Why is Exclusive content a bad thing to some people?

[fangless]

The ROI on creating a raid that only 0.1% of your customers will be using is minuscule.

We pay for raids now? I get access to all of the stuff in the game every month for the same amount of money.

[Jaylock]

Because among x million players there are x million different players. You can't put everybody into same mold of playstyle therefore it makes more sense to make different playstyles available. Or to turn this argument around, you could just as well delete PvP from the game since it's not aimed at my interests.

Among x million different players there are x million opinions of what the game should include, which means vast majority of the players actually disagree with you (and me) simply going by statistics.

Your babble here indicates that those players had nothing else to do, and that raiding was the only end game content to play with. You indicate that it was not economically smart for them to "exclude" millions of players, yet you cant explain why players continued to shell money at blizzard into the hundreds of millions as subscriptions continued to rise.

[Aquamonkey]

My theory is that WoW developers didn't actually know better and started to make a game they wanted without much research. Kaplan, Pardo and Chilton all came from hardcore EQ raid guild background and they naturally put whole lot of effort into hardcore raiding because that's what they liked. Until the realities of business slapped them into face when looking at how bad ROI the raids actually have in development time.

Please explain this ROI for raids. Nobody pays to access new raids. Blizzard doesn't make any extra money from raids if more people see them. The game was doing just fine before LFR lowered the bar for everyone to be able to see the content.

[Holtzmann]

The way Cory Stockton describes pet battles, there is a lot more development time being put into pet battles than you fabricated here.

Got a quote you can share?

[JohnBrown1917]

But that model worked. It saw them achieve the highest amount of subscriptions in the game's history.

This model also works, WoW is still the most profitable MMO on the market.

But that doesn't really counter my point, I said that keeping the model the same and lowering the amount of bosses could also work(in theory).

[Holtzmann]

This model also works, WoW is still the most profitable MMO on the market.

But that doesn't really counter my point, I said that keeping the model the same and lowering the amount of bosses could also work(in theory).

I feel it would create an unholy amount of complaining and/or bored people after a very short while. Just look at how people react when they find out a tier will have only 8 bosses.

[JohnBrown1917]

Why would they have the choice of making less raiding content when they made more raid content in vanilla WoW than any expansion? Lets see, in Vanilla they had

1) Upper Black Rock Spire
2) Scholomance
3) Zul Gurub
4) Molten Core
5) Blackwing Lair
6) Onyxia's Lair
7) AQ 20
8) AQ 40
9) Naxxaramus

9 Raids, including 4 world boss dragons, and another world boss called Kazzak.

If having a large part of the budget be spent on only 5-10% of the playerbase was a bad thing, then a) how could they produce so much raid content that even proliferated into TBC, and b) why would subscriptions continue to rise into the highest it has ever been in the game's history despite spending the majority of the budget on only 5-10% of the playerbase?

They realized it was a bad idea, why would they keep catering towards the 5-10%?

[Tziva]

I have a hard time coming up with a justifiable reason to deny large portions of a game from the people that have purchased it. That's reason enough for me.

I don't have an issue with giving minor perks to the people who display higher skill, commitment and/or time investment, but I am talking about small things like single bosses or unique titles or higher quality gear. Other players will eventually be able to get even those things, but not until after the best have had their special period of exclusivity.

[Jaylock]

Jay: Did you perhaps miss all of Cataclysm where raid design was increasingly-obviously reined in budget-wise? When only 1% of your audience does something, logic dictates that you put the lion's share of your assets into things that get a better return on your investment (in this case, things that more of your audience will see).

There is no return on investment. Stop talking like its the stock market or something. Its a matter of do I get sub revenue or not. When someone pays their subscription, it does not matter where that money goes into the game in terms of development.

I argue it was blizzards shift in philosophy that screwed them on the subscription front. They decided to cater to a completely different demographic than what it was originally aimed at, and because of that, it shifted the player expectations and philosophy of how the game should continue on course.

Now, lets just see if this flex raiding will patch some of the bleeding, or if it will just continue to add to the flames already present.

[Aquamonkey]

They realized it was a bad idea, why would they keep catering towards the 5-10%?

How was it a bad idea? It served them well for years.

[Thage]

I feel it would create an unholy amount of complaining and/or bored people after a very short while. Just look at how people react when they find out a tier will have only 8 bosses.

Look at Firelands, Abyssal Maw's cancellation, Well of Eternity's redesign into a 5-man, and Dragon Soul. That's what a restrained raid design budget can do to raiding while Blizz shifts their development funds toward their majority audience and the next expansion's development.

[MoanaLisa]

You have some good points. One thing I would like to point out though, is that when they made the decision to convert to a more inclusive approach to raiding, their revenue didn't increase much.. if at all. That decision was made at the beginning of Wotlk when they decided to make all raids going forward have a 10 man and a 25 man version of the same raid, and even more so at the end when they decided to nerf content more than what gear upgrades would naturally nerf it. Their subscriptions peaked during the middle of this expansion in the middle of, or even before they decided to convert to a more inclusive approach.

So why would they think it is not sustainable to continue to create exclusive raid content when that model served them, and saw them achieving the highest subscriptions in the game's history?

Well, thanks for that Jay. Pre-LFR raiding as a percentage of the player base doesn't explain the subscriber losses in any way at all. There simply have never been enough normal/heroic raiders in the game to explain 4,000,000 people leaving. So whatever reasons you want to think about for declines raiding is only a piece of the answer and not a very large piece at that. The argument that raiding is the primary driver of subscription numbers is clearly false and I wish people would come to their senses and realize that the game simply does NOT revolve around their favorite thing. It's a package and stands or falls on its merits as a package.

Sorry to get into the business of the game being old but it probably does apply here. 2008-2009 isn't the same as 2013. The sort of growth seen in the early years was never ever going to continue and considerably flattened out during Wrath. Normally what happens after a growth curve flattens out? It goes down. Cataclysm as an expansion had an effect that's still lingering as people still can't seem to get past it in one way or another. I haven't worked it out but Cataclysm feels to me like some sort of dividing line between WoW then and WoW now. Why that is is probably a good thing to think about for companies that experience rapid growth and then need to deal with the future afterwards.

What goes up will come down. The notion that the game would forever continue to grow and never ever shrink isn't even close to common sense.

EDIT: Just be sure I brush up against the topic there's nothing at all wrong with content layers that are more or less exclusive. There's nothing particularly wrong with even charging for that as some games do. WoW as well for that matter since you have to buy the expansion to play in it when new. That's a perfect example of content exclusivity that people rarely talk about.

What's wrong and what is a serious issue with a lot of people is the attitude that is frequently seen that players think they somehow own that content and have a right to say who gets to play in it or not. They don't. Blizzard does. It's their call, right or wrong.

[Kaleredar]

I never really understood why some players consider exclusive content a negative thing for this game. Lets be frank about what exclusive means. This means content that required a certain dedication to the game, and time commitment. Being able to play well and organize with other players to accomplish legendary feats.

Skip all the talk about TBC and Vanilla being the "least accessible content blizzard created," lets talk about the here and now.

1) Having exclusive mounts and cosmetic items that disappear after the end of an expansion. Why is this bad? Should rewards not be tied to the context of the content they relate to? In other words, if cosmetic and vanity items are rewarded to players who do extremely difficult things like heroic raid bosses, or gladiator PvP, why shouldn't they be removed from the game when new expansions trivialize the content?

Because then the people who want to keep looking super fly and fresh have to bust their butts and get the new mounts/cosmetic rewards blizzard releases with each new patch, instead of relying on old stuff they did to convince other people they're "cool."

What you do speaks more than what you've done.

2) Raiding with only 1 mode of difficulty, and 1 form of raid. Yes im looking at you TBC. Why is it a bad thing to have this content aimed towards players who are on a higher echelon of playing or commitment? Even though only "1%" (insert any other low percentage from thin air here) of the player base raided, the game substantially grew in subscriptions. What was keeping people subscribing, when they "never got to see end game"?

Because people were trapped in a nebulous space of running heroic dungeon pugs and grinding up reps for the sake of doing them. Blizzard has tried those things recently, and subscriber numbers have shown that people don't like those things any more.

Last point:

The game is here for you (us) the players to have fun. Now if all you consider fun is "raiding" in whatever difficulty you "raid" in, then perhaps the game would lose your subscription. This is not however the case with World of Warcraft at all. In fact, even though more characters (not players) have seen "end game" content, it is still a minuscule number of people "raiding" compared to the population of WoW. I guess though since blizzard has trained players to think that all end game consists of is raiding, the problem lies in their own court. The real question you have to ask yourself.. what did end game consist of for all those players in Vanilla, TBC, and early WoTLK if only "1%" of them raided?

I answered this question. It's just impossible to return to that now.

[fangless]

Threads like this are pointless. You can't change the mentality of the community.


It's like if they didn't make a raid in 5.4, we would get all this other fantastic content. Like... more dailies? Or ... more pet battles? Yeah, that would keep us entertained for months!

[Holtzmann]

Look at Firelands, Abyssal Maw's cancellation, Well of Eternity's redesign into a 5-man, and Dragon Soul. That's what a restrained raid design budget can do to raiding while Blizz shifts their development funds toward their majority audience and the next expansion's development.

... whelp, I liked Firelands and Dragon Soul, and I really liked Well of Eternity as a 5-man... can't say I cared about Abyssal Maw because I hated the underwater zones as a whole.

So... yeah. I didn't do any raiding in Mists of Pandaria, but I loved having stuff to do at level 90. I only stopped playing because I ran out of time IRL.

[JohnBrown1917]

How was it a bad idea? It served them well for years.

They want to spend the budget on things most players get to see.


In ask you, why should they spend most of the budget raids, just to cater towards the 10%? When they could just be spending the budget on tthe non-raiding aspects of the game?

It really makes no logical sense to spend a lot of time/budget on something only a minority of your customers only do. Its better to spend that budget to keep the other 90% happy.

---------- Post added 2013-06-08 at 12:34 AM ----------

I feel it would create an unholy amount of complaining and/or bored people after a very short while. Just look at how people react when they find out a tier will have only 8 bosses.

Which is why they went with LFR. That way they can justify spending so much of the budget on raid encounters.

[Stir]

You seem really mad that the game was not designed initially for the working man who has a 9-5 job. I was in school full time, with a part time job during TBC. I literally only had pretty much weekends to play, yet I aspired to be the best in the game, and to achieve the best rewards the game had to offer. I killed KJ before Wotlk was released. You can still accomplish great things in the game with little time commitment. You still get your money's worth because nothing in the game was ever gaurenteed to the player. There was some expectation that the player would have to complete attunements or accomplish certain feats to see all the game has to offer.

Just because you buy Call of Duty doesnt mean you are entitled to be on the last level the moment you turn on the game for the first time.

No... But you're entitled to play the game through. And you wíll play it through, unless you grow tired of it before that point.

An MMO is different. (PvE) Content at end-game demands not only that you play the game through (by levelling), but also that you invest time to get the gear. This is NOT a skill-based game; it is a GEAR-based game. And the reason it is gear-based is simple: It's an MMO; people need to keep playing it, and the only reason people keep playing is if people continue to feel (and require to attain) progression. Time invested, then, is a secondary 'cost' that you are expected to 'pay.' You're not playing the game; you're paying for the chance to get to end-game.

Truth of the matter is: It's a game. It exists for entertainment purposes. And that means that time invested should be rewarded by fun. The fun of playing the game should be the reward of spending the time playing it. However, what YOU suggest is that the sense of achievement of getting epics after grinding for a hellishly long time is the pinnacle of the game. To achieve, rather than to enjoy. The two are NOT the same, however.

People who do not have the time to invest in this game to get to the highest tier of play should still see all content. Content should be readily available on the lower tiers in order to appease those customers who play casually, purely for fun. Overachievers are already awarded with hard-modes and challenge modes, as well as title- and petgrinds; they have all the opportunity to gain satisfaction from achievement.
Lower tier end-game should, then, be aimed at lower-tier itemization. So that people who have less time to invest can run 'easier' content that is tuned for lower item levels. Now; the challenge modes actually do have something to offer, especially for the casual gamers. Challenge modes themselves might be too demanding for the non-achiever, and that's fine, but the way difficulty and item-level are handled within the systematic confines of the challenge mode dungeon might set a great precedent for 'casual' raids: Raids where item-level contribution is simply capped. That means that casuals can have challenging content, difficult content, even, while achievers can't simply walz in there and trivialize any difficulty through higher item level values.

Basically: Your argument is that people should be content with the stuff they get to do because of their available time, rather than their choices within the game. You wish to artificially limit people's ability to play the game just so that you, personally, can enjoy showing off your achievement. Your argument is based on an egotistical desire for recognition rather than anything resembling game theory.

The best thing you can do is ask yourself: Why do I begrudge other people having fun and exploring this game I enjoy?

[Thage]

There is no return on investment. Stop talking like its the stock market or something. Its a matter of do I get sub revenue or not. When someone pays their subscription, it does not matter where that money goes into the game in terms of development.

Quick thought experiment. You're a bean counter in charge of the guys running the world's most successful online game. You're looking at where your company's money is going compared to what people are doing. You see a massively disproportionate amount of money going into raiding when it sees barely five percent of the audience using it. Do you a) continue to greenlight the devs shoveling your money into a furnace, or b) tell them to redistribute the money elsewhere where it will get more mileage? That's what the raid design team was contending with in Cataclysm.

I argue it was blizzards shift in philosophy that screwed them on the subscription front. They decided to cater to a completely different demographic than what it was originally aimed at, and because of that, it shifted the player expectations and philosophy of how the game should continue on course.

Their philosophy has always been to produce the most accessible MMO on the market, and they did that in Vanilla and BC--just compare their competition at the time. When Wrath was in development, however, the gaming industry as a whole took a massive turn toward the casual gaming market with Nintendo leading the charge and making money hand over fist for it. Now, we're looking at this from a design and development viewpoint, which means you're that beancounter looking at where your money's going now, versus that massive casual audience you've been putting in the corner, and how Nintendo is basically just fuckin' printing money by focusing on them.

Now, lets just see if this flex raiding will patch some of the bleeding, or if it will just continue to add to the flames already present.

I like the idea, myself, and think it'll be a good middle ground between Normal and LFR for social and friends/family guilds, and for guilds that want to gear up new 90s (like if Dude McRaidster rerolled a healer and brought his buddy Jeffery Raidhopeful, a pretty solid tank from another server, in for a test run).

[vesseblah]

Your babble here indicates that those players had nothing else to do, and that raiding was the only end game content to play with. You indicate that it was not economically smart for them to "exclude" millions of players, yet you cant explain why players continued to shell money at blizzard into the hundreds of millions as subscriptions continued to rise.

Read the rest of my post and you find your answers there. Selective quoting is what trolls do. Or are you one?

Please explain this ROI for raids. Nobody pays to access new raids. Blizzard doesn't make any extra money from raids if more people see them. The game was doing just fine before LFR lowered the bar for everyone to be able to see the content.

The math how raid ROI works and how Blizzard prioritizes stuff works somewhat like this:

All these numbers are fictional and here just to illustrate a point

Blizzard adds a feature 1 million players use 20 times each, let's say heroic instance which costs 100 designers' salary for one month, they also add a feature 200k players use 30 times each, let's say raid tier which costs 100 designers' salary for two months.

The raid will have cost Blizzard approximately 7 times more per use to do than the heroic instance. Which means raiders are 7 times more expensive to keep happy than non-raiders. Which in turn means Blizzard can afford to lose 7 raiders for each non-raider.

[Aquamonkey]

They want to spend the budget on things most players get to see.


In ask you, why should they spend most of the budget raids, just to cater towards the 10%? When they could just be spending the budget on tthe non-raiding aspects of the game?

It really makes no logical sense to spend a lot of time/budget on something only a minority of your customers only do. Its better to spend that budget to keep the other 90% happy.

Because at the time, there was plenty of stuff for the rest to do. There was still the whole progression through leveling, dungeons, 20mans, and the older 40mans. Those things still existed for people to do and progress through. Adding new stuff for people who finished all of that didn't take anything away from people who hadn't finished what was available to them. I never got to see Naxx40 (even though I personally was geared/attuned for it), but my guild was fine progressing on the content we were working on. There was something to do at every level of progression.

This changed in WotLK, when they added the accelerated catch-up systems. Adding a new tier diminished progression on older stuff as it became obsolete. The only progression that happened was at the newest tier. Anyone not doing the newest tier was just grinding badges to catch up.

And that's the key difference in philosophies. Before, new tiers were for people who finished everything so they'd have something new to do. Now, new tiers are for everyone regardless if they finished what was out before. If they hadn't finished, they'd get boosted to the new stuff.