If EQ is still going, what makes anyone think WoW would EVER end?

[Swalload]

That's not what stockholm syndrome is or does.

Twist it all you want if you need win a useless internet argument, you still understood exactly the comparison I was making, everybody did, no one is sad enough in life to make a retarded comment about it except you.

[Daveon]

Yeah, but I still hope that one day there'll be a WoW 2. With an updated engine, a lore reboot and a whole new Azeroth to explore.

And then 3 months after release, everyone will be complaining on the MMO-C forums that they explored everything and ran out of content...

[Deleted]

I think the next expansion will dictate what will happen to the future of this game.

If it's a Legion 2.0 without any kind of major changes and revolutionary stuff then the subscribers will drop like crazy and everyone will leave.
If Blizzard innovates and makes something new and aunthentic then i see a bright future for the game.

I really think this game is doomed if nothing changes and just continues to exist. "The end is coming".
I give it 3 more expansions before the game ends if nothing changes or more 6-10 expansions if something changes.

[Deleted]

Ever Quest has been out for 18 years and is still going strong.

It's not "going strong" though, now is it? You put that ending there so it would fit your narrative.
EQ hasn't been doing well for a long long while.

[dextersmith]

WoW will end when bliz deems the profit margin too small.

[Kagthul]

because Blizzard isn't SOE or whatever the company that now runs EQ is.

Once the game becomes less profitable, theyll dump it in favor of putting the resources required to maintain it into something more profitable.

[Shakari]

I mean things do die a slow death. Compared to what it was, yes WoW is dying. There probably won't ever be anything else that gets that high and neither will WoW.

Declining would be a better description, dying means at end of its life or in the process of shutting down.

[BarosanuNr1]

There's pirate realms out there that run on a couple thousand players only (or less). And they're profitable without even multiple dipping (subscription, cash shop, box sales), like Blizzard does.

[Jaylock]

There's pirate realms out there that run on a couple thousand players only (or less). And they're profitable without even multiple dipping (subscription, cash shop, box sales), like Blizzard does.

blizzard doesn't "multiple dip" thats not even a thing. They offer completely 100% optional goods and services to players that are an aside from the actual game subscription.

Get your facts straight before you post.

[Wizzi01]

Eq, hell Ultima Online is still going, and I don't mean the free servers.

[Deleted]

Twist it all you want if you need win a useless internet argument, you still understood exactly the comparison I was making, everybody did, no one is sad enough in life to make a retarded comment about it except you.

Dayum son, you got triggered.

It's battered wife syndrome, btw.

[Hexian]

blizzard doesn't "multiple dip" thats not even a thing. They offer completely 100% optional goods and services to players that are an aside from the actual game subscription.

Get your facts straight before you post.

Oh Jay...you are fishing a little too hard with this post.

[MoanaLisa]

I don't believe the game is going anywhere soon. On the other hand, Blizzard doesn't really create new content for just a few hundred thousand players either.

Thing is, before any of that happens they will go with some variation of F2P or B2P, drop the subscription, expand the store and that alone will give the game another decade, maybe two. And there will be millions playing it again. It's totally inevitable and just a matter of time. A long time for sure but nevertheless.

[SoulSoBreezy]

Damn, but I hope so. I'd love to still be playing WoW in my 70s

can't wait for the infographic on that one:

Celebrating WoW's 50th anniversary, here's what it's seen in its lifetime so far:

- 2 billion accounts created
- 1 World War
- 7 US Presidents (one impeached)
- 2 attempts at VR integration
- Several ownerships (Vivendi, Activision, Self-ownership, Disney)
- 22 expansions
- 1 financial institution
- First MMO to be remotely available on both Lunar and Martian settlements (First interstellar MMO!)

[Onikaroshi]

can't wait for the infographic on that one:

Celebrating WoW's 50th anniversary, here's what it's seen in its lifetime so far:

- 2 billion accounts created
- 1 World War
- 7 US Presidents (one impeached)
- 2 attempts at VR integration
- Several ownerships (Vivendi, Activision, Self-ownership, Disney)
- 22 expansions
- 1 financial institution
- First MMO to be remotely available on both Lunar and Martian settlements (First interstellar MMO!)

I honestly forgot VU owned blizzard for a hot second >.>

what about:

-last remaining non-vr MMO on the market :P

[clevin]

It depends. COULD they support WoW with, say, 500k subs? Sure. Not at the level of now, but sure. 500k $50 boxes is $25m. At an average sub price of $13 it's $6.5m/month or $78m per year. You're not going to support the current team size with that, though so either expansions are much smaller or have fewer features or are ever 3-4 years.

At some point, though, I think they'll shut it down if it gets too low. It will be a team no one wants to be on (who wants on the dead project with no career options?) so it will have the new people on it and those who can't cut it on other teams. If they feel the team is too talented for that, they're better off taking that team and making something like HotS, Overwatch, Hearthstone etc which can make as much or more and expand their available IP. Or, of course, moving Warcraft to another kind of game (Warcraft 4 RTS, etc).

Now, will they hit ~500k or something soon? Can't know. If they left WoD with 5m subs and they have, say, 4m now the decline will take years. IF they have 2m now? Not the long. We can't really know.

[SoulSoBreezy]

I honestly forgot VU owned blizzard for a hot second >.>

what about:

-last remaining non-vr MMO on the market :P

-after 18 confirmed deaths from malnutrition

[Onikaroshi]

-after 18 confirmed deaths from malnutrition

- after 3 confirmed deaths from "there's never any tornadoes around here, screw you siren" during raid
- after 2 confirmed births during raid night cause "the main tank can't afk to go to the hospital"

[Logwyn]

Games aren't meant to be played forever,

You mean by the same people or played at all? I submit chess, football, golf, tic-tac-toe!

[clevin]

I don't see why we couldn't expect a similar level of development with less than a million subs. People seem to forget that when WoW launched subscriber numbers for a successful MMO numbered in only the hundreds of thousands anyway.

When Everquest was at it's peak (the days of "Evercrack") it's estimated to have only had about 450,000 subs. WoW was an absolute phenomenon when it took off like it did.

So, given that 500k subscribers is actually super-amazing for an MMO anyway I see no reason why WoW couldn't maintain healthy content patches and expansions at that point.

Because the current team is likely too large to be supported by the figures I gave with enough profit margin left. There's no point in running WoW and making, say, $1m/month profit when they could likely do far better applying those people on something else.

And yes, in 2004 500k would have rocked. This is 2017.