How healthy is World of Warcraft's future?

[Resheph]

Blizzard is a billion-dollar company. It's fine.

The game still easily pays for its upkeep and development. It's fine too although there are system design issues that need to be addressed.

Anyone thinking that this tempest in a teapot about paintings, emotes, flirts and the rest is going to have much of any effect on revenues is going to be disappointed. Only the very few paying attention to this give a damn about any of it.

This, 100% this. People on this forum seriously miss perspective.

[T-34]

If your enjoyment involves supporting a company as malevolent and dispicable as Blizzard then you need to take an inward look at your priorities - anyone still subbed is just as bad as Blizzard themselves

Have you thrown out your mobile phone, laptop, pc, pants, jacket etc?
Because all of those are produced by workers in factories that are treated much much worse than how some people were treated at Blizzard.

By posting here you are using products produced in far worse conditions than at Blizzard and thereby your are even more malevolent and "dispicable" than those who play Blizzard games...

[Gaidax]

Lets be real for the moment, despite all the controversies which ActiBlizz slowly will buy out for pennies like that 12 million deal or some fines - WoW and Blizzard are still pretty frikkin' huge.

WoW will be chugging along another decade the least with another half a dozen expansions under its belt. It will never be what it was in 2009, but it will still sell millions in boxes and god knows how much in subs/tokens for many years to come. Maybe Blizzard will stumble on some new game mode in WoW that will blast off and maybe not and then WoW will slowly decline over the next decade and be replaced by something else they will make as their top dog.

At any rate - you can bet WoW will still be around for many decades in, even if it will be as some courtesy service for a bunch of boomers like me, the way Ultima and such exist still.

Next decade it will see plenty new content releases and will bring Acti-Blizzard good several billions $$ in, so you can forget about them offing it or moving it to maintenance anytime soon.

[T-34]

oh yes, they were sooooo politically correct when members of their team drunkenly stumbled though office cubicles groping female employees....

I care as much about the working conditions at Blizzard as you do about the working conditions in the factories that produce your cell phone, laptop and all the other cheap imported goods that you enjoy...

[DarkAmbient]

This, 100% this. People on this forum seriously miss perspective.

When players talk about the health/state of the game they're generally not referring to the financials. They're talking about the actual game, how it feels to play, what needs fixing etc. The whales will always help keep a game afloat. Without them EVE Online with its 25k concurrent online players would have died years ago.

And if anyone were to cite day one sales in response to this, I would argue that day one sales obviously aren't a reflection of the quality of that expac because no-one's played it yet, plus IMO expansion sales are driven by a combination of nostalgia and hope.

[CaptainV]

Realistically if this goes on then you can safely say that FFXIV and New World will likley take over as leading MMO's, but its unlikley WoW will recover because of the unnecessary amount of over-sensetive changes being done, and the lack of listening to what the players want.

[Resheph]

When players talk about the health/state of the game they're generally not referring to the financials. They're talking about the actual game, how it feels to play, what needs fixing etc. The whales will always help keep a game afloat. Without them EVE Online with its 25k concurrent online players would have died years ago.

And if anyone were to cite day one sales in response to this, I would argue that day one sales obviously aren't a reflection of the quality of that expac because no-one's played it yet, plus IMO expansion sales are driven by a combination of nostalgia and hope.

Right. But the ramblings of 100, mainly ex-, players on a fan forum is also not indicative of the quality and enjoyability of a game with millions of players...

[NineSpine]

Right. But the ramblings of 100, mainly ex-, players on a fan forum is also not indicative of the quality and enjoyability of a game with millions of players...

Are you denying the game is in a bad state and has bled a significant number of players?

[crusadernero]

Depends how you look at it. Will wow be the MMORPG that you play for months on end without unsubbing? Probably not

Will wow be a game you sub 1-3 months pr xpac/big content patch? Probably. People will return for 9.2 and especially 10.0.

They dont need to create big and long lasting content anymore. They once did cause subs = money. Now they have other revenues within the game, so keeping lots of players subbed is less important.

I love wow, always have. But god damn they make it difficult at times. By the looks of it I wont return until 10.0, something im gonna do anyway. its always cool with new content and see whats up.

[Disxx]

When players talk about the health/state of the game they're generally not referring to the financials. They're talking about the actual game, how it feels to play, what needs fixing etc. The whales will always help keep a game afloat. Without them EVE Online with its 25k concurrent online players would have died years ago.

And if anyone were to cite day one sales in response to this, I would argue that day one sales obviously aren't a reflection of the quality of that expac because no-one's played it yet, plus IMO expansion sales are driven by a combination of nostalgia and hope.

That really I would say depending on the studio and its size. Smaller studios tend to hold games alive for much longer. yet Activision Blizzard is too big for that and if the game wouldn't give them enough profit then I kinda doubt they would hold a game for too long. But yes, there would be countless people playing in any case. Hell, some of those characters next year 23rd November will turn 18 years old... Hell, for some I am sure their character is even considered as their baby, on the same level as child or pet. Those people would even play if maybe all cities would be deserted.

[Osmeric]

millions of players

Citation needed.

[Wramp]

I honestly always sort of thought that 10.0 was going to be the end of WoW and now it seems that they are just stumbling across the finish line as beaten, broken and tired.

[T-34]

Are you denying the game is in a bad state and has bled a significant number of players?

The poster you quoted didn't say the game is in a good state. He just pointed out that the ramblings of very tiny community don't express the thoughts/enjoyment/lack of enjoyment of the vast majority of those that play the game.

I'm myself not to happy with how the game is right now, but on the other hand I would rather have Blizzard do its own thing than listen to MMO-Champion...

[Agrias2x]

It's pretty much dead to me. I could live though bad content or lack of it but Political Correctness and Woke is where I draw the line. I don't wanna play it anymore.

[Lochton]

Citation needed.

You know full well there is none. There is no citation for or against the player count at the current moment. We have estimations and speculations, no confirmations.

[Osmeric]

You know full well there is none. There is no citation for or against the player count at the current moment. We have estimations and speculations, no confirmations.

Thanks. In the future, please do not misrepresent the state of your knowledge with claims you know you cannot back up.

EDIT: ah, that was someone else. My apology for the error.

[NineSpine]

It's pretty much dead to me. I could live though bad content or lack of it but Political Correctness and Woke is where I draw the line. I don't wanna play it anymore.

You would play a bad game but if Blizzard hurts your feelings by taking boobies away you will throw a fit and leave, got it.

I think removing these things is silly, but the overreaction to it is infinitely sillier. Nobody is being "woke". Blizzard's lawyers told them that removing innuendos from the game would look good in court. If you think something different is happening here, you are delusional.

[Lochton]

Thanks. In the future, please do not misrepresent the state of your knowledge with claims you know you cannot back up.

Correction to your rude statement of knowledge. Please take heed to read who you are commenting, and who you believe you were commenting to. I just gave the basic statement that we, as a player base, know.

[exochaft]

The poster you quoted didn't say the game is in a good state. He just pointed out that the ramblings of very tiny community don't express the thoughts/enjoyment/lack of enjoyment of the vast majority of those that play the game.

I'm myself not to happy with how the game is right now, but on the other hand I would rather have Blizzard do its own thing than listen to MMO-Champion...

I think the bigger indication of things to come is that there's more unity involved in some of the concerns with the game within the forums community, as it can be an indication of problems. The big thing to realize is that why a reasonable person can rationalize how many of these white-washing changes are literally small, Blizz employees themselves view them as huge and important. That's a problem on a larger scale, and one of the main reason why I feel WoW is in serious trouble. It's not necessarily that a painting gets changed, but what Blizz's underlying intent and motivations are.

Based upon the intent and motivations Blizz and their employees are showing via blue posts and Twitter, their mindset is just the same as it always has been at best... but I don't think it's a best case scenario at all. While the recent change-ups may alter things in the near term, there is no indication of long-term changes in an overall positive direction. I've stated this before, but we're now at the stage where the lunatics are running the asylum at Blizz after the guards have been removed. Things are still bad at Blizz, it's just a different flavor of bad. While people may think the devs are currently on the side of players right now, I can guarantee you that they're not... there's a higher chance they're in it for themselves and will ignore anything they don't agree with, just like they've done before all this lawsuit debacle. They just think the players are beneath them for different reasons than before.

[Osmeric]

Correction to your rude statement of knowledge. Please take heed to read who you are commenting, and who you believe you were commenting to. I just gave the basic statement that we, as a player base, know.

Apology added.