Why player housing will happen eventually

Community General Discussion
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Edit: This was originally posted in January.
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WoW has become a HEAVILY monetized game, well beyond the sub fee. Services, tokens, and most importantly, pets, mounts and mogs. However, those are all a bit saturated now.

Housing, once implemented, becomes an easy win to repurpose all the existing doodads in the game and slap a price tag on them. It also pads the trading post and becomes a new reward stream for existing content.

So, while I don’t think those of us who want the feature have been enough to push them into putting in the resources to making it happen, I expect corporate is seeing tens of millions in potential sales and is going to ensure this happens.

There’s a reason we’re “reclaiming” cities for the races that don’t have any all of a sudden and warbands “account wide everything” are a big feature in T-dubs.

But hey, I could be wrong I suppose. Time will tell. And if it doesn’t, the bronze will sort it.

Edit: WoW being heavily monetized in comparison to OG WoW which was just a sub fee and box cost, not compared to abominations that want 5 figures to be competitive.

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I hope you’re right :smiley:

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YES! Speak to blizzard in the only language they know, money.

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Of course, they are a business before a game. If the shareholders tell blizz to add housing because there is an overwhelming amount of players that want it, then blizz is gonna listen.

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Bingo.

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I was certain that if it didn’t happen in Dragonflight, when they were desperately trying to please people after the lawsuit and scandal, that it wouldn’t ever happen. However Ion’s mea-culpa about stubbornly refusing to change old ideas gave me a small glimmer of hope. It definitely could become a huge gold/time sink.

Except that has never happened at any gaming studio. The vast majority of shareholders are money market and pension funds who don’t have a clue about games or gaming.

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Blizzard doesn’t have any shareholders and isn’t a corporation any longer. They’re a gaming studio that’s a tiny part of MS overall and also one studio out of many under xbox gaming.

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Ion should be fired, IMO ( i stress IMO ) plenty of bad things have been added and smug comments from him.

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So how come I can buy Activision-Blizzard shares still?

The company still exists. It just has a new owner (Microsoft).

EDIT: I was wrong re: stocks. Nevermind

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I don’t mind all the people that have been asking for players housing subsiding development.
I ain’t buying it :dracthyr_shrug:

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I’ll take “things you’d never say if you really played a heavily monetized game” for $400, Alex.

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I dont think you understand the true scope of monetization in the games we have currently. WoW is really really light on monetization in comparison to whats out there.

Otherwise its a good point. Housing opens up alot of gameplay, social and monetization that could be implemented

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I based the comparison on OG WoW, not P2W gatcha games or…Diablo Immortal.

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So in other words, you have no idea what you’re talking about.

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I bought a Javelin Destroyer in Star Citizen and whaled a few indie projects. I promise I know how bad it can get.

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Wow will get player housing after Ion retires.

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It’s tough to justify player housing. If it’s completely self-contained and offers no avenue for collecting additional transmogs or mounts and has no impact on player power, then much of the player base will simply not engage. About 1 in 3 players have won over 250 pet battles. That’s not inconsequential, but then it’s not a majority either. If we end up seeing similar numbers for player housing then it will not become the cash cow it needs to be in order to justify continued development of a full-fledged feature forever.

I suspect instead that we will be drip-fed features that move toward player housing with additional features being prioritized based on engagement metrics for the existing “housing-lite” features.

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what can be implemented is achievements awarding players with decor pieces.

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The only majority playstyle in WoW is questing. The suits aren’t going to look at it based on how much it will be used, but by how much they can make from those who do. Especially if they start selling literal mansions. Not that I’m advocating for that :slight_smile:

Edit for my source on that, is Ion Hazzikostas circa 2016. It may have changed recently.