Why did MoP sell so little compared to previous expansions?

[Otimus]

It was because of the pandas. That's a reason a ton of people missed out on one of the most feature and content rich expansion to date.

It's also why we got WoD. MoP was a painful example, I think, where Blizzard saw that actually making content didn't seem to even matter, so they seemingly did the bare minimum with WoD, and at first, were rewarded for it because it didn't have pandas in it.

[Manhands]

I think it has more to do with people being excited (or not) about new features. The two headline in MoP were pandas (very mixed opinions, here) and pet battles (which turned out great, but sounded fucking childish).

Bad hype from playerbase.

[Sinitar]

The people who mention Pandas, along with the culture specific to the expansion, are either biased or ignorant to the fact that the Warcraft lore had anthropomorphic races since the dawn of times. It's actually disheartening, seeing all the hate against the pandas. If WoW launched now, I bet the community would be in an uproar about worgen/tauren and be all like f*cking furries or who knows what other ridiculous argument.

No, the pandas aren't the reason MoP didn't sell in big numbers. It's because it came out after the wrong expansion, at the wrong time. A lot of people quit after the failure of a patch that the Dragonsoul one was, so it's only natural skeptics chose not to jump in the hype bandwagon. If Legion didn't continue the story that WoD started and chose to tackle a different antagonist and a different story, it would have tanked big time as well, regardless of the features/promises it brings. As it stands, Blizzard played it smart and decided to have Legion pick up the scraps of WoD, which made a lot of people want to see how this whole demonic invasion thing pans out.

[Wingspan]

I would personally put most of the blame on Cata, with some on the Panda theme.


For the life of me, I have NO IDEA why people would be turned off by the Bear-people in a game already invested in Cow-people, Dog-people, and Goat-people from space... but it seemed to matter somehow.

[Otimus]

The people who mention Pandas, along with the culture specific to the expansion, are either biased or ignorant to the fact that the Warcraft lore had anthropomorphic races since the dawn of times. It's actually disheartening, seeing all the hate against the pandas. If WoW launched now, I bet the community would be in an uproar about worgen/tauren and be all like f*cking furries or who knows what other ridiculous argument.

No, the pandas aren't the reason MoP didn't sell in big numbers. It's because it came out after the wrong expansion, at the wrong time. A lot of people quit after the failure of a patch that the Dragonsoul one was, so it's only natural skeptics chose not to jump in the hype bandwagon. If Legion didn't continue the story that WoD started and chose to tackle a different antagonist and a different story, it would have tanked big time as well, regardless of the features/promises it brings. As it stands, Blizzard played it smart and decided to have Legion pick up the scraps of WoD, which made a lot of people want to see how this whole demonic invasion thing pans out.

I actually like the pandas okay enough, but there's no denying there's a very vocal group of people who really, really, really hated the idea.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

All this tells me is that apparently Blizzard can screw things up as much as they like. Have content droughts as long as they like. Monetize things up the wazzoo. And there are still millions of people willing to give them "one last chance" and throw money at them. At this point I am genuinely starting to wonder if Blizzard are actually conducting a gigantic social experiment here.

"Damn, I was certain that WoD was so shit it was bound to keep some of them away for good. But they keep coming back. What do we want to try next?"

"Hmm. How about selling raid gear in the shop? We haven't tried that yet. Oh, and lets make it look WAY better than the stuff you can get from Mythic raids. Just for lolz"

I think you are just thinking what you want to think and your sig also kinda shows it to.

[MoanaLisa]

Because Cataclysm was just that bad for them.

[Eon Drache]

The numbers may have swelled at the end in anticipation of MoP, perhaps.

I want to think Cata had ended in the 7m range (range being 7-7.9m, not "around" 7m exactly), and MoP ended at 6.8m. I'm not in a spot where I can fact check, currently.

The lowest they got in cataclysm was 9.1m subs. MoP ended at about 7.5m.

[Zoldor]

Cata gave a lot of people a bad taste. SWTOR was in full swing, Some other MMO was hitting, I think it was also the first expansion that allowed Digital Download Collectors editions as well, which you used to have go to the store to pick up, and there was way more hate than hype for MoP when it was announced. A few reasons I think could have played into the lack of sales.

[Deleted]

I would personally put most of the blame on Cata, with some on the Panda theme.


For the life of me, I have NO IDEA why people would be turned of by the Bear-people in a game already invested in Cow-people and Goat-people from space... but it seemed to matter somehow.

i kind of get it, the whole look of pandas and the way they act is a lot more whimsical than tauren or draenei, they are still animal races but they act a lot more serious, i liked MoP, but think the pandas would be better if they didn't seem like such a joke for a lot of the expansion, taran'zhu was pretty good, needs more pandas like him

[Dawnrage]

I liked MoP a lot, thought it was one of the better WoW expansions, at least from a raider PoV. Class mechanics and rotation for the 4 alts and main I played were probably the best ever, and had some of the best raid fights I have seen in WoW. Challenge modes were fun too.

Too bad it came after the crap that was Cataclysm and people hated pandas out of all the stupid reasons to hate WoW.

[Tijuana]

So with the new sale figures, I noticed that 3 expansions after WotLK sold just as much during tis first day... with the one exception of MoP, which did far worse. 3.3M first day versus 2.7M first WEEK:



What could have halted this expansion from doing as good as the others? Is it just the pandaren theme which people may find ''childish'', or is there more to it? Maybe patch 4.3 performed so bad that people massively lost interest, but then I could say the same thing for patch 6.2, but apparently Legion still managed to perform just as good for its first day.

1. Pandas
2. Star Wars: The Old Republic (I know it didn't last long but that was when it was released, during Cata)

I think it's important to note these sales are not TOTAL sales. My reasoning above is why the initial sales were low.

[Shiny212]

The people who mention Pandas, along with the culture specific to the expansion, are either biased or ignorant to the fact that the Warcraft lore had anthropomorphic races since the dawn of times. It's actually disheartening, seeing all the hate against the pandas. If WoW launched now, I bet the community would be in an uproar about worgen/tauren and be all like f*cking furries or who knows what other ridiculous argument.

No, the pandas aren't the reason MoP didn't sell in big numbers. It's because it came out after the wrong expansion, at the wrong time. A lot of people quit after the failure of a patch that the Dragonsoul one was, so it's only natural skeptics chose not to jump in the hype bandwagon. If Legion didn't continue the story that WoD started and chose to tackle a different antagonist and a different story, it would have tanked big time as well, regardless of the features/promises it brings. As it stands, Blizzard played it smart and decided to have Legion pick up the scraps of WoD, which made a lot of people want to see how this whole demonic invasion thing pans out.

I believe you're wrong. I think it's ludicrous to assume the marketing of said expansion had no influence on whether it was a success, and blame the whole failure on "what came before".

MoP did many things wrong, blizzard saw their mistake and did essentially the opposite with WoD, however also bringing some rather harmful innovations in the process (garrisons). Not as devastating of an error commercially though, since people still bought WoD.

i kind of get it, the whole look of pandas and the way they act is a lot more whimsical than tauren or draenei, they are still animal races but they act a lot more serious, i liked MoP, but think the pandas would be better if they didn't seem like such a joke for a lot of the expansion, taran'zhu was pretty good, needs more pandas like him

Also this, if pandas looked like their original concept art, and not plump, drunk constant comic relief with a smidge of pacifist hippie-ideology, people wouldn't have been so opposed to them. It's not what they are that's the problem, but how they are.

Doesn't matter how many pandas die horribly when they all bounce around like jack black, laughing and drinking.

[Devia]

It was definitely the pandas that turned me off from playing MoP. It was the only expansion where I never made it to max level with a character. I still hate pandas. And gnomes. Even though my friends convinced me to roll Alliance with them this time...

[Kazgrel]

The "lolpandas" replies are eyeroll-worthy, and I'm someone who not once cared to play a pandaren. Did it once just to see the storyline, then soon as I was off the turtle, logged out, character deleted.

Doesn't bother me at all that there are pandaren NPCs and players, even. I simply never cared to play as one. But I primarily played orcs, which everyone seems to love to hate now, thanks in no small part to good ol' WoD.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

So with the new sale figures, I noticed that 3 expansions after WotLK sold just as much during tis first day... with the one exception of MoP, which did far worse. 3.3M first day versus 2.7M first WEEK:



What could have halted this expansion from doing as good as the others? Is it just the pandaren theme which people may find ''childish'', or is there more to it? Maybe patch 4.3 performed so bad that people massively lost interest, but then I could say the same thing for patch 6.2, but apparently Legion still managed to perform just as good for its first day.

Panda theme hurt it's appeal with the edgelord demographic.

[Kazgrel]

1. Pandas
2. Star Wars: The Old Republic (I know it didn't last long but that was when it was released, during Cata)

I think it's important to note these sales are not TOTAL sales. My reasoning above is why the initial sales were low.

Your post actually reminded me of another factor:

Guild Wars 2 launched a month before MoP did. So if we're going to cite the impact of other game launches, that one can't be ignored.

[Deleted]

Your post actually reminded me of another factor:

Guild Wars 2 launched a month before MoP did. So if we're going to cite the impact of other game launches, that one can't be ignored.

i bought both at launch, GW2 was very popular at the start so i wouldn't be surprised if a big chunk of people did buy that initially over MoP due to cata burnout

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

If MoP had launched after WOTLK instead it would have sold better. Cataclysm made a lot of people leave.

If mop had picked a different them it would have done fine. I think panda would've gone over better if they didn't come straight out of a pixar film.

[BigChillin]

I would personally put most of the blame on Cata, with some on the Panda theme.


For the life of me, I have NO IDEA why people would be turned off by the Bear-people in a game already invested in Cow-people, Dog-people, and Goat-people from space... but it seemed to matter somehow.

There was never a whole expansion where the entire theme and advertising campaign were almost completely based on those Cow-people or Dog-people (Draenei are more like aliens than anything). Not only that, but the Kung-Fu Panda Asian theme really didn't help it out that much.

I mean like it or not, that type of theme doesn't really appeal to as many people as a demonic army invading to murder everyone.

Pandas alone as a race introduced in the same way every other race has been introduced into the game would have been fine. Having an entire expansion based around them isn't (in terms of appealing to the masses).