The biggest competitor to WoW would have been Titan.
Blizzard doesn't want to cannibilize their own customer base, that's as simple as that.
When WoW subscriptions will drop under the $2 Million mark, they might start thinking about making another MMO.
I think that has something to do with their non-urgency to make a new traditional type mmo. I would probably peg it at maybe close to 4-5 million as the time to get serious number, as a lot of their numbers are not real monthly paying subs. It didn't make much sense to make a new mmo to steal some of their own customers when they had 10-12 million customers.
I would also not be surprised to see them wait and see if the new sandbox craze is real or a fad. Then they can throw money at a new version of what is popular.
["Literally have it in reverse. And besides that fact that it's almost the first sentence you hear in every Business 101 class "What is the goal of a business? 'To maximize profits for its shareholders'." you can also get a very nice and neat real world example by looking at the state of the global economy. Primary focus? Short term profitability."
That's what they tell you in business class but its not how investors act. This is why Apple is bigger then Exxon Mobil. Exxon got oil -they make steady profits ever year - and great ones. But the oil is slowly diminishing - but Apple? The Apple investors all think they can be bigger and better? Did you see that trash can computer - everyone will want one.. That's what they say..
Heh.
Seriously though ,I know that personally I wouldn't invest in Blizzard. You can talk about quality and the like but they haven't made a good NEW game in year and years. The company is basically creatively bankrupt and milking one IP thats falling and more out of favour every year.
Investors want to see growth. You see if you are going to buy a stock you want to believe that the company can grow. How can you believe that about Blizzard? Are people suddenly going to roll out of bed and say ' OMG I got to play a tab target MMO with graphics from the Clinton era." Hell no.
Yeah yeah they might have 1/3 the players of League of Legends hooked into a skinner box.. But even those guys are smartening up. Look for continued slippage in their major product.
Good gaming companies don't give a crap about cannibalization. They just make good games. If you make the games good enough you will GROW THE BUSINESS. Something that's not really going on at Blizzard. The real reason they cancelled Titan - it was that good. What's new? Cata stunk and so did Pandas..
Originally posted by Kuinn I have a feeling that Titan looked way too much like Wildstar and since Carbine is already near to launching that game Blizzard thought they need to come up with something else
Nah I firmly believe Titan was a new StarCraft MMO but was more PvP orientated, much like a MOBA but with their new MOBA game they no longer felt the need to sink millions of dollars into another product. or it was a super casual MMO.
I would love to see them come out with a new Titan which is 100% PvE sandbox, and not the Crafting/Building kind. The open ended world boss and exploration kind.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
The biggest competitor to WoW would have been Titan.
Blizzard doesn't want to cannibilize their own customer base, that's as simple as that.
When WoW subscriptions will drop under the $2 Million mark, they might start thinking about making another MMO.
Despite Blizzard saying Titan wouldn't be a direct competitor of WoW, the danger is the newer MMO would bleed subs from WoW. WoW's pay model can't be changed, where Titan is free to explore F2P or go the GW2 route...all things that would, yes, hurt WoW.
Best thing they could do is make WoW 2.0, but the F2P model would hurt the company more long-term. Unlike other companies, Blizzard has incredible expenses and they have to have a steady stream of money to operate. It's a problem smaller studios don't have, but those smaller studios also don't have the best talent in gaming, either...they can't afford it (many offshore it to China, especially the expense of modeling and animations, for example [and it looks it, too]).
Originally posted by anemo Scrapped after bungie's "Destiny" was going to beat them to market.
Activision contracted Bungie to create 4 games, 1 of those is Destiny, last time I checked Activision and Blizzard are still together (:sadface:), so I would say that you are wrong.
My guess is that they really didn't like where the game was going and scrapped it, I refuse to put tinfoil on my head and read more into it.
Seriously though ,I know that personally I wouldn't invest in Blizzard. You can talk about quality and the like but they haven't made a good NEW game in year and years. The company is basically creatively bankrupt and milking one IP thats falling and more out of favour every year.
I would. Quality is subjective. But look at their financial records.
D3 sold 12M+. SC2 sold millions. WoW expansion, even with diminishing subs, sold millions.
If you are talking investment, it is a good bet because they are good at milking IPs.
My personal opinion is (which is pure speculation) is, It has something to do with World of Warcraft, or the game engine Titan was utilizing was insufficient compared to the standards blizzard has established for it being a next Gen engine tech. If the latter, then I'm sure engineering teams are looking at making it truly next gen similar to EQN Voxel technologie or many of the NEW sandbox engines like I-novae engine and space engine, which are pretty amazing tech for small teams to crank out.
Also looking at market trends for the genre, we can see the shift ever more slightly away from large scale themepark MMOG's to more next gen engines for sandbox MMOGs
Times are changing and blizzard won't let old enemys (Sony) and new rivals over take them in the market if it can be helped.
"By all means, reach for the stars but you need to build the spaceship first"
Originally posted by intrinsc They said they didn't scratch all of it. There's underlying technology that they kept, but are re-designing the game to be more than just WoW 2.0.
And they say many things before scrapping Starcraft Ghost too.
They can still going from scrapping titan, to redesign it to be a non-MMO.
Originally posted by intrinsc They said they didn't scratch all of it. There's underlying technology that they kept, but are re-designing the game to be more than just WoW 2.0.
And they say many things before scrapping Starcraft Ghost too.
They can still going from scrapping titan, to redesign it to be a non-MMO.
Scrapped Ghost. and then sold the regular starcraft they made as one complete game in one box for one regular fee.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
Ok guys, this isn't rocket science. It takes like five minutes of looking at the current state of the Western mmo market to realize that most people who wanted to play a game like Titan were already playing WoW. So they probably asked themselves why they wanted to spend a hundred million or two making a new mmo just to steal subscribers from their own company.
There is really no financial incentive at all for Blizzard to make new mmo unless either another mmo surpasses WoW or they think they have a product so good that they can draw in a large number of people who do not currently play mmos.
Ok guys, this isn't rocket science. It takes like five minutes of looking at the current state of the Western mmo market to realize that most people who wanted to play a game like Titan were already playing WoW. So they probably asked themselves why they wanted to spend a hundred million or two making a new mmo just to steal subscribers from their own company.
There is really no financial incentive at all for Blizzard to make new mmo unless either another mmo surpasses WoW or they think they have a product so good that they can draw in a large number of people who do not currently play mmos.
Blizzard will make Titan because they have too (the WoW engine has reached it's limits, especially with computations...why we're getting an item stat squish. They won't even touch fixing the first 16 slot bag, as it's buried in some really deep code that messing with can bork the engine itself). But making Titan could hurt their flagship...even if it wasn't a MMORPG...because it's new and it's from Blizzard. The fans will stay with Blizzard, but what pays the bills...WoW...will take a hit. At this time, it'll hurt too much to release it, even if Blizzard burned the midnight oil to get it out before the movie (notice the new PR channel???).
One thing is for sure, gamers don't have that once in 10 year game (which Titan is suppose to be), and that's alarming. We had it in 1994 and 2004, 2014 looks absent of a game so revolutionary (and fun) that it'll take gaming by storm.
Hearthstone makes more money than any new free to play MMORPG.
And it is MUCH easier to program and it needs far less resources.
Simple./
So.. your point.. is we all should not play MMORPGs and play card games and MOBAs instead? I think not.....
No .. the point is if you want to play new MMORPGs, you may have to look to companies OTHER than Blizz. Blizz has no obligation to provide a new MMORPGs. If they think other genre will make more money (or have more fun, or whatever), they can move away from MMORPGs.
And what is wrong with playing card games and MOBA? Hearthstone is fun (to me).
Ok guys, this isn't rocket science. It takes like five minutes of looking at the current state of the Western mmo market to realize that most people who wanted to play a game like Titan were already playing WoW. So they probably asked themselves why they wanted to spend a hundred million or two making a new mmo just to steal subscribers from their own company.
There is really no financial incentive at all for Blizzard to make new mmo unless either another mmo surpasses WoW or they think they have a product so good that they can draw in a large number of people who do not currently play mmos.
Blizzard will make Titan because they have too (the WoW engine has reached it's limits, especially with computations...why we're getting an item stat squish. They won't even touch fixing the first 16 slot bag, as it's buried in some really deep code that messing with can bork the engine itself). But making Titan could hurt their flagship...even if it wasn't a MMORPG...because it's new and it's from Blizzard. The fans will stay with Blizzard, but what pays the bills...WoW...will take a hit. At this time, it'll hurt too much to release it, even if Blizzard burned the midnight oil to get it out before the movie (notice the new PR channel???).
One thing is for sure, gamers don't have that once in 10 year game (which Titan is suppose to be), and that's alarming. We had it in 1994 and 2004, 2014 looks absent of a game so revolutionary (and fun) that it'll take gaming by storm.
Why do they have to make titan? If MMORPG is no longer the trendy thing to do, they can easily make money off other types of games. It is not like they are not successful in doing that.
My best guess is that Blizzard was watching the latest trend and the "roller coaster" ride that buisness models are on right now, as well as their overall concept of the game and how well these other games like it are faring and wanted to make sure they didn't release a game that was doomed from the start. I am thinking Blizz put the project on hold to wait and see where the latest dust settles.
"Do we borrow from GW2?"
Do we go F2P, P2P, Hybrid or something else?"
"How do we integrate dynamic content?"
"Will quest hubs still fly?"
"Do we use a cash shop, Real Money Auction or just sell game currency for game time?"
"If not, is the subscription model really dead after all?"
"How successful will EQ:N & EQ:LM be?"
"Should we consider borrowing from them too?"
So many questions right now and so much uncertainty in the genre.
I have an unwarranted bias against blizzard for "stealing" so much of the mmorpg population and keeping them from populating newer and better games that come out every year. Actually it's not so much blizzards fault as the new games faults for having PvP games with no progression/elo system that causes my guild and everyone I know to duck out after a month or two.
blizzard does not release products already done in masses.
they set the standarts for em.
and plat0nic, i have seen most of those new games. none of em is actually better than WoW, sorry
Its because your right there where you belong. WoW had some masterminds hired like Psychologist, Mentalist and evaluated how to make people addicted to the game.
You say there are no better games then WoW, its not because its your own opinion after evaulating every game before getting hooked to one but because you got hooked to wow from the start. WoWs psychologists would say: your a prefered example.
Comments
I think that has something to do with their non-urgency to make a new traditional type mmo. I would probably peg it at maybe close to 4-5 million as the time to get serious number, as a lot of their numbers are not real monthly paying subs. It didn't make much sense to make a new mmo to steal some of their own customers when they had 10-12 million customers.
I would also not be surprised to see them wait and see if the new sandbox craze is real or a fad. Then they can throw money at a new version of what is popular.
Why would they want to do that when they can make a good MOBA and get LoL numbers?
["Literally have it in reverse. And besides that fact that it's almost the first sentence you hear in every Business 101 class "What is the goal of a business? 'To maximize profits for its shareholders'." you can also get a very nice and neat real world example by looking at the state of the global economy. Primary focus? Short term profitability."
That's what they tell you in business class but its not how investors act. This is why Apple is bigger then Exxon Mobil. Exxon got oil -they make steady profits ever year - and great ones. But the oil is slowly diminishing - but Apple? The Apple investors all think they can be bigger and better? Did you see that trash can computer - everyone will want one.. That's what they say..
Heh.
Seriously though ,I know that personally I wouldn't invest in Blizzard. You can talk about quality and the like but they haven't made a good NEW game in year and years. The company is basically creatively bankrupt and milking one IP thats falling and more out of favour every year.
Investors want to see growth. You see if you are going to buy a stock you want to believe that the company can grow. How can you believe that about Blizzard? Are people suddenly going to roll out of bed and say ' OMG I got to play a tab target MMO with graphics from the Clinton era." Hell no.
Yeah yeah they might have 1/3 the players of League of Legends hooked into a skinner box.. But even those guys are smartening up. Look for continued slippage in their major product.
Good gaming companies don't give a crap about cannibalization. They just make good games. If you make the games good enough you will GROW THE BUSINESS. Something that's not really going on at Blizzard. The real reason they cancelled Titan - it was that good. What's new? Cata stunk and so did Pandas..
Nah I firmly believe Titan was a new StarCraft MMO but was more PvP orientated, much like a MOBA but with their new MOBA game they no longer felt the need to sink millions of dollars into another product. or it was a super casual MMO.
I would love to see them come out with a new Titan which is 100% PvE sandbox, and not the Crafting/Building kind. The open ended world boss and exploration kind.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Despite Blizzard saying Titan wouldn't be a direct competitor of WoW, the danger is the newer MMO would bleed subs from WoW. WoW's pay model can't be changed, where Titan is free to explore F2P or go the GW2 route...all things that would, yes, hurt WoW.
Best thing they could do is make WoW 2.0, but the F2P model would hurt the company more long-term. Unlike other companies, Blizzard has incredible expenses and they have to have a steady stream of money to operate. It's a problem smaller studios don't have, but those smaller studios also don't have the best talent in gaming, either...they can't afford it (many offshore it to China, especially the expense of modeling and animations, for example [and it looks it, too]).
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
You all should know that blizzard has pretty much done this with every single one of their games.
They make the initial project then restart to improve on what they created.
They did it with Warcraft 3, WoW, Diablo 3, etc.
That's typically what an extremely professional developer does they never just start making a game with the goal of finishing it right there.
They began working on Titan and got to the point where it was time to make an improvement on what they initially created.
For all the people thinking the game was cancelled or something you should know this is pretty routine with Blizzard and has been since forever.
Activision contracted Bungie to create 4 games, 1 of those is Destiny, last time I checked Activision and Blizzard are still together (:sadface:), so I would say that you are wrong.
My guess is that they really didn't like where the game was going and scrapped it, I refuse to put tinfoil on my head and read more into it.
I would. Quality is subjective. But look at their financial records.
D3 sold 12M+. SC2 sold millions. WoW expansion, even with diminishing subs, sold millions.
If you are talking investment, it is a good bet because they are good at milking IPs.
It is also pretty routine for Blizz to scrap games they don't like. Remember Starcraft Ghost? Remember that Thrall centric adventure game?
*edit
Didn't see someone already made the point I did earlier.
They still have an unannounced game title in the works and still hiring for that position.
It could be anything from starcraft ghost to warcraft 4.
My personal opinion is (which is pure speculation) is, It has something to do with World of Warcraft, or the game engine Titan was utilizing was insufficient compared to the standards blizzard has established for it being a next Gen engine tech. If the latter, then I'm sure engineering teams are looking at making it truly next gen similar to EQN Voxel technologie or many of the NEW sandbox engines like I-novae engine and space engine, which are pretty amazing tech for small teams to crank out.
Also looking at market trends for the genre, we can see the shift ever more slightly away from large scale themepark MMOG's to more next gen engines for sandbox MMOGs
Times are changing and blizzard won't let old enemys (Sony) and new rivals over take them in the market if it can be helped.
"By all means, reach for the stars but you need to build the spaceship first"
Hearthstone makes more money than any new free to play MMORPG.
And it is MUCH easier to program and it needs far less resources.
Simple./
And they say many things before scrapping Starcraft Ghost too.
They can still going from scrapping titan, to redesign it to be a non-MMO.
Scrapped Ghost. and then sold the regular starcraft they made as one complete game in one box for one regular fee.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
So.. your point.. is we all should not play MMORPGs and play card games and MOBAs instead? I think not.....
Ok guys, this isn't rocket science. It takes like five minutes of looking at the current state of the Western mmo market to realize that most people who wanted to play a game like Titan were already playing WoW. So they probably asked themselves why they wanted to spend a hundred million or two making a new mmo just to steal subscribers from their own company.
There is really no financial incentive at all for Blizzard to make new mmo unless either another mmo surpasses WoW or they think they have a product so good that they can draw in a large number of people who do not currently play mmos.
Blizzard will make Titan because they have too (the WoW engine has reached it's limits, especially with computations...why we're getting an item stat squish. They won't even touch fixing the first 16 slot bag, as it's buried in some really deep code that messing with can bork the engine itself). But making Titan could hurt their flagship...even if it wasn't a MMORPG...because it's new and it's from Blizzard. The fans will stay with Blizzard, but what pays the bills...WoW...will take a hit. At this time, it'll hurt too much to release it, even if Blizzard burned the midnight oil to get it out before the movie (notice the new PR channel???).
One thing is for sure, gamers don't have that once in 10 year game (which Titan is suppose to be), and that's alarming. We had it in 1994 and 2004, 2014 looks absent of a game so revolutionary (and fun) that it'll take gaming by storm.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
No .. the point is if you want to play new MMORPGs, you may have to look to companies OTHER than Blizz. Blizz has no obligation to provide a new MMORPGs. If they think other genre will make more money (or have more fun, or whatever), they can move away from MMORPGs.
And what is wrong with playing card games and MOBA? Hearthstone is fun (to me).
Why do they have to make titan? If MMORPG is no longer the trendy thing to do, they can easily make money off other types of games. It is not like they are not successful in doing that.
My best guess is that Blizzard was watching the latest trend and the "roller coaster" ride that buisness models are on right now, as well as their overall concept of the game and how well these other games like it are faring and wanted to make sure they didn't release a game that was doomed from the start. I am thinking Blizz put the project on hold to wait and see where the latest dust settles.
"Do we borrow from GW2?"
Do we go F2P, P2P, Hybrid or something else?"
"How do we integrate dynamic content?"
"Will quest hubs still fly?"
"Do we use a cash shop, Real Money Auction or just sell game currency for game time?"
"If not, is the subscription model really dead after all?"
"How successful will EQ:N & EQ:LM be?"
"Should we consider borrowing from them too?"
So many questions right now and so much uncertainty in the genre.
Main Game: Eldevin (Plat0nic)
2nd Game: Path of Exile (Platonic Hate)
blizzard does not release products already done in masses.
they set the standarts for em.
and plat0nic, i have seen most of those new games. none of em is actually better than WoW, sorry
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Its because your right there where you belong. WoW had some masterminds hired like Psychologist, Mentalist and evaluated how to make people addicted to the game.
You say there are no better games then WoW, its not because its your own opinion after evaulating every game before getting hooked to one but because you got hooked to wow from the start. WoWs psychologists would say: your a prefered example.