How big is WoW classic going to be? Are the retail devs worried about their jobs?

[Fascinate]

First off i obviously realize classic getting popular is good for them monetary wise, im more wanting to know how the current WoW devs feel about classic and if their job is at risk.

Make no mistake about it classic will be the "real" game in the eyes of many, influencers from twitch and youtube and the split between WoW classic and retail will be stark, no one is going to be wanted to be known as the guy playing the second rate version of the game, as that is how retail will be viewed by these content creators.

People are starving for a good MMO to release, as witnessed yesterday by the delayed launch of atlas, some random pirate mmo that will have a tiny amount of people playing it compared to WoW classic (those "tiny" numbers still hit 200k viewers on twitch, wow classic will easily surpass a million...maybe 2).

The closer classic gets to launching the more popular do i think its going to be, how is blizzard going to deal with this internally and what does it mean for them in the future? I dont think they will stop doing expansions for retail anytime soon but i do wonder what the implications are in regards to how people are allocated internally to projects, WoW classic could actually become the cash cow of blizzard entertainment all over again. What does blizzard do if this happens, the game has already been made and the key to its success is keeping it that way.

Edit:
I wanted to clarify what i was asking in the title.

Imagine a scenario where WoW classic gets massively popular, to the point that more people are playing it than current WoW. Lets say 6 months after classic launches 3 million people are playing classic and 1-2 million are on current. What does blizzard do in this scenario?

I didn't make this thread for it to be a retail vs current discussion, i am genuinely curious as to what happens at blizzard ent. if the above scenario comes true. Do they scale back the team on retail WoW given the lower demand, dump MORE money into retail in an attempt to rejuvenate the project, put more time/effort on development for TBC or wrath classic?

We are no doubt still going to be getting a new expansion every 2 years no matter what, im merely curious what happens in the (unlikely?) scenario the old game becomes more popular than the new.

TLDR: Where is the money generated from classic going to?

[Vineri]

It's success depends on how Vanilla the game will end up being.

If Classic deviates from the philosophy of Vanilla it will hurt retention. Changing mechanics, adding features, adding a cash-shop, adding tokens ... these are some elements that can destroy Vanilla. In my eyes at least - but maybe in others eyes too.

If it succeeds, the individual devs may go on to make TBC. If it fails, they may be absorbed into the current-retail WoW team, having now known a thing or two about Legions code structure & architecture.

All of this is out of the devs control, if Activision-Blizzard orders them to implement destructive features. They probably should be more worried about what Activision-Blizzard may do, rather than customer reaction.

Customers already know what they want. It's when Activision-Blizzard starts telling customers what they want that things go awry.

[Fascinate]

Im not and have never been worried about what WoW classic is going to be, its been clear from the start they just need to be hands off and let the game speak for itself.

I just have a sneaking suspicion classic is going to be far more popular than even the biggest estimates ive seen for the game, its just a weird conundrum blizzard is in if that happens. You would want to move people over to that project but there is nothing to do, the game has been made.

[Deletedaccount1]

It is difficult to say with how strange and unpredictable the gaming market can be. I think it will probably end up being Blizzard's cash cow for a little while although it will be difficult to distinguish from retail because they share a subscription which is what they want.

[ZealousBlade]

People will play it for a month or two maybe, then go back to retail or other games. It will be a flavor of the month release.

So to answer you, no I don't think retail devs are worried about their jobs.

[Deletedaccount1]

People will play it for a month or two maybe, then go back to retail or other games. It will be a flavor of the month release.

So to answer you, no I don't think retail devs are worried about their jobs.

Yeah man people are in a real hurry to head back into BfA lmao

[Animalhouse]

It will be a massive success for sure.
Retail devs have nothing to worry about and it will actually take alot of pressure off the team imo since the community will have other options and this will take some of the intense focus away. Classic will also cause the teams to do some introspection. Has the movement away from old systems and implementation of new been good for overall health? It would provide more inspiration on direction that seems to be lacking on the retail version.

Classic is going to be good for everyone...except haters, nothing is good for them.

[Weeps]

Listen, nostalgia is a motherfucker.

For people like me who have been there in classic, it will never be as good as it was. Ever.

“It’s exactly what I want in a mmorpg! I’m totally ready!” That’s cute. You’ll stop sooner than you think.

For people who never played classic...

LOL. You really have no idea what you’re in for. It is such a simple and bland game compared to even BfA.

The only thing great about Classic is the community. Your reputation mattered. People generally behaved better. It was nice. Other than that, boring. There was a severe bloat of spells and abilities. During a raid, as a frost Mage for example, you basically just frostbolted the whole time with the occasional decurse. You had spells up the ass and barely used 2-3.

That’s so fun!! (Eye roll)

[Fascinate]

It will be a massive success for sure.
Retail devs have nothing to worry about and it will actually take alot of pressure off the team imo since the community will have other options and this will take some of the intense focus away. Classic will also cause the teams to do some introspection. Has the movement away from old systems and implementation of new been good for overall health? It would provide more inspiration on direction that seems to be lacking on the retail version.

Classic is going to be good for everyone...except haters, nothing is good for them.

That is true but here is the problem, classic and retail need to be two entirely different experiences. Sure maybe they implement some sort of talent system akin to classic but none of the QOL changes that happened over the years will be reverted.

I guess the reason i made this thread is to try and wrap my head around the atmosphere at blizzard HQ if classic gets as big as i think it will. Devs are going to want to be tied to the successful version of the game but what are they to do? The classic team needs tech people not creative people.

[s_bushido]

Yeah man people are in a real hurry to head back into BfA lmao

There will be new content for BfA and future expansions. Good luck raiding Naxx over and over and over and over and over and over and over again for the next 10 years in Classic. I hear putting together and maintaining a 40 man raid group is real easy.

[Rolow]

People will play it for a month or two maybe, then go back to retail or other games. It will be a flavor of the month release.

So to answer you, no I don't think retail devs are worried about their jobs.

I wholeheartedly agree. It seems like a vast majority of people I've seen on numerous posts, sites, in game, etc. who are super excited about classic are people who never played it and started playing late TBC at the earliest. I believe people will play it for a month or two and start to see that all the small quality of life things that were added later on will have a big impact and frustrate people that they aren't implimented. Almost everyone who I've seen who did in fact play since the onset of the game were cringing at the thought of playing vanilla again.

[Fascinate]

There will be new content for BfA and future expansions. Good luck raiding Naxx over and over and over and over and over and over and over again for the next 10 years in Classic. I hear putting together and maintaining a 40 man raid group is real easy.

They have at least 5 years of content in the vanilla>wrath trilogy, which i fully expect will happen.

[anon5123]

I think it will probably end up being Blizzard's cash cow for a little while

LOL, not even close m8

Classic is very niche, it won't even come close to being a "cash cow". Hell even Retail is not considered the "cash cow" anymore, Blizzard's main cash sources are Overwatch and Hearthstone by a large margin.

[Deletedaccount1]

LOL, not even close m8

Classic is very niche, it won't even come close to being a "cash cow". Hell even Retail is not considered the "cash cow" anymore, Blizzard's main cash sources are Overwatch and Hearthstone by a large margin.

Which are both not doing so hot to put it mildly.

[Fascinate]

Being the cash cow isnt far fetched, at all.

Overwatch is in a HUGE decline right now and WoW classic is going to be bringing in more dollars in than BFA will when it launches.

[anon5123]

I wholeheartedly agree. It seems like a vast majority of people I've seen on numerous posts, sites, in game, etc. who are super excited about classic are people who never played it and started playing late TBC at the earliest. I believe people will play it for a month or two and start to see that all the small quality of life things that were added later on will have a big impact and frustrate people that they aren't implimented. Almost everyone who I've seen who did in fact play since the onset of the game were cringing at the thought of playing vanilla again.

And a vast majority of people I've seen are people who played vanilla and are glad to finally have a legal way to play it.

Also I love how people are S T I L L pushing this "hurr people r guna rembr it suks n quit XDDD" garbage, completely ignoring the fact that Classic is being made for people who are already fans of Vanilla and familiar with the game. Like holy shit, talk about a broken record.

- - - Updated - - -

Which are both not doing so hot to put it mildly.

"not doing hot" is still better than retail is doing at the moment.

Overwatch and Hearthstone are "not doing so hot", meanwhile BFA is a fucking dumpster fire and everyone knows how shit it is.

Being the cash cow isnt far fetched, at all.

Overwatch is in a HUGE decline right now and WoW classic is going to be bringing in more dollars in than BFA will when it launches.

Unless Classic somehow gets 2mil+ subscribers, there's no way that it's going to bring in more money than BFA.

Especially since there's no box purchase associated with it, it's just free included with your subscription.

[Deletedaccount1]

There will be new content for BfA and future expansions. Good luck raiding Naxx over and over and over and over and over and over and over again for the next 10 years in Classic. I hear putting together and maintaining a 40 man raid group is real easy.

This is why they will probably cycle into other expansions. Not that I wouldn't prefer repeating good content compared to playing new garbage.

[zebreck]

In the laughably unlikely scenario that you and your favorite youtubers represent the overwhelming majority of WoW's subscriber base: still nope. EQ1 still has a dev team and gets regular expansions. There's no reason to expect that even in your wet dream scenario retail WoW wouldn't continue to have a dev team.

[Nnyco]

People gonna get bored and streamers gonna jump on the next big thing after probably two months.

[anon5123]

There will be new content for BfA and future expansions. Good luck raiding Naxx over and over and over and over and over and over and over again for the next 10 years in Classic. I hear putting together and maintaining a 40 man raid group is real easy.

Vanilla servers have been running for the past 10 years, and yet there's still demand for them, so much demand that Classic is launching.

Stay mad, BFA fanboy