They already made their money at launch (and broke sales records with that launch as well). Right now there may be a dip in subs but from the business side they say, “this is a typical drop in subs that we experience between major content patches of an expansion”.
Their profit model is launch sales of xpac, increase in sub count with content patches, game store sales through mounts/pets.
Even if there is only “41% of the playerbase left” they still fit into the profit model that management expects. From a business point of view they are doing just fine as the #1 MMO by population.
Heck, even if they don’t release until August it still won’t matter. Even if they only do a 9.1 and 9.2 it won’t matter. They will release a new expac with new feature hooks and they will continue to break sales records. I’d love to see them take some new directions with the game but I feel like at this point they are going to stick to the current formula that pulls in record breaking sales (See below).
“Battle for Azeroth sold more than 3.4 million units through August 14th, setting records and making it Warcraft’s fastest-selling expansion…For the previous expansion, the press release stated Legion sold 3.3 million copies on the first day”
“World of Warcraft: Shadowlands has become the fastest-selling PC game of all time! By day one of launch on November 23rd, the expansion had sold over 3.7 million copies, breaking the previous record set by Diablo III at 3.5 million and the 3.3 million copies of Legion, while claiming player engagement in World of Warcraft at its highest point in the last decade.”
I heard “9.1 may be as late as September” through my grapevine even before Blizzcon. It is pretty much well established speculation and hearsay at this point.
The fact that 9.1 was still at a conceptual phase during Blizzcon, and there is still no 9.1 on PTR yet, should clue you in to the fact that it may very well be as late as September.
I personally don’t mind how long 9.1 is taking, but am disgusted about how little 9.0.5 addresses for the playerbase as a whole. 9.0.5 could have included many more improvements that would not have costed much time development-wise.
Retail will seriously take a dive if it’s in August. You got peeps already moving off to classic to get to BC. They’re probably tryna use BC for more time to work on retail. What a mess rip.
Just tells me SL was rushed.
I’ve been saying mid July at the earliest ever since Blizzcon Online.
What they showed for 9.1 was too bare bones to be anywhere close to ready to put into the ptr right after 9.0.5 launched. Another thing is since they like to put flying in via Pathfinder between 9 months to a year after an expansion launches ,an August date would fit into that time frame . Usually it has been a x.2 patch since WoD and this time it is coming in 9.1.
From what I understand, at least according to Bellular, the person in question is actually very pro-blizzard. I don’t know, I don’t really pay attention to twitch streamers.
But like I said, just based on what we saw at Blizzcon and what we are seeing currently, I would not be surprised to see a July or later release of 9.1.
They would withhold critical information to make what’s coming up sound worth staying subscribed for. Only after implementation will most people realize that what they got was not what the messaging appeared to be suggesting.
Meh, they can do their job from home just fine, or like others have done and conduct rapid tests in house. If the food industry hasn’t had an issue, then some game makers shouldn’t either.
We are well past the time of the first major content patch of previous xpacs and people are beginning to get bored. The game is beginning to look like a ghost town. If they wait until Fall, it will be a ghost town.
