How can Blizz increase the number of the WoW players ?!

[Pann]

"League of Legends developer Riot Games has revealed that its MOBA generated $624 million in revenue through 2013."

Link: http://www.vg247.com/2014/01/20/leag...rated-in-2013/

With 624 million dollars it stays around 45% under the WOW revenue from 2013 (over 900 million dollars non gaap in the latest ATVI report).

The latest PR from Riot games mentions 70 million LOL acounts with "27 million esport players every day".

The article is based on an estimate by a market research company Superdata, there has been no confirmation from Riot whether this is correct or not. Assuming that the revenue figure of $634 million for LOL is correct if we compare it to WOW's 2013 GAAP revenue of $912 million, non-GAAP was not over $900 as you claim but $805 million, it represents a figure of 68% (this rises to 77% compared against WOW's non-GAAP revenue) I really am not sure how you managed to arrive at the figure of 45%.

[Deleted]

LOL, remember ... is supposed to be the most popular on line PC game ever. Well after several years of hiding their revenue (they are not a stock rated company, so they don't even need to give that info ...).

Well after YEARS of waiting for their revenue and now we see that LoL with their incredible 70+ million accounts and ... 40 million active players made ... 625 million dollars NON GaaP revenue in 2013...

Link: http://www.vg247.com/2014/01/20/leag...rated-in-2013/

vg247.com: "Via Gamespot"
gamespot.com: "a report from SuperData reveals", the statement "Riot Games has revealed" was never made
SuperData Research: "based on estimated worldwide, free-to-play earnings for 2013"

Not a source:
- Estimate
- Article citing the estimate

I was hoping for a real source, not another worthless estimate hidden behind a camouflage of endless quotes and paraphrasing.

[Rageadon]

Release an Xpack with Illidan on the front and tell people they can be an awesome demon hunter like him, hype it to the maximum, and BAM, alot of people come back !

^ it could have work, but i dont know.

if you remove sub and made the first 60 lvls free, tons of people would have started playing, but that can go either ways.

Ps: and also bring back RPG into wow, wow does not feel like an rpg, only an MMO :/

[BenBos]

@BenBos: It's a constant with you that you're just throwing hollow arguments around.

There is just as much preloading going on in WoW as in any other game, especially when raid environments are concerned. You can't even have a 40vs40 man raid in the open world in WoW without the servers about to crash. Where as indeed ESO is pushing 300 vs 300 vs 300 PvP battles.

Your twitch.tv argument is pretty dumb too. I'm majorly hyped for ESO, because it's an amazing game and anyone that enjoys RPGs or MMOs will get much enjoyment out of it. But am I watching ESO closed beta streams? Nope... Because there is nothing to see and I don't want to spoil the game before it gets launched, all there is to see right now is people leveling and going through the storylines which I'd rather explore myself. If you'd remove all the WoW streams with pvp endgame you'd perhaps have a 100 people watching it too. People don't want to watch eachother leveling unless it's some major streaming/youtube celebrity.

I'm pretty confident ESO is going to catch on hard, and I'm curious to see what Blizzard's reaction is. They already had to rush DiabloIII 's expansion and Hearthstone's release because of it.

No need to feel angry. The sheer fact is that Twitch shows the games as they are. That's a new tool to evaluate game play and behaviour of a game. Calling "the rush" of Hearthstone is quite amusing since it is already 8 months in beta without release.

The fact a few hundred people follow ESO streams compared to a game like the D3 expansion which is in the same release timing shows everyhting really. And ... D3 doesn't even have a PvP element in it. A game like Hearthstone stormed the ranks in a matter of weeks, also beta btw.

Nope, everyone here can always go see the game play on Twitch in whatever game they like to see played and it is no wonder ESO has hardly any followers.

[BenBos]

vg247.com: "Via Gamespot"
gamespot.com: "a report from SuperData reveals", the statement "Riot Games has revealed" was never made
SuperData Research: "based on estimated worldwide, free-to-play earnings for 2013"



Again a source please.

The article clearly stated "League of Legends developer Riot Games has revealed that its MOBA generated $624 million in revenue through 2013"

I know you are hanging on straws, but the independant study confirmed that figure, which is a nice way for you to say "everyone is lying".

Nice BTW: Since Riot games are not stock related they are not obliged to reveal that info. But it is Always nice to see a 7.8 million subscription based game like WOW beat the "biggest played game" by a very wide margin.

If anything: now count the development costs of a single player map of LOL with that huge wide world of Azeroth and you simply know FREE to Play is not a solution to WOW for the next years coming.

We already knew that. Why even bother?

[endersblade]

Nothing. I honestly can't see WoW pulling in a massive amount of new players at this point. The game is 10 years old, I doubt there are more than a handful of people in the world who haven't at least HEARD of the game. (yes, internet people, I'm exaggerating.) People either hate it, have zero interest, or are already playing.

Old game engine is far from old. They update it incrementally every expansion.

Putting bandaids on it does nothing. It is still an old engine, I honestly can't fathom why you would even argue that point. The engine is old. FACT. Argument is invalid. They have even mentioned they would like to do several other things with WoW, but they can't due to the engine's limitations.

[Dasani]

@BenBos: It's a constant with you that you're just throwing hollow arguments around.

There is just as much preloading going on in WoW as in any other game, especially when raid environments are concerned. You can't even have a 40vs40 man raid in the open world in WoW without the servers about to crash. Where as indeed ESO is pushing 300 vs 300 vs 300 PvP battles.

Your twitch.tv argument is pretty dumb too. I'm majorly hyped for ESO, because it's an amazing game and anyone that enjoys RPGs or MMOs will get much enjoyment out of it. But am I watching ESO closed beta streams? Nope... Because there is nothing to see and I don't want to spoil the game before it gets launched, all there is to see right now is people leveling and going through the storylines which I'd rather explore myself. If you'd remove all the WoW streams with pvp endgame you'd perhaps have a 100 people watching it too. People don't want to watch eachother leveling unless it's some major streaming/youtube celebrity.

I'm pretty confident ESO is going to catch on hard, and I'm curious to see what Blizzard's reaction is. They already had to rush DiabloIII 's expansion and Hearthstone's release because of it.

I somewhat expect WoW feeling pressured to go F2P through the course of this and next year because of all the competition they're going to have to deal with. WoW is very quickly slipping out of people's minds and building up a bad reputation with the long content luls between expansions. Expansions which are getting old. "Whoop-di-doo for the 5th expansion with the same shit the same leveling and gear grind again..."

The funny thing about all the stuff you just said is... It's the exact same lines of crap people have been saying for years.

Every single new MMO that comes around, people say will be the next "big thing" and will take WOW's place as number 1. Every time "the next big thing" goes into beta, they claim blizzard is "rushing" their products out the door to try to squeeze out a little extra money before their empire inevitably comes crashing down around them. People said that shit about diablo 3, they said that shit about starcraft 2, they said that shit about heart of the swarm, and they said it about every single WOW expansion ever made.

And every single time, there are people who think they're right, and think "THIS time... It will be different!" when it won't.

Watching people repeat this cycle non-stop started off annoying, then it turned into downright humorous, and at this point i'm flip flopping between having a hard time believing people can still think that way vs just pitying them for thinking that way. Mind you, exact same arguments every time as well. Wow is slipping, wow is getting old, too long between updates, too many expansions, not enough to do, not enough new stuff, not changing anything important, changing things too much, etc.

As for ESO it's self, I have played the beta. It is not that special. It's like they tried to take certain aspects of skyrim and shove it into a class based MMO which just comes off as being rather halfassed only giving the illusion of choice without actually having any. Abilities lack any depth or complexity or anything interesting for that matter. And don't jump on the "ITS ONLY IN BETA" bandwagon because that's another crock of shit I get tired of seeing. Everyone uses that argument to defend everything that has ever been in beta ever despite every beta ever despite 95% of all finished products looking exactly like they did in beta except a little less buggy, and a little cleaner UI and animations. All the fundamental shit is already there and that is the shit you got to look at. They can't just wave a magic wand and rework years of programming in a couple month beta process because they suddenly decide it sucks. It doesn't work that way.

Anyway, i'm tired.

[Deadite]

The fact a few hundred people follow ESO streams compared to a game like the D3 expansion which is in the same release timing shows everyhting really. And ... D3 doesn't even have a PvP element in it. A game like Hearthstone stormed the ranks in a matter of weeks, also beta btw.

Twitch numbers are based on who is playing and not what they are playing. If one of the big names played Pong it would be at 10k views.

[Pann]

The article clearly stated "League of Legends developer Riot Games has revealed that its MOBA generated $624 million in revenue through 2013"

I know you are hanging on straws, but the independant study confirmed that figure, which is a nice way for you to say "everyone is lying".

Nice BTW: Since Riot games are not stock related they are not obliged to reveal that info. But it is Always nice to see a 7.8 million subscription based game like WOW beat the "biggest played game" by a very wide margin.

If anything: now count the development costs of a single player map of LOL with that huge wide world of Azeroth and you simply know FREE to Play is not a solution to WOW for the next years coming.

We already knew that. Why even bother?

The article is reporting the independent study's findings truth Riot have not confirmed this figure. But if we look at the the Superdata figures WOW unsurprisingly beat LOL for total revenue but was behind Crossfire by almost $50 million.

[Morbownz]

Removing the sub is the obvious one. Blizzard need to give an incentive to the average player to farm gear, the "real raiders" have raiding and achievements... the rest have LFR. Will this be solved in WoD? I imagine this would help subs or atleast keep current subs sticking around longer.

[lawow74]

Like others have said, remove the sub requirement, but that only serves to increase numbers, not revenue. And as revenue is their concern over raw numbers, they won't do that until the game's basically over anyways.

[Deleted]

The article said clearly stated "League of Legends developer Riot Games has revealed that its MOBA generated $624 million in revenue through 2013"

The same article you hang yourself up with is based on the gamespot article. It clearly states "via gamespot" with a link.
The gamespot article clearly stated the Super Data estimates as the source, not Riot Games.
Your clear statement is a misquote or writing error and that is clearly proven trough the same article you cited.
You hang yourself up on imaginary straws.

Now until a few moments ago you made best attempt to hide and then deny that it was not revealed or stated by Riot Games or any other credible source.
You lost your credibility.

[Racthoh]

remove flying. remove teleporting to entrance. suddenly the world feels like a world.

also remove pvp guard npc because they are no fun.

also i agree remove 20,000 different raid tiers. let it be hard and let people fail at it.

[Deleted]

I don't think it can really. Blizzard have become pretty slow and stagnant and the next expansion kind of shows this more features are being removed from the game than added.

[metatation]

Because the market dynamics have changed. Subscription based gaming is going the way of the dodo and micro-transaction funded games are the most profitable.

But really to go back to the original question here the answer is simple:

They can't. Less and less people look upon each new expansion as "Something new and exciting" and instead see "more of the same". The majority of the gaming community looks at the Warcraft franchise and sees a franchise where nothing new has been offered in almost a decade.

This is right on. In addition for me I would love free tx servers from my current PVP realm, which I have been on for 9 years, to a PVE and merging the servers which they are doing at a snails pace. An MMO with a scarce population is rather boring, but it does offer some advantages. Allow flying when you hit max lvl and this would go a long way to get me back.
Oh almost forgot that once you hit exalted with one toon then that rep becomes account wide for if I come back will probably switch mains and its depressing to see all of my hard work on my previous main not displayed on my new as far as reputations go.

[Gotanks305]

That is exactly the problem with WoW. They don't have an endgame that can appeal to casual players. The casual players get thrown a chewed down old worn out bone, get herded together in LFR to do boring once-a-week challengeless content that showers them in low quality items. It doesn't matter if you're a casual player that played 200 hours this month, or 2000 hours last year, all you deserve is content without challenge and weak gear according to Blizzard.

Let's put it this way... The MMOs about to be released in 2014 all formulated multiple solutions and gameplay choices to this problem, and it's probably the main reason why we'll see the casual playerbase leaving WoW in favour of these other games. They won't make you feel as if you're a worthless second-rank character in their world just because you didn't feel like matching up with the raidshedule of the most hardcore guilds -without- taking anything away from their hardcore gamers either.

Say for example, you're a very casual gamer, you only play an hour a day sometimes, more during the weekends or holidays, but slowly you're specializing in your expansive crafting profession, and slowly you're learning to craft unique type epic and legendary gear. Hardcore guilds and others are going to have reason to recognize you for that, since the crafting system is so expansive that they can't possibly do everything themselves and will depend on others. "You're a master-craftsman of legendary daggers? Awesome... we'll trade you an endgame raiddrop for it (since raidloot isn't BoP in our game)." This among many other solutions which also provide access to challenging solo- or public dungeon crawling experiences.

Feel like this whole argument is invalid since WoW has never really Been/Felt like for the 1-2 Hour Casual Gaming like you say. Raiding has pretty much always been for the Committed players and not the how u say hardcore raiders since the World First 25 Man/10 man Heroic boss kills are usually down by a handful of guilds. Its pretty simple LFR was made for the casual if they had more time or really cared to commit to a real raiding guild they would. And for the whole (since raidloot isn't BoP in our game) is just stupid ya it must be so hard to actually work for your upgrades / loot and good luck getting people trading you loot before the actually raiding roster if your not part of it lol. + ESO has gotten plenty of hate/Heat over the retarded Paywalls they are putting up on the CE and pre orders ON A SUB BASED GAME people pay for Subs for the Full game not for paywalls. end of rant :P

[metatation]

The simplest answer is often the best one: Give players a reason to stick around. One of the pitfalls of letting everyone and anyone see all of the game's content within a 1-2 week period of time is that there is little reason to keep playing the game after a month or two of doing the same thing over and over again. There is nothing in the game pushing you towards doing normal modes or heroic modes nor is the game even trying to properly teach you how to play at that level or prepare you for content of that level.

The reason TBC and WOTLK had such high sub numbers was besides the amazing raid content there was always something to do outside of raiding, something to work on in terms of character progression and if you were in that small category of players who didn't have anything to work on those expansions were VERY alt friendly so the journey could easily start over again for you.

Compare that kind of game to what we have now, leveling and gearing alts now is a chore, and beyond raiding there really isn't much to do outside of the game that won't get tiresome after a few weeks.

Forgot about that!! The game seemed to becoming more and more of a chore in MOP than an actual fun game, but that maybe to the freaking staggering amount of dailys in the beginning and the gated items behind them. God it was just awful. Kalgan take me away!!!!!

[Deleted]

I don't think ESO is going to kill WoW, but I'd like to see it do well. For the first time in a while we're getting a major MMO release thats trying to do something different than just copying WoW again. So far what I've seen of it looks very interesting.

WoW is in decline, frankly I think it needs to die soon before it brings down the entire MMO market with it.

[Primernova]

I don't think ESO is going to kill WoW, but I'd like to see it do well. For the first time in a while we're getting a major MMO release thats trying to do something different than just copying WoW again. So far what I've seen of it looks very interesting.

WoW is in decline, frankly I think it needs to die soon before it brings down the entire MMO market with it.

ESO will do exceptionally well, even if it's bad.

Skyrim hasn't been out of the top 20 on Steam, in nearly 3 years. The fan base is there to support it.

[Deleted]

Everyone here is a marketing expert. I love MMOC forums