Will WoW Ever See 13 Million Subs Again?

[Khuros]

We will never know.

[zeropeorth]

Probably not the mmo era is rather done.

Its not done, its just changed. We went from dial up to broadband. From almost no variety/choice, to tons of IPs both new and established, different takes on design and combat, etc. You have action combat in games like Tera. You have the Star Wars, Final Fantasy, and other major universes. You have magic, tech, space, medieval, high fantasy, anime, realism, cartoony, etc. You even have FPS style mmo-like games with Destiny.

The mmo era isn't done, its just better than ever so everyone doesn't filter down to one game; as most of the competition, whether you personally want to believe it or not, aren't bad at all; and the truly bad ones or ones that turned bad, did die, or are on their way out. People are gravitating to their niche, and wow just isn't a catch all, it is very niche itself. From the art style to the lore and universe ... and the gameplay has become very different from the past as well. It runs well, looks good, but isn't for everyone; so, you now have millions playing wow, but also millions playing ffxiv, and many others with their fair share of regular users who love their mmo universe as much as you used to/or still do love yours.

There never should be a point, for the consumer, where there is one product to rule them all. Its becomes detrimental to the consumers after some time; whether it is wow being the only go to mmo for years, other products like amd faltering at being truly competitive for many years ... real competition creates innovation, keeps prices down, and quanity plus quantity up. Rifts first year or two, made WoW wake up a bit, that is when we got area looting and other quality of life additions. SW had some things that WoW picked up as well that I've long forgotten but noticed at the time.

I think the current direction, its harder to sustain 12+ million for wow. They aren't killing the game, but its also not the same in almost any regard to the bc/wrath era no matter how much nostalgia they throw in your face. Doesn't make it bad, just a different game, different direction, and that is good for some, others not so much. You can't win over everyone, and shouldn't expect to.

I fall short of calling it a golden era, because there is still a lot of things that could be better, but the genre is far from one foot in the grave.

[Kallisto]

At this point WarCraft IV could make WoW great again. I would love to see lore of wow from another perspective in w4 campain, and then they could put a lot of new story in game, without thinking if it is viable material to make quests. Also I would really liked to play some more of RTS with heroes in it, it was fun ...

Yes we'll reinvigorate a genre on the low level with a game from a genre which is not really just dead, but also in the ground, buried and had a funeral in which perhaps the only character that could resurrect it is Kane from C&C if EA wasn't going to EA it.

[Alexeht]

Yes we'll reinvigorate a genre on the low level with a game from a genre which is not really just dead, but also in the ground, buried and had a funeral in which perhaps the only character that could resurrect it is Kane from C&C if EA wasn't going to EA it.

Nope. W3 was best RTS-ARTS combo ever. You can post as many snarky comments as you want, it will not change a fact that W3 was amazing and without it there would not be WoW was we know it.

[derpkitteh]

you know, i kinda just realized...

if wow never gets super popular again, the amount of quality wow porn will decrease. no delicious nelf feet pics i was hoping would pop up eventually, no ogre and naga girls when they're finally added as playable. so much lost potential.

my hate for the current dev team increases.

[Kallisto]

Nope. W3 was best RTS-ARTS combo ever. You can post as many snarky comments as you want, it will not change a fact that W3 was amazing and without it there would not be WoW was we know it.

And that is irrelevent to the situation at hand. RTS is a dead genre that peaked with Command and Conquer and became replaced over the years with MOBAs. Going for a new RTS/anything hybrid will be a financial blunder. Simple business.

[Alexeht]

And that is irrelevent to the situation at hand. RTS is a dead genre that peaked with Command and Conquer and became replaced over the years with MOBAs. Going for a new RTS/anything hybrid will be a financial blunder. Simple business.

It is only your opinion, since Koreans still play StarCraft Brood War, and people still play old games. It is like saying that genere "x" is dead because those are offline games, or that it is not popular. Guess what - StarCraft is popular enough to get remastered, there are still few new point n' click games, people still play original Doom (on literally anything) and not everyone likes ARTS ("moba" should be considered a hate speech). Simple business do not help that old gamers do not like to being showed with crappy clones of TF2/DOTA over and over again, instead RTS.

[Kallisto]

It is only your opinion, since Koreans still play StarCraft Brood War, and people still play old games. It is like saying that genere "x" is dead because those are offline games, or that it is not popular. Guess what - StarCraft is popular enough to get remastered, there are still few new point n' click games, people still play original Doom (on literally anything) and not everyone likes ARTS ("moba" should be considered a hate speech). Simple business do not help that old gamers do not like to being showed with crappy clones of TF2/DOTA over and over again, instead RTS.

Sales alone will show that and you can't build a business model based around S.Korea which is one minor market compared to the US and Europe. RTS just doesn't sell, companies don't stop producing them for fun or to fuck over customers, they stop making them because the market isn't there for them. If these games sold we'd be seeing more C&C, more Starcraft, more basically every other rts series. But they don't so companies won't. Money talks, not some dream of people on forums who think they are a bigger share of the market than they are in reality.

Old gamers just need to realise they are a minority and no one should build a business around those who do not bring in major profit. Those who play old games are those least likely to buy new ones. Those who are playing the remaster might not be sufficient to build a new game around. Those who played WC1-3 are not guaranteed to buy WC4. All WC4 would do is piss off wow players who are going to miss out on areas of the WC universe that they themselves would like to play as on they're own characters.

[ifrah]

No computer game of this sort will ever gain that many subs is what I'd bet. Flight sims, adventure games, doom & clones, mmos, mobile games have/had their times. Will be interesting to see what's the next thing.

[Alexeht]

Sales alone will show that and you can't build a business model based around S.Korea which is one minor market compared to the US and Europe.

I almost stopped reading after this. It confirm that you have no idea what are you talking about since StarCraft remaster had to cost Blizzard some serious money, and they will give it for free, this is how important is this market for them (or at least e-sport scene).

RTS just doesn't sell

And this is why StarCraft II sold 6 milions copies in 2 years.

some dream of people on forums who think they are a bigger

Yes it is you, and you are wrong

Old gamers just need to realise they are a minority and no one should build a business around those who do not bring in major profit.

Young gamers need to realise that it is many of them but they do not have cash and they are used in games (like DOTA, HOTS) as thinking-bots, since they play free game and it is 80% sure they will not spend a penny on a game since they don't yet know what work is, and this is why ARTS games are so poor, and most updates are overpriced skins.

All WC4 would do is piss off wow players who are going to miss out on areas of the WC universe that they themselves would like to play as on they're own characters.

Asinine assumptions. Lore nerds love heroes, they would not have to miss on anything since what we would see in W4 would be in WoW ...

[Deleted]

For starters, the youngest generation seems to have little to no interest in MMO gaming.

Moving on from there, the design choices on Blizzards end just aren't friendly for attracting new players.

Minecraft, a new generation MMORPG, attracted the youngest generation. Blizzard simply developed the game in the wrong direction to capture that market. Turns out a dumbed down game where "everyone sees everything" is not what new players want. They want to sit and grind for hours and get meaningful rewards for it, not to just be handed everything for no effort.

Not to mention, the entire basis of MMO's were "play with your friends!"

WoW was the game where you made friends. Just look at how many friend groups were created from guilds that were built from mostly complete strangers. I know I went into WoW with none of my IRL friends playing it, and gained many friends that I still meet to this day. With LFR/LFG/cross realm stuff there is very little of that anymore in WoW, instead you mostly play with strangers that you have no reason to care about and likely will never see again.

[eloboosta]

I don't see it happenning... I think WoW needs some visual upgrade / overhaul. The game should be brought into the next decade (wow is how old now?)

[MoanaLisa]

Since this thread is a couple of years old and we've had numerous threads on the topic since I'm going to close this before it goes any further.

When posting in a thread please be sure to check the date of the previous post.

Thanks and closed.