they did say they are not terribly worried about classics long term numbers. one thing we can gather from that is they are probably keeping the overhead pretty low for this project
ive seen several complaints about virtual realms, but they are probably what made this possible financially
The closest thing said publicly was this, from J. Allen Brack, just after the project was announced:
Are you expecting players to come back to vanilla WOW and properly invest in that game, or just have a look around for nostalgiaâs sake?
J. Allen Brack: Both, I think. One of the things we do know is that by announcing this, weâre in the WOW Classic business forever. Once that starts, thereâs a commitment on our end that weâre going to continue maintaining those servers for as long as there is a World of Warcraft. I think there will be people that come and do the nostalgia trip, they go to the Barrens and find Mankrikâs wife, and then theyâre done. Thatâs fine. Some amount of people, however, are going to create a new Classic community and thatâs what weâll be providing.
Those people donât just want the old gameplay features, they want the constant social connection. And so we canât just support it for a couple of months and then if itâs not working out, ditch it. There has to be an assurance that you can build this character, build this guild, build these friendships, and the server will continue.
One thing that I am noticing missing from this interview, and this quote in particular, is a statement to the effect of the game will run whether it has a million players or ten players. Itâs interesting that this seems to have been edited out. Well, whatâs left is OK, I guess.
they are not all coming back, lots of people just got tired of wow in general
the people that hate qol stuff are small in numbers compared to people who simply wont play the same game for years and years
they got tired of wow because it went to crap.they will come back when classic wow launches.
Of course, they arenât ALL coming back. Blizzard couldnât build an infrastructure to support them all. 3% of former players would be more than retail right now.
As for saying players didnât leave over QoL issues, know one knows why every individual made a decision. I would point out that retail has lost approximately 10 million players since peakâŠWrath. I donât blame QoL so much as lost player agency and a complete strip job of RPG elements. Some of those are the same(QoL and lost RPG elements). What theyâve, sadly, proven over time is: there is no amount of dumbing down they can actually balance.
some will. most of them wont want to play vanilla for long in 2019
Itâs very possible, but it depends on what they do. If they add sharding for example, it could break any chance it had. They might also not spend adequate resources on advertisement if they donât have enough faith in the project, limiting interest.
I tried most expansions and quit mainly because the content was too easy and because the world felt fake due to sharding, cross-realming and phasing. But none of those were options in any of the âwhy did you cancel your subscription?â questionnaires I was presented with, although ridiculous answers like âthe game is too hardâ was.
They are either completely out of touch or have decided on which answers they want beforehand.
The jist I get is that they realized that casuals pay the bills, and hard-core poop socking the game doesnât earn them much more, if any money/profit⊠particularly when the cash shop is responsible these days for most of the money WoW generates in the first place.
So âout of touchâ with what makes games fun Iâll violently agree with you on, and if those are the things that made you quit, just realize they are the nature of corporate reality in big business these days. See- âmost profitable and highest revenue year EVER; lays off 800 peopleâ imbroglio.
When a game goes from 10 million subs to less than 5 million, something is wrong. Itâd make sense if no new content was being developed post WotLK, but it kept coming in regular cycles, yet, subs continued to evaporate.
Is it conceivable that if vanilla stayed true to its roots and followed its original formula to this day, that it could have sustained the monster sub numbers it posted back in 2010?
I think itâs entirely plausible. I left due to RL obligations, and when I occasionally checked in to see what was going on, I started recognizing the game less and less.
No doubt, BFA is enjoyed by many, but letâs not deny that theyâre two different games now. The fact that they are bringing Classic back means that thereâs a market of enough players who wish to play âold schoolâ style, which I believe is underestimated and underrated.
Sadly, I believe that the only thing that will keep vanilla from maximizing new subs (Iâm talking players who have never played WoW at all) is graphics. The perception that older graphics somehow translates to bad mechanics and functionality.
If players donât like the way vanilla plays, itâs not because itâs not done correctly or inferior. If this were the case, it would never have achieved 10 million subs.
Ask Blizzard, Is modern WoW supposed to be a better game than vanilla? If the answer is yes, then Classic has a real chance of surprising the market.
All games eventually dwindle, but the previous king is still going, if not strong.
going from 10 million at the peak to less than 5 is not nearly as bad as some other mmos that float around 500k or just closed up shop.
most wont be playing bfa either.
i tend to think the market is getting away from mmorpgs in general. this will affect classic and bfa. i dont think retail could hold 10 million + again no matter what they do, short of going free
i also think classic will be niche, which is fine considering it wont have much upkeep cost either
I think itâs more that mmorpgs went away from the market. Theyâve lost their identity and what set them apart from other genres. Classic will be a return to that identity, and itâll thrive.
There are a lot of assertions in this post I consider dubious, but Iâll settle for focusing on the point I made. When I quit the game, the reasons I quit for were not available in the feedback form. This means the quality of feedback Blizzard receives when I quit will be poor.
I donât see you making an argument that is relevant to that. And if you are not trying to make such an argument, I am unsure why you quoted my post. It looks like you are taking part of my post and using it in a different argument I have not stated any opinion on.
there is some truth to that, but remember game companies dont target the 35+ demographic, they are going after kids who didnt grow up loving wow and warcraft
i just dont see classic holding millions of players either. when i look around i find there is not a ton of hype for this game. people are talking about what BR will knock off fortnite instead as well as RDR2 vs GTA
classics slow pace, dated feel, and graphics will probably be niche.
If classic has more than 40k wow accounts actively playing in a year I would be greatly surprised but not disappointed. It would still put it in the top 30 MMORPGs based on users active.
Or weâve grown up. A lot of us were in our teens and twenties, to maybe early thirties when this game was new. Fast forward 15 years, and people have families, careers, other interests outside of playing an MMO.
I donât understand what the obsession with crapping all over the live game is. Thereâs still a ton of people enjoying the game and playing it and having fun. It doesnât have to appeal to you, not every game is going to, and the ones that do, your tastes can change.
But you have to understand, itâs been 15 years. Thatâs a long time to expect to keep a massive population.
agreed i think the market is going arpg they are the new mmorpg.
And it is a valid quote. It works perfectly with the line that Classic is a âPassion Projectâ and focused on protecting their IP. A game that only 10 people play still meets the requirements for protecting the IP.
So Classic WoW being an utter failure is an acceptable outcome for Activision.
But it also stands that if Classic pulls âimpressive numbersâ that makes it very profitable on a potentially ongoing basis. They will undertake efforts to keep those numbers up.