To all the Bellulars, Asmogolds, Preaches, QoL'ers and Fans that want to Design WOW.

[Triceron]

The WoW Token has effectively replaced all need for subs, and is and has been fueled by the whales for almost a decade now. The subs simply contribute to that high profit margine, but by no means a proper gauge for 'success' any more.

The majority of WoW players (the casuals) spend more time unsubbed than subbed. They buy the expansion, play it for 10-hours, and peace out till the next one comes. That's where a huge portion of their profit comes from up front. Then everything in the middle is literally supported by subs, Token sales and store MTX together. Subs alone is a very tiny portion of that total income.

Blizzard has shifted and focused this business model so many years ago that I don't understand how people still think 'Subs' are the way to gauge MMO success. It's really not. Player engagement for an MMO is practically no different than a standard 10-hour Triple A title these days, only difference being that MMO's can actually profit off the non-casual subbers and whales. It doesn't matter to them if 10 million people are playing or 10,000; they already have your money and they know that even the 10,000 whales who stick around will be enough to keep the boat afloat for years to come.

Sub loss trends have been suffering since Cata days, and yet WoW still turns a massive profit and actually grows. You gotta read between the lines to understand how they're actually gauging success and profit these days, and why the sub numbers don't actually matter all that much as it once did.

[Dracullus]

Hope it works, for some reason my adblocker didn't like the website...

http://media.wow-europe.com/infograp...fographic.html

It's just overall numbers, including trials, don't get what you see here.

The WoW Token has effectively replaced all need for subs, and is and has been fueled by the whales for almost a decade now. The subs simply contribute to that high profit margine, but by no means a proper gauge for 'success' any more.

The majority of WoW players (the casuals) spend more time unsubbed than subbed. They buy the expansion, play it for 10-hours, and peace out till the next one comes. That's where a huge portion of their profit comes from up front. Then everything in the middle is literally supported by subs, Token sales and store MTX together. Subs alone is a very tiny portion of that total income.

Again, making numbers from thin air, seems to be theme in this thread. Not to mention WoW token price grow by 100k since BfA, which rather indicate more people are buying stuff with gold than buying gold with money since last expac.

[Shoukyatwo]

In other words, non-reliable/heavily outdated sources with no purpose beyond supporting a narrative as old as the game itself.

Back in WOTLK it was "subs aren't real!", now it's "engagement and reported profits isn't real!"... Oh well, I'm too old to take people to school over this.

They cited numbers not seen since Cata not long ago with no report in decline since. "1/4 of subs" indeed, to the crowd that'll drink horse dewormer at least. LOL!

What fucking numbers did they report they haven't seen since Cata? What the FUCK are you talking about? You keep spouting your bullshit about critical thinking, yet all you do is continuously lie and make up imaginary nonsense because you CAN'T ACCEPT THE FACT THE FUCKING GAME ISN'T CLOSE TO WHAT IT USED TO BE. This isn't an opinion, or a debate on if Mountain Dew tastes good or not. This is reality. There is NO WORLD where you can sit and try to argue current retail WOW has anything CLOSE to what it had during it's peak in ANY category. GROW. UP.

[Queen of Hamsters]

It's a "shit one" because it doesn't back up your arrogant, self righteous, biased thinking and you can't stand it. Just because YOU don't want to accept something feasible, doesn't mean some hodge podge bullshit 180 is going to negate it. It's a perfectly acceptable source in ANY context. It doesn't support your shit narrative so you want to discredit it. I don't need "critical thinking". I. PROVIDED. FUCKING. NUMBERS.

You didn't provide official, reliable numbers, no. Why? Because those are no longer given. We have MAU growth or decline, that's it.

Stop projecting and think. I ain't getting persuaded to take bold-faced lying/blatant ignorance at face value no matter how much of a tantrum you throw.

I'm someone who hasn't enjoyed the game since mid-BfA. The only one with a bias here, be it for "content creators" that you're defending rabidly, or shitty emotional-driven statements on the game's sub count, is you. Not enjoying something doesn't make me abandon reason. You should try it.

[Arcalimon]

Fans are great at pointing out what doesn't work.

They are shitty at pointing out why it doesn't work or how to improve it.

Well I, for one, would have some ideas.
I would have not removed the artifact weapons and I would have made them into craftable and upgradable items.

E.g. you can craft the basic weapon for yourself and then customize it in its components (hilt, blade, runes) to obtain stats and bonus effects.
This would mean player choice affecting the GamePlay adding diversity, revitalisation of crafting, no borrowed power.

And I would have also added a separate talent tree for the weapons where you could obtain a form of alternate advancements which links back to the effects you can apply in your customization, adding a whole new layer of depth for each class.

I think this might have been a good solution instead of having the heart of azeroth, the azerite armour and now the covenants, all effort that will be wasted at the end of the X-Pac.
It would be great to work on something you know you will be able to carry over in the future.

And I would segregate PvE items for PvP content standardising the itemization much like what happens in gw2 to switch the focus back on skill rather than the perfect combination of items that would allow you to oneshot.
Which doesn't mean a penalty for those who play more and are stronger, gear would scale up based on ranks but with limited advantages. You would still have an edge, but dictated by your effort and skill in the given content and not preventing new players from challenging you just because you are hyper-dressed from Mythic farming.
PvP and PvE must be kept apart.

[Queen of Hamsters]

It's just overall numbers, including trials, don't get what you see here.

100 unique accounts made, never more than 12.8 million retained.

They were never retaining more than they were losing up until that point. If that principle still holds today we won't know until they put out a new infographic.

[Relapses]

Sure, but the fact that just designing whatever they want and ignoring player feeback would make them awful developers aside, you cannot design the game in a specific way, claim to know better than the players, and then consistently acquiesce and admit that you made a mistake. Legion legendaries, BfA Azerite armor and corruption, and now the Shadowlands covenant swapping and Azerite power are just the most commonly discussed examples of Blizzard making a stupid decision, designing something that had its flaws pointed out months and sometimes years before a fix was finally implemented, and then releasing the fix alongside some statement from Blizzard affirming that they were wrong.



OK, and Blizzard has literally alienated the communities setup for this. Unless I'm mistaken, I believe there was some controversy during BfA or Legion where players with access to private feedback forums spoke about Blizzard dismissing feedback (I think the main focus of this was a theorycrafter named Magdalena). Regardless, Blizzard has consistently shown an inability to actively listen to feedback, with the Ion and Preach interviews being a good example of Blizzard stating the problem players have and then simply saying they won't do anything about it because of some design philosophy that has been invented for that system. Frankly, the developers hear feedback in the same way a cat does when you tell it not to knock something off the table; the cat looks at you, you have its attention, it can hear you, but it clearly does not understand what's happening.

To be fair, the developer I quoted was Greg Street (Ghostcrawler) and all the examples of player feedback being ignored you cited happened after he had already left the company. I hold Street's opinions on game development in pretty high regard because he's one of very few who can convey complex ideas in a very neat fashion. I don't think he was always right or that he hasn't made mistakes in the past but I think if there were more developers like him in the video game industry we'd probably be better off as a whole. (Yeah, I know that's blatant fanboyism but I really, really like the way the guy thinks.)

That said, I'm getting accused frequently of defending Blizzard in this thread when that's not really what I'm doing. I'm asking people to avoid giving into the negativity echo chamber and form their own opinions instead of quoting the talking points in Bellular's last YouTube video on the subject. For the record, I don't think Blizzard is perfect. I don't condone the myriad of engagement systems Blizzard has layered into the game in recent years. I think that they have made mistakes and they have failed to develop the game in a way that a majority of their playerbase would be pleased by. But despite me thinking this, I'm not going to frame all further arguments on the matter that Blizzard "ignored feedback." Frankly, I don't think that's what happened here. They simply took a gamble and lost. Despite this, the game is still massively popular and it must be endlessly frustrating to be a developer of this game and see how well it's doing from a numbers standpoint then read all the vitriolic nonsense that gets posted on forums like this 24/7.

[Dracullus]

100 unique accounts made, never more than 12.8 million retained.

They were never retaining more than they were losing up until that point. If that principle still holds today we won't know until they put out a new infographic.

Fact that people come and go is kinda obvious to me, but it isn't reliable source, it isn't specific enough. Not to mention it includes trial accounts.

What fucking numbers did they report they haven't seen since Cata? What the FUCK are you talking about? You keep spouting your bullshit about critical thinking, yet all you do is continuously lie and make up imaginary nonsense because you CAN'T ACCEPT THE FACT THE FUCKING GAME ISN'T CLOSE TO WHAT IT USED TO BE. This isn't an opinion, or a debate on if Mountain Dew tastes good or not. This is reality. There is NO WORLD where you can sit and try to argue current retail WOW has anything CLOSE to what it had during it's peak in ANY category. GROW. UP.

I suggest to go outside for a moment.

[jellmoo]

Honestly gang, this thread feels like it's derailed into a discussion of sub numbers and engagement metrics which are detracting from the topic at hand.

When it comes to game design, I honestly believe that the game design team is, perhaps obviously, supposed to be viewed as the experts on the subject. Our feedback should absolutely be taken, but as always it should be done as constructively as possible and taken with a grain of salt.

I don't think that content creators should be the ones to steer the ship, at all, but when they have an audience it can be hard to completely ignore them too. I just wish that the current WoW dev team was better at course correction, or at least more willing to admit when the ship needs to correct course. It feels like they are determined to hammer home their vision of the game even after they receive player feedback because they believe that the general course is right, and only the details need changing. I'f argue that doing the same thing for a third time and getting the same results disproves that.

[arkanon]

Okkkkkkkkk then let's play. Just because THEY don't release numbers anymore (which is because they're too ashamed to show the actual severe dwindling of their numbers over the years) doesn't mean resources don't exist for you to calculate how many people are in the game. This is ALL 83 servers total right now in the U.S., as well as Europe etc.. But since you are hard headed I can gladly provide other links as well. Please by all means get out your calculator since I'm "making things up". https://www.wowprogress.com/realms/rank/us

* Population - amount of unique players that meet any of the two conditions:
- has a level 60 character and killed something in Ny'alotha Heroic Mode
- has a level 60 character in a guild that killed something in Ny'alotha Heroic Mode

Blizzard have said many times more players DONT raid than do. They have said many times that there are more unique players completing LFR only than all the other three difficulties combined.

[Queen of Hamsters]

What fucking numbers did they report they haven't seen since Cata? What the FUCK are you talking about? You keep spouting your bullshit about critical thinking, yet all you do is continuously lie and make up imaginary nonsense because you CAN'T ACCEPT THE FACT THE FUCKING GAME ISN'T CLOSE TO WHAT IT USED TO BE. This isn't an opinion, or a debate on if Mountain Dew tastes good or not. This is reality. There is NO WORLD where you can sit and try to argue current retail WOW has anything CLOSE to what it had during it's peak in ANY category. GROW. UP.

Lmao, you're an ornery one.

https://www.wowhead.com/news/activis...tles-in-320763

"World of Warcraft has seen strong enagement in Classic and Retail throughout 2020. Full year franchise net bookings grew 40% year-over-year, with sharp growth in the fourth quarter attributed to the sales of Shadowlands, reaching the highest level in nearly a decade.

Take your own advice on the "Growing up"-part. You desperately need it.

- - - Updated - - -

* Population - amount of unique players that meet any of the two conditions:
- has a level 60 character and killed something in Ny'alotha Heroic Mode
- has a level 60 character in a guild that killed something in Ny'alotha Heroic Mode

Shhhh, don't tell him that, he's VERY SENSITIVE about his sources being shit!

[Kagthul]

doesn't work or how to improve it.

To be fair, fixing something can often times be orders of magnitude harder than spotting that it is broken.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Fact that people come and go is kinda obvious to me, but it isn't reliable source, it isn't specific enough. Not to mention it includes trial accounts.



I suggest to go outside for a moment.

Meh, I'd say it's about as clear as it can get with what is offered. Trials or no, it's 100 unique accounts created in that period of time but never even close to that amount retained over a period of time. It's just an interesting piece of information, mostly.

[Triceron]

Again, making numbers from thin air, seems to be theme in this thread. Not to mention WoW token price grow by 100k since BfA, which rather indicate more people are buying stuff with gold than buying gold with money since last expac.

That's exactly how tokens work. When fewer players are playing, the prices grow. That *balances out* lost subs because it's a higher incentive for whales to be purchasing tokens now and reaping the gold rewards for it.

That's how WoW stays afloat during dips and lulls in subs and lack of content these days. All they have to do is throw up a super rare mount on the Black Market while the token price is high and whales will be throwing money their way.

[CrittenMitten]

I think this one is more apt:

This is hilarious.

Blizzard

Okay, how many of you kids (all ages) would like an expansion like Legion?

Kids (All ages)

"Great idea!" "ME!" "I DO!" "YEAH THAT IT!"

Blizzard

and who would like to see expansion without borrowed power?

Kids (All ages)

"Great idea!" "ME!" "I DO!" "YEAH THAT IT!"

Blizzard

So.. you want an expansion like Legion without the borrowed power?

Bellulars, Asmogolds, Preaches, QoL'ers and Fans

And also you should win free things by playing

Activision

You kids don't know what you want. That is why you're still kids, cuz you're stupid! JUST TELL ME WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE FREAKING GAME!

Bellulars, Asmogolds, Preaches, QoL'ers and Fans

*CRIES* *creates more unconstructive WoW bashing content for their little tribe*

[Relapses]

That's how WoW stays afloat during dips and lulls in subs and lack of content these days. All they have to do is throw up a super rare mount on the Black Market while the token price is high and whales will be throwing money their way.

I'm sorry that you actually think this is a thing. I'll give you a hint: People were buying gold before the token and they still do it now. If you think the token has anything to do with the current economy you are sorely mistaken.

[Queen of Hamsters]

That's exactly how tokens work. When fewer players are playing, the prices grow. That *balances out* lost subs because it's a higher incentive for whales to be purchasing tokens now and reaping the gold rewards for it.

That's how WoW stays afloat during dips and lulls in subs and lack of content these days. All they have to do is throw up a super rare mount on the Black Market while the token price is high and whales will be throwing money their way.

What an absolutely shitty, unreliable business model that would be considering the items on the BMAH aren't guaranteed shows. Someone waited 1 year to see a Zulian Tiger on a BMAH.

WoW "stays afloat" by the same metrics it always did. Subs, expansion sales, store, and that seems to be pretty damned stable/growing since mid-Legion. Classic releases are basically printers for easy money. :d

[Triceron]

I'm sorry that you actually think this is a thing. I'll give you a hint: People were buying gold before the token and they still do it now. If you think the token has anything to do with the current economy you are sorely mistaken.

Not quite sure what your point is because it sounds like you're just reiterating what I said.

People bought gold before, people are buying gold now and now the money goes directly into Blizzard's pocket. So what exactly are we mistaking here?

[RoKPaNda]

I still disagree. You said BFA was bad because they listened to players. I think that's wrong. Had you said there were some ways they made it bad by listening to players, then I would agree. But the two statements are very different.

Also, I didn't figure you for the "if you're not in the top {insert arbitrary percentage}%, then having RNG control massive swings in DPS potential one way or the other shouldn't matter" crowd. The implementation of legendary acquisition for the majority of Legion was utter shit for all but the PvP-only crowd and the most casual of PvE participants.

Again, it's not that there aren't other problems with the game, but you just reinforced what I'm saying. Even in Legion, the most dogshit aspect of the expansion was them having an idea about something and continuing for multiple patches insisting that everyone who pointed out the obvious was wrong.

I would personally be much more accepting of the game if it was just boring and they didn't continue to push these dumbass systems which are obviously flawed, either fundamentally or in some aspect such as implementation, while insisting nearly universal criticism is wrong and they know better.

Fair enough on the first point. Those weren't the only problems, but they were the ones that people complained about the most. Things like Warfronts and Islands being disappointing were more "That's unfortunate, anyway...." where the other things were problems that we had to actually live with in systems that we had to interact with. I should have been more clear.

I think you misunderstand my argument a little there about the issue impacting Mythic raiders. If something is annoying for those of us that raid Mythic but relatively inconsequential for everyone else while still being fun for everyone else it shouldn't be removed just to cater to us. AP was too grindy because Mythic raiding was tuned around it. For everyone else it really didn't matter. Same thing with legendaries. SOME guilds benched people for having the wrong legendaries and that's a guild problem. Below world first raiding it really didn't matter if you had perfect legendaries as long as you didn't have literally the worst legendaries. Same with Titanforging. It was ONLY a problem if you were Mythic raiding and trying to min/max to an extreme. Part of that was that we didn't know the exact chance for TFing and so it wasn't until the end of Legion when Blizzard revealed that running anything under Heroic and getting a Mythic level upgrade was like hitting the lottery. It was a fun system for everyone that wasn't in the top 5% or whatever, but they absolutely gutted it to fix a problem that only existed for us and that's shitty and it's a result of us crying the loudest about it.

Most of the worst changes that I've played through in WoW have been the direct result of Blizzard caving to the community instead of just doing their thing as professionals. Not that they don't fuck up massively on their own, because they do. Most of the content creators offer a view of the struggles as someone near the top of the game and most of their solutions tend to negatively impact the game for everyone else, and that's bad business because the casuals keep the lights on.

[Triceron]

WoW "stays afloat" by the same metrics it always did. Subs, expansion sales, store, and that seems to be pretty damned stable/growing since mid-Legion. Classic releases are basically printers for easy money.

Tokens supplement any subs that are being lost in that equation. Actual subscriptions aren't 'growing', they always trend downwards after initial launch of an expansion. Tokens soften that blow considerably by having a system that incentivizes token sales when subs start to dip.

And I literally pointed out Expansion sales and store sales in my first post above. Try looking at the context of that first.

My point being that Subs ALONE are not the prime metric to use to gauge the success of the game. Subs can dip and Blizzard can still profit.