How healthy is World of Warcraft's future?

[NineSpine]

What are you talking about, I didn't suggest Blizzard had 12 milion players. They have approx 1.5 million players if Bellular's analytics are to be believed.

I said that I'm pretty sure the game males as much momey, if not more, than when it did have 12 million.

From micro transactions.

And if that's the case then Blizzard has no reason not to support the game.

In order for that to be the case, those 1.5M players would need to be generating an average revenue of more than $100 each... per month. Do you honestly believe that that is the case?

[Shadowferal]

I don't see how this could be the case. I mean, when Blizzard sells a token, it replaces a month's worth of sub and brings in just a bit more money (less than 50% more). How does that make up subs being down by a factor of 8?

Oh I think the better question is if...IF Blizzard is making more money from a million or so customers than they did from over 12 million customers what does that say for the customer base today? WoD, BfA, Shadowlands...really? What will it take?

[Osmeric]

In order for that to be the case, those 1.5M players would need to be generating an average revenue of more than $100 each... per month. Do you honestly believe that that is the case?

Be careful; that 12M also included China active accounts, which I think had lower ARPU for Blizzard.

[Dioporco]

Imagine that 2.8 milion chars / 2 chars per player atm and we have 1.4 milion players or even worse if / 3

WoW is in deep shit, and even if a game can be good with 300k players still the drop is red flag.



90% WoW atm is in maintenance mode until 9.3 or 9.2.5 or even 10.x

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Imagine that 2.8 milion chars / 2 chars per player atm and we have 1.4 milion players or even worse if / 3


WoW is in deep shit, and even if a game can be good with 300k players still the drop is red flag.

The site notably says it doesn’t have the data on the majority of EU characters so trying to determine actual player base from it is rather flawed.

[Soon-TM]

Imagine that 2.8 milion chars / 2 chars per player atm and we have 1.4 milion players or even worse if / 3


WoW is in deep shit, and even if a game can be good with 300k players still the drop is red flag.

Hmmm maybe this explains the mass layoffs of the last years at Blizz. Who needs CS when you have so little customers left, especially when those remaining customers are probably the kind that is going to gobble whatever you make. BTW, there is no need for QA either, since players themselves do the work - and not only you don't have to pay them, but instead they pay you for the privilege of testing your @#$& LOL

[Dioporco]

The site notably says it doesn’t have the data on the majority of EU characters so trying to determine actual player base from it is rather flawed.

Was 3milion 3 months ago so even before the "API change" that is sus behaviour from Blizzard to hide the numbers.


So even if is 3milion instead of 2.8 or even 3.5 milions, is still a drop and thus a red flag.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Was 3milion 3 months ago so even before the "API change" that is sus behaviour from Blizzard to hide the numbers.


So even if is 3milion instead of 2.8 or even 3.5 milions, is still a drop and thus a red flag.

Rather there was a drop or not isn’t really the point. What ever the number is it leaves out a majority of the EU data meaning you would only get half the picture if you were trying to come to a number for the player base.

Unless your trying to say the EU API changed and that caused it to drop by .2m?

[cuafpr]

i don't see how anyone can say WoW is in a good place... It needs work for sure, its not going to maintenance mode anytime soon though

[NineSpine]

I don't really care whether or not its the case, it might be less but WoW beyond a shadow of a doubt is making a profit.

Therefore its healthy, Blizzard has no reason not to continue churning out expansions and content and players don't have to worry that the servers will be shut down.

Everquest 1 is almost certainly making a profit. Do you think Everquest 1 is getting expansions of the size and scope that it did 18 years ago?

This isn't binary. This isn't "Is the server up or not"? The question is what kind of investment Activision will be willing to make into the game, and Activision is not going to pour resources into a game that is bottoming out. They will, rightfully, conclude that who is left are those willing to accept the lowest possible quality. You can see it here every day, where people practically fall over themselves to make excuses for Blizzard's poor quality control and lack of content.

[uuuhname]

No they weren't, but they've overcorrected in response to it.

if removing emotes is overcorrecting then I'm really not sure what you think the issue going on here even is.

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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...

lol the Bor's comic "I'm very intellectual" take. haven't seen that pop up in this discussion yet, so good on you I suppose, getting that bingo card filled out.

[Irian]

Oh you don't know what actual maintenance mode is then. That involves only new additions to the cash shop and at most adding some higher numbers to items and enemies instead of making new stuff. Practically perpetual diablo3 seasonal content but worse.

The actual definition depends on what your perspective is. WoW isn't going to enter a maintenance mode that involves zero development like D3 and Overwatch for a long time, but I see shadowlands as the closest we can get to a "phoning it in" expansion if one ever existed.

They won't stop development on WoW as long as there's something like ~100k players still playing, and honestly, it's going to be probably decades before that happens.

[Itori]

That model works fine for other games though, most notably FF14.

The problem is how blizzard tries to do it, not the general idea.

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Just because you want back-breaking levels of difficulty doesn’t mean anyone else does. Extremely difficult content is not popular in any game. Stop confusing your fetish for what everyone else wants.

what are you talking about? I mentioned 3 levels of difficulty, one for each category of player. Normal raids were for your entry level people into the raiding scene, heroic were for the players stepping into the hardcore raiding scene and wanted a challenge and mythic being for your 1%ers who wanted the best of the best and the challenge that came with it. It would be something that your guild or group would be comfortable with.

[Invicta]

wow is in its death throes

[Dacia Ultan]

if removing emotes is overcorrecting then I'm really not sure what you think the issue going on here even is.

My take on it is that the issue is the ethics scandal (abuse of subordinates by certain parties, and probable passive complicity at best by others) itself. I'm not sure if I would classify the removal of /burp and /fart emotes, fart jokes, jokes about leg strength and wet tongues and furry confusion, and the word "nobgoblin" as "overcorrecting," but they do seem kind of irrelevant (and, in some cases, unnecessary). None of this, mind you, justifies the reactionary tantrums we've seen in response.

[|Dexter|]

To be really fair, WoW is still the MMO with the biggest dev team and biggest budget on the planet, other MMO's even FFXIV/New World got a much smaller budget and smaller teams!

WoW also got some of the best server setups to run MMOs on, fine-tuned over the years even Amazon is playing catch up with New World now...

on one personal note, I tried the combat in many games but WoWs just feels better and more fun to play for me personally

But yes things got to change there is way too much time between content releases and it seems to only get worst. They got the manpower and the budget to make great content fast... but seem to be stuck with one aging core and bad leadership and other issues we talk about on the form and lawsuit already.

Story writing needs A lot of improvement and our character needs to be more part of it... so much of it feels like it is being told outside the games in books and even the same story seems like your character is not really part of it...

but so long they do not dramatically lower the budget and lay off the dev team there is hope!

[Progenitor Aquarius]

I refuse to comment on this. I don’t know if I am allowed to say that I feel like in Church. /me hides.
I voted for the 2nd option though. I am quite hopeful.

[Femininity]

Splice options 2 and 3: WoW will be fine, but things need to change.

[CalamityHeart]

My personal opinion on the poll falls somewhere between option 2 and 3. If I could just ignore the story being just as disappointing as I was really hoping it wouldn't be, I would probably still be playing a lot more. But a large amount of my entertainment is derived from the story I'm experiencing. Shadowlands started out... interesting. And it held onto me for a while. But looking back after taking a break and playing through the entirety of FF14's main story, all I can do when I look at the current direction of WoW's story is think... "Egh..." And just kinda... not want to play, beyond just the occasional M+, or RPing. Which is still fun. But has gotten to be not quite enough.

The changes that have been going out? Egh... Some of them I've liked, and I thought were fitting changes. Most of them, I didn't have any particular feelings toward. A few kinda confused me. But none of them really helped or hurt my general opinion of the game, and it just feels to me like the people who this did spark a significant reaction or shift of opinion from, are either the kind of people who the guys at Blizzard probably would rather fuck off somewhere else, or were 90% out the door anyway, and anything that Blizzard said, short of an on-the-knees apology followed immediately by an announcement of the second coming of WoW-Christ was going to come across negatively and drive them away, so they say. What it would take for me to sort of frown up at Blizzard over all the changes coming out, is if they started messing with existing cosmetics and gear appearances. They said specifically that there's no intent on them doing that, and I'm glad at least, that they've drawn that line. Now they just have to not cross it. What I'd like to see later on is more of a focus on small expressive additions, rather than removals/changes.

These changes aren't going to spell the end of WoW. The shoddy story they've been telling probably won't either. The gameplay? Egh... I've been playing for just over a decade, and this is not the worst the gameplay's ever been, in my opinion. Early BFA will probably hold that crown for a while yet. But I feel like the game needed something great to put some spice back into its gameplay and hold my interest in spite of the shaky story. Covenants and conduits, while not really that awful in and of themselves, really aren't great. Things do need to change, imo. At least if WoW wants to enrapture me again. But at the same time, I'm pretty sure that for the people who just enjoy WoW's gameplay loop, without the caveat of having a good story tied to it, WoW's gonna be fine for a while, even if things don't change all that much.

[Zoura]

It will be fine, people have extreme expectations these days, they will never find a game they will enjoy sadly.. Good thing i don't need a super game to enjoy the game. But WoW needs changes for sure.