If anyone has been following the quarterly reports released from ATVI in the past five or six years, you will have observed that in each statement there would be the line which would read something such as, “loss of subscriber income is offset by the increased revenue generated from in-game digital services”. These services are are realm transfers, character boosts, cosmetics, name changes, mounts, etc…
In Classic, you have only a few of these. Let’s just be real about shareholder mentality; the success of Classic may hurt Blizzard in the longrun, even with a surge of subscribers- the money lost from the above mentioned revenue streams ie. $30 mounts, $60 boosts, $10 pets, multiplied by the number of Classic players, estimated 500,000-1,000,000 at peak possibly, and you have a gigantic issue of lost potential revenue as Classic player have made it clear they want none of that.
Doesn’t matter either way. The only way that ATVI is going to improve their long term stock market price is to release new games based on new intellectual property ideas. If they want to successfully handle console and mobile play, they need to release more often as well. Even the King Games subsidiary is stagnant at the moment.
Unless a diehard classic player has quit retail as well, no potential income loss has occured.
Now might the shareholders not like that they cant currently milk classic, sure. But unless the prior situation has occured, there is only potential money gained.
The issue you raised isnt really about acti-blizzs pockets but their integrity. How long can blizz hold off dumb ceos and activision to maintain a true classic experience.
They are going to push hard to move Classic folks to modern WoW in a few months’ time. Expect blizzcon to have a lot of incentives. We already know they are revamping RAF and adding level sync so max level people can play with newly created ones. Plus the rumors of getting a free 110 boost if you hit 60 in classic, though that may or may not be real.
AFAIK the popularity of Classic is Blizz now gets $15 from someone that wasn’t going give them $15 for retail, much less $30 for a store mount.
And in the event the expected exodus of classic subs does come to pass, I doubt they’re suddenly going to lose the business of those people that offset the loss of sub revenue with in game services.
Theyre own fault, they didnt had to make retail way different almost opposite of what it was.
Imagine Retail WoW being a good game = 20mil subs and people who buy stuff from the store, also investors or shareholders always go for the ez money fast route, if the product is destroyed they just move to another one, thats why retails is so BAD, its almost finished
Cash grabs like store mounts, boosts, pets, etc don’t make money in the long term. That’s the domain of actually improving the game.
The “problem” with Classic is that there is no microtransactions to let them milk it. Apart from a surge of subscribers, there is no low-effort ways to inflate profits temporarily so their quarterly report looks good.
The retail player has done the same, quite a lot, on the forums.
The Wow playerbase has never been big on store stuff.
Incorrect about 60 dollar boosts, though. Classic players would still buy that for retail, if they needed a high level to farm the gold for that sub so they can play Classic (with a token.)
Classic is only going to help retail, since it gets more subs back to it.
Just having people subscribe is huge for a service like WoW. Look at all the streaming services we pay for now. They aren’t having trouble generating revenue.
I mean, that’s sort of precisely what it would be like for them. Whether we like it or not, continuous upward movement is basically the key to being successful. If a company appears to start making less money, investors become concerned. If it’s bad enough, stocks drop and investors can start pulling out.
I keep seeing people miss this somehow so here goes:
Classic is not some hard won prize from a company who didn’t want to give it. Classic is a very low effort high return marketing strat to keep sub numbers high in an unpopular expansion during a period of content drought. There is no world in which classic hurts retail, because eventually classic ends. And then you have all these people paying for a sub which comes with a whole entire other game to play and maybe they get bored and go check it out.
In a few months time there is going to be very little “I play classic” “well i play retail”. A lot of people are going to dabble in both, and that means potential new sales on services and in game goods as well as new and long term reoccurring subscriptions. Its insane to me how many people feel like they won a victory by getting classic. The real winner will be shareholders.
