making a world that feels 'big' cost more when you can travel in straight lines and at higher speed, so they remove flying
- Making new armor models cost more than just using a single model and reuse it with 'radom stats', 'upgrades', 'warforged', 'titanforged'
- Making new instances cost more than just reusing the same in multiple difficulty levels
All the 'other' justifications for doing this are just them covering their cheapskate arse.

LOL WHAT THE FUCK!?
yes somewhat
so the new models come mythic dificulties, and tons coming from the world, or from quests, or from vendors, is tottally being lazy
lol what!? no the reason they stopped making new dungeons was because when a dungeon came out it was relevent only for the non raiders, as the next raid would quickly replace it, and if the dungeon had gear better then the last raid so many people would complain, now they plan to add dungeons in patches with one coming shortly after launch, because they can keep them relevent with mythic+

[Caolela]

They do what they can in order to maximize profits accordingly to the resources invested into it.

Someone, in there, at some point, made the math and came to the conclusion that this new direction brings them the most profit than the previous one. Be it box sales over subscriptions, or having more resources to shove into their other games, etc and whatever reasons they might have.

"From players, to players", "Done when it's done" and other similar mentalities that Blizzard might have once hold, towards their games and players, have long been replaced for corporate ideologies.

Now, should we cry and moan about it, while throwing tantrums because their plan changed? No, I don't think so. It's their company after all.
What we can do is stop supporting them, if we are displeased with the product we are receiving; While voicing our criticism, preferably in an eloquent and reasonable matter, because we never know who might be listening and something might be put on the table for discussion.

It's "their company", but it's my product. I spent the money for it and expect to have a reasonably decent game like I had when I bought it, not something that has been steadily gutted and morphed for the interests of someone elses profit.

Just unsub you might say? That might be OK if -

1. I could still play the game I paid for (not just restricted F2P lvl 20) by not requiring a sub fee, or

2. Blizz refunded some fair percentage of what I paid for the game up to my last xpac.

Since those will probably not happen, customers have a right to complain when they feel they're getting the short end of a greedy company's actions.

[Deleted]

Nos thing showed they have not a single expert on psychology or sociology in their staff. Random company runs with random or opportunist actions.

[Mlz]

Do you have the study for the age of WoW players 10 years ago and now? People who were around 30 in Vanilla, didn't play the same way teenargers and 20 year olds did. People, who started playing WoW in their 30s, mostly don't play it anymore because an mmo was hard to put into their schedule. People who started in their 20s are in their 30s now and those people have less free time. Not much has changed for the youngest group from 10 years ago. The question is, if the number of teenargers playing WoW nowadays is in any way similar to the numbers 10 years ago.

Now as for the studies you have shown. You are talking about games in general. That doesn't reflect the MMO market in particular which isn't doing that well compared to 10 years ago. It is being pushed out by other, more accessible and less time consuming gernes. So while games sales are increasing, that doesn't have to translate into MMOs which I haven't found being included in your links. You Put WoW as an RPG game. WoW is mainly an MMO game with some RPG aspects (but isn't a fully RPG game). MMOs have completely different dynamic than a single player game.

Show me data for MMOs in particular and we can discuss. Showing data for whole gaming doesn't reflect anything is this case.

Okay I make it really clear:
1) You are NOT the playerbase. If you don't have free time, tough luck, most people know how to manage their time and can devote as much time on their hobbies as they could 10 years ago.
2) People have more free time than before, regardless of the age group so your point about "don't have time" is baseless.
3) The studies also pointed out the rise of MMO market. It is pretty clear they consider WoW and similar games under role-play despite what you think the actual genre is.
4) I also showed you the study about why people play MMORPG-s conducted in 2010 - the results are shockingly similar to what people look for in games in general nowadays.
5) Even though it has little relevance, there is a study about the average age of WoW players in 2005. It's 28,3. The average age of female players was 32,5 - one would argue it should be the "busiest" time in most females lives The same paper found that the average amount of time people spent on WoW was 22 hours per week. In 2013, most people played between 20-25 hours per week, so not much changed in that aspect either.

Anyway, I cba wasting my time on trying to explain something as easy as 2+2, if you still don't get it and go on about how you... I mean the playerbase doesnt have as much time anymore, then whatever. I guess if you really believe in something it must be true.