People need to start remembering this fact. Every single decision that is made, comes firstly and wholly from a financial standpoint.
They do not exist to make good games, nor the games customers want. They exist purely to make money. If they make a good game or a game customers want, thats just gravy.
The decision to release Remix along side Cata Classic, the decision to remove certain farms from certain places, the decisions to make upgrades cost so high. All of these things, and more, were done to extend the life of our subs.
Its why the tmogs and mounts in DF have those wierd extra currencies tied to them.
Its why the Legendary drop rate was so low, and why the costs to craft them were so high.
Everything they do is about making sure we stay subbed as long as possible.
I am in no way mocking this, or saying its bad. I merely saying people have got to remember that fact.
Sure keep on spreading this conspiracy theory just like anyone else is when it is a game. If everything was handed it to you people will complain about nothing to do or this or that. The forums will no doubt do the same complain and then some.
Remeber when AAA developers realized good games = a lot of money? Pepperidge farm remembers
At least indie devs still realize that with some notable home runs like Lethal Company, Palworld, and Helldivers 2 (even if they nearly got screwed by Sony)
Yanno, this is literally just sad, mainly because … there was a time when making money actually meant providing what customers wanted.
If you didn’t give customers what they wanted, they didn’t buy it, which meant you, welp, didn’t make money. It was as simple as that.
In fact, the old adage of “the customer is always right” actually was properly a comment about products: i.e., that if you wanted to be successful, you needed to make what people wanted to buy rather than try to force what you wanted to make upon them - as opposed to the modern “Karen” version it got twisted into where it meant bending over backwards to every whim and demand of the customer. Of course, nowadays in many places we often don’t really get either, so go figure kek.
I’m still not sure how this all managed to change, maybe I’m too resistant to marketing tactics (although on the other hand, I still buy expansions and sub off and on during them … but on the other hand, I tend to go on hiatus a lot more readily if I’m not feeling it than I used to, so there’s that) to really get into the business mindset nowadays …
People will spend $5 more than a monthly subscription on a pajama transmog.
Every single time someone buys an item like that, they’re reinforcing that behavior of the company.
Why on earth would blizzard invest all sorts of developer time on content if people will spend more than the cost of a monthly sub on a dumb transmog? To each their own, spend your money as you like.
But why on earth would blizzard commit time and resources to developing content when people will spend $60 on a free max level character?
People are at fault.
It’s why mobile gaming is so popular. Because that’s where people are spending their money. They’re spending it on stuff that takes 20 minutes to develop.
MMORPG’s are a silly person’s game. That’s why WoW is more and more like a mobile game with its store.
If the company is making money, that inherently means that they are providing something people are willing to pay for, because it inherently means people are giving them money for that product.
If Blizzard was making and selling a product no one was willing to pay for, they wouldn’t be making any money.
Are you just being cynical or you’re thinking every player is stupid? We already all knew that, were not a young player base here. Doesn’t mean we have to hereby be silent about everything done to our precious hobby.
Work really, really hard. Most likely go bankrupt. Lose hair, sleep, money. Pour your heart, soul, blood, and tears into a game that will most likely fail because you care more than anything about the customer experience.
Or:
Make millions with relatively low overheads, upfront investment, and time committed by developing an unfriendly consumer product that people will spend way more money on anyways because people don’t remotely understand the consequence of spending their money the way they do.
If I’m a game developer, I’m not gonna lie. I’ll let the dumb-dumbs buy me a lake house, and keep my sanity intact.
We like the notion that there are events that are seasonal in a way that come in just like we do the seasons in WoW itself…What we’re trying to build is a repertoire of fun things for the live team…to be able to pull the arrows from the quiver and use them when we need to use them. If we get a point where we can see the players want a new event or engagement, we can fire up a Plunderstorm or we can fire up some other event. And we are planning a lot of different kinds of events like that.
