Nuance must sound like some rare venereal disease of the antebellum South to them…
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Okay, Alex Jones.
True, Lich King was a high point in terms of story and it goes to show their story making skills have gone to worse than B rated story writers. Cataclysm didn’t make much sense and the story wasn’t engaging.
I also would take the 100million accounts with a grain of salt due in large part numerous accounts were created back in Classic. There were still promotional 7days of gametime and account creations occurring. I would imagine that you’re right that a significant core of players up and left as time went on but, a sudden drop of 4million subs in one expansion and the continuous fall afterwards shows a clear failure in engaging an audience to continue playing.
That seems to be the model of today. The content is too easy, requires a schedule to play, way too hard, gear gating/restrictions based upon performance in PvP, and the continual daily grind that it becomes a chore rather than a fun experience.
Definitely comes off that way.
None, because no other MMO released content that was relatable, challenging, easy to access, and enjoyable. Look at all the WoW killers that never released, were half baked, broken, and scams… There hasn’t been a single MMO that has been given a chance to actually be completed before releasing. Even though WoW itself wasn’t complete there was still actual content from 1-60 when games such as Warhammer couldn’t even manage anything beyond 20+.
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You mean all the WoW killers that were released around the height of WoW’s popularity, and likely helped feed into WoW’s popularity by trying to be it, but better, and ultimately failing at everything?
Nowadays WoW has genuine competition with games like FF14, MMOs that have stopped trying to be “new WoW” and are now doing their own thing. Not to mention a shift in the market moving away from subscriptions and more favoring free to play + cash shop games like League of Legends or mobile games
You’re free to like or dislike retail as you wish, but to say it’s failing because it still maintains a few million active players 17 years later, in a completely different market from when it was at its height of popularity, is disingenuous at best, and outright lying at worst
I disagree. WoW is a house of cards currently waiting to be blown into the wind with an actual competitor. FF14 is just another Asian MMO in my book similar to Aion. Not many western audiences will care for it. Just as you said those MMOs released at WoW’s highpoint anything showing up with innovative and enjoyable MMO experience will see WoW buckle into collapse. There really isn’t any future for WoW besides their tired routine.
They are changing Classic to become more like retail… when retail is still a click away. What’s so confusing about keeping a classic game classic?
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So you’re either uninformed or are just making up nonsense. FF14 has a few million active players even during the massive content drought it’s currently in, similar to WoW
Last I checked Classic still plays like Classic. What, you think Retail is defined by a single mount and a level boost? Lol
well… um… yes, actually. Mounts and Boosts do define retail.
No, they don’t, and it’s honestly a shame that you think they do
/giggle
No.
Really that kinda is it. No one is building anything new; it’s wow clone after wow clone and I get it, WoW was really well designed in terms of the classes; after all that’s the cornerstone of the game.
Problem is if you just copy them hoping to win at the same game with 1/100th the content… Lol SWTOR anyone?
/giggle
Yes.
Suit yourself, but try to remember your fevered conspiracies aren’t reality.
Activision is making a mistake, but it isn’t what you think it is. They aren’t stupid and would never intentionally sabotage their own product.
There are two keys to maintaining an established business. The first is to balance short term and long term profits. Lean too hard on short term and there won’t be a long term. Lean too hard on long term and you won’t be able to keep the lights on right now. Like it or not, Activision has mastered this side of it. They know how a business works inside and out and they devote a lot more to future content than most give them credit for.
The second key is to understand your customers. This is where Activision comes up short. To their credit they know this and have brought in people to help them. There is no shame in hiring help- only a fool would try to scale Mt. Everest without a sherpa and most people are quite content to hire someone else to work on their car.
Activision’s mistake is hiring the wrong sherpa. Ion and his crew are hardcore players and don’t understand the playerbase as a whole any better than Activision does. This is why the game has made such a sharp turn towards catering to the hardcore crowd and the whales (if you don’t know a whale is someone willing to pay more than just the expansion and sub to enhance their experience).
From a business perspective there is good money to be made from catering to a smaller clientele that is willing to pay more- Ferrari and Louis Vuitton are two examples of this. From Activision’s POV this model falls in line with their business training as a valid model and their profits are setting records. This leads them to trusting Ion and his cronies even more.
The constant negative threads and loss in subscribers doesn’t look like a problem to any of those in charge because of the record profits, but its a foreshadowing of a potential problem down the road. Even the biggest spenders will lose interest once they no longer have people to play with. They don’t see it right now because their closed social circle isn’t affected, but it is creeping towards them.
Once the playerbase has shrunk to the point to where even the whales and hardcores realize there is nobody to play with it will be too late. The whales and hardcores will move on to the next big thing and Activision’s profits will nosedive because there won’t be a large pool of subscribers to lean on.
The “hardcore” have been some of the most vocal against many of the Sl changes so I’m not sure how you can suggest Ion is making a game for them. In fact I would argue all of the systems designed in SL punish hardcore players much more then casual players.
makes 100% sense. They’ll never admit this, but I do think they want people back in retail asap
Makes no sense.
All the people who wanted to try retail have already bought it.
They have already gained the money from the people who wanted to play or try shadowlands. Patch 9.1 isn’t going to bring in new people as it’s still just Shadowlands
The sub fee is the exact same so that’s not a bet gain in any way.
If they wanted people to play retail they should try making retail good.
Tbc will bring in NEW players because it’s one of the best xpacs, there will be more people spending money on TBC than people did in classic.
HA new players. I don’t think so… that game is far beyond gone.
Im not sure I agree with “they do not understand their customers”. They prolly do understand their customers just fine, and know that their decisions or updates or new games will annoy certain parts of their customer base. Id not be surprised if they have some mathwiz with a sociology degree up there calculating to a pin point that: Okay if we introduce the deluxe edition for TBC with a cash shop, how many people do we piss off, how many people will drop the game and lets compare it to how much money the ones that stay will spend on these products. Mix that in with the number of ppl that hate the cash shop but will still stick around and pay the sub regardless and how much money do we have at the end.
This is a very specific example of course, but im pretty sure they are fully aware of what their consumers want, they just do not priotize it.
If they understood their customers then retail would not be in the state its in.