HotS is being cancelled, will WoW be next?

Community General Discussion
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Actually, companies move devs around all the time.

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It would be great if the focus of WoW was squarely about PvE questing, leveling, with elaborate character choice and build (old trees, but better), dungeons and raids with a side of PvP.

No more of that eSports nonsense.

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125

Why is this even a question when you already know the answer.
No.
World of Warcrafts is Blizzards most successful game.

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I believe that all those moved developers will go to the D4. :thinking:
In other words, they are sacrificing one game for another.:broken_heart:

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Eh. E-sports are meh.

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128

Considering that a weibo post (Chinese version of twitter) showed the results of that councils decision and three of the franchises on the list are Blizzard IP, and that among those franchises–talk about your irony here–is the Diablo franchise, and its on that list for corrective action for --get this-- Inharmonious chat, game missions include fraud, Blizzard would have to either revamp Diablo IP completely (to exclude the ability to chat about anything they wish) and they say that that isn’t censorship…yeah cough BS cough for China, Revamp it Globally, or face being moved to the banned list (what love affair with Diablo Immortal Over already China?) (Blizzard see what you get when you go after markets in countries controlled by Communists and Socialists?). As Judy Collins sang:

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129

You realize that Blizzard and other companies have had games in China for decades right? I mean this isn’t some emerging market. What will happen is that developers will simply stop making games for the Chinese market. WoW isn’t even developed by Blizzard in China (I believe it is Tencent), they simply license the IP.

I don’t get where the Diablo Immortal is only being made for the Chinese market is really coming from though. Yeah mobile games are huge over there, but they are also huge every where else. Also Diablo Immortal isn’t even being developed in house by Blizzard so it really doesn’t effect any of the other projects development resource wise.

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We can only hope WoW is next

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HotS has always been in a bad place. Remember a while back when they kept having promotional events to encourage people who played other games to do HotS? Like “play 5 games in HoTS as a warcraft hero to unlock a WoW mount” or “3 packs in hearthstone” etc? They did a bunch of those, and it was always “play HotS” never the other games. Basically it seemed like they felt if people tried it, they’d stick with it because they were confident their game was good. Alas…

The e-sport scene was never right for HoTS anyways. They would be far better off advertising themselves as the “Casuals MOBA”, which they are. No currency, shared exp, shorter games, multiple maps with events, choose your character and then find a team instead of vice-versa… these are all things that make HoTS great for a person who is interested in MOBAs but doesen’t want to deal with the complexity or toxicity of LoL or DotA. But, in pushing the e-sport angle and making it all serious they may have turned off some of the more casual people. If they just pushed the image of “We are the fun-time MOBA with no seriousness or drama” they’d probably do better.

And, well, perhaps that’s what the whole point of dropping the e-sports aspect now is?

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Way to miss the point. Going after a market in a place that would never have let you build what you wanted to to begin with rather than going after a better quality product to draw in your core demographic in a market that was as unfettered as it gets anywhere else in the known universe is only worth the risk if your core demographic has dried up completely. MARKETING a move to a new market demographic in front of your CURRENT CUSTOMERS is a bit like sleeping with your neighbors wife in front of your own wife. Not likely to win you any awards for intelligence. Stupidity? Yep. Bravery? Perhaps. Depends on whether you can carry on as the expression goes. But definitely not in High IQ awards.

Marketing to a new demographic at a point in time when the controllers of that market can make use of your product to further their own political agenda (by making your company jump through hoops to be able to play in that market) may win you bonus points with the Chinese government if they decide to let you stay but it isn’t going to win you a single point with your current customers.

Failing to pay attention to the Current Customer is going to eventually leave you with customers who are only from the new market demographic. The same demographic that can have the taps run dry at the bark of an order by that same fickle tin pot wearing a Mao suit. Then where would Blizzard be? Having a Going Out of Business sale and filing for Chapter 11

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Lets not forget that while HotS was pretty much the bottom of the moba barrel, WoW is still the top MMORPG dog and probably will be unless someone actually succeeds in making a good competitor to WoW. WoW will continue to have its hit and miss expansions while slowly trending downward but if it survived WoD and BfA it’ll survive for a while. And lets be honest, no one should really be surprised with what happened to HotS.

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134

I’d rather see a Skyrim type open world game set in the Warcraft universe.

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But where are they saying that they are going after the Chinese market? People are assuming this because China has always been a huge market for video games and movies. That doesn’t mean that everything that Blizzard is doing is marketed to that market.

My point was that people see mobile game and immediately assume it is only to catch the Chinese, when the mobile market is growing everywhere.

I understand that people are used to media companies catering their products to China to reach that huge market, but there comes a point were doing so simply isn’t worth the time, money, or logistics. The list and reasons given by the Chinese is more then likely going to be that tipping point where Western media companies finally throw up their hands and give up that market. I mean looking at the demands there really is no way for a company to make a game here that will also work their, they would have to make two versions. Which is actually what WoW has now, the WoW in China is completely separate and different from the one we have here.

My point here is that the China thing seems to be a nothing burger that isn’t going to change much for the reasons that you have put. Also that the new Diablo mobile game isn’t being made just for that market, and even if it were it isn’t taking away and development resources from Blizzard or WoW.

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They took the developers off the Heroes of the Storm Global Championship project not from HoTs.

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137

How are esports monetized for a game company?

Bethesda has released Skyrim seemingly 8 times. That seems like a far better usage of development outlays than hoping for microtransactions and however esports are monetized.

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I’m guessing through ad revenue and ticket sales. Honestly though I don’t know the logistics of it. I personally think that it is bad for the games industry as a whole, but I know that their are people that enjoy it and want to make it bigger, so I respect that.

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Makes me sad to see all the folks on here trashing HoTs i love that game only moba i will play. Hope it stays supported for years to come

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Yeah because their word has definitely been trusting.

Biggest joke of 2018.

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Didn’t know Hots was ever really alive. Its fun for about 10 minutes at a time. Besides, theyre end esports. Whoa, big deal. Esports is a fad that will fade away eventually. I was sad to hear Blizzard got involved in the esports gig to begin with. It is good for game promotion, but hasn’t really been good for the overall quality of the game. Blizzard can’t hold content like they did before to polish it and the people it brought to WoW can be rather insufferable. I dont care that WoW esports exist, I hate that it has any bearing on content.

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I hope they cancel all esports just because esports commentators are awful and hard to listen to. I think I would love esports if I didn’t have to listen to wanna be pros talk about the real pros.

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