WoW has a generation problem

[Pull My Finger]

It seems that you have taken a collection of data points and assigned them cause and effect. The reality is you have no clue why subs have dropped or risen at any given time, and you have no proof otherwise. You are speculating, nothing more, nothing less.

Yeah, the usual knockout argument, you can apply that to pretty much everything in life. Tell that to a religious person.
It still doesn't hold any water and the guy you quoted is spot on, which should be something that your own common sense should tell you anyway. Anyone at Blizzard would second his assessment, by the way.

[Orangetai420]

The real problem is players who thinks that everything which is new must be bad and that older means better, so they are finding fake reasons about why new games sucks cause they want to be seen by other peoples as ancients.
For exemple, I've seen peoples saying that the first Diablo is better than Diablo III.
I played it on the first PlayStation and it's IMPOSSIBLE to HONESTLY think that it's better than Diablo III. Diablo II may be better than Diablo III, but not Diablo (the first one)

There's your problem.

[pld]

That's certainly the case for me, but I don't think it applies to everyone.

I work a 40 hour/week job, have commitments and hobbies outside of the game, and I actually need to sleep 7-8 hours on a daily basis to function during the day...so I can't commit to the game like I used to in high school and college. But I still raid and pvp and enjoy the game as much as I used to before.

I think the points made before such as: more competition, general age of the game, etc. are all contributors to the smaller sub base we are seeing.

I honestly don't think the direction the game has been headed is a real contributor to the decline. If anything, it made the game more accessible to a wider range of players.

[Tomana]

I dont recall a huge churn among those 11 million that complained about it not being casual friendly.

How could you recall it if you didn't see it? Not every person quitting WoW was/is telling fori et orbi that they were quitting.

Also, the MMO market hasnt really hit a wall... there are a ton of gamers out there that havent tried it. We just saw a very large surge in gamers during this time. There is still a huge potential market. I assume Titan is going to attempt to tap into that market.

If you look at the MMO market subs, you get something like this: http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/TotalSubs.png
You clearly see that the market is stagnating at 21-22 million. Any growth for a new MMO would therefore mostly be operated through churn.
Of course, this does not include B2P/F2P (I should have specified that, true).

[Tharkkun]

His theory: Making it easier made subscriber count rise:
Evidence: Crossed 12 million during wrath, dropped during cata, stabilized with easy features
What hes missing: The 11 million that initially joined before wrath. The fact that it was already fairly stable before LFR/easier content was released

He is trying to pick data points that fit his conclusion and ignores everything else. It isnt simplified, it is cherry picked in an attempt to make his theory valid. He is making the data fit the conclusion rather than coming to a conclusion based on data.

It jumped to from 11 to 13 million due to WOTLK being released in China a few months before Cataclysm came out in the US. The timing was perfect. Had Cata been delayed say 3-4 months the numbers wouldn't have bubbled as much. China's number drop off fast after every expansion.

[TheRabidDeer]

How could you recall it if you didn't see it? Not every person quitting WoW was/is telling fori et orbi that they were quitting.

How can you know it existed if you didnt see it?
This is what youre saying:
People were upset with WoW and they were dropping subscriptions. But I cant see it because they didnt say it. Oh, and the number of subscriptions was still rising despite the large number of people leaving. So you have no evidence that it was happening, but you still know it happened. Somehow.

If you look at the MMO market subs, you get something like this: http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/TotalSubs.png
You clearly see that the market is stagnating at 21-22 million. Any growth for a new MMO would therefore mostly be operated through churn.
Of course, this does not include B2P/F2P (I should have specified that, true).

You are speculating that growth would be through a churn. What spurred the growth all the way through to 2009/2010? Why can there not be another growth? The gaming market is still growing, why is it not possible that more will play MMOs? See, the main issue with your theory is it doesnt account for the fact that there are VERY few MMO's in general that are made. Even fewer that are AAA, and even fewer that have the polish of a blizzard game.

Also, to further discount the theory that accessibility was good for the game:

LFR was released in Nov 2011 with patch 4.3. Do you see it stabilizing? No, it kept dropping. MoP re-stabilized things, not accessibility.

Honestly, I think WoW lost a lot of people because we killed off another of the most recognizable villains from the series.

[Osmeric]

How can you know it existed if you didnt see it?

Blizzard has admitted many more people have played WoW than are currently active. Those people who used to play, but do not now, are the "churn". And the vast majority of them must be casual, since there never were very many hardcores.

[TheRabidDeer]

Blizzard has admitted many more people have played WoW than are currently active. Those people who used to play, but do not now, are the "churn". And the vast majority of them must be casual, since there never were very many hardcores.

Yes, there has been a big turnover over the last 9 years, but he is saying that there is a specific period in which this churn was greatest with no evidence of said churn.

[Tomana]

How can you know it existed if you didnt see it?
People were upset with WoW and they were dropping subscriptions. But I cant see it because they didnt say it. Oh, and the number of subscriptions was still rising despite the large number of people leaving. So you have no evidence that it was happening, but you still know it happened. Somehow.

Blizzard devs released information going into that direction. Obviously, the exact figures are internal, but devs acknowledges the problem several times, albeit a long time ago.

But yeah, if you have 1M people dropping subs, but 2M to replace them, the game grows by 1M. But it's bad growth, because eventually you run out of new blood and create a lot of quitters.

You are speculating that growth would be through a churn.

No, this is not speculation. If the market is saturated, then the only way you can carve out a niche is from drawing people from your competitors (i.e. churn). It's like mobile phone market these days.

What spurred the growth all the way through to 2009/2010?

The fact that the MMO market finally moved away from a niche game played by nerds (hi2u EQ and LA) and started to produce more accessible games (WOW being the first one).

Why can there not be another growth? The gaming market is still growing, why is it not possible that more will play MMOs?

Market has segments. Which gaming segment is growing? Take a wild guess. I'll answer that one: console market (slightly) and most of all, mobile/app market. Small games with pigs smashing birds (or is it the other way around) and Facebook games is what drives that market, not big MMORPG games. Heck, the PC market (I'm not even talking about games here, just the hardware) is going down pretty badly and analysts start talking about a "post-PC age". And you need a computer to play MMORPGs.

As about "why there can't be another growth", my main guess is: because of the increasing competition from games providing instant gratification. MMORPGs require too much time commitment by today's standards. It was not true even 5 years ago. But today, MMORPGs simply forces too much time commitment on the average target player.

See, the main issue with your theory is it doesnt account for the fact that there are VERY few MMO's in general that are made. Even fewer that are AAA, and even fewer that have the polish of a blizzard game.

Because as gaming are getting more and more expensive to develop (graphics, code, server etc...) this creates a higher and higher entry barrier. You can't develop an MMORPG in a garage. So by definition, it will only get worse - they will be less and less pretenders to the segment.

LFR was released in Nov 2011 with patch 4.3. Do you see it stabilizing? No, it kept dropping. MoP re-stabilized things, not accessibility.

LFR couldn't compensate in itself the fact DS was up for 1 year. And it was up for 1 year because a huge part of Cata dev resources were sunk into revamping the old world rather than developing new stuff. Simple.

[TheRabidDeer]

Blizzard devs released information going into that direction. Obviously, the exact figures are internal, but devs acknowledges the problem several times, albeit a long time ago.

But yeah, if you have 1M people dropping subs, but 2M to replace them, the game grows by 1M. But it's bad growth, because eventually you run out of new blood and create a lot of quitters.



No, this is not speculation. If the market is saturated, then the only way you can carve out a niche is from drawing people from your competitors (i.e. churn). It's like mobile phone market these days.


The fact that the MMO market finally moved away from a niche game played by nerds (hi2u EQ and LA) and started to produce more accessible games (WOW being the first one).


Market has segments. Which gaming segment is growing? Take a wild guess. I'll answer that one: console market (slightly) and most of all, mobile/app market. Small games with pigs smashing birds (or is it the other way around) and Facebook games is what drives that market, not big MMORPG games. Heck, the PC market (I'm not even talking about games here, just the hardware) is going down pretty badly and analysts start talking about a "post-PC age". And you need a computer to play MMORPGs.

As about "why there can't be another growth", my main guess is: because of the increasing competition from games providing instant gratification. MMORPGs require too much time commitment by today's standards. It was not true even 5 years ago. But today, MMORPGs simply forces too much time commitment on the average target player.


Because as gaming are getting more and more expensive to develop (graphics, code, server etc...) this creates a higher and higher entry barrier. You can't develop an MMORPG in a garage. So by definition, it will only get worse - they will be less and less pretenders to the segment.


LFR couldn't compensate in itself the fact DS was up for 1 year. And it was up for 1 year because a huge part of Cata dev resources were sunk into revamping the old world rather than developing new stuff. Simple.

Alright, so to sum up your thoughts on the subject:
1) There are a huge number of players that no longer play WoW
2) The market can not grow
3) The market is at complete saturation which is why WoW is stable at 10 million

If you are correct, then when Blizzard releases Titan, WoW will completely crash. And I mean completely. Because if it is anything on the caliber of WoW, and it is made by Blizzard, it should theoretically max out the market saturation.

Personally, I disagree. I think there are still millions out there that are willing to play MMO's but arent currently playing one. I am one of them. It just has to be done right, and different.

[SamR]

I guess CoH/Guild Wars/Aion werent very casual friendly (I know there was another AAA title that came out too, but I cant remember what it was called)? Was it more casual friendly than EQ? Yea. But there were many that came out, the "WoW killers", that were equally casual friendly that usually didnt pull through. GW did well on its own and carved out its own share of the market but it didnt impact WoW subscribers.

Funny that you bring up CoH. I played CoH soon after it launched. It was considered more casual that the other games on the market. And yet even compared to launch version WoW, it was a much harsher grind.

You couldn't even realistically solo to max with most characters. OP fire tanks, some broken blasters, and fire/psych controllers(because of minions) were the only specs which could solo past the mid levels with any efficiency. And I believe respecs weren't even added till after launch. But none of this "pay gold and respec" casual crap that WoW came out with. Nope, you had to do a long tedious dungeon chain at certain levels to gain access to a few respects.

And task forces, oh those task forces. The Clockwork task force was the first and shortest. You could get that done in 3 hours with a good group. I believe some of the later ones took up to 7+ hours. And if someone dropped, tough luck. You couldn't add anyone to your group once your task force started.

The most popular way to level was to get a group together, find a fire/invul tank, get a mission with lots of weak melee adds, have your tank gather everything up, then jump into a trash bin and unload all your AoEs into that trash bin. You think I'm kidding...

I remember posting on the official CoH forums back then making fun of Blizzard's silly new MMO. Rested exp? For serious?

I get the feeling you never played CoH and have no clue what that game was like.

[Xl House lX]

And it's not just WoW - I'd go so far as to say it's all MMORPGs.

Kids these days... just not into what they were in the past. The notion of "working for your fun" is just unreal to them.

For multiplayer, they want games like League of Legends, Call of Duty, Halo - games they can pick up easy, and put down easy, with minimal investment.

I think WoW's problem right now is generational - We, the MMO gamer generation, are getting old. We're graduating, getting married, having kids, kids growing up, etc.

And there's no one replacing us. As we age and move on, the next generation just doesn't want to grind. Why pay $15/month on top of the standard game cost when you can play with your friends for just the price of the disc?

Why go through 36+ hours of mind numbing leveling, with no challenge, no excitement, when you can hop into CoD multiplayer on day 1?

While other genres are expanding to try to reach new people and markets, the MMO market is shrinking. Fewer and fewer people are willing to put forth the hours, dedication, and coordination required to "have fun."

My take on WoW's decline - it's not just WoW. It's all MMOs. And it's no one's fault.

Obviously this isn't the only reason, there are others but you are right. I have had more fun in my accumulative 20 days played across all CoD games online than the close to 100 days played on WoW back when I played it.

[Beat5beat]

Ultimately my point wasn't that "yeah grindier is better" my point is that going too casual creates a non commitment, no value to the rewards. Obviously there is a sweet spot between too grindy and too casual. Where is the sweet spot? Nobody could tell you, Blizzard is trying to find it, as is evidenced by the removal of automatic flight paths.

As for hardcore vs casual. Blizzard in my opinion has to cater to the hardcore, if you cater to the hardcore, the rest will follow (provided you found the sweet spot above). Why is this? Because casuals don't create game hype and dedication the way hardcore players do. I've always been a casual player, but I understand the importance of that item/tier that I will never achieve (but could theoretically achieve). I don't need to achieve it, but it creates a sense of wonder and mystery in the game. I remember the first time I saw an unstoppable force, incredible how it knocked players flying, I had no idea where or how to get it (in hindsight that one was pretty easy to get, but at the time it did not seem so)

Difficult to obtain items/raids need to be in the game to create that sense of mystery and wonder. Obviously it should not be impossible to obtain, for example the mount from opening AQ gates was in my opinion too niche, too far out of reach, unrealistic to obtain, so it removes the wonder and mystery from it. But things that are potentially obtainable (but not realistically obtainable for a casual) create that atmosphere that many players are lamenting is gone. Because EVERYTHING is so easy to obtain. I think Blizzard missed the balance on this in their quest to "get our content to the most number of players" I never saw Black temple in BC, never even saw the vashj raid (forgive my brain fart, forgot the dungeon name) yet BC was by far my most enjoyable time in WoW. Don't get me wrong, the above are not the only reasons that magic is gone. Some of it is certainly the passage of time as well the lowered reliance on community, all these and more contribute to a less memorable game.

[Osmeric]

if you cater to the hardcore, the rest will follow (provided you found the sweet spot above). Why is this? Because casuals don't create game hype and dedication the way hardcore players do.

So, that's why all those casual players quit when the content was tuned up -- because they were following the hardcore?

Is that why WoW has something like 20 million ex-players -- because they followed the hardcore?

No, casuals are not mindless sheep. If the game is not designed for them, if they realize the game is a con that wants them just to support a pyramid for the customers the developers really want, then they WILL leave.

[Ascension DDoS]

At a base level, this game doesn't require much skill or grinding, however if you want to be anything more than 'average', you're going to have to put in numerous hours farming materials, gear, flasks etc. that's if you're not raiding or doing arena / rbg.

[Derathenus]

I as actually talking about this same subject last night.

What WoW is today and what the MMORPG genre was 8 years ago are two completely different things. Honestly, if you took the WoW of today back 8 years and showed it to people, aside from the graphics and character references, they would have no idea it was the same game. When game companies see the success of Facebook game companies like Zynga, it's no wonder they're trying to get a piece of that pie. Blizzard has actively been pursing more "social network-ish" style gaming and will likely continue to do so.

The original MMORPG genre is dead in western civilization and I really don't see it ever coming back.

Zynga is paying for its crap games and dishonest business practices. They are hardly something anyone should emulate. Defend traditional gaming...not the poor excuse for gaming facebook games are.

Games are about immersion, story, gameplay. Not shit like farmville.

[Tomana]

Alright, so to sum up your thoughts on the subject:
1) There are a huge number of players that no longer play WoW
2) The market can not grow
3) The market is at complete saturation which is why WoW is stable at 10 million

If you are correct, then when Blizzard releases Titan, WoW will completely crash. And I mean completely. Because if it is anything on the caliber of WoW, and it is made by Blizzard, it should theoretically max out the market saturation.

Personally, I disagree. I think there are still millions out there that are willing to play MMO's but arent currently playing one. I am one of them. It just has to be done right, and different.

If you assume Titan is an "orcs in space" MMORPG, yes. But if they're going into something different like an MMOFPS with social network interaction and extremely casual gameplay (which are the only early elements we have so far), it may be different.
But yes, it will impact WoW. Heck, when D3 was released, WoW activity went down pretty noticeably. Blizzard will sure as hell try not to cannibalize WoW market with Titan (possibly with something like "for only $3 more, get your Titan AND your WoW sub" - again assuming Titan is sub-based), but it could happen, yes.

[spectrefax]

Zynga is paying for its crap games and dishonest business practices. They are hardly something anyone should emulate. Defend traditional gaming...not the poor excuse for gaming facebook games are.

Games are about immersion, story, gameplay. Not shit like farmville.

Tell that to the what? 100 million+ farmvile players? That's what Blizzard is focused on emulating, not the lack of business savvy from Zynga. They couldn't care less about keeping the "integrity" of traditional gaming. For a piece of a 100 million+ gamer market they will rip WoW apart from it's core philosophies (which they've already done, over and over. Which is why the game really looks nothing even close to it's original form) and cater to as casual a player base as needed to secure such numbers.

I mean hell, they even added a mini-Farmville to the damn game... what more proof do you need?

Sure, I hate that the original MMORPG genre in the west is dead and won't likely ever come back due to today's gamer mentality, but there's not really anything I can do about it.

Welcome to the Blizzard Social Gaming Network. Not saying it's a bad thing, it's just how it is.

[Deleted]

And it's not just WoW - I'd go so far as to say it's all MMORPGs.

Kids these days... just not into what they were in the past. The notion of "working for your fun" is just unreal to them.

I think you're close, but you're not quite there yet.

It's not "working for your fun" that's unreal to these people. They simply grew up with more technology than you or me, they adapted to the faster lifestyle and changes happening around them. Simply put, they are used to things going a lot faster than you or me. This trend will very likely continue.

Just like 'our' generation adapts quicker and is used to faster changes and faster games than older generations (just try to explain facebook or a tablet to your parents or grandparents), the same is true for us compared to even younger generations. They adapt quicker and are used to faster games than us. It's a continuing trend.

In that sense, it's totally normal for Blizzard to create the possibility to queue for dungeons, raids or battlegrounds from anywhere. Sure, it may have been more immersive to go to the location first before you could start, but that's outdated for the current generation. They want to pick up and play, they want things to be fast paced. If things are going too slow, these people will simply find their joy somewhere else. Some of us may not like it, but it's a smart move on Blizzard's part.

So yeah, you're right that it's a generation problem. But not because the current generation doesn't know what working for fun means, they just want to see results faster. Heck, everything needs to be faster.

[eschatological]

I think it has less to do with the gamers themselves but the culture around video games. For those of us who were born in the early 80s and earlier, video games were truly a niche market in some respects. I wouldn't blithely call it "geek chic" just to put a label on it, but the people who played video games in those times were nerds. Outright nerd. I started playing online text-based MUDs loosely based off of DnD ideas (AS - DS + AvD + bonuses +d100) in the late 80s on services like Prodigy and CompuServe, and I'll admit I was a huge basement dwelling nerd. And I was made fun of for it, and persecution makes a small community even more tight-knit.

Even in the 90s, as games expanded, you started to see a sharp divide between the people who played, IE, Zelda or Final Fantasy, and the people who played your "starter games" like Mario and Sonic, and the sports gamers who played Madden and NBA Jam. Interestingly, you see that culture clash between the companies that make those games - Square Enix makes small-ish, niche titles and are generally nerd-friendly, Nintendo still makes what I'd consider "starter" or "party" games to play with friends, and EA (who made Madden and NHLPA etc) became the megolith of casual gamers (and, I'd argue, a very unfriendly nerd-gamer attitude).

So, for those of us nerds who grew up in these small, insular communities of online gamers (Oh, AOL in the mid-90s, how I miss you), WoW and the 2000s came as a shock. It simultaneously validated our love of online-RPGS, but became so popular (and pop cultural) and widespread that our community now encompasses people we never would have thought to have something in common with. I get spammed with more Farmville/Angry Birds/Mafia nonsense from people who made fun of me for playing video games growing up than from other gamers I know (because the gamers I knew growing up don't generally play those games). Hell, there's a former football player from my high school, a 300 lb offensive lineman, who sends me more Farmville stuff than anyone I know.

It's all part of the growing pains of being an accepted, popular form of media entertainment, I bet theatre people were pissed too when them goldurned movin' pictures started showing up and EVERYONE started showing up at the cinema.