WoW has to be inviting for young gamers - but it's not

[MiiiMiii]

The majority of WoW gamers are stuck playing it from a long time ago. It has a very high median age, and I would say it's as high as 30+ years old. It's pretty basic math that the game needs to recruit new gamers to grow. It's not now, its caitering to veteran WoW gamers.

Getting new young gamers will not only make the game more popular, it will make the game way more fun for all of us. We will have people actually leveling in the world, we will have players that do dungeons and don't demand to speedrun it the first time they run it. Even if you are a "I hate zoomers" guy, you can also kill them in World PvP while they try to level.

Young gamers has no interest in playing WoW. Why?

My opinion:
* The game costs too much to get into. Game + expansion AND a monthly fee? Also the free trial is not a good representation of the game.
* The game does an absolutly terrible job of showing people the strength of an MMORPG, the social aspect. I believe the most common feedback from new players will be "it's lonely".
* The game is way too easy. I don't know why Blizzard thought gamers hate challenges, and made the game this easy. My 7 year old niece plays phone games all the time and she tends to enjoy games that are actually a challenge, like Geometry Dash. If the game is a snoozefest easymode you lose interest fast. Especially new recruits that are not invested in the game yet, they have so many other choices.
EDIT: I want to clearify the game is easy the way the game guides you for the first 30 hours. The leveling, the leveling dungeons, the quests... I think the argument "Mythic raiding? M+? rank 1 arenas?" is an absurd argument because the players that get bored of how easy it is drop the game way before they can do these things.
* The marketing department seem to not have much of an interest in recruiting young gamers. I don't know much about marketing but they must not try to hit young gamers at all, or they do a really poor job at it.
* Young gamers are not as interested in PC gaming. They prefer phone games in a much higher degree.

What do you think, can WoW keep going in the path it is, ignoring recruiting young gamers?

[Tyris Flare]

We don't actually have any good information about that. Anecdotally, friends who didn't quit this xpack mostly scattered into different guilds, almost all of whom have a lot of 20-30 year-olds. There are probably a lot of players who have only played the game since Legion or BFA, as hard as it is to believe.

Anyway to all of your points, those apply to basically every game right now, even ones doing relatively well.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

[list]The game costs too much to get into.

Eh, not much more than it costs to get into FFXIV. You still have a $50 box purchase every 2 years and a $13/15 monthly sub cost.

the free trial is not a good representation of the game.

Absolutely, but this ties into broader problems with WoW, where Blizzard only cares about the experience of playing the latest raid. Old content is not tuned to remain fun to play or rewarding after it is no longer current. Even if free trial players could play every expansion up to Shadowlands, they're still going to have a bad experience.

The game does an absolutly terrible job of showing people the strength of an MMORPG, the social aspect. I believe the most common feedback from new players will be "it's lonely".

True. Again, this ties back into the above problem where all of the paying players are funneled into the latest raid, while trial players left doing old questing content that is boring and easy, and ask themselves why they aren't just playing a singleplayer game that would offer them a better experience.

* The game is way too easy.

Eh. WoW is awful at explaining its mechanics to players, to the point that it is mandatory to have addons for boss fights and to watch Youtube guides (that are constantly becoming outdated) that explain the mechanics to you. Also, some stuff is mechanically easy (mage tower fights) but are mathematically impossible due to absurd ilevel requirements, so it's not a matter of personal skill but whether or not you've been doing your 3 hours of chores every day for months on end to have high enough ilevel gear.

* Young gamers are not as interested in PC gaming. They prefer phone games in a much higher degree.

Not true. The news just broke recently that Steam has more users than ever before.

People who play phone games are not people that would have otherwise been playing PC games. If phone games didn't exist, they probably wouldn't be playing games at all. They're a completely separate demographic. Besides, Blizzard already taps into that demographic with Hearthstone.

[Myradin]

* The game costs too much to get into. Game + expansion AND a monthly fee? Also the free trial is not a good representation of the game.

Very true. It was the case when it first came out too, but it had a much more possitive spin around it. Now there is a substantial anti-fan base. There was also less free or lower cost alternatives.

* The game does an absolutly terrible job of showing people the strength of an MMORPG, the social aspect. I believe the most common feedback from new players will be "it's lonely".

True but harder to pull off. Wow was 'social' by simply not having things, forcing people to band together. You do that now and the max levelers will lose their minds AND it'll still feel lonely to new players.

* The game is way too easy. I don't know why Blizzard thought gamers hate challenges, and made the game this easy. My 7 year old niece plays phone games all the time and she tends to enjoy games that are actually a challenge, like Geometry Dash. If the game is a snoozefest easymode you lose interest fast. Especially new recruits that are not invested in the game yet, they have so many other choices.

There's content of all varieties to be found. Its easy mode does seem to assume its players aren't sentient beings though which is a bit of an issue. Its disingenous to say the whole game is a snoozefest easy mode though.

* The marketing department seem to not have much of an interest in recruiting young gamers. I don't know much about marketing but they must not try to hit young gamers at all, or they do a really poor job at it.

The game has always rode on WC3 nastalagia, which is a really difficult sell after reforged completely flopped and its been like 2 decades since WC3. WoW hasn't done enough to really sell players on a new idea.

* Young gamers are not as interested in PC gaming. They prefer phone games in a much higher degree.

That's too bad. WoW isn't going to work on a phone. It could get a console port at best. There's no way wow is going to work on a phone.

[Aresk]

Getting new young gamers will not only make the game more popular, it will make the game way more fun for all of us. We will have people actually leveling in the world, we will have players that do dungeons and don't demand to speedrun it the first time they run it. Even if you are a "I hate zoomers" guy, you can also kill them in World PvP while they try to level.

I never understood the mentality of "It's good to have people in the world!" For most of my WoW career, I feel like I was happiest when there weren't other people gathering my nodes (glad they fixed that issue) or tagging my mobs (shared faction tags and shared quest tags have made this better) or starting some event that I have to wait to resolve before I can hope to beat the other assembled characters into doing it (Borean Tundra Saurfang farm event, anyone?). The most active I see Korthia General chat is when one player is screwing over the rest by not letting Consumption get to elite status. I like the world to be empty and at my disposal, with other players only showing up in instanced content like dungeons, battlegrounds, and raids.

* The game does an absolutly terrible job of showing people the strength of an MMORPG, the social aspect. I believe the most common feedback from new players will be "it's lonely".

The Newcomer chat is so much more active than any General chat I'm in. I talk with new players all the time, helping answer questions and point them toward various game resources for doing things that they want to do. The chat is also really friendly. I personally think the Newcomer chat is the best social feature of the game.

[shoc]

Blizzard had every chance to innovate over the last 15 years to appeal to new audiences if they cared enough. For example, when the MOBA genre was blowing up, Blizzard had a chance to take the WoW format and spin it into something like SMITE. When the Battle Royale genre was blowing up, they had the chance to introduce a new kind of server or PvP game mode. Fortnite successfully pivoted to BR after they initially launched as a Tower Defence game, and their success blows WoW out of the water.

If they want to appeal to the Roblox/Minecraft cohort of gamers, the name of the game is player agency. Blizzard should let players create private servers, where they are effectively God, can create towns, armies, scenarios, wherever they want, however they want, making as many game-dev tools available to players as they can. Just open the pandoras box to player-generated quest campaigns, custom raids set in capital cities, battlegrounds that take place inside of old raids, the possibilities are only limited by the freedom granted to players.

None of these pivots would have changed the foundation of WoW the RPG.

[Luxeley]

I agree with you. This has been an on-going issue since MOP. It's interesting how Minecraft's ascent is in perfect synch with WOW's decline. That means 10 years ago young gamer's flocked to Minecraft and not WOW.

[Khaza-R]

First, this is all a lot of assumptions and supposition without knowing WoW's historical and current demographics.

Second, depends on what you mean by "young gamers". Under 18 is actually one of the smaller segments of the gaming market and obviously lack the purchasing power of older generations. Also consider the fact for a second that the average age for a male gamer is 31 in Europe and 34 in the US. If you chasing the average gamer's demographic profile then young isn't necessarily where to go.

WoW's had like 100 million unique accounts made over its lifetime. From a marketing perspective its far easier to re-engage those consumers than to try and chase an entirely new segment of the market.

[Nerovar]

The game is just stale and hasn't innovated in any meaningful way since Legion. Doesn't help that they've also pruned all the RPG and community aspects of the game that made you want to stick around throughout droughts.

[Mojo03]

The majority of WoW gamers are stuck playing it from a long time ago. It has a very high median age, and I would say it's as high as 30+ years old. It's pretty basic math that the game needs to recruit new gamers to grow. It's not now, its caitering to veteran WoW gamers.

Getting new young gamers will not only make the game more popular, it will make the game way more fun for all of us. We will have people actually leveling in the world, we will have players that do dungeons and don't demand to speedrun it the first time they run it. Even if you are a "I hate zoomers" guy, you can also kill them in World PvP while they try to level.

Young gamers has no interest in playing WoW. Why?

My opinion:
* The game costs too much to get into. Game + expansion AND a monthly fee? Also the free trial is not a good representation of the game.
* The game does an absolutly terrible job of showing people the strength of an MMORPG, the social aspect. I believe the most common feedback from new players will be "it's lonely".
* The game is way too easy. I don't know why Blizzard thought gamers hate challenges, and made the game this easy. My 7 year old niece plays phone games all the time and she tends to enjoy games that are actually a challenge, like Geometry Dash. If the game is a snoozefest easymode you lose interest fast. Especially new recruits that are not invested in the game yet, they have so many other choices.
* The marketing department seem to not have much of an interest in recruiting young gamers. I don't know much about marketing but they must not try to hit young gamers at all, or they do a really poor job at it.
* Young gamers are not as interested in PC gaming. They prefer phone games in a much higher degree.

What do you think, can WoW keep going in the path it is, ignoring recruiting young gamers?

In my experience under 25 demo doesn't like the tone of the game either. They want stuff upbeat/fun/cool in tone like Fortnite or Apex (Overwatch?)

I'd guess Blizzard doesn't care about the under 25 demographic since 1) they don't have money, 2) they'd have to fundamentally change too much to appeal to them, 3) it's a 17 year old game and they've accepted it won't appeal to them, 4) they're too busy with social justice work on Twitter

There is also a lot out there thats free/low cost to play now days they have to compete with. I cant justify the sub at all. It's seems clearly to be just an extra source of revenue for them and the game doesn't provide near enough value for me to justify paying it.

They're going to have an increasingly harder time appealing to people having sub/box fee/store when there are tons of other compelling options out there in 2022.

And yes FF14 does it and is successful, but how many under 25 play FF14? I'd wager, not many. Seems to overwhelmingly be a 25+ game.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

And yes FF14 does it and is successful, but how many under 25 play FF14? I'd wager, not many. Seems to overwhelmingly be a 25+ game.

From my time spent browsing the FFXIV official forums, Gamefaqs, r/FFXIV, /xivg/ on 4chan, FF14 youtubers, etc, I get the impression that the FFXIV fanbase is overall much younger than the WoW fanbase.

- - - Updated - - -

In my experience under 25 demo doesn't like the tone of the game either. They want stuff upbeat/fun/cool in tone like Fortnite or Apex (Overwatch?)

WoW isn't dark 100% of the time. It has questlines with levity, such as the Azshara or Uldum questlines in Cata, or adventuring with Brann, or a lot of Pandaria, and so on.

I think the biggest impediment to attracting new players is that the game just isn't fun for newcomers and the barrier of entry of getting caught up and learning all of the mechanics is too great. You have to have already been in WoW to tolerate it.

[Razorice]

The Newcomer chat is so much more active than any General chat I'm in. I talk with new players all the time, helping answer questions and point them toward various game resources for doing things that they want to do. The chat is also really friendly. I personally think the Newcomer chat is the best social feature of the game.

This. Newcomer chat is always active and really wholesome (90% of the time) sometimes I log on just to chat on it.

[crusadernero]

The majority of WoW gamers are stuck playing it from a long time ago. It has a very high median age, and I would say it's as high as 30+ years old. It's pretty basic math that the game needs to recruit new gamers to grow. It's not now, its caitering to veteran WoW gamers.

Getting new young gamers will not only make the game more popular, it will make the game way more fun for all of us. We will have people actually leveling in the world, we will have players that do dungeons and don't demand to speedrun it the first time they run it. Even if you are a "I hate zoomers" guy, you can also kill them in World PvP while they try to level.

Young gamers has no interest in playing WoW. Why?

My opinion:
* The game costs too much to get into. Game + expansion AND a monthly fee? Also the free trial is not a good representation of the game.
* The game does an absolutly terrible job of showing people the strength of an MMORPG, the social aspect. I believe the most common feedback from new players will be "it's lonely".
* The game is way too easy. I don't know why Blizzard thought gamers hate challenges, and made the game this easy. My 7 year old niece plays phone games all the time and she tends to enjoy games that are actually a challenge, like Geometry Dash. If the game is a snoozefest easymode you lose interest fast. Especially new recruits that are not invested in the game yet, they have so many other choices.
* The marketing department seem to not have much of an interest in recruiting young gamers. I don't know much about marketing but they must not try to hit young gamers at all, or they do a really poor job at it.
* Young gamers are not as interested in PC gaming. They prefer phone games in a much higher degree.

What do you think, can WoW keep going in the path it is, ignoring recruiting young gamers?

Playing an MMORPG should be something different than picking up your phone for gaming. Phone games are ok, but it really doesnt suit the MMORPG genre to the fullest. Bear in mind, wow might not be a great MMORPG right now, but thats besides the point.

An MMORPG requires time, dedication and so much more to get full value out of it.

And yes, the game at its core is easy. But it can also be really challenging if you want it to be. Mythic raiding, high m+ keys, arenas and more. But guess what, most wow players dont push mythic raiding or the highest m+ keys. Whys that?

Tbh with the current gaming marked, im surprised MMORPGs still are having a decent traction. Theres so many good games to pick and choose from these days, many of them even free.

The price can be discussed ofc and its always subjective. Xpacs comes out every 2-3 years and you dont need to sub all the time, so the total cost from what you get out the game will differ from player to player.

And young people are very interested in PC gaming. Theres been articles about steams having record sales/traction and research shows people still enjoy PC gaming. Just because alot of ppl play phone games doesnt mean they replace it with a PC. Can easily do both.


I agree though that retail wow has become a "lonely" experience, since most of the stuff you do are automated features that puts you with people only for them to be gone.


Lastly - I strongly disagree that Blizzard has ignored attracting new/younger MMORPG players. Retail wow has gone through tremendous changes, many of them can be argued to be done just to get new players in. Its much more streamlined. Its much quicker(then say classic/BC), more actionpacked.

I've been around long enough to remember the days were everyone bitched and moaned about leveling in wow. It took to long, it was boring & tedious.

These days we have classic and people hail it again. While on retail its much more streamlined, quick & "action" oriented experience.

[Demsi]

Young kids simply dont care about WoW, it's not the trendy game that it was 12 years ago.

[VideoGamePlayer]

MMOs aren't really a genre for kids, bar toontown and club penguin which were specifically made for kids. Teenagers look to competitive PvP games like fortnite and LoL. WoW had a good competitive PvP scene for a few expansions, but class simplification and pruning as well as MAU-milking gearing changes crippled it.

[rhorle]

What do you think, can WoW keep going in the path it is, ignoring recruiting young gamers?

Yes. Because "young" gamers won't solve any of the problems you outline. Simply having new or returning players of any age will. Look at a game like New World and how many tried it out it when it was first released. It wasn't just young gamers. Blizzard, like any game developer, just needs to focus on what works for the game and create a fun gameplay. People will either play or they won't.

The MMO style of play has always been more of a niche then other game play. The only way for Blizzard to truly cater specifically to new players would be to drastically change the model and style of the game. Even going free to play won't help attract young players but it might help in attracting some players of any age. But all the issues you outline would still exist. You had things like Wizards and Freerealms that were more kid friendly and closer to a typical MMO but they were also heavily restrained for the age bracket. Roblox is also very popular now which sort of introduces young kids to an MMO style of play.

I also don't agree that young gamers are not interested in PC gaming. Consoles and PC ports to mobile are big sellers still. A PC is just the next step because most kids, which I assume you mean by young can use touch controls easier. Keyboard and mouse still take some skill to use over a controller or touch/phone controls. Right now the only barrier to PC gaming is the high cost given GPUs are hard to get and expensive.

Also Blizzard just needs to step up the content delivery. I think that is the biggest hurdle for young or "old" gamers a like. The more content you delivery the more new or returning players you will attract. The gap between content delays is what hurts most MMOs now given all the other options for game entertainment out there.

[RoKPaNda]

How does it compare to other MMOs in that regard? That's the important part.

[Osmeric]

* The game is way too easy.

People keep saying this. It's manifestly absurd. The notion that players are retained by content beyond what they're comfortable with is ridiculous, and most players have low skill ceilings. Ghostcrawler himself said most players do not want challenging content. The experience in FF XIV confirms this.

[MoanaLisa]

My opinion:
* The game costs too much to get into. Game + expansion AND a monthly fee? Also the free trial is not a good representation of the game.
* The game does an absolutly terrible job of showing people the strength of an MMORPG, the social aspect. I believe the most common feedback from new players will be "it's lonely".
* The game is way too easy. I don't know why Blizzard thought gamers hate challenges, and made the game this easy. My 7 year old niece plays phone games all the time and she tends to enjoy games that are actually a challenge, like Geometry Dash. If the game is a snoozefest easymode you lose interest fast. Especially new recruits that are not invested in the game yet, they have so many other choices.
* The marketing department seem to not have much of an interest in recruiting young gamers. I don't know much about marketing but they must not try to hit young gamers at all, or they do a really poor job at it.
* Young gamers are not as interested in PC gaming. They prefer phone games in a much higher degree.

What do you think, can WoW keep going in the path it is, ignoring recruiting young gamers?

• The game is too expensive given the competition. That's a fact.
• The word on WoW has never been "lonely" but the community is bad and "hostile." That's not wrong.
• No, the game is not way too easy. Other MMO's that have similar or less difficulty are doing fine. But there's a caste system moving from one area of the game to another and for the best PVE content there's a nearly insurmountable wall for a new player to get over. Also: see "hostile."
• Marketers have their research but we don't know what it is.
• It's true that mobile gaming is coming on strong. That's one thing but community hostility and cost override it.

The game is also old. People handwave this away but if they are anything like I was at that age younger gamers are more interested in new things, not games that are in internet years, ancient. Look at the gaming magazines. Old titles don't get a lot of anything. There's very little to be done about that but if the idea of making the game really hard is something that you believe will attract young gamers then I don't know what to tell you. That's nonsense. WoW's success from the start was built on accessibility and not being a hardcore thing. The fact that over the years it's grown closer and closer to that while the noisiest part of the community tells everyone else to 'get gud' or worse is enough to make nearly anyone look at the cost and seek alternatives.

[owbu]

Young people will never care about that weird grandpa game some of their teachers play. Non of my students has the slightest interest in a complex game like WoW.