So with flight, among very many other issues, I want to point out the failure of gaming companies who use the “games as a service” tagline, but do not follow that same line of thinking.
Games as a service means that if you do not give customers what they want, they will leave. There is no “it’s a game, play the game they made” when the game is considered a service.
So what do I mean? Well, your phone service for one. If you want unlimited data, and the company you are with does not offer it because they want to charge people overages for data, then people will leave the service for another competing service that DOES offer what they are looking for. If Netflix no longer has anything you want to watch, you are going to cancel Netflix, because it is a service and not a product you purchased.
Now games companies are trying to treat they games as a service, but also trying to control the players and pretend that player input does not matter because it is THEIR game. Well, is it a game or a service then? Because the two are run differently, and companies like Blizz refuse to acknowledge that.
Things like flight are prime examples of this. People want flight, but blizz is trying to manipulate customers into giving them numbers to fill their metrics instead of giving subscribers of their service the experience they are asking for. The company then has the gall, the nerve, to ask why people are leaving?
You literally gave examples in your third paragraph that contradict your fourth paragraph.
Just leave to a game that is providing you the service you want. Just like you’d leave the phone company to go to another phone company with the service you want.
It does not contradict it because I am asking from the companies perspective, what are they doing? The players are leaving, but the company seems not to care, and does not understand where the blame lies…With them.
My entire point is that they call it “games as a subscription service” but they still try and treat it like a game out of a box instead of taking customer complaints seriously, which is in turn killing the product for everyone and hurting their bottom line…
Hulu, Disney+, HBO all “timegate” their content. Netflix does not. There is nothing different between streaming services and gaming services. You either like their model or you don’t and if you don’t like their model then leave. They owe you nothing. Disney+ owes you nothing. It has every episode of the Mandolorian done and it doesn’t care whether you want them all at once or not because they will release it one episode a week because that’s what they want to do.
Also, Blizz isn’t wondering why people are leaving their game. No one is wondering. It’s a 15 year old game that has shown the same consistent downward trend for the past 9 years.
You miss the point entirely. Streaming services fight over customers all day every day. That is why shows come on one service and leave another, and that shift makes a big difference on who is subbed to what company.
And Blizzard is doing NOTHING to stop people from leaving, and as a matter of fact are making decisions that directly lead to more people leaving. That is not good for the remaining players, and it is not good for the company as a whole, who is losing players in every single game they make, because instead of trying to please their customers, they are trying to manipulate them.
Stop being a fanboy and see what is right in front of your eyes.
I agree. Blizzard, like Disney Star Wars, seems to feel it is entitled to your purchase of their products and not that they have to earn your dollars.
Its apparent in their design where they constantly feel they know better than you do. Like “You may think you want hat but you don’t” and were proven completely wrong.
Blizzard is doing plenty to stop people from leaving. Just not to stop YOU from leaving.
They are producing content and introducing that content in a way that extends the length of subscription (e.g. “timegating”). That’s how they’re choosing to keep people playing. That is THEIR model. You don’t like it? Leave to another “service” that has a model YOU like.
Streaming services fight over customers by producing unique content (or trying to obtain The Office). They don’t fight over customers by figuring out how to release that content or how many users each account may have… they figure that out individually to try and keep their users subscribed for as long as possible. Disney+ knows that they have The Mandolorian and that people will subscribe just for that show so rather than releasing it all at once for customers to quit after the first month, they spread out the release to force people to stay subscribed for two months (and hopefully long enough for their next show to release). Netflix, on the other hand, releases new content all at once and allows the customer to consume an entire series in a single weekend because they believe they are producing enough content (or have The Office) to occupy the customers in between releases.
It’s just like Blizz and the other MMO games are trying to figure out the pace of releasing content and trying to keep the players consuming that content at a pace that isn’t going to get them to quit. It’s an identical situation.
It’s really weird that some players act like they are being held hostage here. This is a video game, if you don’t enjoy it then go find something else to do with your free time that you actually enjoy. It’s not that big of a deal.
Just like you can’t go to another streaming service because you wanted Game of Thrones, Westworld, Stranger Things, The Mandolorian, Jack Ryan, etc. etc. etc.
Those streaming services know they’re hooking you in because they have unique content so they then decide how to release that content in a manner that keeps you subscribed the longest… which is completely identical to MMOs.
This is a bit disingenuous as it disregards the psychological and emotional hold the game has on many folks. For those of us with these bonds, leaving is more like breaking up than switching cellphone companies where the companies are largely invisible via the medium of the physical phone and apps.
Much of the outrage is much more akin to trying to save a relationship rather than unmitigated disdain for Blizz as well the pain of trying to resolve that the relationship is over.
For others, there is a sense of being unappreciated and feeling ill treated but will stay anyway because there isn’t a better option. Not that their aren’t better games out there but the process of forming a new bond and commitment isn’t easily done.
Blizz knows there is a core that won’t or can’t leave. They do try to reward them with gifts and with in game things such as the recent holiday event with old raids.
The struggle is how to retain those who really do see it as a game and only play when it is new and entertaining and leave between patches as well as entice new players. The resulting panoply of features are a hit and miss affair with somethings being tweakable and others too embedded to modify within the expansion. Change is always stressful, even when we like the change.
In the end, the outrage and the pain expressed in so many threads is really about trying to hold on to a relationship that is evolving and that is always messy, even when it ends well. While Blizz isn’t very good at responding, at least they are good about allowing a huge range of venting which probably helps more than most of us realize.
Be kind to each other as this really is more than just a game to many, many people.
No, it’s really not. This is a video game. If you aren’t happy with it then find something that does make you happy. This isn’t a life altering decision. If you decide you want to try to come back and you can enjoy your time again, cool come back and give it another shot. There are people who do nothing but bash the game and the developers over anything they can come up with, it’s crazy. They clearly aren’t happy, unless they’re just trolling, which is probably the case 9 out of 10 times. You can find the same posters in almost any of these threads making the same derogatory comments over and over.
There are players who act like they are being held hostage, this is a video game.
It’s not really Blizz, it’s these devs. There are other alternatives to pathfinder but these devs are too narrow-minded to consider them. Replace Ion and his gang and WoW would be different and probably more fun.
Just because it is a “service” doesn’t mean they have to do what ever their customers suggest. What is it about that simple concept that seems to confuse so many of you. If you don’t like their “service” you are always allowed to leave and find one that you do.
The concept is simple, just because you don’t like their response to player “suggestions” doesn’t mean they didn’t hear you. They just decided it was not in the best interest of their “service” to do it.
I am, and there are literally thousands that want flight in the game for good. Please stop acting like you are in the majority, because that is so far from the truth as to be a lie. More people want flying than don’t and that has been apparent for years based on user statements, polls etc.
It is not good for anyone playing the game for others to leave, even though the fanboys like to tell anyone who has any issue to leave, because it takes money away from the game.
You are simply in denial if you think otherwise, just like Blizz.
This isn’t a flight thread. You started this as whether or not WoW is a “service” because you’re not getting what you wanted and then compared it to other “services” that do the exact same thing.
You want to cry about flight? Do it in the other “majority” of topics out there crying about flight. They gave you their response though, pathfinder will continue so either accept it or leave because that is the model of their service.
The majority wanting something doesn’t mean it’s a good idea or smart. This has probably never been more the case in any year than this year. If Blizzard listened to the forums everytime it’s on fire there’d probably be less than 10k people playing total.
Yes, I did. And I mentioned flight in that OP, so how about you run your threads, and I can run mine. The two issues are tied together, because flight and PF is a reason that many people have left and yet Blizzard and the fanboys like yourself do not care. Blizzard lost over a million players for ALL games this year, so it’s obvious they are doing something wrong.