I tell you why WoW and MMORPGs are struggling in this day and age...

[defibrillator]

Umm... sure, but the game design and support influence how much that is true. FF doesn't seem to be suffering from anything but success atm.

Your definition of success is literal embarrassment by WoW standards. And don't get me started on what happens when you exit the sphere of the MMO genre and enter the one of actually popular games.

[Relapses]

The benefit is for people like you that didnt had any idea about the current state of the game, and once the video is released the fall down the tree and starts rambling about "durr numbers"

Also the "marketed" is a bs take because he is doing the same stuff as kotaku do, just "research" if people watching his videos then decide to quit earlier the game instead of waitin 1 or 2 months more, doesnt change a lot when the game state is in shambles.



Is the eternal discussion between realistic people and deniers.

I'd love to see a single fucking post where I've "denied" that the state of the game is pretty bad. I'll wait.

In the meantime, the least you could do is address what the fuck I'm arguing.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Data was there even AUG JUL JUN etc etc you could check with wayback and see the drop, the API it seems (because no reply from Blizz) to be broken in SEPT just after Bellular video by coincidence.

So your just lying through your teeth then? First they broke it in Jul/aug but now that it’s pointed out his video is from Aug they didn’t break it till Sept?

The disclaimer was because Blizzard broke the API around JUL/AUG

Blizzard isnt lying on numbers, but cant be sure 100% with the current Blizzard staff, because they need to give something during the ECs but surely decide which numbers shows and we can clearly see with the MAU and SUBS.


Daily Reminder that SUBS =/= Quality of the Game

why would you trust the old blizzard staff over the new ones when it’s been revealed that a ton of them were scum bags? You think they wouldn’t lie with every thing else they were doing?

And I haven’t said any thing about quality or how it’s related to subs.

- - - Updated - - -

There's a problem with this reasoning. The phrasing they're using is "we typically see at this point after a Modern expansion launch," the key phrase being modern. How are they defining the word "modern"? It's clearly not the 10 year period we discussed earlier because they're differentiating from that. They don't define modern in any substantial way. It could mean a specific point they consider as the start of the "modern" era in WoW or it could just be in consideration of the two most previous expansions. Their refusal to define how they view modern gives us nothing useful.

your right modern likely isn’t a 10 year period as they use decade else where, this means they likely aren’t going back to mop putting them below it’s 7/8m subs which still puts it at wods 5M.

Also, to your point about only having two data point, you can have an average with only two data points.

you can’t mathematically split expansions the same way you can with just two numbers there is no 0.5 of a expan to take into account so splitting hairs on rather you can technically do it with pure numbers is pointless.

The reason his research made a splash wasn't because he had solid numbers but because it clearly showed the trends in WoW endgame content. They make it clear very quickly at the beginning of the video how the data could be a problem and to take it with a pinch of salt. However, there is a reason I did say "unless you're going to count the research," because I do understand it is info to be dubious about.

even if his research was 100% on the money it would still be useless to this discussion because this is over all of wow not just shadowlands.

Except you don't have any reason to believe this number. We don't know how Blizzard is defining the word modern, we don't know what their data points were, and we don't know if they chose to leave out any data points. They already decided to cherry pick data (hence the "outside of a Modern expansion year" wording), why in the world would you assume any number given how manipulative they've been with the wording?

your right we don’t know how they are defining modern and we don’t know if they are leaving out any data but what we do know is that from the data we have to not be lying in The report that they need atleast 3 data points which means they have to be including atleast Wod and we know how many subs Wod had at a similar point in its expansion life which was around 5M.

All of the other missing info would obviously make a clearer picture like rather they are leaving out mop because current subs are below it’s 7/8M or if rather legion had more then mop ect, but with the info we do have we know that they have to be above at least Wod but below legion.

One final thing you have to consider. When looking at this data from WoD forward, things have changed dramatically, the world has changed dramatically. Video game companies are seeing a boom in sales. Why is the WoW community contracting? For all intents and purposes WoW should've blown up during the pandemic, not contract. WoW's servers should be the ones so full they have to stop selling the game, not the competition. We seriously need to stop and ask ourselves "why is this happening elsewhere?"

I mean the answer is obviously in both cases. Blizzard did surge in numbers they even reported it in a investor report, they how ever couldn’t keep those numbers because of delays.


And for the not having to stop sales.

FFXIV cheaped out and didn’t get a surplus of severs which put them selfs in a bad spot, blizzard in the past already knew that was a stupid thing to do so made sure they always had enough servers which is why they never had to do the same (outside of Mabye 2004) even though they had much better growth.

Because blizzard didn’t cheap out they have severs for over 12m players they don’t need to stop sales as they can Handle far far more.

[Swnem]

Your definition of success is literal embarrassment by WoW standards. And don't get me started on what happens when you exit the sphere of the MMO genre and enter the one of actually popular games.

If that is embarassment, what does that make every other mmo?

[Cthulhu 2020]

What on earth is this about? Why are you mentioning other posts? The only thing I'm dismissing here is the relevance of subscriber numbers to any criticism of the game. They didn't matter when we knew them and they matter less now that they're not reported. That's it. That's literally the only argument I'm making here. I'm not saying the game is beyond criticism (and if you, y'know, bothered to read half my posts you'd see that), just that a lot of the criticism I see isn't actually criticism as much as it is a very hollow gesture or cue for people to validate negative feelings.

You dismiss plenty of posts that aren't just about subscriber numbers. Everyone knows you that way. You dismiss any and all criticism of WoW with useless confrontation and "gotcha" anti-logic.

And that aside, saying that the subscriber numbers "don't matter" at all is also folly. WoW is an MMO. You go back and watch the youtube stories about Vanilla, BC, Wotlk experiences, a large part of people's "glory days" feeling was being in a server filled with life and people, all milling about, interacting, raiding, drama, etc. Every interaction, good or bad, was a story someone told. And every major exciting part of say Asmongold's stories from Vanilla, TBC, and wotlk all involve his interactions with other people. His proudest moments involved other people. As an MMO, subscriber numbers are directly related to the game's health. People LIKE to be around lots of other people. People LIKE to play with their friends. People like that sense of community that comes with larger player bases. When people see empty hubs on 95% of servers day after day after day, it wears on their motivation and willingness to play.

There might be some kind of solidarity among WoW's "last standing" players, and I will never demean their experience. If they're having fun then so be it. I just wonder how many people are still playing it because they're actually enjoying themselves, and how many are utterly bored out of their minds and continue to play out of sheer stubbornness to be the last standing.

Claiming Bellular providing numbers is "irrelevant" to the health or state of an MMO is not just folly, it's straight up ignorant, and probably just you being snarky and sarcastic for the sake of snark and sarcasm rather than any coherent argument you're pretending exists on your end. Population is not the end all, but when there are servers with double digits of people online, the MMO aspect is going to go out the window, and the company making said game is going to make up for losses by even more monetization, or they begin to put the game into "managed decline". Whether it happens in 1 year, 5 years, or 10 years, WoW will be in managed decline at some point. And with most major content creators jumping ship, whether to other MMOs or just other game genres, spells bad news for WoW.

Another party of "community" involves the content made by people. From memes on reddit, to guide videos, news videos, etc. The more players see those things being made, the more they are engaged with said game and its community. When even mod makers for WoW say "Yeah we're not getting enough donations to keep this mod going" and they shut it down, when people stop caring to make memes, when content creators know there's no excitement or viewership to be had as the community dwindles and they stop making videos, that's when a game dies. When it stops being talked about save by only its most ardent fans.

You knock on Bellular and claim he's only making videos about WoW to feed off of negativity (which is blatantly untrue as he makes informative WoW videos still, but things are looking down on that angle). Perhaps you should consider WHY so many negative videos are making so much money? You blame the content creators who make them, but negative videos on other games get buried in dislikes. You claim people only want to "watch videos that reaffirm their negativity bias" towards WoW, but WHY do so many people feel so negatively about WoW?

You've obviously never thought about the core reasons for all this, and mostly just make useless, dismissive posts filled to the brim with sarcasm. Perhaps you should look deeper, so you can see what's actually going on. OR continue to bury your head in the sand. As a rando on the internet, I have no bearing on what you do or how you think. I just know you'd benefit from deeper insight over dismissive uselessness.

- - - Updated - - -

The numbers matter when the point you're trying to make is that the game is in a worse spot than it is in reality. It matters even more when the only fucking reason you're looking up numbers in the first place is so obsessed ex-WoW players who let the fucking game live 24/7 rent free in their mind have rage material to link on forums like this to "prove" how fucking dead WoW is. Who the actual fuck cares?

And this is precisely why people think you make useless posts. You just put every piece of remotely negative or even neutral criticism into the "WoW hater" box so you can dismiss them, lol

- - - Updated - - -

It's an interesting thought experiment to imagine that Blizzard would would drop the subscription for World of Warcraft entirely, make the game entirely free except for the current expansion, and enlarge the store by 1000%. The loud cries of 'Blizzard is desperate' and "WoW is now truly dying" from the very same people that have applauded exactly those actions elsewhere would be amusing, to say the least. That very revenue model is being touted as a huge success elsewhere even as I write this.

I doubt ANY number of irrelevant old holiday content items that nobody cares about being added to a cash shop would reach even a fraction of the revenue of buying gold from Blizzard.

[Relapses]

And this is precisely why people think you make useless posts. You just put every piece of remotely negative or even neutral criticism into the "WoW hater" box so you can dismiss them, lol

I'm not dismissing criticism, I've said multiple times in this very thread that I don't blame anybody for leaving SL because of the ridiculously stupid design choices Blizzard has made with this expansion. I'm dismissing the purpose of subscriber numbers to support an argument. Since we have absolutely no fucking idea what Blizzard's actual retention data looks like, it sounds an awful lot like people constructing a half-assed argument then filling their opinion into the blanks.

[Linkedblade]

-online communication is no longer a novelty
-you only see another player as a mean to your ends
-communication with another player is considered meaningless if not rewarded

We live in the age of "profit" where everything is meaningless unless you can profit from it. Even people.

Edit: Just to clarify

Conquering and winning is always fun.
We earn the girlfriend, we win at our job, we conquer arena rating, we win gear etc

But what i mean is that nowadays we may have lost touch with other players and the simple joy of communicating with them and just having "stupid fun".

It mostly comes down to what genres that people actually want to play. Battle Royales seem to be the big thing for a mass majority of gamers. So, fast lobbies, constant action, and a clear goal drive diehard pvpers to that genre. Why waste time leveling or doing puzzles, or pvm/pve, when you can click a button and be in a game. On the other side we have people that want to play a game to experience the story and the world and that drives people to more classic rpgs.

On top of that people are either upset with blizzard or burned out by the almost two decades of WoW. The crowd that played WoW and EQ, and others, have gotten older. And the above paragraph explains the demographic for younger gamers.

It was only a matter of time. WoW is the Tom Brady of MMOs.

[Dastreus]

This guy makes a thread about MMOs struggling, when FFXIV is at an all time high that's been going for half a year, New World *did* see big numbers until people realized it was shit, and Elder Scrolls - from my understanding - is doing great as well. Literally, it's WoW and now New World that are shitting the bed. MMOs are arguably in a resurgence.

[NineSpine]

This guy makes a thread about MMOs struggling, when FFXIV is at an all time high that's been going for half a year, New World *did* see big numbers until people realized it was shit, and Elder Scrolls - from my understanding - is doing great as well. Literally, it's WoW and now New World that are shitting the bed. MMOs are arguably in a resurgence.

These people don’t play anything except wow.

[Chadow]

This guy makes a thread about MMOs struggling, when FFXIV is at an all time high that's been going for half a year, New World *did* see big numbers until people realized it was shit, and Elder Scrolls - from my understanding - is doing great as well. Literally, it's WoW and now New World that are shitting the bed. MMOs are arguably in a resurgence.

MMO's are always in resurgence though...
Even BLESS Online was purchased by 500k people at release...we talking Bless Online over here...biggest crap MMO.

Is always an intriguing genre with tons of people waiting for "the next big thing"

[lockybalboa]

Yeah, blame the players and climate change but totally not Ion's and the devs' fault that the very soul of the game, the community aspect is being ripped off bit by bit.

[sam86]

This is the most "The only WoW that is WoW is the parts of it I like and the rest doesn't belong" post I've seen in a long time. You even dug up the "kung fu panda" meme from the grave to beat it again. WoW has never been a high fantasy type story, it's always been a kitchen sink melting pot of genres. Let's not forget that the entire series was kickstarted by alien invaders.

those 'aliens' came by dark portal not spaceships and were under control of demons, this is turning demons to aliens since they don't belong to earth, which is technically true but far from scifi alien name hints
wow 'scifi' is alien concept that only emerged from tbc and was cruelly (but deserved) hated by space goats using spaceships, and this 'meme' is real regardless u like it or not

[Selah]

your right modern likely isn’t a 10 year period as they use decade else where, this means they likely aren’t going back to mop putting them below it’s 7/8m subs which still puts it at wods 5M.

No, you have no idea if they're even going back to WoD or Legion. They could just be comparing to BfA and making that statement. None of the data, information, or definitions that Blizzard is using is available. I'm not accepting this number or explanation, and you shouldn't either.

you can’t mathematically split expansions the same way you can with just two numbers there is no 0.5 of a expan to take into account so splitting hairs on rather you can technically do it with pure numbers is pointless.

Your entire 5M subs argument is based on splitting expansions. Their entire "statement" about WoW is based on splitting the numbers of expansions. You don't get to just stop doing this when it's convenient for your argument.

even if his research was 100% on the money it would still be useless to this discussion because this is over all of wow not just shadowlands.

No, not at all. That is a very foolish way to view that info and you shouldn't be discarding that information just because it's only SL relevant. The health of the modern WoW is far more important than that of any of the Classic servers. The Classic servers are going to attract the people that they're going to attract and that's it. It's the modern game and it's subs and other forms of revenue that are going to determine the fate of WoW, not Classic. Not to mention, it's the modern game that has to compete with the competition. That's not to dismiss the contributions of Classic, because it does help, clearly.

your right we don’t know how they are defining modern and we don’t know if they are leaving out any data but what we do know is that from the data we have to not be lying in The report that they need atleast 3 data points which means they have to be including atleast Wod and we know how many subs Wod had at a similar point in its expansion life which was around 5M.

This is just not true, they could only be looking at one other data point and since they aren't defining the word modern, they could justify their claim and be "not lying."

All of the other missing info would obviously make a clearer picture like rather they are leaving out mop because current subs are below it’s 7/8M or if rather legion had more then mop ect, but with the info we do have we know that they have to be above at least Wod but below legion.

Again, you have no idea the data points they're using for this statement. Hell, you don't even know if Legion performed better than WoD. You're making assumptions on top of assumptions, giving benefit of the doubt to people who do not deserve it, and then asking me to leap with you. I'm not going to do it. You are welcome to believe these things if you want, but it is naïve and you will be doing it alone.

I mean the answer is obviously in both cases. Blizzard did surge in numbers they even reported it in a investor report, they how ever couldn’t keep those numbers because of delays.

I'm curious to see these numbers/info, do you have it by chance? I can't find it.

And for the not having to stop sales.

FFXIV cheaped out and didn’t get a surplus of severs which put them selfs in a bad spot, blizzard in the past already knew that was a stupid thing to do so made sure they always had enough servers which is why they never had to do the same (outside of Mabye 2004) even though they had much better growth.

Because blizzard didn’t cheap out they have severs for over 12m players they don’t need to stop sales as they can Handle far far more.

I brought that up not to talk about SE and their production choices (or circumstances) but to make a point. There is an audience out there that is hungry for a good MMO. It shouldn't have been FFXIV to see the boom over the last two years, it should've been WoW. If Blizzard had actually been doing their job over the last few years and improving their game each expansion instead of half-baked messes, when this explosion hit the games industry WoW should've seen a massive surge and it should've set new records. And it should've been WoW. It didn't though, it saw contraction after contraction and massive content droughts.

Just during the window of covid alone WoW has seen patches 8.3, Shadowlands, and patch 9.1, that's it. FFXIV on the other hand saw 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, and Endwalker. We're seeing literally two to three times more content being put forward over there, and that's with the production delays. Then, to top it off, the quality of the WoW patches are terrible, the expansion was a mess, and the game had needless systems piled on top of each other that act as never ending treadmills for the players in order to just to try to keep the current player base. Then you're going to sit there and tell me that things are fine because WoW is making a profit? No, not acceptable. I'm not going to play this game where we pretend like things are fine. I've been down this road before with Rift. We must be honest with ourselves about the state of WoW no matter how uncomfortable it makes us or no matter how much we don't want to hear it. The game is in a dire state, and with how things are going internally at Blizzard, we can assume it's only going to get worse before it gets better. The least we can do is be honest in our assessment of the things happening.

[The Stormbringer]

We earn the girlfriend

You aren't "earned" people. Saying that you are is the sort of thing that Incels go on about. Having an SO is a mutual relationship, not something you're given because you did something to "earn" it. It's kind of fucked up to think otherwise.

[Chadow]

You aren't "earned" people. Saying that you are is the sort of thing that Incels go on about. Having an SO is a mutual relationship, not something you're given because you did something to "earn" it. It's kind of fucked up to think otherwise.

I said love is earned, for lack of better word (>_<)
Is not "conquered" or "won" thats for sure.

Or maybe at the start it just "happens" or something...but...to be maintained for a long time...you probably have to earn that.
Not sure.

[Calfredd]

I said love is earned, for lack of better word (>_<)
Is not "conquered" or "won" thats for sure.

Or maybe at the start it just "happens" or something...but...to be maintained for a long time...you probably have to earn that.
Not sure.

Your definition of love isn't exactly amazing to begin with.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

If I put a finger on it it's more that MMOs haven't really innovated much in 20 years. Sure graphics and networking of them got better. Are some more story based? Are some more action based? Are some more about the journey or more about the end game? Yeah, for sure. But for the most part it is here is an ability list on a bar, tab or click on the target, push those keys in a specific order in a very repetitive order while getting out of the fire and yeah sometimes the fire comes at you in different ways. I am not saying with this that it needs to change either. The game style and play is for a specific bunch of people. Its just 20-25 years ago it was one of the big new things that people were in awe of so just about everyone wanted to check it out or give it a try. Now it is just the MMO thing and only really the people that really love it mess with it. Top it off with one game totally cornered and crushed the genre to dust for a long time. So if you fell out of love with that one game you pretty much moved on. Things are changing a bit now though. That king has weakened. You have a couple other games out there that offer just as much, if not the same, or even more than that king once offered. That usually means an innovation wave could be just around the corner too as people see an opening. But you never know because of money bullshit just releasing the same shit over and over might be the thing to do too.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

No, you have no idea if they're even going back to WoD or Legion. They could just be comparing to BfA and making that statement. None of the data, information, or definitions that Blizzard is using is available. I'm not accepting this number or explanation, and you shouldn't either.

they can’t be comparing just to BFA that would be them lying as they use modern else where in the report while also distinctly making it clear that modern and in a decade are different.

They have to be comparing multiple expans and they have to be using a number where they can get a average which means they are going back to atleast Wod, any thing else would be them lying.

Your entire 5M subs argument is based on splitting expansions. Their entire "statement" about WoW is based on splitting the numbers of expansions. You don't get to just stop doing this when it's convenient for your argument.

comparing numbers based on timeline isn’t splitting expansions or numbers. At no point during say legions life time would it be counted as a different expansions it would just be a continue X axis of time and a Y axis of subs with all recent expans cross referenced, pretty much the old sub chart we used to get but over laid with multiple expansions.

No, not at all. That is a very foolish way to view that info and you shouldn't be discarding that information just because it's only SL relevant. The health of the modern WoW is far more important than that of any of the Classic servers. The Classic servers are going to attract the people that they're going to attract and that's it. It's the modern game and it's subs and other forms of revenue that are going to determine the fate of WoW, not Classic. Not to mention, it's the modern game that has to compete with the competition. That's not to dismiss the contributions of Classic, because it does help, clearly.

All versions of wow are competing with competition as you can play them all for the same price and some people would rather play old versions of wow then other MMO’s out there.

Again, you have no idea the data points they're using for this statement. Hell, you don't even know if Legion performed better than WoD.

go check the same time period of investor reports for legion they say legion out preformed Wod.

I'm curious to see these numbers/info, do you have it by chance? I can't find it.

it’s mentioned in the Q1 2021 Q&A, Mabye other places to but I’m not gonna check them all at the moment.

Then you're going to sit there and tell me that things are fine because WoW is making a profit? No, not acceptable.

I haven’t made any claims of quality or rather the game is fine or not.

[Johnjohn]

I have always loved the idea of a mmorpg. Unfortunately the execution ends up being something entirely different. Everquest blew me away in 1999. For me it was many reasons, a lot of it not even having to do with the game itself (no data mining as internet was new for example so was a mystery).

EQ to me is the best time I have ever had in gaming and it was because the world felt like such a mystery, and was absolutely massive at the time. For me it was all the journey, not the final destination.

When I look at WoW today, I mean I would not even call it a mmorpg. Its a competitive esport with seasons and gear treadmills. But hey, maybe thats what people want. So many other companies copied it for so long to try and get some of its success that WoW basically defines what a mmorpg is now. Its not something I really relate to anymore.

I want dungeons and dragons in a video game where I am a small part of the world. I don't want hyper competitiveness, min maxing and obsession about skill. I mean people can do that if they want. but I want developers to actively discourage it.

For me at least, I cannot decide whether developers ruin mmorpgs or players ruin mmorpgs. But its definately a genre that I find a lot less interesting than I used to. The only reason I keep playing them is that I have grown to hate the finality of single player games. I love that mmorpgs are never ending. It is the last vestige I have of any form of gaming that keeps me interested.

[Relapses]

I have always loved the idea of a mmorpg. Unfortunately the execution ends up being something entirely different. Everquest blew me away in 1999. For me it was many reasons, a lot of it not even having to do with the game itself (no data mining as internet was new for example so was a mystery).

EQ to me is the best time I have ever had in gaming and it was because the world felt like such a mystery, and was absolutely massive at the time. For me it was all the journey, not the final destination.

When I look at WoW today, I mean I would not even call it a mmorpg. Its a competitive esport with seasons and gear treadmills. But hey, maybe thats what people want. So many other companies copied it for so long to try and get some of its success that WoW basically defines what a mmorpg is now. Its not something I really relate to anymore.

I want dungeons and dragons in a video game where I am a small part of the world. I don't want hyper competitiveness, min maxing and obsession about skill. I mean people can do that if they want. but I want developers to actively discourage it.

For me at least, I cannot decide whether developers ruin mmorpgs or players ruin mmorpgs. But its definately a genre that I find a lot less interesting than I used to. The only reason I keep playing them is that I have grown to hate the finality of single player games. I love that mmorpgs are never ending. It is the last vestige I have of any form of gaming that keeps me interested.

You want WildStar. That doesn't exist anymore because what you want is in no way a feasible business model in 2021 but you can check out something called Nexus Forever that's aiming to provide a similar experience.