[Speculation] Blizzard's Response to ESO?!?

[Durantye]

Ideas don't need sources. They are ideas and speculation. I suppose you've never heard of the word "hypothesis" before? It exists because it's a concept that hasn't been proven or disproven yet. There's plenty of respectable thought, you're just incapable of comprehending it.

"Can't forget the addiction factor" Because people get addicted to games that aren't doing something right, right?
It's large player base came from somewhere, and as previous times have shown losing millions of subs in under a year is possible, funny though that they are gaining them again but apparently they are showing the same trend as release which was gaining 10+ million subs in under 2 years.
Relationships in this game? Yeah that would be a factor to help some hold on for say a couple of months, not 10 years.
Did you really just compare marriage and MMOs? I'm not even going to reply to that comment.

Very few MMOs have even scratched their numbers, WoW's numbers fall because of Blizzard decisions, mistakes, and typical aging.

[notorious98]

A list of bug fixes and new features of that length is not exactly encouraging when it's three weeks away from launch. There were long lists of changes in the last weeks leading up to D3 I remember. I mean, seriously, the game should be more or less locked down at this point.

A big part of that has to do with them listening to the people complaining about the starting experience. So they had to change a significant portion of the starting experience, i.e. dropping you in your faction's capital city instead of your initial starting zones. I wouldn't read THAT much into it.

[Lesane]

Zenimax and Bethesda both have already released statements in which they declare being certain they can maintain the playerbase cross-platform on PC and consoles to keep it a subscription based game. And I believe them... even if it'll not have a high playerbase on PC it'll be heavily supplemented by console gamers who badly want to try their hands at their first MMO. Remember how most people didn't even know what an MMO was until Blizzard made WoW?

FF11 and 14 were there before ESO, and didn't even come near WoW.

ESO might have a slight chance of staying sub based a bit longer than SWTOR, but it won't come close to WoW. Don't kid yourself.

[Nosdrone]

Plot-twist: Skyrim sold 12 million copies on Xbox alone. Your wikipedia link is wrong or incomplete.

No, it didn't.

http://www.vgchartz.com/game/49112/t...olls-v-skyrim/

http://www.vgchartz.com/platform/7/xbox-360/

[notorious98]

"Can't forget the addiction factor" Because people get addicted to games that aren't doing something right, right?

Yes, they perfected the Skinner Box. That's the biggest thing they did right.

[Deleted]

ESO sucks i dont know why people think its a WoW-Killer.

Worst game i played the last 3 years.

[notorious98]

No, it didn't.

Regardless, that still makes the initial link wrong. Which is why nobody should ever trust Wikipedia for anything.

[MoanaLisa]

It's unlikely that any MMO will last as a subscription game ever again. The industry has changed.

This is an excellent point. The best opportunity to really provide any really serious competition for World of Warcraft probably slipped away years and years ago. Too many game studios saw Blizzard's success and thought "Well, we can do something like that" without perhaps realizing that what has happened over nearly a decade with the game is a freak not-likely-to-ever-happen-again thing. I can say that if the titles releasing with subscriptions don't do well, it'll be a very long time before anyone else puts forth a serious effort. I largely have the suspicion that even Blizzard now realizes this which is the reason they pulled back on Titan. From a business standpoint it was never going to be what they wanted it to be when they conceived it.

[DarkArchon]

Hello Kitty Island Adventures 2 next WoW killer..Mark my words.

[shoc]

That game is an aberration, and most Elder Scrolls Fans that I know frequently use the word "Shit" to describe it.

An old roommate and close friend of mine is a writer for both a popular MMO and Elder Scrolls fan/news site. Those are the exact words that came out of his mouth, and appears to be the general consensus amongst the ES Community.

Here is a copy-pasta of the Facebook message from a while back when I asked him how the ESO Beta he got into was.

"el oh fucking el"

[notorious98]

Relationships in this game? Yeah that would be a factor to help some hold on for say a couple of months, not 10 years.

You seem to be under the assumption that the 7.8 million people currently playing were also playing during Classic. Here's a hint. They were not. Blizzard has already come out and stated that 100 million people have had a subscription at one point or another. The problem now? They aren't gaining enough to make up for the amount they are losing.

Did you really just compare marriage and MMOs? I'm not even going to reply to that comment.

Like I said before, it's because you're incapable of comprehending what I'm saying. Only a thick individual wouldn't be able to understand the correlation between the two when it comes to "fear of the unknown".

[Azerox]

ESO is just another one of the hypes that will go away. I've seen them all last couple of years. And ESO is just some bigger hype because of elder scrolls. Played the beta for enough hours to conclude I'm not impressed.

[DarkArchon]

This is an excellent point. The best opportunity to really provide any really serious competition for World of Warcraft probably slipped away years and years ago. Too many game studios saw Blizzard's success and thought "Well, we can do something like that" without perhaps realizing that what has happened over nearly a decade with the game is a freak not-likely-to-ever-happen-again thing. I can say that if the titles releasing with subscriptions don't do well, it'll be a very long time before anyone else puts forth a serious effort. I largely have the suspicion that even Blizzard now realizes this which is the reason they pulled back on Titan. From a business standpoint it was never going to be what they wanted it to be when they conceived it.

Excellent post Lisa, pretty much nailed it on the head.

[shoc]

This is an excellent point. The best opportunity to really provide any really serious competition for World of Warcraft probably slipped away years and years ago. Too many game studios saw Blizzard's success and thought "Well, we can do something like that" without perhaps realizing that what has happened over nearly a decade with the game is a freak not-likely-to-ever-happen-again thing. I can say that if the titles releasing with subscriptions don't do well, it'll be a very long time before anyone else puts forth a serious effort. I largely have the suspicion that even Blizzard now realizes this which is the reason they pulled back on Titan. From a business standpoint it was never going to be what they wanted it to be when they conceived it.

Considering ESO started development in 2007, back when MMO's were the biggest thing on the game industry. It simply took too long for them to get the game out when the industry was hungry for a new MMO and completely missed the flight, per se.

[MoanaLisa]

A big part of that has to do with them listening to the people complaining about the starting experience. So they had to change a significant portion of the starting experience, i.e. dropping you in your faction's capital city instead of your initial starting zones. I wouldn't read THAT much into it.

Three weeks and not much time to test the changes. I read the notes. There's a lot of stuff in there that's system-related. Again, I hope it goes well for them. I do. But that much stuff this close to launch is not a good sign.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Stopped reading there.

Skyrim was the most sold game on all consoles. On consoles the game isn't moddable either.

There is a huge demand for a 'Skyrim inspired MMO' among the console players, for whom this will be their very first taste of an MMO. It's not the modding that makes Elder Scrolls games. That is just a misconception. The modding community is only a small part of the Elder Scrolls fanbase.

It sold more on consoles, sure. The game's core community is on PC, however. People playing the game on PC have got years worth of content for basically free and have had the game last much longer than on the console version. Plus, MMOs are for the most part a PC type of game, so even if it's adapted to consoles it means that PC gamers will first and foremost want to check it out and see if it's worth subscribing to or not. You can't rely on the console market for a subscription MMO to be successful when the PC crowd have been the ones that made to genre popular in the first place.

Just because console players like to have an Elder Scrolls like MMO doesn't mean that people would want to subscribe to one for years. The console market has a different type of culture behind games themselves and having a subscription tied to wanting to play the game could for intents and purposes be considered a form of DRM (even if that isn't really the case).

A f2p ESO would probably make the game more popular among console gamers and PC gamers alike than a subscription based one. Which is why I think the reason why the developers are doing the subcription model is just so that they can cover all the costs for the development of the game early on and then go f2p to maximize profits. Seems a lot more sensical than believing that ESO will have a lasting appeal of its singleplayer counterparts or even other MMOs like WoW and Eve Online.

[Deadite]

ESO sucks i dont know why people think its a WoW-Killer.

Worst game i played the last 3 years.

The only people who think it will be a 'Wow-Killer' are wow players. It always has been them spouting that annoying term. I think ESO will be pretty successful. That in the end is all that matters.

I love the hubris of Blizzard tho. With a few big mmos on the horizon they announce no new content for possibly nine more months.

[shoc]

No. That isn't true. All that is happening is a bunch of people telling eachother that they've a friend of a friend of an uncle's maid's best friend that said the game was bad.

People that actually tried the game highly enjoy it.

I have over 40 hours on the Beta. The levelling content is alright, voice acting is great, but beyond that there really isn't anything. The endgame is focused around PvP which is not engaging whatsoever. I'm still going to buy it so I can experience the questing but I don't see myself or anyone else subscribing beyond that.

[Frozen Death Knight]

It's unlikely that any MMO will last as a subscription game ever again. The industry has changed.

Indeed. Which is why Blizzard have been trying to get into the f2p market for a couple of years now.

[Deleted]

No. That isn't true. All that is happening is a bunch of people telling eachother that they've a friend of a friend of an uncle's maid's best friend that said the game was bad.

People that actually tried the game highly enjoy it.

It is true dude. You can't hide from the truth. You and your little ESO will go down just like the titanic