So, I'm curious what do you guys think Blizz can do to attract some more players back to the game?
Add completely new design to the game, something they did not have -or had- in the past.
It seems the current WoW population is fed up with dailies, grinding, gear treadmill, non existing PVP -Arena is not real pvp, it is only LOS dodging games hopping around pillars-.
So they have to come up with something new.
Older WOW players grow up, move on.
Maybe bring world pvp to the game, something that is actually fun. But Blizzard can only think of linear quests and dull instanced pvp games, so that will never happen.
On the good side, WoW can even be profitable on a few servers with some dedicated players and a extended cashshop, so it will be around for some time to come.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Only problem as i see it, is that the OP's supposition is based on WoW losing subs as some kind of progressive thing, rather than all that appears to have happened, is that the number of subscribers has fallen back to the level they were before the Warlords of Draenor expac, a better question, would have been, how can Blizzard get those players to stick with the game longer than just a few months, chances are the only thing that will do that, is yet another expansion pack.
Other than that WoW seems to be rolling along relatively unchanged, kind of surprising given the age of the game, really i think the only things that have kept WoW at around the 7 million mark for so long is a combination of 'inertia' where players have so much time invested in their characters, they aren't willing to abandon them, and a dearth of games that are at least as good.
Personally i feel that games like FFXIV;ARR and SW;TOR are better, but then, i also succumbed to the Warlords of Draenor expac, and will probably do so again should another expac be in the offing, unlikely though, not until next year at the very earliest
Well i was a player, played from release had a 4 month break and a 6 month break from release till just before 2014 (subscriber and player till then), i got bored and just left. 14 months later i came back, as far as i am concerned i had done and gained everything i usually end up with if i didnt stop playing (e.g before LFR i had normal raid gear) since LFR it was LFR epic raid gear.
Got it seen the game, any point staying - answer nah, not when near everyone you knew has left or changed servers, i would change servers but that would mean rerolling and starting over (i will not pay £18 per character to change server and i have 10) that would be £180 (over $300 to U.S people), i wouldnt even pay half that. Rather just jump in when i can be bothered for 2 months here, and 2 months there (only took 2 months to get back after the 14month break). got 4 or 5 more gametime cards to use yet but not going to be used one after the other.
I wouldn't be worried about Blizzard. They seem to have almost unlimited army of brainwashed scrubs that buyout absolutely everything that comes from them. So yeah, in retrospect, they need to push new expacks and BOOOM, 10 million subs.
Blizzard has been sucking on WoW cow for quite a while now, they knew its time is due and efforts to keep it at x level of subs gets exponentionally harder.
So their plan was to make another MMO, but they are not THAT stupid and dropped it.
So they will continue to suck WoW cow dry with minimal effort as long as people let them, but they have moved on from WoW long long time ago.
WoW has never been below 5 mil subs since 2006, it is normal for WoW to drop subs after an expansions release, but it isn't normal for it to drop this many subs, in this short of a time. And it isn't normal for the #1 US guild for years to break up and quit. And it's not normal for the best PvPers in the game for years to completely stop playing the game all together.
MoP released in Sept 2012, In Q2 2014 (still MoP) they had 6.8 mil subs. WoD released in November 2014, and they're down to 7.1mil.
If you check, it's been a steady decline in subscriptions since 2010, this expansion just seem to have dropped more subscribers than we've ever seen before. Hopefully they don't wait almost 3 years for a new expansion like MoP > WoD. I'd hate to see what numbers they go down to by then.
When all is said and done, more is always said than done.
Thank you for that interesting chart. I think it shows no definite positive effect, from any of the expansions, on the game's playerbase growth. During Classic, WoW's population grew by 3.5 million players a year; during BC this fell in half, to 1.7 million / year. In WotLK the game flat-lined, and it's been downhill since then. If even those two much-loved expansions did not reverse the decline in growth, what hope is there for anything Blizzard can do?
With each expansion, Blizzard charges its faithful players $50, makes obsolete all existing endgame content, moves the goalposts, and messes with WoW's formula. Maybe expansions are bad things, and we should hope for fewer of them.
WoW has never been below 5 mil subs since 2006, it is normal for WoW to drop subs after an expansions release, but it isn't normal for it to drop this many subs, in this short of a time. And it isn't normal for the #1 US guild for years to break up and quit. And it's not normal for the best PvPers in the game for years to completely stop playing the game all together.
MoP released in Sept 2012, In Q2 2014 (still MoP) they had 6.8 mil subs. WoD released in November 2014, and they're down to 7.1mil.
If you check, it's been a steady decline in subscriptions since 2010, this expansion just seem to have dropped more subscribers than we've ever seen before. Hopefully they don't wait almost 3 years for a new expansion like MoP > WoD. I'd hate to see what numbers they go down to by then.
Seeing as you have decoded the trend.. let me put a name to it for you...
Churn....
As in the neverending flow of customers coming and going. It happens to every kind of service and is why your phonecompany are offering such awesome deals when oyu sign up and can be strongarmed in to giving you a good deal when you want to leave.
As others have put forth... WoW is 10 years old... For a computergame to retain 60-ish% of their customerbase that is what would be called.. "doing pretty damm fine" in fact if you look at other games in the market they should by all means expect a drop of another 30% before stabelizing. But seeing as they have such a massive customer base i think we will see a drop of maybe even 70% of their total playerbase before things go stable. Especially in the west,
Or to sum it up... WoW could expect drop as low as 1.5-2 mil users before they flatten out and set in to the slow "sunset-decline" down for a few 100k users.. if other games are to be any inidcator. This is ofc unless they go free to play... Once that happen only the amouth of big spenders matter.
I have a very hard time seeing them taking WoW F2P. They will most likley sunset the game before that happens.
I think that we are going to have to see some additional classes added. I predict some sort of Bard class and a new DPS/Healer type. They do not need to fill certain traditional roles, just added flavor for choices. The DK was an "Elite" class and it was assumed that other classes would follow eventually.
Mini games, off line experience, off line crafting, and some type of "side kick" system would be attractive to older players. My account is in limbo right now and I have no idea if or when I am returning.
Blizzard has been sucking on WoW cow for quite a while now, they knew its time is due and efforts to keep it at x level of subs gets exponentionally harder.
So their plan was to make another MMO, but they are not THAT stupid and dropped it.
So they will continue to suck WoW cow dry with minimal effort as long as people let them, but they have moved on from WoW long long time ago.
you have absolutely NO IDEA what you are talking about, right?
nice trollpost tho.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
WoW has never been below 5 mil subs since 2006, it is normal for WoW to drop subs after an expansions release, but it isn't normal for it to drop this many subs, in this short of a time. And it isn't normal for the #1 US guild for years to break up and quit. And it's not normal for the best PvPers in the game for years to completely stop playing the game all together.
MoP released in Sept 2012, In Q2 2014 (still MoP) they had 6.8 mil subs. WoD released in November 2014, and they're down to 7.1mil.
If you check, it's been a steady decline in subscriptions since 2010, this expansion just seem to have dropped more subscribers than we've ever seen before. Hopefully they don't wait almost 3 years for a new expansion like MoP > WoD. I'd hate to see what numbers they go down to by then.
Seeing as you have decoded the trend.. let me put a name to it for you...
Churn....
As in the neverending flow of customers coming and going. It happens to every kind of service and is why your phonecompany are offering such awesome deals when oyu sign up and can be strongarmed in to giving you a good deal when you want to leave.
As others have put forth... WoW is 10 years old... For a computergame to retain 60-ish% of their customerbase that is what would be called.. "doing pretty damm fine" in fact if you look at other games in the market they should by all means expect a drop of another 30% before stabelizing. But seeing as they have such a massive customer base i think we will see a drop of maybe even 70% of their total playerbase before things go stable. Especially in the west,
Or to sum it up... WoW could expect drop as low as 1.5-2 mil users before they flatten out and set in to the slow "sunset-decline" down for a few 100k users.. if other games are to be any inidcator. This is ofc unless they go free to play... Once that happen only the amouth of big spenders matter.
I have a very hard time seeing them taking WoW F2P. They will most likley sunset the game before that happens.
On a slight note of hillarity, using Paigeys figures, Blizzard seems to have gained 300k subs, 6.8 is less than 7.1 after all. If you discounted the expansion pack 'blip' when it comes to the short term increase in subs, the actual sub numbers are relatively unchanged, even 300k is still a fairly small number compared to the overall player numbers in question, although it might seem large if you compare it to other games numbers, but WoW has always been the outlier.
Tend to agree, given the overal state of decline, which is fairly minimal, and that over 7 million still seem happy to subscribe - surely that number has to go down more soon? then i can't see Blizzard considering going F2P, and assuming it ever fell below 3 million, would even that be low enough for Blizzard to consider the F2P option, after all these years, you might well be correct in your assumption that they would seek to sunset the game rather than go to all the trouble of monetising it in such a way that it would be possible to run it as a f2p game.
A problem though? Doubt it. Do a search on "product life cycle" and you will find lots of graphs that show how a new product gains in popularity, matures and then goes into a slow decline.
Has WoW peaked?
The "worry" within AB might be that they lost the subs they gained with the WoD expansion in a single quarter - usually this has taken 18 months-ish. And if the next quarter drops 500k and the quarter after that then senior management may well conclude that WoW has peaked and is now in decline.
If this "view" becomes established it could become "self fulfilling". They spend less in order to push revenue. Possible that Blizzard arrived at this conclusion a couple of years back leading to the 14 month content drought.
In the short term of course Blizzard could - if they wish - spend more money; speed up content production, run advertising and promotions, reduce the sub price for summer ..... not saying they will do any of these things but if they wanted to they could. I suspect they will just hope the film gives them a boost
WoW has never been below 5 mil subs since 2006, it is normal for WoW to drop subs after an expansions release, but it isn't normal for it to drop this many subs, in this short of a time. And it isn't normal for the #1 US guild for years to break up and quit. And it's not normal for the best PvPers in the game for years to completely stop playing the game all together.
MoP released in Sept 2012, In Q2 2014 (still MoP) they had 6.8 mil subs. WoD released in November 2014, and they're down to 7.1mil.
If you check, it's been a steady decline in subscriptions since 2010, this expansion just seem to have dropped more subscribers than we've ever seen before. Hopefully they don't wait almost 3 years for a new expansion like MoP > WoD. I'd hate to see what numbers they go down to by then.
Its completely normal. People get bored after awhile, regardless of how good of a product is or how much of a grind it is. And with the constant flux of good games, both SP and MP, MMOs are having hard times keeping their players. Other games became a lot better and a lot more rewarding so it doesn't feel like a chore to play, say, Witcher 3, in comparison to WoW. Or even teso/gw2. The first being a little closer to WoW formula.
Meanwhile WoW is quite dated and it hasn't aged well in terms of graphics and gameplay. Though performance is superb on older computers, which in the MMO community is more often the norm rather than the exception. Though from what I gather, WoD bumps the minimum system requirements ... so maybe that?
So, I'm curious what do you guys think Blizz can do to attract some more players back to the game? It's quite clear WoD was hyped, but it didn't hold enough interest than Blizzard wanted if I had to guess.
I quit for like 4 months starting in December and just came back a little bit ago, I think what they did to PvE is pretty bad, most of the hardcore raiders I know stopped playing, the #1 US guild in the game broke up and most of them raid casually/quit, a lot of top 100 guilds quit, a lot of hardcore PvPers are playing LoL or CS:GO now, and don't even bother with WoW.
I mean, it's a pretty big mess besides playing casually a few hours a night or whatever.
To me, all the expansion did was make the game easier for new players, they lowered the skill cap that PvE had with renaming difficulties and changing the way raids worked, they got rid of snapshotting which was basically the biggest factor in MoP PvE between a decent player and a good player, a bunch of the skills that weren't used often, but were optimal in a few situations are gone. You can gear without even raiding, ect.
PvP, adding all CC on like 3 different DRs, so positioning isn't nearly as important, neither is CD usage. I mean all the way up to like 2k CR is players that would've probably never been past 1600 in MoP.
Idk, there's my rant. I've played for going on 5 years now, I've been subbed for the majority of that time, but I feel like WoD has let a lot of their hardcore playerbase down, and apparently, that's 30% or more of their total players.
What's Blizzards next step with WoW in it's current state? How do they even maintain their current sub count let alone attract new ones, I hope it isn't with boring gimmicky patches and literally insane buffs like in 6.2.
--
P.S. I'm still subbed, I'm having fun PvPing on a few different classes, and it's still basically the only game I play right now, but I'm not having nearly enough fun as I was in MoP, or even Cata.
I'll probably play until the new PoE xpac, and then quit for a bit depending on how PoE goes.
They don't need to bounce back.
The best option for longer term post expansion retention is to make an extensive, EQ-like AA system. People get to max level in a few days then are completely done with character progression for 2 years. That needs to change.
i would personally jump back instantly if they actually focus on Sargeras or the new Lich King.
funny thing is, most of the companies that tried to compete with WoW, don't realize that now is actually the time to take the crown or they simply burnt out after their last attempt. we are at a point that more and more are looking for more than just grinding. imagine an open world game with lots of activities to keep you busy without the need to grind. for example a mini card game built in the game that players can play in taverns, having an Smite like PvP section beside regular PVP, more customizable game that allows you to truly decorate a house/castle/ship etc.
my top MMOs: UO,DAOC,WoW,GW2
most of my posts are just my opinions they are not facts,it is the same for you too.
Tend to agree, given the overal state of decline, which is fairly minimal, and that over 7 million still seem happy to subscribe - surely that number has to go down more soon? then i can't see Blizzard considering going F2P, and assuming it ever fell below 3 million, would even that be low enough for Blizzard to consider the F2P option, after all these years, you might well be correct in your assumption that they would seek to sunset the game rather than go to all the trouble of monetising it in such a way that it would be possible to run it as a f2p game.
The majority of these 7 millions are in China, the majority of the lost subs are Chineses (going by NetEase press release from last year) and F2P is way more popular in China...
The only reason why they gain so much players in the last xpac was the fact that they told us they where giving us the vanilla feeling we wanted for so long. But nope they decided at the last minute to cave in to the 3 or 4 millions remaining players they had before the pre-release and look where it is taking them.
The stats pruning was good at first but then they tweaked it for the worst before the release of the xpac and kept the extra 30% xp gain that they had during the beta test of the xpac to make it easier to levle up. Now sub are starting to go down again but at a faster pace. They could release a new xpac with new class, etc. and it would not matter at this point. We don't want a easy game. That is what players are telling them. Sure they like all the extra stuff they give us that makes are days easier but the game itself should be way more hard then what it is.
Hopefully we get a mmorpg that stays true to itself in the future. Graphics, etc is not the problem seriously otherwise we would not get gains of about 7 million players returning each time to the game when a new xpac is release. We would think at one point they would see that fact but heck they are so stupid it is not even funny anymore.
MoP and WoD introduced two big yet completely different things to the game when they launched. MoP had a new race and new class. WoD introduced a character boost which was also included in the expansion as a freebie as well as the garrison which imo started the real decline in the expansion. The reason the numbers dropped so fast was 1) WoD didn't really introduce anything that made players play for an extended period of time like leveling a new class would do or playing other classes as a new race. Instead they made the sub decline go faster by lowering the exp necessary to level, no new class, too garrison focused and also not having flight (which they know was a big negative). All they have been relying on the past updates is raids and now dungeons, but honestly people are going to find the gear grind pointless especially without something new to play like a new class. Only good thing they did so far with the expansion was add the token which allows people who use the "I dont want to pay for a sub" excuse to still test new contently quarterly and see if its worth playing or not. Their subs will never be as high as they were at launch, hopefully most people will realize that, but I'm thinking their goal is to just stabilize the subs and lower the dips that they know they usually encounter. This expansion needed more thought cause garrison and raids wont honestly introduce something that will last longer than a month until people quit because of the tedium.
Tend to agree, given the overal state of decline, which is fairly minimal, and that over 7 million still seem happy to subscribe - surely that number has to go down more soon? then i can't see Blizzard considering going F2P, and assuming it ever fell below 3 million, would even that be low enough for Blizzard to consider the F2P option, after all these years, you might well be correct in your assumption that they would seek to sunset the game rather than go to all the trouble of monetising it in such a way that it would be possible to run it as a f2p game.
The majority of these 7 millions are in China, the majority of the lost subs are Chineses (going by NetEase press release from last year) and F2P is way more popular in China...
There has yet to be any real evidence given to support those claims tbh, so i would be wary of giving such claims any credence.
The game's age doesn't factor in as much as people think. The main problem is that Blizzard changed the formula over the last few expansions in order to make the game appeal to new players. In my opinion that is a big no no when you have an established MMO like WoW.
Lord of the rings online tried the same thing as well. One of their former Q&A's even posted in this thread here:
"So many of such changes were driven by the belief that one needed to make the game 'more accessible', convienience and all that. Arguably, they were trying to attract a type of gamer who was just never going to stick with LOTRO anyway. If taking the time to ride to a certain town to do your crafting (or to a certain dungeon for a raid) was too much to ask of the player, how much more was expecting them to grind out 75, 85 to 100 levels? As a player myself I think the only meangingul aggregate effect of the changes for accessibility were to create a sense of triviality about the whole business that has obviously turned many off."
Aylwen posted about how foolish it was to try to alter your established MMO in order to try to appeal to potential customers, instead of focusing on the customers they already had. In the end the game started to hemorage off players because the game focused a lot of resources on attracting new customers instead of focusing on retention. The entire thread is a good read gives you a lot of insight as to what goes on in a MMO studio.
Anyway at the end of the day Blizzard changed the formula too much, sure a lot of elements of the original game still exist, but they made too many changes to the core experience and that is why the game is limping along now. The subscriber increase and decline for WoD just goes to show you that their is still interest from the community. If they would go back to their roots and revert many of the stupid changes, I'm betting they could get back a decent chunk of lost subscribers.
I'm playing on a Vanilla server at the moment and the server is full at all hours of the day. Just goes to show that there are a lot of people still interested in playing the original wow formula.
But the core game was flawed beyond redemption....
Like the old skill tree... broken
Old dungeons... broken
Old LFG system... Broken (Remember when you had to stand i a hub and shout for a group... Fun times... Or sit next to a meeting stone and hope for the best... Glorious)
Or if you where on a small server before the cross realm stuff.... Broken.
Yeah you cant have your own cult these days due to cross realm.. but for anyone not on the big 5 servers.. life improved massivley.
There is a simple issue here that is not being addressed.
WoW gamers are 10 years older with more responsiblities (jobd/kids etc). The hardcore loyal players like me don't have the playing time that we used to have, so our playing patterns change. I used to find time to raid and do other stuff, but it doesn't really appeal now as I have other things to be doing. I do like to log on for an hour and do stuff though, but that stuff is declining in options as the game keeps putting out new raids but doesn't really cater for the player who is not massively into raiding - what do they get for their sub time to keep giving them an impetus to log in. You can ignore your Garrison for a few days and just let the stores mount up and take them together, so it's not like you must log in for the Garrison also.
If Bliz would give some stuff to the non-raiders, with each x.1, x.2 of their expansions, it would keep the non raiders interested.
Tend to agree, given the overal state of decline, which is fairly minimal, and that over 7 million still seem happy to subscribe - surely that number has to go down more soon? then i can't see Blizzard considering going F2P, and assuming it ever fell below 3 million, would even that be low enough for Blizzard to consider the F2P option, after all these years, you might well be correct in your assumption that they would seek to sunset the game rather than go to all the trouble of monetising it in such a way that it would be possible to run it as a f2p game.
The majority of these 7 millions are in China, the majority of the lost subs are Chineses (going by NetEase press release from last year) and F2P is way more popular in China...
There has yet to be any real evidence given to support those claims tbh, so i would be wary of giving such claims any credence.
Blizzard, The9 and NetEase disagree with you here, but I doubt you are competent enough to use Google yourself though so here we go:
WoW lost 6 million players in 2009 when the Chinese Gov caused some trouble with The9 and Blizzard cancelled their contract with them (they went with NetEase afterward). WoW player base at the time was around 11 millions (it reached 12 millions once NetEase got the go to re-open the Chinese servers). Note, this article has The9 claims that it has ~9 millions active WoW players in 2009 instead of 6 millions (which they define as players who spent money in the last 3 months)...
Blizzard mention the WoW players lost as "disproportionately concentrated in the East" (aka Asia) in 2014.
Blizzard prowls around for the years in between expansion packs looking for the best and most hyped features of the upcoming MMOs, then throws them into WoW polishes them better then the originals and gives it to the players. They get what they wanted with what they had and everyone stays happy.
Comments
Add completely new design to the game, something they did not have -or had- in the past.
It seems the current WoW population is fed up with dailies, grinding, gear treadmill, non existing PVP -Arena is not real pvp, it is only LOS dodging games hopping around pillars-.
So they have to come up with something new.
Older WOW players grow up, move on.
Maybe bring world pvp to the game, something that is actually fun. But Blizzard can only think of linear quests and dull instanced pvp games, so that will never happen.
On the good side, WoW can even be profitable on a few servers with some dedicated players and a extended cashshop, so it will be around for some time to come.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Only problem as i see it, is that the OP's supposition is based on WoW losing subs as some kind of progressive thing, rather than all that appears to have happened, is that the number of subscribers has fallen back to the level they were before the Warlords of Draenor expac, a better question, would have been, how can Blizzard get those players to stick with the game longer than just a few months, chances are the only thing that will do that, is yet another expansion pack.
Other than that WoW seems to be rolling along relatively unchanged, kind of surprising given the age of the game, really i think the only things that have kept WoW at around the 7 million mark for so long is a combination of 'inertia' where players have so much time invested in their characters, they aren't willing to abandon them, and a dearth of games that are at least as good.
Personally i feel that games like FFXIV;ARR and SW;TOR are better, but then, i also succumbed to the Warlords of Draenor expac, and will probably do so again should another expac be in the offing, unlikely though, not until next year at the very earliest
Well i was a player, played from release had a 4 month break and a 6 month break from release till just before 2014 (subscriber and player till then), i got bored and just left. 14 months later i came back, as far as i am concerned i had done and gained everything i usually end up with if i didnt stop playing (e.g before LFR i had normal raid gear) since LFR it was LFR epic raid gear.
Got it seen the game, any point staying - answer nah, not when near everyone you knew has left or changed servers, i would change servers but that would mean rerolling and starting over (i will not pay £18 per character to change server and i have 10) that would be £180 (over $300 to U.S people), i wouldnt even pay half that. Rather just jump in when i can be bothered for 2 months here, and 2 months there (only took 2 months to get back after the 14month break). got 4 or 5 more gametime cards to use yet but not going to be used one after the other.
Blizzard has been sucking on WoW cow for quite a while now, they knew its time is due and efforts to keep it at x level of subs gets exponentionally harder.
So their plan was to make another MMO, but they are not THAT stupid and dropped it.
So they will continue to suck WoW cow dry with minimal effort as long as people let them, but they have moved on from WoW long long time ago.
[mod edit]
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
WoW has never been below 5 mil subs since 2006, it is normal for WoW to drop subs after an expansions release, but it isn't normal for it to drop this many subs, in this short of a time. And it isn't normal for the #1 US guild for years to break up and quit. And it's not normal for the best PvPers in the game for years to completely stop playing the game all together.
MoP released in Sept 2012, In Q2 2014 (still MoP) they had 6.8 mil subs. WoD released in November 2014, and they're down to 7.1mil.
If you check, it's been a steady decline in subscriptions since 2010, this expansion just seem to have dropped more subscribers than we've ever seen before. Hopefully they don't wait almost 3 years for a new expansion like MoP > WoD. I'd hate to see what numbers they go down to by then.
Thank you for that interesting chart. I think it shows no definite positive effect, from any of the expansions, on the game's playerbase growth. During Classic, WoW's population grew by 3.5 million players a year; during BC this fell in half, to 1.7 million / year. In WotLK the game flat-lined, and it's been downhill since then. If even those two much-loved expansions did not reverse the decline in growth, what hope is there for anything Blizzard can do?
With each expansion, Blizzard charges its faithful players $50, makes obsolete all existing endgame content, moves the goalposts, and messes with WoW's formula. Maybe expansions are bad things, and we should hope for fewer of them.
Seeing as you have decoded the trend.. let me put a name to it for you...
Churn....
As in the neverending flow of customers coming and going. It happens to every kind of service and is why your phonecompany are offering such awesome deals when oyu sign up and can be strongarmed in to giving you a good deal when you want to leave.
As others have put forth... WoW is 10 years old... For a computergame to retain 60-ish% of their customerbase that is what would be called.. "doing pretty damm fine" in fact if you look at other games in the market they should by all means expect a drop of another 30% before stabelizing. But seeing as they have such a massive customer base i think we will see a drop of maybe even 70% of their total playerbase before things go stable. Especially in the west,
Or to sum it up... WoW could expect drop as low as 1.5-2 mil users before they flatten out and set in to the slow "sunset-decline" down for a few 100k users.. if other games are to be any inidcator. This is ofc unless they go free to play... Once that happen only the amouth of big spenders matter.
I have a very hard time seeing them taking WoW F2P. They will most likley sunset the game before that happens.
This have been a good conversation
I think that we are going to have to see some additional classes added. I predict some sort of Bard class and a new DPS/Healer type. They do not need to fill certain traditional roles, just added flavor for choices. The DK was an "Elite" class and it was assumed that other classes would follow eventually.
Mini games, off line experience, off line crafting, and some type of "side kick" system would be attractive to older players. My account is in limbo right now and I have no idea if or when I am returning.
you have absolutely NO IDEA what you are talking about, right?
nice trollpost tho.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
On a slight note of hillarity, using Paigeys figures, Blizzard seems to have gained 300k subs, 6.8 is less than 7.1 after all. If you discounted the expansion pack 'blip' when it comes to the short term increase in subs, the actual sub numbers are relatively unchanged, even 300k is still a fairly small number compared to the overall player numbers in question, although it might seem large if you compare it to other games numbers, but WoW has always been the outlier.
Tend to agree, given the overal state of decline, which is fairly minimal, and that over 7 million still seem happy to subscribe - surely that number has to go down more soon? then i can't see Blizzard considering going F2P, and assuming it ever fell below 3 million, would even that be low enough for Blizzard to consider the F2P option, after all these years, you might well be correct in your assumption that they would seek to sunset the game rather than go to all the trouble of monetising it in such a way that it would be possible to run it as a f2p game.
Bounce back? Probably won't.
A problem though? Doubt it. Do a search on "product life cycle" and you will find lots of graphs that show how a new product gains in popularity, matures and then goes into a slow decline.
Has WoW peaked?
The "worry" within AB might be that they lost the subs they gained with the WoD expansion in a single quarter - usually this has taken 18 months-ish. And if the next quarter drops 500k and the quarter after that then senior management may well conclude that WoW has peaked and is now in decline.
If this "view" becomes established it could become "self fulfilling". They spend less in order to push revenue. Possible that Blizzard arrived at this conclusion a couple of years back leading to the 14 month content drought.
In the short term of course Blizzard could - if they wish - spend more money; speed up content production, run advertising and promotions, reduce the sub price for summer ..... not saying they will do any of these things but if they wanted to they could. I suspect they will just hope the film gives them a boost
Its completely normal. People get bored after awhile, regardless of how good of a product is or how much of a grind it is. And with the constant flux of good games, both SP and MP, MMOs are having hard times keeping their players. Other games became a lot better and a lot more rewarding so it doesn't feel like a chore to play, say, Witcher 3, in comparison to WoW. Or even teso/gw2. The first being a little closer to WoW formula.
Meanwhile WoW is quite dated and it hasn't aged well in terms of graphics and gameplay. Though performance is superb on older computers, which in the MMO community is more often the norm rather than the exception. Though from what I gather, WoD bumps the minimum system requirements ... so maybe that?
They don't need to bounce back.
The best option for longer term post expansion retention is to make an extensive, EQ-like AA system. People get to max level in a few days then are completely done with character progression for 2 years. That needs to change.
i would personally jump back instantly if they actually focus on Sargeras or the new Lich King.
funny thing is, most of the companies that tried to compete with WoW, don't realize that now is actually the time to take the crown or they simply burnt out after their last attempt. we are at a point that more and more are looking for more than just grinding. imagine an open world game with lots of activities to keep you busy without the need to grind. for example a mini card game built in the game that players can play in taverns, having an Smite like PvP section beside regular PVP, more customizable game that allows you to truly decorate a house/castle/ship etc.
my top MMOs: UO,DAOC,WoW,GW2
most of my posts are just my opinions they are not facts,it is the same for you too.
The majority of these 7 millions are in China, the majority of the lost subs are Chineses (going by NetEase press release from last year) and F2P is way more popular in China...
The only reason why they gain so much players in the last xpac was the fact that they told us they where giving us the vanilla feeling we wanted for so long. But nope they decided at the last minute to cave in to the 3 or 4 millions remaining players they had before the pre-release and look where it is taking them.
The stats pruning was good at first but then they tweaked it for the worst before the release of the xpac and kept the extra 30% xp gain that they had during the beta test of the xpac to make it easier to levle up. Now sub are starting to go down again but at a faster pace. They could release a new xpac with new class, etc. and it would not matter at this point. We don't want a easy game. That is what players are telling them. Sure they like all the extra stuff they give us that makes are days easier but the game itself should be way more hard then what it is.
Hopefully we get a mmorpg that stays true to itself in the future. Graphics, etc is not the problem seriously otherwise we would not get gains of about 7 million players returning each time to the game when a new xpac is release. We would think at one point they would see that fact but heck they are so stupid it is not even funny anymore.
There has yet to be any real evidence given to support those claims tbh, so i would be wary of giving such claims any credence.
The game's age doesn't factor in as much as people think. The main problem is that Blizzard changed the formula over the last few expansions in order to make the game appeal to new players. In my opinion that is a big no no when you have an established MMO like WoW.
Lord of the rings online tried the same thing as well. One of their former Q&A's even posted in this thread here:
http://lotrocommunity.com/forum/topic/3465-lotro-pvpersare-they-really-that-bad/page-43
"So many of such changes were driven by the belief that one needed to make the game 'more accessible', convienience and all that. Arguably, they were trying to attract a type of gamer who was just never going to stick with LOTRO anyway. If taking the time to ride to a certain town to do your crafting (or to a certain dungeon for a raid) was too much to ask of the player, how much more was expecting them to grind out 75, 85 to 100 levels? As a player myself I think the only meangingul aggregate effect of the changes for accessibility were to create a sense of triviality about the whole business that has obviously turned many off."
Aylwen posted about how foolish it was to try to alter your established MMO in order to try to appeal to potential customers, instead of focusing on the customers they already had. In the end the game started to hemorage off players because the game focused a lot of resources on attracting new customers instead of focusing on retention. The entire thread is a good read gives you a lot of insight as to what goes on in a MMO studio.
Anyway at the end of the day Blizzard changed the formula too much, sure a lot of elements of the original game still exist, but they made too many changes to the core experience and that is why the game is limping along now. The subscriber increase and decline for WoD just goes to show you that their is still interest from the community. If they would go back to their roots and revert many of the stupid changes, I'm betting they could get back a decent chunk of lost subscribers.
I'm playing on a Vanilla server at the moment and the server is full at all hours of the day. Just goes to show that there are a lot of people still interested in playing the original wow formula.
But the core game was flawed beyond redemption....
Like the old skill tree... broken
Old dungeons... broken
Old LFG system... Broken (Remember when you had to stand i a hub and shout for a group... Fun times... Or sit next to a meeting stone and hope for the best... Glorious)
Or if you where on a small server before the cross realm stuff.... Broken.
Yeah you cant have your own cult these days due to cross realm.. but for anyone not on the big 5 servers.. life improved massivley.
This have been a good conversation
There is a simple issue here that is not being addressed.
WoW gamers are 10 years older with more responsiblities (jobd/kids etc). The hardcore loyal players like me don't have the playing time that we used to have, so our playing patterns change. I used to find time to raid and do other stuff, but it doesn't really appeal now as I have other things to be doing. I do like to log on for an hour and do stuff though, but that stuff is declining in options as the game keeps putting out new raids but doesn't really cater for the player who is not massively into raiding - what do they get for their sub time to keep giving them an impetus to log in. You can ignore your Garrison for a few days and just let the stores mount up and take them together, so it's not like you must log in for the Garrison also.
If Bliz would give some stuff to the non-raiders, with each x.1, x.2 of their expansions, it would keep the non raiders interested.
Blizzard, The9 and NetEase disagree with you here, but I doubt you are competent enough to use Google yourself though so here we go:
WoW lost 6 million players in 2009 when the Chinese Gov caused some trouble with The9 and Blizzard cancelled their contract with them (they went with NetEase afterward). WoW player base at the time was around 11 millions (it reached 12 millions once NetEase got the go to re-open the Chinese servers). Note, this article has The9 claims that it has ~9 millions active WoW players in 2009 instead of 6 millions (which they define as players who spent money in the last 3 months)...
Blizzard mention the WoW players lost as "disproportionately concentrated in the East" (aka Asia) in 2014.
WoW is a master level thief.
Blizzard prowls around for the years in between expansion packs looking for the best and most hyped features of the upcoming MMOs, then throws them into WoW polishes them better then the originals and gives it to the players. They get what they wanted with what they had and everyone stays happy.