Has Blizzard given up on customer retention?

[Eggroll]

Simple question:

I just cancelled my sub and there was no questions asked why. That's a first for me ever and I've been playing on and off since
2005. Anyone else have a similar experience?

Weird or good? What do you think?

[frogger237]

Simple question:

I just cancelled my sub and there was no questions asked why. That's a first for me ever and I've been playing on and off since
2005. Anyone else have a similar experience?

Weird or good? What do you think?

If you have been playing off and on maybe they realize you will come back on your own time.

[thedingleberry]

They're just trying to politely tell ya, don't let the door hit ya on the way out. They've got more important things to worry.

[FelPlague]

if you play on and off they dont do it anymore, only if you quit after a long long time of playing
they are not going to send people an email every single month when they forget to refresh their sub.

[Beastiel]

They've probably realized that most people's feedback is toxic and nonconstructive

"Game is fucking boring"

Do you think you'll return to to World of Warcraft?

* Not a chance

Resubs 2 months later

[Eggroll]

If you have been playing off and on maybe they realize you will come back on your own time.

Nobody was "asking" actively. It was just a menue that popped up every time you started cancelling. Apparently they have removed this menue.

- - - Updated - - -

if you play on and off they dont do it anymore, only if you quit after a long long time of playing
they are not going to send people an email every single month when they forget to refresh their sub.

They never did that anyways. It was just a questionnaire that popped up during the cancelling process.

[MoanaLisa]

I don't think they care about keeping people around 12 months a year nearly as much as many assume.

They make it simple to come and go as you want so I don't know that it matters.

[Eggroll]

They're just trying to politely tell ya, don't let the door hit ya on the way out. They've got more important things to worry.

Why so toxic?

[Tiwack]

yep, it's not about subs anymore but the wall-street metrics Activision is using. MAU, session-playtime etc. etc.
Just sad either way...

[Eggroll]

I don't think they care about keeping people around 12 months a year nearly as much as many assume.

They make it simple to come and go as you want so I don't know that it matters.

They DID care for the past decade or so, I just think the change is interesting to note.

[WskyDK]

Because you've already cancelled by the time you get to the questionnaire. There's no retaining you; you're already gone

[frogger237]

Nobody was "asking" actively. It was just a menue that popped up every time you started cancelling. Apparently they have removed this menue.
.

I know, I mean like maybe its automatic like after 3-5 times it stops popping up.

[Omedon]

If there's is one gaming company that can safely present a customer retention policy to the tune of "you'll be back," it's Blizzard.

[Aggrophobic]

They're just trying to politely tell ya, don't let the door hit ya on the way out. They've got more important things to worry.

They care enough that they actually have GMs message you at times when you cancel your subscription.
Customers are always important and knowing why someone is not intrested in your product is key if you want to improve said product.

So no, you're wrong.

[Lochton]

To be honest, it wasn't considered a good tool, I believe. I have my theory that hardly anyone used it for feedback.

[Fabinas]

When i canceled one of my 3 WoW license subscriptions last April or May, I immediately received a GM call-chat window. When i explained my reasons and stated i planned to cancel the other two as well, the GM offered to do it for me. Noted down my complaints and said he hoped i'd return. I never did and never will.

They probably think it's the mid expansion lull and people will return anyway. And some will for a month or two. Not me.

- - - Updated - - -

Nobody was "asking" actively. It was just a menue that popped up every time you started cancelling. Apparently they have removed this menue.

Wrong. Read above.

[MoanaLisa]

They DID care for the past decade or so, I just think the change is interesting to note.

I imagine they quit asking when it was clear that whatever feedback they were getting from that survey they offered at the end wasn't telling them anything useful.

For years now they've infrequently commented that what's important is that when people leave they know they are always welcome to come back.

Back when there used to be huge arguments about subscribers there was this hidden assumption that people were staying subscribed all the time. I never thought that was true and still don't. If anyone knows about this it's Blizzard and they've been very relaxed in public about the fact that people come and go.

Hazzikostas once made a remark about the cyclical nature of the game population. There was a lot of criticism of that (and sometimes still is) as some excuse for their failure. Yet the cyclical nature of the game population was a perfectly obvious fact starting in Cataclysm and going on thereafter. People subscribe when there's something new and leave soon thereafter when they've finished up with whatever interests them. It's inevitable that after some period of time this is going to happen with just about any game that has an extended life. But the longer things to the more predictable they get.

Subscription numbers climb and fall based more on how many new players are signing up than returnees. They could game that number a little (and did) by releasing patches ahead of quarterly measuring points but there was no real point to it then or now since their metrics have changed from something that no one else reported to a metric that nearly everyone reports. But that new-signup thing is largely over now. There's no upcoming flood of new gamers that are by nature going to pay $180 a year to play a game on their PC. So cycles and the obvious acknowledgement that people go. Undoubtedly Blizzard has a business plan that assumes X number of accounts signed up for 12 months, another number signed up for lesser periods of time and probably a very large number of accounts that return for new expansions and stay for a month or two. That would be smart business and certainly doesn't require that everyone fill out a survey when they take off.

So why bother to ask. I imagine that if they saw something as a business trend that they thought was highly unusual they would start it up again if for no other reason to get a sense of what their customers are thinking. But as long as the business has settled into being somewhat predictable why take a million surveys a year and collate data that they already know. That said, they probably do sample.

[tru]

Still would be nice to see how many people are still paying for subs.

[xenogear3]

Blizzard tried "free instant level 80", "free Diablo 3", "free login".

The conclusion is that they are useless.

[Gaidax]

Simple question:

I just cancelled my sub and there was no questions asked why. That's a first for me ever and I've been playing on and off since
2005. Anyone else have a similar experience?

Weird or good? What do you think?

Honestly, why does that matter? Every time I cancelled sub their crying peon or questionnaire did not change anything - the cancellation was either due to RL or just being burned out/guild exploding at that point - things completely outside their control anyway.

Probably they just looked at the retention rate of those "measures" and decided to not bug people on a way out because it did not really matter.