3 Words for whats wrong with WoW: Call of Duty

[Venant]

Even after the subscriber loss, ATVI (Activision) had quarterly revenues of over $300 million in subscription fees, the fact that an 8 year old MMORPG is still generating over $1 billion a year in subscription revenue is an amazing testament to the value of the intellectual property brought to the table by the purchase of Blizzard Entertainment. ATVI is still carrying over $7 billion in goodwill on their books from this acquisition, which is accounting speak for 'we believe that the Blizzard brand is worth this much, or at least this is the most our auditors will let us value the brand at.' The problem is that ATVI is on a quest to take the 'stereotypical evil corporate game company' crown from Electronic Arts.

The result is that WoW gets milked hard for that high profit margin subscriber income, while being told 'sorry we simply don't have the resources to invest into this game!' It is laughable that they will claim they cannot invest more resources into a property that generates recurring revenue streams, while they manage to spend $100+ million on advertising this quarters CoD du jour. WoW has been delegated to being the overachieving red-headed step child of Activision, why invest in a great property when all you want to do is make game equivalents of Michael Bay films? I suppose even Michael Bay films could be incredibly profitable if people were stupid enough to keep going to see movies where 80% of the content was copy-pasted from the last movie.

The best hope for WoW is that the general population stops buying Call of Duty games. Many gamers played the same version of CS for the better part of a decade and it was awesome, that game did not need 3 or 4 iterations of it pooped out every year for the sake of milking a franchise to death. I suppose the flaw in my logic is that games like CoD are not designed for 'gamers', they are designed for those with an attention span that is challenged by anything more than a 5 second respawn.

The WoW community needs to stop arguing about whether 'casuals' or 'hardcores' are driving the game to ruin, they need to realize it is actually a case of all the people who enjoy Blizzard games vs the mindless hordes that buy all the other garbage that Activision puts out.

[Bullettime]

They do have the resources and have been using them as they've been, as of late, rapidly increasing the size of the WoW development team in order to increase both the quality and the production rate.

[Xl House lX]

Even after the subscriber loss, ATVI (Activision) had quarterly revenues of over $300 million in subscription fees, the fact that an 8 year old MMORPG is still generating over $1 billion a year in subscription revenue is an amazing testament to the value of the intellectual property brought to the table by the purchase of Blizzard Entertainment. ATVI is still carrying over $7 billion in goodwill on their books from this acquisition, which is accounting speak for 'we believe that the Blizzard brand is worth this much, or at least this is the most our auditors will let us value the brand at.' The problem is that ATVI is on a quest to take the 'stereotypical evil corporate game company' crown from Electronic Arts.

The result is that WoW gets milked hard for that high profit margin subscriber income, while being told 'sorry we simply don't have the resources to invest into this game!' It is laughable that they will claim they cannot invest more resources into a property that generates recurring revenue streams, while they manage to spend $100+ million on advertising this quarters CoD du jour. WoW has been delegated to being the overachieving red-headed step child of Activision, why invest in a great property when all you want to do is make game equivalents of Michael Bay films? I suppose even Michael Bay films could be incredibly profitable if people were stupid enough to keep going to see movies where 80% of the content was copy-pasted from the last movie.

The best hope for WoW is that the general population stops buying Call of Duty games. Many gamers played the same version of CS for the better part of a decade and it was awesome, that game did not need 3 or 4 iterations of it pooped out every year for the sake of milking a franchise to death. I suppose the flaw in my logic is that games like CoD are not designed for 'gamers', they are designed for those with an attention span that is challenged by anything more than a 5 second respawn.

The WoW community needs to stop arguing about whether 'casuals' or 'hardcores' are driving the game to ruin, they need to realize it is actually a case of all the people who enjoy Blizzard games vs the mindless hordes that buy all the other garbage that Activision puts out.

Quick off topic thing (kinda): Call of Duty isn't copy/pasted. The games are similar, not the same. I get sick and tired of hearing they are all the same, they aren't. They are similar. The paradigm in which they make their games is successful... why change something that isn't broken? I just had to get that out... Call of Duty is like saying Satan in these forums... very few praise it while many, many, MANY avoid it. Tell ya one thing, the *PvP* in Call of Duty beats the shit out of PvP in WoW anyday.

Now, to what your saying, everything you said is right. CoD is the cash cow, it brings in all ze money for Activision, its their favorite child. As long as it holds that throne, it will always be the way it is now.

[Rucati]

I don't really understand how that makes sense, seeing that they're two totally different things.

Blizzard is already investing an absurd amount of money into WoW. It's important to note that advertising WoW doesn't make all that much sense, as the majority of people know what WoW is already. Hell, it was on the front page of yahoo today. The vast majority of people who play games know about WoW already, seeing a commercial on TV isn't going to make them start playing again. And yes people know what Call of Duty is, but since it's a different game every year they can keep advertising it to make sure people know it's coming out. Blizzard advertises when new expansions are launched, but in between that there isn't much point.

That means the majority of resources go into actually making the game, and considering they're releasing content faster than ever I'd say that's pretty accurate. There's no reason to invest in advertising WoW anymore, there won't be an expansion for at least 6 months, and everyone already knows what it is. CoD on the other hand is worth advertising since it's something different every year, at least slightly. If Call of Duty went away, and they never made another game, it wouldn't randomly make WoW grow again, and I haven't the slightest idea why you think it would.

Quick off topic thing (kinda): Call of Duty isn't copy/pasted. The games are similar, not the same. I get sick and tired of hearing they are all the same, they aren't. They are similar. The paradigm in which they make their games is successful... why change something that isn't broken? I just had to get that out... Call of Duty is like saying Satan in these forums... very few praise it while many, many, MANY avoid it. Tell ya one thing, the *PvP* in Call of Duty beats the shit out of PvP in WoW anyday.

Indeed, every new Call of Duty is kind of like a new WoW expansion. It adds a new story, or continues on an old one. Then it has a couple new features, like WoW expansions add. The "end game" would be the multiplayer, which there's quite a lot of in both situations, be it arenas/RBGs/Raids in WoW or just the multiplayer of CoD. The only difference is the new CoD is $60 compared to the $40 WoW expansion, but you don't pay a monthly fee, so it about evens out.

[Airwaves]

3 words? Call of duty... There is 3 words that are wrong with what ever the hell you just said.

[Dhrizzle]

Activision didn't buy Blizzard; Vivendi (Blizzard's evil corporate puppet paymaster) bought Activision, merged it with Vivendi Games and renamed the new entity Activision-Blizzard.

[Deleted]

I don't think missing investments in WoW are the real problem. Okay, some things could be done better or faster with more developers, but let's face the truth, that with MoP this game has taken a huge step in the right direction. What do you think would be better with more money? The timespan between content-patches is really nice nowadays (5.0 => 5.1 took 3 month, also 5.1 => 5.2 did and I believe with 5.2 => 5.3 and following patches it will be the same).
Odd patches deliver content for non-raiders (as new factions, a new battleground, a new arena, more scenarios, and so on but although give raiders somethin to do with item upgrades [which is some of the best ideas they ever had ^^]), even patches are for new raids and a new pvp-season. 6 month between those content is okay, neither too long nor too short.
So the quantity is right, but what's about the quality? The raids are great, even though there are a few bosses, which where underwhelming (like Sha of Boredom ^^), but overall I must say the starter raids where good for the beginning incl. the gating (16 bosses at once would have been too much), ToT is also amazing, for both normal and heroic raiders.
As I don't do any PvP these days (at the beginning of MoP I've done my weekly CP-Cap to fill some gaps) I cannot say anything about it, but I believe it's unbalanced as every season and struggles with the same old problems (although I can imagine the changes since MoP-release were good at all).

So, when you say Activision is the pure evil (I won't disagree ^^) and ruins WoW, what should Activision do differently to improve WoW? I can't mind real great improvements which will impact the number of subscribers. MoP is (in my opinion) the best expansion they have created (I must say, I did'nt play BC), for casuals, which can run LFR or LFD, can do heroic instances, challenge modes (to find four other players is not that hard) or down normal or even some heroic bosses as well as for hardcore players as the heroic difficulty is not that easy

[Deleted]

Even after the subscriber loss, ATVI (Activision) had quarterly revenues of over $300 million in subscription fees,

Wrong.

Taken directly from the Conference Call >>>

Subscription, licensing and other revenues 1 = 334($million)

1 Subscription, licensing and other revenues represents revenues from World of Warcraft subscriptions, Call of Duty Elite memberships, licensing royalties from our products and franchises, value-added services, downloadable content, and other miscellaneous revenues

That figure of 334million is made up of LOTS of other parts of Acti-Blizzards revenue sources... its nowhere near mainly Wow subs only.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

This is the problem with sub numbers. There's always the fringe community that can't bare to blame Blizz that comes out to blame Activision instead.

[Deleted]

This is the problem with sub numbers. There's always the fringe community that can't bare to blame Blizz that comes out to blame Activision instead.

Im finding that the vast majority refuse to blame anyone and they think everythings fine! lol

Most of them cant even read the conference call report properly and theyre cherrypicking small sections to backup their denials.

[HardCoder]

Blizzard and Activision are separate business units operating under Vivendi. Blizzard's income doesn't get spent on Activision's advertising.

You know what? Both companies, er, organizations are wildly successful. It happens. (Rarely.)

---------- Post added 2013-05-09 at 05:09 PM ----------

Im finding that the vast majority refuse to blame anyone and they think everythings fine! lol

Most of them cant even read the conference call report properly and theyre cherrypicking small sections to backup their denials.

"Lol" most people would agree that a drop in subscriptions is not desirable, but it may well have been an inevitable result of Blizzard's desire to enter the Asian market, but betting on the wrong horse.

I suspect the fix for the Asian market is F2P with micropayments, but I don't see any reason that will happen here in the next 2-4 years.

I do expect another .5-1m subscriptions to go away this year, but the game is still huge, and still succeeds where everyone else has at best done "fair" and usually failed.

[Luxeley]

I can't argue a single point. Your accuracy is that of a true marksmen.

[melodramocracy]

Quick off topic thing (kinda): Call of Duty isn't copy/pasted. The games are similar, not the same. I get sick and tired of hearing they are all the same, they aren't. They are similar. The paradigm in which they make their games is successful... why change something that isn't broken? I just had to get that out... Call of Duty is like saying Satan in these forums... very few praise it while many, many, MANY avoid it. Tell ya one thing, the *PvP* in Call of Duty beats the shit out of PvP in WoW anyday.

They add 'stuff', but it's essentially the same game it was back when it was a spinoff of the Q3 engine. (and MoH based off the same engine before that).

And to the OP, why wouldn't they milk the franchise? People BUY them. It's like asking why Nintendo keeps falling back on a short Italian plumber who's older than the typical console gamer. You'll see CoD and its variants until they're no longer profitable.

[Invictus9001]

The real answer is:
Grinding (as in reps).
Speed (they should take their own advice and 'slow down').
Trolls (the kind found making other people's life Hell in /2, LFD/LFR, etc).

[Deleted]

The humor thread regarding what killed WoW just keeps getting funnier. Oh wait, this isn't it.

I'm guessing the WoW general section already has more threads, with different reasons for WoW's decline than that same thread.

[stumpy]

Three words for what's wrong with internet gamers: memes and barely-applicable buzzwords they don't understand.

Wait, that's more than three words. But I don't care.

[Thimagryn]

The real answer is:
Grinding (as in reps).
Speed (they should take their own advice and 'slow down').
Trolls (the kind found making other people's life Hell in /2, LFD/LFR, etc).

I think you give trolls too much credit. Trolling happens in every (popular) game, and it's rarely any reason for mass exodus.

[Grummgug]

They do have the resources and have been using them as they've been, as of late, rapidly increasing the size of the WoW development team in order to increase both the quality and the production rate.

But I quit WoW because I hated the neverending changes. I just want a finished product. I want a zero production rate. increasing the production rate will push me further away. In fact, Blizzard has said many times one of the top reasons people quit WoW is they are sick and tired of keeping up with the constant changes. I'm sure that's why they try to slow it down.

[Wafffles]

The only merit of this thread is that it appears to have started a fun 'describe WoW's subscriber loss with a 3-word phrase' game. I want to play!

Let's see, how about...

All Things End
Ten Years Old
Is Not F2P (yeah, that's cheating I guess)

Or my favorite:
Who Really Cares?

No, really. The "best expansions" were when the game was smaller, and the "worst" expansions were when the game had 8, 9, 10+ million subscribers. Isn't that what you all have been insisting for years, that this game's been going steadily downhill with each subsequent expansion? Well, now we're going back to BC subscriber levels, maybe this'll be a good thing. So, if it can only help game quality...who really cares?

[Deleted]

CoD has experienced the same as WoW. It is balanced around baddies that play it on consoles, not competitive pro players because that's where the money comes from. That's why there are things like noobtube.