Is wow struggling to remain relevant?

[Chickat]

I know it still has a massive amount of subs, but compare the games hype during wrath and cata beta to now. Its like a sneeze in the gaming world. Do you think Wow is struggling to remain relevant? Do you think it is still very relevant?

I get what the OP is asking and I think it's a decent enough question.

I don't think he's commentating on whether wow is dying (which it isn't) but whether it's still 'relevant' enough to attract outside attention. My opinion would be that it's still relevant but no where near as it was years ago, but that is not due to wow dying, but rather everyone outside of wow is aware of what a behemoth of what wow is. Maybe we'll see some media attention once the expac is released

This is exactly what the point of this thread was about. I'm just too tired to explain it like this i guess.

[eschatological]

I was playing Guild Wars 2 last night for the first time in about 6 months. I spent that previous 6 months in WoW. I think WoW has gaming psychology down pat, even if their gameplay lags behind other MMOs. They know what makes (the majority of) gamers come back, day in, and day out, to their games.

Guild Wars 2 is a great game, but every time I play it, I'm thinking, "I wonder who's online in WoW right now. I really should flex this raid on that toon...." and so on and o forth.

[Grubjuice]

every thing in time diminishes and dies.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

It's less WoW and more the genre on a whole is struggling to remain relevant in an industry dominated by "yearly release cycles" and "HD remakes."

[Deleted]

every thing in time diminishes and dies.

Except time itself.

[XDurionX]

Of course it´s struggling, the gaming market is more saturated than ever before. But it´s far from endangered, and it will have several years until it dies.

[melodramocracy]

An MMO is 'dead' when the servers shut down. Only a handful have had this happen, in the grand scheme of things.

So no, this game is fine.

[Gimlix]

WoW used to be a whole gendre, it's silly to say, but WoW used to own what? like 80% of the MMORPG players?
It's spreading out alot now and now they stopped advertising alot, ye it fades away.

The age isn't helping either, but WoW is fine. It will be here for next 20 years.

[Aventhos]

All I have to say is relevant to what? I mean lets face it what out there (MMO wise) has really eroded the game. Yes its old yes its a bit dated but still to this day there is nothing, for me at least, worth replacing wow when it comes to MMO's- There were a number of games I this year i wished were awesome but just weren't. Maybe next year.

[Luko]

Remain relevant to what? In its genre, it has little to no real competition. What exactly is it struggling to stay relevant to?

[eschatological]

Of course WoW will still be here in 20 years. There's a text-based RPG online game I've been playing since the early 90s which is still going ON A SUBSCRIPTION MODEL (which is, btw, only 5$ cheaper than WoW) with a few hundred people paying subs at any given time. The game recently celebrated 20 years online (a few years ago, it started on Prodigy!), and I've been playing it for 18 years, since I was 14. I've played this game more than half my life. Granted, text-based games will have lower operating costs, but WoW will also never drop to a couple hundred subs.

[wariofan1]

MMOs are generally not as hot as they used to be, Mobas are the current craze, and at some point they'll begin stepping backwards for another genre to take over too.

[-Superman-]

7M players after 9 years and 4 expansions. Still the largest Sub-based MMO in the world. Thinking you might need a dictionary for the words "struggling" and "relevant".

[Louis CK]

Except time itself.

Time is an illusion, my friend. Simply made up to help us account for and track change. When humanity dies, the idea of time dies with it.

OT: I don't think it's struggling to stay relevant. I think many, many other games are still trying to become relevant in comparison.

One day they may, that day is not today.

[Zaqwert]

Remain relevant?

Wow has not been 'relevant' in the gaming world for at least 3-4 years now.

Sure it has a ton of subs and makes tons of money, that's not what I mean by relevant though. It's not a game that like defines or moves the gaming industry or anything, there's no buzz about it, there's no hype, it's just "there" doing what it does.

WoW will never be special again, it had it's run and it was a good one.

The next special thing will be awesome, whatever it may be.

[Count Zero]

No king rules forever

[Babylonius]

There is less TV advertisements as a whole for computer games. Consoles are taking over a larger market share than before, I think. WoW is not struggling from any perspective other than some player's view.

[Louis CK]

Remain relevant?

Wow has not bee 'relevant' in the gaming scene for at least 3-4 years now.

It has a ton of subs and makes tons of money, but it's not a game that like defines or moves the gaming industry or anything, it's just "there" doing what it does.

WoW will never be special again, it had it's run and it was a good one.

The next special thing will be awesome, whatever it may be.

I'd go so far as to say that the next special thing will be another MMO from Blizzard. Apart from that, it'll just be a long line of gimmicky MMO's attempting to be so close to WoW they're not worth playing, or so far from WoW they're also not worth playing.

Time will tell. I'd absolutely love for a company to come out with a new MMO with the same polish, power and longevity that WoW has behind it, but in the past 8 years I've been playing WoW and trying just about MMO that has come out along side it, it's not likely to happen.

Sure, people can claim MMO's won't be 100% at launch and that WoW wasn't all that polished when it started, but that's honestly a luxury MMO's no longer have. These companies need to put more effort into making an engaging, workable product, otherwise they're going to continue to fall into the F2P pile months after release.

[mistahwilshire]

Gaming as a whole has grown significantly over the past few years. There is more variety for gamers now than there has ever been by an insane margin. No game is immune to that.

[Blur4stuff]

i think i read this thread 14 or 15 years ago. it was about ultima online tho.