Blizzard's poor excuses

[Vankrys]

go away troll/hater

i don't think he is trolling. It seems likely that blizzard is using wow income to help the developement of other game, before they can pay for themselves.

[Deleted]

ITT: People who have absolutely ZERO idea how software development or business works.

[Vankrys]

ITT: People who have absolutely ZERO idea how software development or business works.

if you have insights, please share them. as it stand, your post bring nothing to the discussion.

[Kurgulok]

Do you manage Blizzard Entertainment's budget for their projects? No, so shut the hell up.

Every company in the history of business ALWAYS has a budget for their project. They have other things to spend their budget on rather than extra developers to TRY and speed up development because you are too impatient to wait. They are making innovative updates and many changes in WoD, they have enough money to spend on as it is, I doubt they'll dish out cash because they're concerned with your impatience.

Unsubscribe until the expansion comes out. Everyone is doing that now and Blizzard knows it.

[stumpy]

What's your opinion on this matter?

That I envy you for lacking real concerns in your life.

[Vankrys]

Do you manage Blizzard Entertainment's budget for their projects? No, so shut the hell up.

Every company in the history of business ALWAYS has a budget for their project. They have other things to spend their budget on rather than extra developers to TRY and speed up development because you are too impatient to wait. They are making innovative updates and many changes in WoD, they have enough money to spend on as it is, I doubt they'll dish out cash because they're concerned with your impatience.

Unsubscribe until the expansion comes out. Everyone is doing that now and Blizzard knows it.

Since you're not quoting anyone, i suppose you're responding to the OP.
It's his right to express his opinion that he doesn't the value for his money, don't think you should tell him to "shut the hell up."

while you are right, the smart thing to do in this case is to unsub until new content is release, wouldn't it be in the interest of blizzard to release compelling content and faster to keep those subscription running instead?

[stumpy]

Since you're not quoting anyone, i suppose you're responding to the OP.
It's his right to express his opinion that he doesn't the value for his money, don't think you should tell him to "shut the hell up."

while you are right, the smart thing to do in this case is to unsub until new content is release, wouldn't it be in the interest of blizzard to release compelling content and faster to keep those subscription running instead?

You're right! But why stop there? If we had a new 5-man every week, think how much more awesome that would be!

By God, you're a genius. Blizzard should hire you.

[Joathen]

No new models for S15? Why bother even? Just let S14 roll on for another couple of months, I only arena to look fabulous anyway; not interested in some artificial stat-grind if the primary reward (Cosmetics of the sets,) isn't even any different. I think I will unsub now till WoD. :/

[Vankrys]

You're right! But why stop there? If we had a new 5-man every week, think how much more awesome that would be!

By God, you're a genius. Blizzard should hire you.

i'm sure there is a middle ground between "a new 5-man every week" and a raid that lasts 1 year.
Each one of us consume content at our own speed, but i think in average, content release could be a little bit faster though.

[Kelimbror]

i'm sure there is a middle ground between "a new 5-man every week" and a raid that lasts 1 year.
Each one of us consume content at our own speed, but i think in average, content release could be a little bit faster though.

It's also worth noting that while many people here feel what they are getting is too slow, there's likely many casual players (which common sense tells me is a majority of their players) that feel rushed every patch. It's a delicate balance I'm sure. Objectively a year for one raid is far too long and will contribute to large temporary subscriber loss which is bad. I think far less people unsubscribe from having too much to do than having nothing to do, but that's just my guess.

[rda]

It's also worth noting that while many people here feel what they are getting is too slow, there's likely many casual players (which common sense tells me is a majority of their players) that feel rushed every patch. It's a delicate balance I'm sure. Objectively a year for one raid is far too long and will contribute to large temporary subscriber loss which is bad. I think far less people unsubscribe from having too much to do than having nothing to do, but that's just my guess.

It's important to realize that the balance here isn't between what long-time players want (presumably, more things to do) vs what new players want (eek? no conflict with "more things to do"), but rather between what players at large want (more things to do again) vs how much Blizzard think they can get away with (the less the better, of course).

[Kelimbror]

It's important to realize that the balance here isn't between what long-time players want (presumably, more things to do) vs what new players want (eek? no conflict with "more things to do"), but rather between what players at large want (more things to do again) vs how much Blizzard think they can get away with (the less the better, of course).

We have no data to prove what 'most' players want. Blizzard does. I also outright dismiss the notion that Blizzard are sitting around scheming of how to 'get away' with the least amount of work possible. People are free to have their own, non supported opinions, but it's tin foil hat territory for sure. Clearly that's why they are hiring people is so they can do less work? Amirite? Maximize productivity and streamline budget? Sure.

So I think it's far less complicated than that. They are probably working to make WoD the most perfect expansion they've ever made, knowing it's a critical time in the game's life. I also think they are working furiously to expand their brand to make it a lasting thing. They don't want to simply be WoW anymore. They want to be a large, widely popular brand. They want their products to form a culture for the ultimate result of making them more money. They've always wanted this, but struggled with only 3 games. This means they are likely working harder than ever, not working less.

[Orange Joe]

I am paying my sub fee for a current content, not something I should/can buy later. Also, hireing an intern or two to make would not take much time off of WoD. This is pure laziness.

You are paying your sub for access to the server. That is the ONLY thing your sub is for.

[Tomana]

The bottom line is, Blizzard is using WOW as a $$$ cow to fuel the development of other games.

Go look up the definition of a "cash cow" in a marketing dictionary. You will be surprised.

[Uoyredrum]

I do have a really hard time understanding why putting skirmishes back into the game would require a whole lot of work. It's just a solo queue into non ranked arenas.

It wouldn't. It was in the game before, and they got rid of the code, but making it from scratch wouldn't be hard. It's not like there isn't already other solo queue things in the game. Not to mention there's private cata servers that have skirmishes. That's right, they were able to do it from scratch, but it's too hard for the company that made it in the first place.

That should be the biggest sign they're blowing hot air up everyone's asses every single time it gets brought up.

[Deleted]

That I envy you for lacking real concerns in your life.

well thank you as the king of Panama, I most definitely lack real concerns in life

[jazen]

hire them and fire them....quick way to run out of new hires

[adorich]

For starters, you don't have the numbers right. Why does every argument that the game is doing poorly have to overestimate the numbers? It's peak was 12 Million. The last report was 7.6 Million. That's only 4.4 Million lost from the peak. But yeah, let's just round up TWO numbers. Furthermore, you are neglecting the fact that MMOs have large churn rates. WoW has lost likely upwards of 100 million customers over the last decade. The reason they have maintained subscription numbers have been to keep getting new players. They have stated these concepts themselves.

This means that the market for WoW specifically has grown very saturated and/or they are getting worse at drawing new players, which means they need to focus on retention and regaining past players. You have to use very different strategies depending on what your goals are. This is a period of retooling their marketing, figuring out how to get players back, and making up for lost revenue streams in the process.

This isn't witchcraft or devilry, it's simply adapting to changes that happen to any business with this model. Netflix will go trough the same thing. Eventually everyone will have or have tried Netflix. Some people will be lost to competitors, some people will go out of the market entirely, they will have to figure out how to attract old customers and have better retention when the pool of new people dwindles.

I agree 50% is wrong. I'll change the 1 sentence of my post you quoted: losing almost 40% of your customers is never a good thing.

You're still continuing to minimize the loss of millions subs and you're continuing to attribute any sub lose to anything that isn't Blizzard. In nearly every post you make, you're defending Blizzard without admitting Blizzard has any responsibility. Please re-read my post you ripped the 1 sentence from.

The recent quarterly report numbers are a great thing and a good sign sub numbers are stabilizing. This doesn't change the fact that Blizzard has made questionable decisions have that led to major sub loses.

[Kelimbror]

*SNIP*

Not quoting a wall of text doesn't mean I didn't read or that I'm not responding to the whole thing...which is something you could have easily inferred from my post. So that bit of pointless jabbing doesn't make your argument any more accurate. I can't speak to whether their decisions, which you subjectively categorize as questionable(not a fact), had any direct causality in the sub loss. Market data and common sense makes me believe it actually had the least to do with it, which I have already stated. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to spin in circles for you when you are on a witch hunt.

The only semi reliable data to determine what you state is to have access to every single reason listed when someone unsubscribes. Even that won't give us the truth as people are free to pick whatever they like regardless of their true motives. But even so, Blizzard are the only ones with that information.

[ihyln]

I think the OP has the right idea of what he should say but clearly it's not a developer issue but it's just Blizzard's B team working on WoW