Significantly longer than you seem to be implying by making this thread. MMOs don’t need multi-million subs to be successful. As far as anyone knows, FFXIV has yet to reach 2 million (and info we do have points to it reaching 1 million only after its newest expansion, if that can be trusted), yet people praise the hell out of that game.
The concept of a “WoW Killer” died about 5 years ago tbh. Aion didn’t do it in 2009. Rift and SWTOR didn’t do it in 2011. GW2 didn’t do it in 2012. FFXIV: ARR didn’t do it in 2013 with it’s relaunch. ESO and Wildstar didn’t do it in 2014, even when WoW was 9 months into a content lull – a content lull that was followed up with WoD, of all things.
And since 2014, we’ve seen basically 0 relevant MMOs popping up being claimed as potential WoW Killers. It’s just a bunch of poor eastern ports to NA and crappy crowdfunded indie games. People have realized that:
- No MMO is going to outright single-handedly steal WoW’s entire playerbase even if it’s a good game.
- WoW is slowly killing itself over time anyway. The one to dethrone it isn’t likely to dethrone it because it took the world by storm and stole players away.
As far as personal predictions go, I’m sure FFXIV will be the one to take the crown one day. They’re still “healthy” and growing, even if it’s a slow growth. WoW was in linear decline for about 5-6 years before it seemingly slowed down some after WoD. Anyone who thinks the decline has actually reversed rather than slowing down as we approach 0 is silly. (Note: not saying we’re anywhere near 0, just that we’re closer than we were, so it’s natural that the dramatic drop has slowed).
ESO could be a potential contender, but I think FFXIV is ahead of it, and ESO will likely lose a SIGNIFICANT chunk of players the second the next mainline TES game drops.
I expect another 3 expansions at absolute minimum before Blizzard even considers giving up on WoW, and that’s assuming the decline continues without slowing further, which is unlikely.
My guess is that something like 9 to 11 years is more likely (4-5 xpacks), although it will undoubtedly be struggling at the end there.
But another question is this:
Is WoW able to be maintained and developed for by a skeleton crew at a slower pace?
Because if that’s the case, it’ll be nearly impossible to guess when it shuts its doors. Because if they cut down on server costs as the game declines and cut down staff significantly, maybe focus more on questing and less on new zones and such, use scenario-style dungeons (not 3 mans, just in the sense that they use existing areas in an instanced form) to save on art resources, that kinda thing, the game could go on indefinitely because I guarantee there will always be enough people to make it -technically- financially feasible (for the foreseeable future) if the game isn’t so much of a mess that it doesn’t 100% require a huge team to manage.
But of course there’s always the possibility that rather than trying to coast on something that’s not making huge profits anymore, ActiBlizz takes the people off of the team to try and create something new that makes more money. That’s definitely a thing that happens, you don’t need a net loss on a project for that to happen. No one knows when/if that would come.