The problem with the MMO market is:
1. Blizzard no longer knows how to design games.
2. They have a choke hold on the MMO market.
Blizzard is driving the MMO market into the ground by slowly turning WoW into D3. D3 was a disaster and WoW is turning into a disaster as well as they insist on going this route for some reason.
Blizzard no longer understand show to design games. The FIRST thing you do when you sit down and design a game is ask "why does the video game market NEED the game I am about to produce?" If you cannot answer that, don't bother making the game. In other words, you need a "value add". Your game needs to offer something that gamers cannot get anywhere else. You can make a case that Path of Exile has a "value add" in that they pump out updates people really enjoy at a faster rate than any other ARPG on the market. So, if you crave fast, quality updates in your ARPG, the ONLY place to go is GGG and Path of Exile. That's a "value add".
When I look at modern offerings by Blizzard, like Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, WoW, Heroes of the Storm, or Overwatch, none of them do anything special. There's is nothing about them that screams "you can't get this anywhere else but Blizzard". Its just blah. It feels more like Blizzard is behind the curve, trying to release new features to ride the current trend, instead of setting a trend. That's a bad place to be. Blizzard is the Zune when other gaming companies are the Apple products.
I remember reading how Bobby Kotick got excited about Overwatch when he saw it and said "yah this is the game Blizzard should be making!!!!" He's an idiot. They should NOT have made Overwatch. He has no expertise in this. But maybe he pushed them into a bad decision. Now they have a mess over there that they are trying to fix with a sequel and I doubt that will work well.
TO FIX WOW:1. smaller server sizes & server-only LFG awarding satchels, so elite players help others. 2. "helper builds" with loom powers - talent trees so elite players cast buffs on low level players XP gain, HP/mana, regen, damage, etc. 3. "helper ilvl" scoring how much you help others. 4. observer games like in SC to watch/chat (like twitch but with MORE DETAILS & inside the wow UI) 5. guild leagues to compete with rival guilds for progression (with observer mode).6. jackpot world mobs.
Actually, if you want to claim that Blizz has 12 million subs, you are the one making the Russell's Teapot claim, so it rests on you to support your claim.
Blizz stopped reporting WoW subscriptions after the WoD debacle. If WoW was remotely near being back to 12 million subscriptions, they would absolutely be crowing about it across all corners of the web, and it would be on the first page of their financial reports.
Instead, they talk about all their online properties (including, for example, Overwatch and Hearthstone) in terms of MAU (monthly active users) which is a bit deceptive since all someone has to do is log into 3 games one time each in a month, and you have 3 MAUs. And that number has been clearly in decline.
I'm sure you'll doubt this statement as well, so I will point you to their financial reports where you can see for yourself. Click each annual report, note the MAUs for Blizz properties and notice the trend is overall very much down, not up.
https://investor.activision.com/annual-reports
I think FFXIV as an example works quite well as it basically contradicts WoWs cycle. WoW began to drastically decline the time FFXIV launched whereas FFXIV steadily grew. Nowhere close to WoWs peaks but it's still something remarkable in a genre that seems to be dying.
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That can be said about WoW as well. Critical and fanbase appreciation got better and better though for FFXIV with Shadowbringers being praised by mostly everyone.
MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again
I think Blizzard has numbers and trends enough to see where mmo market is going.
It’s just a miracle that WoW survived 15 years, it will eventually die because new players are far less than freezing or leaving players.
Market has changed, there’s less and less space for heavy time demanding games (monthly fee is not an issue).
The classical mmorpg just like the rts market has died down a lot, games like WoW and genres too are in constant competition with most other genres and even other platforms, how many people would also play pc games if there was no console/mobile platform? I actually know a handful of rl friends who switched to consoles and never touched pc gaming again.
There is this idea in peoples heads that the only reason WoW isn't at 12~ million subs or more right now is the sheer incompetence of "aCtIvISiOn bLiZzARd" and not stuff like product lifecycles, player crunch and the above mentioned, believe me, bad game design decisions are probably the least affecting factor of those why wow bled a ton of subs.
But hey, what would all the haters do with their free time? mold? lmao.
You missed what I was saying. I said retail is doing really bad, not World of Warcraft in general. All of the important revenues in Q3 and Q4 2019 regarding WoW came from Classic, which is even stated in the quarterly reports.
This is from the Q3/19 report:
World of Warcraft® Classic added record number of subscription plans1 in Q3. In Q3, World of Warcraft Classic drove the biggest quarterly increase to subscription plans2 in franchise history, in both the West and East
Strong World of Warcraft Classic performance in the quarter. Segment revenues lower Y/Y against a comparable that included the World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth expansion
This is from the Q4/19 report:
World of Warcraft exited 2019 with an active player community2 more than twice the size of its Q2-ending level
The last statement is important. Classic more than doubled WoWs active playerbase. Retail did basically nothing in regard of the very good Q4 results. Most of that was Classic. Retail is steadily decaying. And no, Blizzard is by no means making far more money than in prior years. Revenue down, income down, margins plummeting. Q4 is the only outlier and that's to blame on Classic's phenomenal performance.
Here are their financial numbers for you:
Q1/17: 41M MAU, $441M revenue / $166M income / 38% margin
Q2/17: 46M MAU, $566M revenue / $225M income / 40% margin
Q3/17: 42M MAU, $531M revenue / $168M income / 32% margin
Q4/17: 37M MAU, $599M revenue / $160M income / 27% margin
Q1/18: 38M MAU, $480M revenue / $122M income / 25% margin
Q2/18: 37M MAU, $489M revenue / $133M income / 27% margin
Q3/18: 37M MAU, $635M revenue / $189M income / 30% margin
Q4/18: 35M MAU, $686M revenue / $241M income / 35% margin
Q1/19: 32M MAU, $344M revenue / $55M income / 16% margin
Q2/19: 32M MAU, $384M revenue / $75M income / 20% margin
Q3/19: 33M MAU, $394M revenue / $74M income / 19% margin
Q4/19: 32M MAU, $595M revenue / $260M income / 44% margin
Quite important comparisons for my statement are the Q3/4 2018 vs. Q3/4 2019 financial results.
MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again
TO FIX WOW:1. smaller server sizes & server-only LFG awarding satchels, so elite players help others. 2. "helper builds" with loom powers - talent trees so elite players cast buffs on low level players XP gain, HP/mana, regen, damage, etc. 3. "helper ilvl" scoring how much you help others. 4. observer games like in SC to watch/chat (like twitch but with MORE DETAILS & inside the wow UI) 5. guild leagues to compete with rival guilds for progression (with observer mode).6. jackpot world mobs.
One, D3 hardly played like an MMO,
Two, WoW hardly plays like and ARPG.
Three, games need to evolve or else they stagnate. Blizzard has been historically good at following gaming/gamer trends. The issues seem to stem from people who do not like change and growth, and would prefer things to be as they remember them when they were "good"
There was a satire post yesterday that perfectly describes this. And it's basically a back in my day things were better, you kinds and your long hair and Rock 'n' Roll music have it so easy today mentality.
In the end it boils down to why care. Powerless to change it if it were and if you want to or not believe it the internet is full of shit you can twist around to make you feel better about it. Either way.