Why isn't DF selling like hotcakes?

Community General Discussion
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There is no WoW killer. WoW is still alive. Subscriptions may be down for a number of reasons but it’s not clear why. Lots of people are positive they know *** THE *** reason subscriptions are off but no one knows for sure.

Here’s what I’ve heard from various people claiming they know the *** ONLY *** reason why subs are down.

  • Some say it’s the story writting particularly in BFA and ShadowLands.
  • Or it’s the toxic culture of the players that’s causing people to leave.
  • Others point to specific abilities like “borrowed power” that have been taken away.
  • Next we hear that it’s time gating
  • Death. Wow players aren’t getting any younger, and younger players don’t share the same attraction to MMOs… particularly ones dominated by older people.
  • The questing requirements are not long and grinding enough.
  • The questing requirements are to long and grinding.
  • They heard Activision say: “If you don’t like the game, go play something else.” or… “The game is not meant for you”.
  • SL had too many mobs close together.
  • And now: The Horde/Alliance cold war.

I’ll add China to the list. I’d add the trailer thing you mentioned but I have no idea what that’s about. Seems WoW has always had trailers introducing each expansion

729

cause it is selling like waffles and french toast

730

There was a pandemic.

Any new video game was selling amazingly well. The viking Assassin’s Creed game (which was p much the only AAA console game besides TLOU2) broke every Ubi sales record and they released like 5 DLCs. PS3’s were selling out. Not PS4’s, PS3’s. Nearly 10 year old hardware. You couldn’t get any laptops.

731

Because hotcakes are good.

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732

I think the aging playerbase and not being able to replenish with new gamers is by far the major factor in the decline of WoW. Its simply not sustainable. People quit every year from age, and no new players come in. When is the last time you heard a kid or teen on discord?

But I’ll throw in a few more.

DF is very MoP-like in outward appearance. Yes, its not MoP when you play it, but if all you watched was the trailer and heard about it, its basically “Dragon Land” similar to “Panda Land.” And MoP was arguably the worst selling expansion ever, only selling 2.7m copies week 1. BC sold 2.4m, but that was also before WoW peaked, and also when you were still going to the store to wait in line to get it. Even WoD/BFA/SL all sold over 3.3 m copies, with SL selling 3.7 because of Covid. Id honestly bet that DF’s sales are much closer to MoP/BC, in the 2.5 range, and thats why they didnt sell us how much it sold this time; it definitely didnt sell over 3 or they would have said so.

Next, DF is woke. Now, I dont want to get into the specifics of this, it simply an observation. Which is fine, but our playerbase isnt teens and young adults; its 30-50 year old people who this kind of stuff honestly, probably appeals to less. Now we can argue whether these people are right or wrong thats not the point. But when your average playerbase is middle age at best, this kind of stuff may turn them off the game, for better or worse.

Couple this with 2 straight bad expansions, that basically eat 4 years of people’s time, with them already aging into and past middle age, and you have a recipe for disaster that these people never come back.

Then you can go into the barriers to entry which are higher compared to most games in 2023, where games are free with optional costs, compared to WoW’s archaic sub fee + box cost.

We could keep listing reason after reason, but the truth is its an aging game, thats expansion really had nothing lore-wise or game wise to drag people back, that mirrors one of the worst selling expansions, on top of being politically charged towards a younger playerbase that doesnt exist, and instead could aim to alienate its already aging, dwindling playerbase.

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733

When I started playing WoW was free up to level 20. I remember starting many of the classes and trying them out up to level 20 before finally settling on Blood Elves and picking up a subscription.

Question is, how “free” are other games and how far can you go in “free” mode. For example World of War Ships has a free mode but you get half the pointes in battles and you are restricted in the order in which you can play the ships.

On the other hand you can do almost anything in Second Life playing for free except owning virtual land or an SL house. You can even get player housing by renting property (usually sky boxes) and adding your own furniture and other decorations.

As for woke, it clearly bothers some people and others will die on a hill defending it to the extreme but I would guess for most people it’s just there and after a few minutes it fades into the background as something you don’t even think about.

734

Lockdowns were not world wide by a long shot. Only the nations that made deals w/ Pfizer et al locked down. Ironically they also had the most deaths, which have morphed to the highest excess deaths in 50 years in 2022. We dont hear much about those though…

735

Yeah this is exactly how I feel about the renown grind to unlock more story, I didn’t like it back in SL, I don’t like it now. I have no interest in getting more rep to unlock more quests and then doing the same thing again. Whilst I don’t think the DF story is terrible, it isn’t really good either at least good to the point where I want to grind out the rep to see where the story goes.

Yeah the DF story is better than the SL story but SL story has set such a low, low bar that saying “X has a better story than SL” is not much of a compliment.

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736

I can’t be the only being to hear David Letterman reading this off in their head.

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737

I always felt GW2 was an amazing free to play game. To me, it felt like the only thing you could/would feel a NEED to spend RL monies would be for more storage. Storage is always nice.

738

And the number one reason people no longer like World of Warcraft …
You can cook food but you can’t eat it.

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739

Blizzard goodwill got burnt.

It makes all those “You will be back!” posts sound kind of sad.

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740

This is SO annoying. Leveling alts and I can cook the recipes but can’t eat it. WTH blizz.

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741

people are just straight up in denial.

Dragonflight’s major new feature is new crafting, dragon flying and rated solo shuffle. I think they are all fat failures but that’s just me.

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742

I agree with everything else in your post 100%, but I feel like I must be missing something with the political portion that’s getting mentioned.

What in DF is “woke?”

743

The game has been on a population decline since the tail end of Wrath of the Lich King because that’s when the Warcraft 3 story ended.

744

Gays, trans and minorities have the audacity to exist.
So therefore everyone is losing their ***t.

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745

Yeah, I was hoping that wasn’t what his definition of woke was as it seems to differ depending on whom you ask.

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746

Oh, it’s not.
Of course there are levels and vagaries to it.
And of course it’s kind of a slang word now for anything that’s not… well for lack of a better way to put it ‘1950’s chic’.

You could say “Oh, they serve a kale smoothie… that Juice bar is Woke AF.” or “Their stance on fiscal conservatism favors increased spending on education and the arts. That’s way too woke for a recession” and again that would be an example of woke because it’s got lots of vagary and breadth to it’s meaning.

But nobody is complaining about the kale smoothies here. It’s because gender issues make people react, especially in this community.

There might be some overlap to other areas of course, but I would think 90% of the “woke” complaints are because of gender issues and gay/trans characters existing.

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747

Hence why I wrote ‘almost’ , no need to take that literally, the point was that the sales records were there because a lot of people were at home, and/or had hours drastically cut down.

True. And it’s looking like it’ll be even more in 2023.

Me and you know why :wink: