The day the casuals leave, what happens then?

[Notter]

This is not a doomsday WOW IS DYING thread.

it is inevitable WoW will drop it's subscribers as time goes on, and casual players will not stick around when the game is in decline.
that has happened in every other MMO, and i think the most prominent is Star Wars Galaxies.

that being said, i don't truly know if those who stick around are "hardcore" players, just people who hang around with friends in a game world.
but anyways, when that time comes, and WoW will lose it's overload of people with no desire for hardcore raiding, will it be a good thing or a bad thing?

That's pretty much distilling the game to only "raiding" as it's goal.
but if the only people who would stay are raiders, then they could concentrate on that.

personally, i think losing subs, is not necessarily a bad thing, unless those who leave are end-game oriented.

but of course, there is a possibility that blizzard will not support just raiders and will stop the expansions at that point.

[alucardtnuoc]

Less players = less money
Less money = less payed workers
Less payed workers = less content.
Less content = Faster consumption

etc etc etc, remember, blizzard is a business and aims to please as many people as possible, with that being said. If they see a massive drop (lets go with sub 3m accounts) they may start to think what are they doing or what could they do to entice more players.

[iamthedevil]

The game would stop being made. That's what.

[Durandro]

The game would stop being made. That's what.

Exactly this. Best case if the casual players left is WoW stagnates and becomes a very small population game that rarely gets any updates. Casuals are what keep the game going, so give them some love!

[smiiiff]

If all the 'casuals' leave then ... you're going to be left with 5-10 realms.

You sir, are a optimist Most hardcore raiders have casual friends. If more than 3 realms can be filled with those raiders that stay after such an exodus, i would be very suprised. But since their will be no money to help free transfer everyone you will have max 10% of your current population on any given server.

They'll have no more use for keeping LFR in the game or seperate raiddifficulties. -All- the content will be focused on end-game raiding.
And they'll keep on doing well with 300k-500k subscribers still playing the game. The raiding community won't notice a difference except getting more and bigger raidcontent patches, even if a bit slower. Creating new content for the game will then become extremely easy and simple.

Raiders will leave becasue of empty servers, all economies of servers will die out overnight, every few raiders that leave the game kill another guild, guilds will canabalize each other to death and raids will get a lot smaller due to less casuals paying for content. Thinking raiders pay enough with their 5-10% share is silly to say the least.

basicly, Wow will die out within half a year of all the casuals leaving.

[Deleted]

If that happened Blizzard would probably work their ass off to get more casual players back into the game, and if that won't work there is a huge chance that they won't release as much new content (expansions, patches, etc) as they do now.

Although, in reality, I think it's the other way around, that it's the hardcores that are quiting and not the casuals.

[Nerraw]

Considering the vast majority of players are "casual", the game would probably go from profitable to close to not profitable, if not directly turn into a cash drain for Blizzard depending on the actual demographics of the playerbase.

[Deleted]

The day the casuals stop is the day the game pulls the plug and my guess is the hardcore players will alrdy have left

[Anonymitylol]

I love putting a playerbase of 7m+ into 2 categories.

[speakpkhq]

the hardcore players leave way faster than the casuals, in my experience. the question should be not what will happen if/when the casuals leave, but what will happen when the hardcores leave. o.O

[Deleted]

More sub loss? I don't think the casuals would leave before the hard core players though, the casuals seem a lot easier to please.

[Deleted]

We can enjoy the game again.

[lawow74]

It's the day they get tired of there being no more new content, which would be however long past the final content patch for WoW. All that would be left would be the hardcores, still playing what is a dead game.

[a little Kappa]

Except they arent catering to casuals, they are catering to bad players who don't want to make any effort whatsoever. A casual is someone who cant commit to a raiding schedule and wants to play when he wants.


The reason pug content aka LFR/LFD is so dumbed down is bad players wanting it to be so. Casual gaming would be flex raiding, bad gaming is LFR.

There is a difference, guys....

[Deleted]

I thought casuals were all that's left.

[Granyala]

Does HC raiding count as being a hardcore? Cause I log on for a few hours a week max, and I can still get HC gear. I play casually as hell, but im not bad or anything.

Same here. There are weeks where I only play 3x3 hours of raid and not a minute more.

I thought casuals were all that's left.

Many, yes.
That's why Bobby said in the Q1 reports "we failed to engage the casuals."

[teddytous]

what makes you think the casuals leave first?

[Terridon]

Most likely the game will stop being developed on, but run to it can't even pay itself to let the game run on the servers.

Guess even most of the hardcore have friends among casuals, making it less fun for them. Not that many that _only_ enjoy the raiding aspect of the game.

[Anonymitylol]

what makes you think the casuals leave first?

They're less dedicated to one game and usually play multiple casually.

[Kezotar]

Since casual players come and go I actually doub that they make such a large playerbase. In fact I don't think they make more than a million.