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.
Unless its backed up by figures from Blizzard, then no, and the fact that WoW has lost a large number of its Asian playerbase, is not really in question, the supposition however, that these players represent the majority of the overall WoW playerbase is.
I've no doubt that WoW is losing popularity in Asia, they also had a price increase there after all, i am sure that didn't go down well as it meant that they would often end up paying significantly more than a regular subscription would cost.
As for Blizzard stating that lost player base was disproportionately concentrated in the East, that in no way can be inferred as meaning that the player base in the 'East' is in any way the majority, and in no way supports your argument as it is more likely to lend itself to the argument that the majority of the current WoW players are in fact, based in NA/EU areas, which is far more believable.
Originally posted by DMKano Blizzard took the top devs from all of their teams and attempted to make another MMORPG - Project Titan - it didn't turn out well. They took whatever assets they could reuse and made overwatch.
and they put effort into a MOBA and card game.
They don't need another MMO if they can be successful with other games.
A few friends and I that played from vanilla up through MOP firmly believe that they are just doing the bare minimum with updates and have mostly already considered WoW to be on the way out.
If you compare the amount of content in Mop to WoD it's pretty obvious they don't really care anymore.
They could add a ton of features with the resources they have or get new servers but they don't.
Like every other aged game the content that comes out is just enough to keep people subbed for a while and nothing more.
They can easily bounce back, WoD was a perfect example of this, but blizz fucked it up. They went too far with the streamlining, on top of this, content releases are very slow and lack any substance, which has been getting worse and worse every patch. I'll say the leveling of WoD was amazing, but after that? No idea what happened.
Again it can bounce back, it's clear people want to play WoW again with the subs hitting 10 mill, but blizzard need to pull their finger out.
Get rid of all these timers and limits for one, it's a cheap way of extending the content. It's alright having it here and there, but they went overboard with this xpac, this is an mmorpg not a facebook game you log-in for a few min each day. The grind for tokens or currency needs to be changed, which is also linked in with the timers. It's uninteresting. Go one area, face role mobs solo, hand in or go another area, face roll as a group, hand in. It's quick and easy, but after a while the quick and easy repetitiveness gets boring, you want it to get quicker and quicker, hence why dungeons have become a such a big rush-fest. I've said once i'll say it again, they need to expand on the brawlers guild idea, the places is a grind, but it's fun. It offers a challenge and fun little encounters, but the one thing it offers that the rest of the game doesn't (outside of raiding) and is missing in a lot of games is room for failure.
Wow is a monster that is unmatched in the mmorpg genre even at 10+ years of age.
The players they lost are the players they gained from the expansion, these are the players that will come back when they add a new expansion. When they release a new expansion, they will add 3 million new players and they will leave in 6 months again.
WoW has 2 kinds of players, long standing players and short term players that play when an expansion is released.
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.
Sort of agree with you here. I'm having a blast with WoW returning for the third time. I'm several expansions behind so there is much to see and do. I started all over again on a new server. Sadly I have multiple 100s after a short period of time and I'm starting to see the raid wall ahead of me. There is plenty to do aside from raiding but once I get through that, wondering where to go from there. Would love to see a real housing system and WoW does so many things well, they could do a great job with a fun and functional housing system. Imagine a Wildstar housing design in WoW. That would be fantastic.
With that said though, seems that WoW is plugging along quite nicely. I know folks are angry about the whole no flying thing and there are multiple quitting posts. Seems like par for the course with any game. I plan on sticking with WoW because there is still months of content left for me. Nothing on the market really appeals to me. I make periodic return trips to TSW and may check out ESO. For now though, WoW is my thing. As I progress through the dungeons, I'm seeing plenty of returning players like myself. Some have been away for years.
Wow is a monster that is unmatched in the mmorpg genre even at 10+ years of age.
The players they lost are the players they gained from the expansion, these are the players that will come back when they add a new expansion. When they release a new expansion, they will add 3 million new players and they will leave in 6 months again.
WoW has 2 kinds of players, long standing players and short term players that play when an expansion is released.
While true, i don't think thats the case. Long standing players are starting to question, are blizz even trying anymore. The patches since launch have been very bare minimum and not as interesting as before. The xpac hasn't been out long, but people are already getting that end of expansion feeling.
They stood on a lot of toes with this one, Pvper haven't had anything worth while in a long time, content out side raids have all these timers and streamlined grind, crafters got screwed over, raiders are being pushed into 20 man groups if they want to progress in more challenging content, but think what people are picking up on is it seems they're not trying to correct anything, so player sit there thinking, God is this what we're going to have to deal with for a year or so?
we might be wrong and I hope so, blizz might smash it with the next patch, but events occuring are much different than the usual new xpac release.
Wow is a monster that is unmatched in the mmorpg genre even at 10+ years of age.
The players they lost are the players they gained from the expansion, these are the players that will come back when they add a new expansion. When they release a new expansion, they will add 3 million new players and they will leave in 6 months again.
WoW has 2 kinds of players, long standing players and short term players that play when an expansion is released.
While true, i don't think thats the case. Long standing players are starting to question, are blizz even trying anymore. The patches since launch have been very bare minimum and not as interesting as before. The xpac hasn't been out long, but people are already getting that end of expansion feeling.
They stood on a lot of toes with this one, Pvper haven't had anything worth while in a long time, content out side raids have all these timers and streamlined grind, crafters got screwed over, raiders are being pushed into 20 man groups if they want to progress in more challenging content, but think what people are picking up on is it seems they're not trying to correct anything, so player sit there thinking, God is this what we're going to have to deal with for a year or so?
we might be wrong and I hope so, blizz might smash it with the next patch, but events occuring are much different than the usual new xpac release.
No he's right.
The game is ancient. People are moving on as we all do in life. The ones that remain are the long termers that have so much invested that they can't bear the thought of letting go. So each expansion they come back looking for the old magic.
And there is nothing Blizz can do, because the magic is gone, just like it goes in every other MMO, eventually.
Some just faster than others. Kudos to WoW, for keeping it going so long and being the king in that regard.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Originally posted by mayito7777 The only way for Blizzard to get new players would be to come out with WoW-II and that folks aint going to happen.
Very true.
What have old player got to look forward to - stagnation and growing family commitments V a reluctance to dropped 10 years of invested time.
What have new players got to look forward to - not the experience that previous players enjoyed, its all been 'streamlined'
A confused turgid cynical mess to be sure, but blizzard's answer is to announce they are not working on WOW 2! which means at the very earliest WOW 2 would come out in 2022 or never. A long slow depressing lingering death is what loyal WOW players are being offered by blizzard shareholders, madness and greed.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Vertical progression becomes the hamster wheel of loot in MMO's, ultimately it is very much still a work-in-progress to figure out how to effectively extend MMO life-spans while retaining current players & gain new ones, the longer a game exists with vertical progression the harder & longer it becomes to catch up to the end game without gimping the old content to the point of trivialising it.
There were plenty of warnings that WoD wasn't going to be doing enough to hold the existing playerbase very well fairly early in its development & pre-launch.
I think some of the changes enacted backfired, features players had become accustomed to, despite their faults, got so radically changed that the game lost some of the familiarity it had in the right places, while not enough novelty or originality was offered content wise, & content is king in MMO's.
Player-created content is I think going to have to figure into WoW's future at some point, it's the only thing I can think of which has the potential to both engage players & generate enough new content to keep pace with the encroaching boredom.
The players they lost are the players they gained from the expansion, these are the players that will come back when they add a new expansion. When they release a new expansion, they will add 3 million new players and they will leave in 6 months again.
WoW has 2 kinds of players, long standing players and short term players that play when an expansion is released.
Not that simple. Churn is a factor (hence the 100M+ accounts over its life.) The growth in subscribers will probably have been a mix of returning players - pre-MoP players as well + new people playing WoW for the first time.
So whilst the loss in subscribers could be: the 3M "new subscribers" it is more likely to be returners + some of the new players + another tranche of older players.
We will know more next quarter but the loss of more of the new players + further older players is likely. And I don't think 6.2 is going to encourage people to remain / come back. As Herase says above bare minimum seems to be the order of the day.
I guess I could've asked, what would make you come back, or start playing WoW.
But I was more concerned about the overall number of subs. How could they attract & keep a steady number of subs, maybe even growing every quarter, without having to hype an expansion?
By the way, a few of you missed my point this morning, I never said it wasn't normal for the game to drop subs after an expansion releases, but it's never dropped this much, in this short of time, and the hardcore PvErs and PvPers have never quit in droves as much as they have this expansion.
Like I said, it took 2 years of MoP to be down to 6.8mil subs. It's taken 6-7 months to be basically down to that number today. So yeah, it is normal, but not at the rate it has been, and the type of players it's effected.
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And yeah, the question is basically impossible, because if it was that easy to figure out, a billion dollar company would've figured it out by now. I just wanted to know your thoughts.
When all is said and done, more is always said than done.
The same way they always do. WoW is/was a fluke in the MMORPG scene. A combination of right things at the right time that made it wildly successful, I doubt the majority of WoW's playerbase is actually happy with the game, but they stick around, or keep coming back, because of the high population. The population stays high because a dissatisfied playerbase sticks around/keeps coming back.
It's a catch-22, simply they haven't made enough blunders, or a singularly large enough blunder, to drive away enough people to fall. It's coming though, the whole 'cross-realm zoning' thing is server merges by another name, the leveling game has dyed out to asian gold farmers, pvp twinks, alts, and returnees. Rare is the newbie to WoW these days. A constantly inflated level cap, constant ilvl and stat bloat, the tower eventually topples.
Really?
Do you eat food you dont like just because the restaurant that sells it is full of people? Do you waste money on things you dont care about just because many people do it?
People who stick to WoW have their reasons to do it, and im pretty sure none of those reasons is the high population. They make the high pop by sticking to the game in high numbers. I never sub to WoW for more than one month at a time (with a total of maybe 3-4 months a year) but when i play, i only do it for the lore. Im sure long time players have good reasons to stick with the game.
I guess I could've asked, what would make you come back, or start playing WoW.
But I was more concerned about the overall number of subs. How could they attract & keep a steady number of subs, maybe even growing every quarter, without having to hype an expansion?
By the way, a few of you missed my point this morning, I never said it wasn't normal for the game to drop subs after an expansion releases, but it's never dropped this much, in this short of time, and the hardcore PvErs and PvPers have never quit in droves as much as they have this expansion.
Like I said, it took 2 years of MoP to be down to 6.8mil subs. It's taken 6-7 months to be basically down to that number today. So yeah, it is normal, but not at the rate it has been, and the type of players it's effected.
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And yeah, the question is basically impossible, because if it was that easy to figure out, a billion dollar company would've figured it out by now. I just wanted to know your thoughts.
There is a problem compairing sub loss in MoP and WoD. The bump from release of MoP was about 1 million subs. The increase in WoD was about 2.5 to 3 million. MoP in 9 months it lost 3 to 3.5 million players...that is about 2.5 million excluding the expansion bump people. WoD started at a little over 7 million and rose to just over 10 and in 6 months fell to 6.8 million. excluding the bumps from expansion flockers the game only lost maybe .5 million in 6 months as opposed to 2.5 million in 9 months in MoP.
For an aging game that does not look that bad if people that come for the expansions are people that were already disappointed with the game or just there to consume content and jump to a new game to consume content.
I don't think they need to bounce back to be honest. WoW still boasts far larger sub numbers than the competition and is still very profitable. The decline in numbers is natural and simply reflects the age of WoW and the lack of new content.
If this trend continues, I could see WoW going F2P with a cash shop and being successful and profitable for many years to come.
They'll deal with this loss in subs the same way they have always dealt with it: time, and an eventual new expansion that will bring people back into the fold.
They'll deal with it and still have ten times the player base of any other MMO because there just isn't much else out there, especially if you are used to the level of content present in WoW. (Whether you like the game or not, the amount of content available is high.) I wonder how many are still subbed to WoW primarily because they already know they aren't going to stick with anything else available, and I don't know of much on the horizon that will change that.
I un-subbed before WoD because I have yet to be impressed by it. So, I still play Guild Wars 1. Same reason basically, there just isn't much else out there for me. I've tried tons of others and am more than willing to pay a sub, there just isn't anything else besides WoW and Gw that has ever held me; again, there's just more to do. I think much of what I see released now is awfully light on stuff to do, buggy, linear, grindfest, or has forced content, so I stick with the devil I know. I would guess that lots of WoW players are thinking the same thing, so Blizz will weather this storm like they weathered the others. I'm no fanboi of theirs, but another xpac with more raids will pump their numbers back up.
"Why would I want to loose a religion upon my people? Religions wreck from within - Empires and individuals alike! It's all the same." - God Emperor of Dune
I guess I could've asked, what would make you come back, or start playing WoW.
But I was more concerned about the overall number of subs. How could they attract & keep a steady number of subs, maybe even growing every quarter, without having to hype an expansion?
By the way, a few of you missed my point this morning, I never said it wasn't normal for the game to drop subs after an expansion releases, but it's never dropped this much, in this short of time, and the hardcore PvErs and PvPers have never quit in droves as much as they have this expansion.
Like I said, it took 2 years of MoP to be down to 6.8mil subs. It's taken 6-7 months to be basically down to that number today. So yeah, it is normal, but not at the rate it has been, and the type of players it's effected.
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And yeah, the question is basically impossible, because if it was that easy to figure out, a billion dollar company would've figured it out by now. I just wanted to know your thoughts.
Well, I would say there are two pretty major differences between MoP and WoD. First, there was a completely new race and new class added to the game. That accounts for a lot in the eyes of many. Leveling and releveling new race/class combinations was also a pretty major thing over the course of MoP's history too.
Secondly, the content in MoP was far more robust than WoD's was. There were new islands and new daily quest hubs added with at least two separate patches during MoP. WoD has added not nearly as much content and now that they are getting around to it in 6.2, it seems like very few people actually care.
I'm also going to wager that the recent announcement of no flight added to WoD or any new expansion in the foreseeable future is going to have a tremendous negative impact on sub numbers. Blizzard has made WoW more convenient over the years, especially with the addition of flight. To remove it for an expansion is one thing, but to state that flight will not be added to further expansions unless the expansion is planned around it, is quite another thing all together.
Finally, on a more personal note. My wife and I resubbed to WoW about 4 months before WoD came out. We completed MoP in that time (we left before the 2nd major patch of MoP), and were looking forward to the expansion. We played WoD for probably three months before we could see that Blizzard wasn't going to make major additions to the game any time soon. We both are burned out on the raiding scene, PvP is pretty lackluster in WoD, and there wasn't a whole lot to do outside of either of those two anymore. If Blizzard took the game out of maintenance mode and actually added a decent amount of content to the game again, we might come back, but that seems doubtful. I honestly feel like Blizzard is mostly out of ideas to make the game interesting.
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.
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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.
In a recent interview they said it was "okay" for people to quit after a few months and come back when a new expansion came out. That they pretty much expect it and -- oh, did we mention we had 10 million subscribers at the start?
This is a telling tale in how they wish to handle things from hereon out. Depending on how one feels regarding the 6.1 patch that was named "The Selfie" patch by many (if you even consider that legitimate content to be consumed), WoW has not been patched with new content for roughly 20 months to date. We had the 14 months of SoO with no patches, the poor excuse of an expansion event that was maybe five quests, and then the expansion which had a few fairly small raids in it -- of which many hardcore raiders have decided to take a break from in numbers we have not seen before.
Essentially, people are catching on that they've spent $270 for absolutely nothing but the privilege to access their servers, as they're not even trying to update; the presumption being that they shifted cash models in the knowledge that millions will pay to play even if they don't support an expansion -- something we've shown them the past three expansion with them no longer supporting the last half of each. They will then sell millions of copies for the expansion for another $50 a pop, with the numbers likely improving by millions again, as people are just too addicted or simply do not care.
Add to that their aggressive cash shop, pay to get level 90s, and being able to buy in game gold -- with gold now allowing you to buy most everything in game, even items -- and the so-called cash cow is as profitable as ever while doing the least possible to get there (by comparison of other games on the market at present). They even increased the difficulty of the catch up mechanism tremendously, with the "upside" of you being able to buy a single piece for 20,000 gold... which just so happens to be how much gold you can buy in a single purchase on the U.S. servers (numbers are still subject to change as they're on the PTR).
But hey, we get Timeless Island 2.0 with daily appexis crystal quests and a new facebook game that has the words "ships" in it, and a new resource called "oil". We'll get to send them out on missions like we do followers!
In essence, they know what they're doing in making money. Which is what a business should be expected to do. It's just a shame that they lost the soul and passion they once had in actually supporting their products. It has long since been gone when it comes to WoW, even if it's fairly present in the other franchises they own. It's also rumored that 6.2 is the last patch, which will likely mean 8-15 months of no content again until they show us the next expansion that they know people will buy.
Though I'd like to take the time and say that I believe their Art Department is still doing a fantastic job (as well as the initial zone-quest team for the expansion) and their customer service is decent. Granted, some of them don't seem to actually be reading reports according to some of the responses my friends told me about when they tried to contact them.
The next step in all of this? Whatever they can do to milk the player base that has proven they will stay no matter how they're treated. Heck, I was reading an old forum post of three years ago whereby someone said $25-$30 was an outrageous price for an system that does the work for them with realm and faction transfers. When you think about it, it really is; that's the price of a new game on steam. Maybe multiple games depending on the sale. But every post saying such was down voted into oblivion, with people saying it's "optional" and "stop whining" as well as coming up with really over the top defenses.
They're past the point of caring about subscriber numbers (apart from PR stunts and brags) as the cash shop has proven how profitable it is (and how F2P games are so profitable); it's all about the monetary numbers now.
They need to actually support their game in more ways than just expansions if they want to keep subscribers and keep them happy. But I've a feeling they'll keep on releasing things such as level 90-100 boosts, new ponies in the cash shop, more gold sinks that match up perfectly with the amount of gold you can purchase, etc. Because that makes just as much money, and the other path actually requires effort.
Due to frequent travel in my youth, English isn't something I consider my primary language (and thus I obtained quirky ways of writing). German and French were always easier for me despite my family being U.S. citizens for over a century. Spanish I learned as a requirement in school, Japanese and Korean I acquired for my youthful desire of anime and gaming (and also work now). I only debate in English to help me work with it (and limit things). In addition, I'm not smart enough to remain fluent in everything and typically need exposure to get in the groove of things again if I haven't heard it in a while. If you understand Mandarin, I know a little, but it has actually been a challenge and could use some help.
Also, I thoroughly enjoy debates and have accounts on over a dozen sites for this. If you wish to engage in such, please put effort in a post and provide sources -- I will then do the same with what I already wrote (if I didn't) as well as with my responses to your own. Expanding my information on a subject makes my stance either change or strengthen the next time I speak of it or write a thesis. Allow me to thank you sincerely for your time.
I guess I could've asked, what would make you come back, or start playing WoW.
But I was more concerned about the overall number of subs. How could they attract & keep a steady number of subs, maybe even growing every quarter, without having to hype an expansion?
By the way, a few of you missed my point this morning, I never said it wasn't normal for the game to drop subs after an expansion releases, but it's never dropped this much, in this short of time, and the hardcore PvErs and PvPers have never quit in droves as much as they have this expansion.
Like I said, it took 2 years of MoP to be down to 6.8mil subs. It's taken 6-7 months to be basically down to that number today. So yeah, it is normal, but not at the rate it has been, and the type of players it's effected.
--
And yeah, the question is basically impossible, because if it was that easy to figure out, a billion dollar company would've figured it out by now. I just wanted to know your thoughts.
The cut off date for the subscriber loss was actually around a three month period, if I recall correctly.
Either way, you are correct in that that's a massive drop in just a short 3-6 month period versus two years with the previous expansion.
The overall answer for them to get players back? It's actually simple in theory for a billion dollar company. The difficult part would be bringing resources together and would fundamentally be a problem with people (as the more people you have, the more communication you need and training required). They would just need a live team that's as big as their expansion team. Bringing weekly updates, having a continuous storyline, fleshing popular lore characters out, releasing new dungeons (even using old dungeons, altered with new assets, mobs, bosses, stories), adding optional raid bosses to current raid tiers every couple weeks (or something similar to the old Vault) or having them randomly appear in optional areas in raid tiers. Supporting PvPing, alternating between a new arena and a new BG with each new season. Adding the areas that we expected to be in Draenor or that they promised at Blizzcon (including Farahlon or whatever). Having these new areas actually have a chain of storylines themselves, not just be a Timeless Isle. Then have class specific quests and storylines that could be updated as time goes on. In addition to having a Universal Hub city similar to TBC and Wrath, of which were considered to be the most social expansions to date. Even seeing someone of a different faction felt social in some unexplainable way. Lastly, including content whereby the players can make their own enjoyment. Something similar to real player housing, where you could find or earn furniture in the world. Build it. Then build a house from scratch and house raid boss trophies or some such. Guild Halls. Perhaps even come up with a way for people to construct their own dungeons / instances / scenarios / Arenas / BGs (could be a unique feature of War Games; the RP community would eat up the ability to make scenarios) for their guilds or friends or for the approval process of Blizzard before releasing it to the public.
It's basically attrition at its core. Finding out a way that provides more hours of content than there are days in an expansion's life cycle. With the later portions of the paragraph filling in what a large team cannot do. Though there are many other smaller things that must be done as well, such as their loot improvement in 6.2 and hopefully some PvP changes. Even reusing assets in a smart way with the storyline suggestion; having new story chains in a different zone every week or two that also fleshes out popular lore characters, as stated before.
But again, why do all this when you can make just as much money and have a lot less headaches with cash shops and other systems that people will use in addition to a sub?
Edit:
In addition, they need ABSOLUTE directed leadership and none of this "we decide as a team" tripe. Whenever I hear them say that, it boggles my mind. Sure, it's nice to hear it from the outside looking in... But that just leads to "who said what", "who wasn't informed," and something I have oft heard Blizzard Employees say in that "What they just said was wrong, because someone else decided to change it weeks ago and they weren't aware because its always being discussed by everyone." Games that are higher in graphical quality are providing ten times the content with a much smaller team than WoW because there is one person in charge, making the decisions or having the final say. They probably have a lot of unnecessary meetings to discuss things and argue points that could be used and refined as a whole.
Due to frequent travel in my youth, English isn't something I consider my primary language (and thus I obtained quirky ways of writing). German and French were always easier for me despite my family being U.S. citizens for over a century. Spanish I learned as a requirement in school, Japanese and Korean I acquired for my youthful desire of anime and gaming (and also work now). I only debate in English to help me work with it (and limit things). In addition, I'm not smart enough to remain fluent in everything and typically need exposure to get in the groove of things again if I haven't heard it in a while. If you understand Mandarin, I know a little, but it has actually been a challenge and could use some help.
Also, I thoroughly enjoy debates and have accounts on over a dozen sites for this. If you wish to engage in such, please put effort in a post and provide sources -- I will then do the same with what I already wrote (if I didn't) as well as with my responses to your own. Expanding my information on a subject makes my stance either change or strengthen the next time I speak of it or write a thesis. Allow me to thank you sincerely for your time.
There is a problem compairing sub loss in MoP and WoD. The bump from release of MoP was about 1 million subs. The increase in WoD was about 2.5 to 3 million. MoP in 9 months it lost 3 to 3.5 million players...that is about 2.5 million excluding the expansion bump people. WoD started at a little over 7 million and rose to just over 10 and in 6 months fell to 6.8 million. excluding the bumps from expansion flockers the game only lost maybe .5 million in 6 months as opposed to 2.5 million in 9 months in MoP.
These are the numbers with the bump; the actual numbers from the financial reports:
Q2 '12: 9.1M
Q3 '12 10M - post MoP number) so yes a rise of nearly 1M.
Q4 '12 9.6M - first quarter after MoP, still a net gain of 500k
Q1 '13 8.3M
Q2 '13 7.7M - so a drop of 2.3M (not 3M to 3.5M); net drop after 3 quarters: 1.4M
Q3 '13 7.6M
Q4 '13 7.8M
Q1 '14 7.6M
Q2 '14 6.8M
Q3 '14 7.4M - pre-WoD number
Q4 '14 10M - post WoD rise of 2.6M
Q1 '15 7.1M - drop of 2.9M, net drop after 1 quarter of 300k
So looking at net changes MoP was 800k better than WoD. And actually reminds us that WoW lost more subscribers in the quarter after WoD than it gained in the pre-WoD quarter. What next quarters number will be or the one after that - time will tell.
Comments
Unless its backed up by figures from Blizzard, then no, and the fact that WoW has lost a large number of its Asian playerbase, is not really in question, the supposition however, that these players represent the majority of the overall WoW playerbase is.
I've no doubt that WoW is losing popularity in Asia, they also had a price increase there after all, i am sure that didn't go down well as it meant that they would often end up paying significantly more than a regular subscription would cost.
As for Blizzard stating that lost player base was disproportionately concentrated in the East, that in no way can be inferred as meaning that the player base in the 'East' is in any way the majority, and in no way supports your argument as it is more likely to lend itself to the argument that the majority of the current WoW players are in fact, based in NA/EU areas, which is far more believable.
and they put effort into a MOBA and card game.
They don't need another MMO if they can be successful with other games.
A few friends and I that played from vanilla up through MOP firmly believe that they are just doing the bare minimum with updates and have mostly already considered WoW to be on the way out.
If you compare the amount of content in Mop to WoD it's pretty obvious they don't really care anymore.
They could add a ton of features with the resources they have or get new servers but they don't.
Like every other aged game the content that comes out is just enough to keep people subbed for a while and nothing more.
They can easily bounce back, WoD was a perfect example of this, but blizz fucked it up. They went too far with the streamlining, on top of this, content releases are very slow and lack any substance, which has been getting worse and worse every patch. I'll say the leveling of WoD was amazing, but after that? No idea what happened.
Again it can bounce back, it's clear people want to play WoW again with the subs hitting 10 mill, but blizzard need to pull their finger out.
Get rid of all these timers and limits for one, it's a cheap way of extending the content. It's alright having it here and there, but they went overboard with this xpac, this is an mmorpg not a facebook game you log-in for a few min each day. The grind for tokens or currency needs to be changed, which is also linked in with the timers. It's uninteresting. Go one area, face role mobs solo, hand in or go another area, face roll as a group, hand in. It's quick and easy, but after a while the quick and easy repetitiveness gets boring, you want it to get quicker and quicker, hence why dungeons have become a such a big rush-fest. I've said once i'll say it again, they need to expand on the brawlers guild idea, the places is a grind, but it's fun. It offers a challenge and fun little encounters, but the one thing it offers that the rest of the game doesn't (outside of raiding) and is missing in a lot of games is room for failure.
Wow is a monster that is unmatched in the mmorpg genre even at 10+ years of age.
The players they lost are the players they gained from the expansion, these are the players that will come back when they add a new expansion. When they release a new expansion, they will add 3 million new players and they will leave in 6 months again.
WoW has 2 kinds of players, long standing players and short term players that play when an expansion is released.
Less focus raiding.
more exploring/quests.
exp slider, like EQ2 have and second exp system with skill trees (like ESO have champion point system).
Better exp grinding places. (some times its fun and relaxing grinding mobs).
Biggest proplem WoW have its end game wall, only way gear is do raids few time in 1 day week and rest 6 day its garrison sitting.
but Blizzard we know is gone, its now activision blizz and they too busy enjoy sitting cash and milk with cashshop.
Sort of agree with you here. I'm having a blast with WoW returning for the third time. I'm several expansions behind so there is much to see and do. I started all over again on a new server. Sadly I have multiple 100s after a short period of time and I'm starting to see the raid wall ahead of me. There is plenty to do aside from raiding but once I get through that, wondering where to go from there. Would love to see a real housing system and WoW does so many things well, they could do a great job with a fun and functional housing system. Imagine a Wildstar housing design in WoW. That would be fantastic.
With that said though, seems that WoW is plugging along quite nicely. I know folks are angry about the whole no flying thing and there are multiple quitting posts. Seems like par for the course with any game. I plan on sticking with WoW because there is still months of content left for me. Nothing on the market really appeals to me. I make periodic return trips to TSW and may check out ESO. For now though, WoW is my thing. As I progress through the dungeons, I'm seeing plenty of returning players like myself. Some have been away for years.
While true, i don't think thats the case. Long standing players are starting to question, are blizz even trying anymore. The patches since launch have been very bare minimum and not as interesting as before. The xpac hasn't been out long, but people are already getting that end of expansion feeling.
They stood on a lot of toes with this one, Pvper haven't had anything worth while in a long time, content out side raids have all these timers and streamlined grind, crafters got screwed over, raiders are being pushed into 20 man groups if they want to progress in more challenging content, but think what people are picking up on is it seems they're not trying to correct anything, so player sit there thinking, God is this what we're going to have to deal with for a year or so?
we might be wrong and I hope so, blizz might smash it with the next patch, but events occuring are much different than the usual new xpac release.
No he's right.
The game is ancient. People are moving on as we all do in life. The ones that remain are the long termers that have so much invested that they can't bear the thought of letting go. So each expansion they come back looking for the old magic.
And there is nothing Blizz can do, because the magic is gone, just like it goes in every other MMO, eventually.
Some just faster than others. Kudos to WoW, for keeping it going so long and being the king in that regard.
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Very true.
What have old player got to look forward to - stagnation and growing family commitments V a reluctance to dropped 10 years of invested time.
What have new players got to look forward to - not the experience that previous players enjoyed, its all been 'streamlined'
A confused turgid cynical mess to be sure, but blizzard's answer is to announce they are not working on WOW 2! which means at the very earliest WOW 2 would come out in 2022 or never. A long slow depressing lingering death is what loyal WOW players are being offered by blizzard shareholders, madness and greed.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Vertical progression becomes the hamster wheel of loot in MMO's, ultimately it is very much still a work-in-progress to figure out how to effectively extend MMO life-spans while retaining current players & gain new ones, the longer a game exists with vertical progression the harder & longer it becomes to catch up to the end game without gimping the old content to the point of trivialising it.
There were plenty of warnings that WoD wasn't going to be doing enough to hold the existing playerbase very well fairly early in its development & pre-launch.
I think some of the changes enacted backfired, features players had become accustomed to, despite their faults, got so radically changed that the game lost some of the familiarity it had in the right places, while not enough novelty or originality was offered content wise, & content is king in MMO's.
Player-created content is I think going to have to figure into WoW's future at some point, it's the only thing I can think of which has the potential to both engage players & generate enough new content to keep pace with the encroaching boredom.
Not that simple. Churn is a factor (hence the 100M+ accounts over its life.) The growth in subscribers will probably have been a mix of returning players - pre-MoP players as well + new people playing WoW for the first time.
So whilst the loss in subscribers could be: the 3M "new subscribers" it is more likely to be returners + some of the new players + another tranche of older players.
Interesting ideas.
I guess I could've asked, what would make you come back, or start playing WoW.
But I was more concerned about the overall number of subs. How could they attract & keep a steady number of subs, maybe even growing every quarter, without having to hype an expansion?
By the way, a few of you missed my point this morning, I never said it wasn't normal for the game to drop subs after an expansion releases, but it's never dropped this much, in this short of time, and the hardcore PvErs and PvPers have never quit in droves as much as they have this expansion.
Like I said, it took 2 years of MoP to be down to 6.8mil subs. It's taken 6-7 months to be basically down to that number today. So yeah, it is normal, but not at the rate it has been, and the type of players it's effected.
--
And yeah, the question is basically impossible, because if it was that easy to figure out, a billion dollar company would've figured it out by now. I just wanted to know your thoughts.
Really?
Do you eat food you dont like just because the restaurant that sells it is full of people? Do you waste money on things you dont care about just because many people do it?
People who stick to WoW have their reasons to do it, and im pretty sure none of those reasons is the high population. They make the high pop by sticking to the game in high numbers. I never sub to WoW for more than one month at a time (with a total of maybe 3-4 months a year) but when i play, i only do it for the lore. Im sure long time players have good reasons to stick with the game.
There is a problem compairing sub loss in MoP and WoD. The bump from release of MoP was about 1 million subs. The increase in WoD was about 2.5 to 3 million. MoP in 9 months it lost 3 to 3.5 million players...that is about 2.5 million excluding the expansion bump people. WoD started at a little over 7 million and rose to just over 10 and in 6 months fell to 6.8 million. excluding the bumps from expansion flockers the game only lost maybe .5 million in 6 months as opposed to 2.5 million in 9 months in MoP.
For an aging game that does not look that bad if people that come for the expansions are people that were already disappointed with the game or just there to consume content and jump to a new game to consume content.
How can WoW bounce back?
I don't think they need to bounce back to be honest. WoW still boasts far larger sub numbers than the competition and is still very profitable. The decline in numbers is natural and simply reflects the age of WoW and the lack of new content.
If this trend continues, I could see WoW going F2P with a cash shop and being successful and profitable for many years to come.
They'll deal with this loss in subs the same way they have always dealt with it: time, and an eventual new expansion that will bring people back into the fold.
They'll deal with it and still have ten times the player base of any other MMO because there just isn't much else out there, especially if you are used to the level of content present in WoW. (Whether you like the game or not, the amount of content available is high.) I wonder how many are still subbed to WoW primarily because they already know they aren't going to stick with anything else available, and I don't know of much on the horizon that will change that.
I un-subbed before WoD because I have yet to be impressed by it. So, I still play Guild Wars 1. Same reason basically, there just isn't much else out there for me. I've tried tons of others and am more than willing to pay a sub, there just isn't anything else besides WoW and Gw that has ever held me; again, there's just more to do. I think much of what I see released now is awfully light on stuff to do, buggy, linear, grindfest, or has forced content, so I stick with the devil I know. I would guess that lots of WoW players are thinking the same thing, so Blizz will weather this storm like they weathered the others. I'm no fanboi of theirs, but another xpac with more raids will pump their numbers back up.
"Why would I want to loose a religion upon my people? Religions wreck from within - Empires and individuals alike! It's all the same." - God Emperor of Dune
Well, I would say there are two pretty major differences between MoP and WoD. First, there was a completely new race and new class added to the game. That accounts for a lot in the eyes of many. Leveling and releveling new race/class combinations was also a pretty major thing over the course of MoP's history too.
Secondly, the content in MoP was far more robust than WoD's was. There were new islands and new daily quest hubs added with at least two separate patches during MoP. WoD has added not nearly as much content and now that they are getting around to it in 6.2, it seems like very few people actually care.
I'm also going to wager that the recent announcement of no flight added to WoD or any new expansion in the foreseeable future is going to have a tremendous negative impact on sub numbers. Blizzard has made WoW more convenient over the years, especially with the addition of flight. To remove it for an expansion is one thing, but to state that flight will not be added to further expansions unless the expansion is planned around it, is quite another thing all together.
Finally, on a more personal note. My wife and I resubbed to WoW about 4 months before WoD came out. We completed MoP in that time (we left before the 2nd major patch of MoP), and were looking forward to the expansion. We played WoD for probably three months before we could see that Blizzard wasn't going to make major additions to the game any time soon. We both are burned out on the raiding scene, PvP is pretty lackluster in WoD, and there wasn't a whole lot to do outside of either of those two anymore. If Blizzard took the game out of maintenance mode and actually added a decent amount of content to the game again, we might come back, but that seems doubtful. I honestly feel like Blizzard is mostly out of ideas to make the game interesting.
In a recent interview they said it was "okay" for people to quit after a few months and come back when a new expansion came out. That they pretty much expect it and -- oh, did we mention we had 10 million subscribers at the start?
This is a telling tale in how they wish to handle things from hereon out. Depending on how one feels regarding the 6.1 patch that was named "The Selfie" patch by many (if you even consider that legitimate content to be consumed), WoW has not been patched with new content for roughly 20 months to date. We had the 14 months of SoO with no patches, the poor excuse of an expansion event that was maybe five quests, and then the expansion which had a few fairly small raids in it -- of which many hardcore raiders have decided to take a break from in numbers we have not seen before.
Essentially, people are catching on that they've spent $270 for absolutely nothing but the privilege to access their servers, as they're not even trying to update; the presumption being that they shifted cash models in the knowledge that millions will pay to play even if they don't support an expansion -- something we've shown them the past three expansion with them no longer supporting the last half of each. They will then sell millions of copies for the expansion for another $50 a pop, with the numbers likely improving by millions again, as people are just too addicted or simply do not care.
Add to that their aggressive cash shop, pay to get level 90s, and being able to buy in game gold -- with gold now allowing you to buy most everything in game, even items -- and the so-called cash cow is as profitable as ever while doing the least possible to get there (by comparison of other games on the market at present). They even increased the difficulty of the catch up mechanism tremendously, with the "upside" of you being able to buy a single piece for 20,000 gold... which just so happens to be how much gold you can buy in a single purchase on the U.S. servers (numbers are still subject to change as they're on the PTR).
But hey, we get Timeless Island 2.0 with daily appexis crystal quests and a new facebook game that has the words "ships" in it, and a new resource called "oil". We'll get to send them out on missions like we do followers!
In essence, they know what they're doing in making money. Which is what a business should be expected to do. It's just a shame that they lost the soul and passion they once had in actually supporting their products. It has long since been gone when it comes to WoW, even if it's fairly present in the other franchises they own. It's also rumored that 6.2 is the last patch, which will likely mean 8-15 months of no content again until they show us the next expansion that they know people will buy.
Though I'd like to take the time and say that I believe their Art Department is still doing a fantastic job (as well as the initial zone-quest team for the expansion) and their customer service is decent. Granted, some of them don't seem to actually be reading reports according to some of the responses my friends told me about when they tried to contact them.
The next step in all of this? Whatever they can do to milk the player base that has proven they will stay no matter how they're treated. Heck, I was reading an old forum post of three years ago whereby someone said $25-$30 was an outrageous price for an system that does the work for them with realm and faction transfers. When you think about it, it really is; that's the price of a new game on steam. Maybe multiple games depending on the sale. But every post saying such was down voted into oblivion, with people saying it's "optional" and "stop whining" as well as coming up with really over the top defenses.
They're past the point of caring about subscriber numbers (apart from PR stunts and brags) as the cash shop has proven how profitable it is (and how F2P games are so profitable); it's all about the monetary numbers now.
They need to actually support their game in more ways than just expansions if they want to keep subscribers and keep them happy. But I've a feeling they'll keep on releasing things such as level 90-100 boosts, new ponies in the cash shop, more gold sinks that match up perfectly with the amount of gold you can purchase, etc. Because that makes just as much money, and the other path actually requires effort.
The cut off date for the subscriber loss was actually around a three month period, if I recall correctly.
Either way, you are correct in that that's a massive drop in just a short 3-6 month period versus two years with the previous expansion.
The overall answer for them to get players back? It's actually simple in theory for a billion dollar company. The difficult part would be bringing resources together and would fundamentally be a problem with people (as the more people you have, the more communication you need and training required). They would just need a live team that's as big as their expansion team. Bringing weekly updates, having a continuous storyline, fleshing popular lore characters out, releasing new dungeons (even using old dungeons, altered with new assets, mobs, bosses, stories), adding optional raid bosses to current raid tiers every couple weeks (or something similar to the old Vault) or having them randomly appear in optional areas in raid tiers. Supporting PvPing, alternating between a new arena and a new BG with each new season. Adding the areas that we expected to be in Draenor or that they promised at Blizzcon (including Farahlon or whatever). Having these new areas actually have a chain of storylines themselves, not just be a Timeless Isle. Then have class specific quests and storylines that could be updated as time goes on. In addition to having a Universal Hub city similar to TBC and Wrath, of which were considered to be the most social expansions to date. Even seeing someone of a different faction felt social in some unexplainable way. Lastly, including content whereby the players can make their own enjoyment. Something similar to real player housing, where you could find or earn furniture in the world. Build it. Then build a house from scratch and house raid boss trophies or some such. Guild Halls. Perhaps even come up with a way for people to construct their own dungeons / instances / scenarios / Arenas / BGs (could be a unique feature of War Games; the RP community would eat up the ability to make scenarios) for their guilds or friends or for the approval process of Blizzard before releasing it to the public.
It's basically attrition at its core. Finding out a way that provides more hours of content than there are days in an expansion's life cycle. With the later portions of the paragraph filling in what a large team cannot do. Though there are many other smaller things that must be done as well, such as their loot improvement in 6.2 and hopefully some PvP changes. Even reusing assets in a smart way with the storyline suggestion; having new story chains in a different zone every week or two that also fleshes out popular lore characters, as stated before.
But again, why do all this when you can make just as much money and have a lot less headaches with cash shops and other systems that people will use in addition to a sub?
Edit:
In addition, they need ABSOLUTE directed leadership and none of this "we decide as a team" tripe. Whenever I hear them say that, it boggles my mind. Sure, it's nice to hear it from the outside looking in... But that just leads to "who said what", "who wasn't informed," and something I have oft heard Blizzard Employees say in that "What they just said was wrong, because someone else decided to change it weeks ago and they weren't aware because its always being discussed by everyone." Games that are higher in graphical quality are providing ten times the content with a much smaller team than WoW because there is one person in charge, making the decisions or having the final say. They probably have a lot of unnecessary meetings to discuss things and argue points that could be used and refined as a whole.
These are the numbers with the bump; the actual numbers from the financial reports:
So looking at net changes MoP was 800k better than WoD. And actually reminds us that WoW lost more subscribers in the quarter after WoD than it gained in the pre-WoD quarter. What next quarters number will be or the one after that - time will tell.