Blizzard created the perfect storm

[Lorgar Aurelian]

This. The only difference is that now WoW is so bad that people are likely to jump ship and never look back (whereas when Warhammer AoR and LotRO and STO and SWTOR came out, WoW was still good enough that people switched back).

people were saying the same things back during cata nothing has changed.

[Darkeon]

I feel that a lot of the success of other MMOs come thanks to WoW's problems.

I would prefer if we were hearing more and more about other MMOs due to their suberb quality and not because people are fleeing WoW because of how deep in shitty shambles it currently is.

In short, Does competition breed excellence? Yes. But I don't think that's what we are seeing here.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

People have been saying "WoW is so bad now" for over a decade...it hasn't helped anyone take the top spot yet.

Vanilla and BC players who were dissatisfied with the new direction of the game starting with Wrath/Cata are the ones who were saying it was bad, but judging by the numbers WoW was pretty satisfactory to everyone else until WoD happened (coincidentally the same time Metzen and Chilton left and Danuser and Hazzikostas took over), at which point the game started objective going downhill.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

WoW's concurrent players may drop to the competition's level, but no other MMO brings in the release day numbers that WoW does still.

Fun fact there lead competitor can't even beat or match there own sale numbers.

While the numbers of current expansion copies sold was not as high as the previous expansion

https://www.siliconera.com/final-fan...ers-worldwide/

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Vanilla and BC players who were dissatisfied with the new direction of the game starting with Wrath/Cata are the ones who were saying it was bad, but judging by the numbers WoW was pretty satisfactory to everyone else until WoD happened (coincidentally the same time Metzen and Chilton left and Danuser and Hazzikostas took over), at which point the game started objective going downhill.

Neither chilton nor metzen left in wod both of them left post legion and both worked on legion. Where did you get this wod notion from?

[Very Tired]

You have a tendency to lie so got any sources for said results? Ie ff14 having more players.

I remember some ESO video recently stating they had 18 million players, which Google backs up.

Idk how many subs WoW has atm, but I think everyone can agree it's not 18 million.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I remember some ESO video recently stating they had 18 million players, which Google backs up.

Idk how many subs WoW has atm, but I think everyone can agree it's not 18 million.

I swear no one reads/checks things.

It was also revealed that ESO can boast over 18 million total accounts in its lifetime

https://www.mmocult.com/eso-is-the-b...lion-accounts/
for reference wow had over 100millon in mop.

[Mysterymask]

Remember Ultima Online? I do.

To be fair Ultima Online was there before wow and will probably be around years after wow's death....

[Ashleyxoxo]

Edit: Game vs. game, never mind.

[Stardrift]

How many times do we gotta teach you this lesson, old man?

[hzjf]

WoW is over 17 Years old

The Fact it still has over 2million Players shows how good it actually is/was

[Ashleyxoxo]

WoW is over 17 Years old

The Fact it still has over 2million Players shows how good it actually is/was

"Was" and "is" are two very different things.

[Stickiler]

Vanilla and BC players who were dissatisfied with the new direction of the game starting with Wrath/Cata are the ones who were saying it was bad, but judging by the numbers WoW was pretty satisfactory to everyone else until WoD happened (coincidentally the same time Metzen and Chilton left and Danuser and Hazzikostas took over), at which point the game started objective going downhill.

Good old "Estimated data points". I love the neat touch of adding Estimated Data Points to all the old expansions, to try and give some credibility to the shit they're pulling directly from their arse.

[Arewn]

Maybe the concept of "mmo killer" is the problem here.

These games will happily continue on for years to come regardless of how they measure up against each other. As things like Ultima and Everquest have been doing for years now.

We don't get complete enough data from any of these publishers/developers to do a meaningful meta analysis on active players, copies solds, or player retention.

Take shadowlands for example. "3.7 mil copies sold on day one" and then no further info since (as far as I know). So is the game doing great? How many total copies have sold so far? Is the game actually holding on to the player base, or does the initial surge of purchases owe more to Blizzard's marketing budget then the quality of the game?
And how does that measure again Shadowbringers? We don't have any numbers on that.

Are we going to compared total registers account for these games using data that was given in different years and when the games were at incomparable points in their respective lifecycles?

The idea that WoW has been the top MMO for the past few years is itself dubious at best. But that doesn't mean WoW has been "slain" and is now dead. And it won't just die because something has topped it, whether that has already happened or will happen in the future.

[justandulas]

You have a tendency to lie so got any sources for said results? Ie ff14 having more players.

No, you just don’t like to be wrong so call everything lies. You embarrassed yourself in that 9.1 thread the other day shilling so hard and being wrong

A website reported ff14 havin more players but the metrics they used were stupid and unreliable

That said, I absolutely do believe ff14 has more active players than SL

[Icelin]

and other game developers are taking advantage of it.

It just dawned on me while I was sat here, there doesn't have to be a singular WoW killer, with companies like Amazon, Riot, and Singularity 6 (and more) coming out with their own MMO's. All that has to happen is these developers individually absorb a chunk of the current WoW base. Blizzard essentially will compete with several major viable companies, instead of just 1 at a time when they are failing miserably. its just a matter of time.

Does competition breed excellence?

There is always someone there to capitalize on others mistakes, misery etc. It's unfortunately how the world works. This just isn't in the video game industry or MMOs in particular.

WoW is over 17 Years old

The Fact it still has over 2million Players shows how good it actually is/was

No they've been happy with coasting and everyone is well aware of it. (Customers included) If they actually put the budget into their product it could be much more successful. They have adapted the attitude less is more. With cuts to content and employees. The game has suffered tremendously due to the greed and it shows. A lot of people don't want to support minimal content. Competitors will come in and try to take their customers away. Blizzard is the only one capable of hurting itself. They left the door open and I could never understand this logic.. because it's much harder to acquire customers back when you lose them. Customer Retention is better than Customer Acquisition for several reasons. Also it's why I could never understand a long history of being pompous to customers that try and leave valuable feedback rather at beta or whatever the case. This is what all the forums and videos I seen/read claim. (I personally never been apart of beta, so I cannot attest to this) That they plea on deaf ears.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

No, you just don’t like to be wrong so call everything lies. You embarrassed yourself in that 9.1 thread the other day shilling so hard and being wrong

I have no problem being wrong I actually prefer it as it lets me update my positions to be more factual, all I want is the truth but as the 9.1 thread showed you couldn’t provide.

Hell I can even give an example from today, I hadn’t thought ff14 gave statements on sub growth because my searches only brought up total accounts again and again, but some one managed to find a link where they did report sub growth so I’ve now updated my position on that.

A website reported ff14 havin more players but the metrics they used were stupid and unreliable

That said, I absolutely do believe ff14 has more active players than SL

So what do you base your view on then? Is it actual belief, ie faith in the absence of evidence?

[cuafpr]

it's good to have legit competition so these 1,000 cuts wow is facing hopefully makes for a better game. I know I've given up on SL being fun and I'm playing FF14 currently working through stormblood MSQ. It all makes sense though a good PVP based game steals a bit of that player base, the story-based game takes those players, cut cut cut so to speak.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

No they've been happy with coasting and everyone is well aware of it. (Customers included) If they actually put the budget into their product it could be much more successful. They have adapted the attitude less is more.[B] [I]With cuts to content and employees.

Employee size when it comes to wow has grown year over year with normally 1000 more employees per expan as of Bfa with the number being more then double what it was in say wrath. There other games may not be as lucky but when it comes to wow they haven’t gone for less is more it would seem.

Wrath

2856 people (2552 developers, 304 thanks)

Bfa

5705 people (5696 developers, 9 thanks)

https://www.mobygames.com/game/windo...h-king/credits

https://www.mobygames.com/game/windo...zeroth/credits

[Coldkil]

My impression is just that WOW has still a rock solid raiding scene, and M+ conveys to the more "casual" playerbase (i mean the ones who don't care about guilds or schedules, M+ is a way to play whenever you can and get good rewards out of it).

However these two categories are dwindling because you either are in the ones that rush everything in a short time then stop playing, or you're stuck in the puddle of mud that's made to keep people log in continuosly - while it doesn't give you anything of value out of it. The game is literally designed to make you log in, and if you miss days/weeks you just feel lagging behind.

It's a sad way to keep people hooked to a game they don'tr eally like anymore but feel they're "losing something" if they don't do it. I actually like SL, the zones, the raid so far etc but i'm baffled about how many systems have simply no reason to exist other that causing inconvenience to players or in reality have no effect whatsoever ( so asking myself why they're even there).

There's plenty of games that are equally engaging BUT don't pretend to keep you online every single day. Even mobile games with their daily login bonuses are less obnoxious since you can literally do three taps on your phone and be done if you want.

The focus on "keeping people online" is "killing" WoW. It should be "keeping people returning, because it's well done". It's not 2004 anymore where people had few options and committed to one or two games max for years.