Does it? I would argue that every major video game that was released this year was ESG-friendly and still achieved great success. For example, the BG3 Druid sex scene had no impact. In Starfield, the ability to choose pronouns did not stop it from becoming a bestseller. I’m sure I could go on, but you get the idea.
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I suppose it depends on how well its done.
In wow we get things like this
this is the main narrative for new players.
“Eventually”? 
Game has already been taking damage because of this new direction they’ve gone with
Player unsubs spiked in Shadowlands but to be fair that was more due to the brutal content droughts rather than the SJW/ESG stuff. But I tend to agree though, the SJW and ESG stuff doesn’t seem to be attracting newer/younger players like they intended - instead the WoW playerbase is still comprised of mostly long-term legacy/veteran players (most players are probably age 25+ by now)
Disneyland has been open for 68 years. Its not hard to do as long as your team knows why the original recipe worked to begin with.
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I doubt they even cared to attract new players with this. These kinds of people are compelled to promote these ideas because they are in effect religious tenets. So any pushback or resistence to them is met with hostility and judgement instead of real reflection or course correction.
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Are you kidding with this one? You’ve got some nuclear-bad takes in this thread but this one is just a unique thorn. Do you really think that Disney hasn’t pivoted their stance, or made aggressive moves on other companies, or been ruthlessly protective of their IPs? That they’ve just sat there making Disney Things™ for those 68 years?
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I rather enjoy the disneyland comparison. You wanna know their secret sauce? Why they have been open for 68 years?
They put all their eggs into the new player experience (children). They capture their hearts and minds by staying true to timeless thematics and providing them with emotional experiences.
If all Disneyland did was cater to adult hardcore superfans and had barely any care to their young fans they would have closed a long time ago. If their storylines were esoteric nonsense they would have closed a long time ago.
If they made all their princesses wear armor, and all their princes wear dresses, they would have closed a long time ago.
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You should work on your reading comprehension then. Disney the company, and Disneyland, are different things.
They can’t abandon the idea that woke = broke because then they have to face reality that there is no silent majority pushing back against it.
It’s amusing in a way because its the same crowd that insists capitalism is king, and capitalism has decided they want everyone’s money.
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Uh, Disneyland does not exist without Disney the company, full stop. So yes, Disneyland/Disney World is pretty much Disney in theme park form. What does this even mean?
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china says otherwise
It doesn’t seem like you understood the analogy between wow and disneyland I was making. They are both theme parks. Disneyland has been open for 68 years largely because they never stopped providing the magic for their new “players”
Wows age has little to do with why it’s popularity has been declining. If Disney did what blizzard did, and stopped providing experiences for kids and instead catered towards adult superfans the theme park would have closed a long time ago. Not only that, they changed the core themes so much its almost unrecognizable.
Imagine if they turned every disney princess into deep voiced masculine characters who wear mens armor and gave the princes a dress. That’s what wow has done. They put so little effort into getting new players invested it’s no wonder they are struggling.
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We have continental drift every time a new landmass gets added as it is, because they just shove it wherever and move everything else as needed.
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Then why isn’t he dead?
Actually, I think Buckshot is making a good point.
I haven’t played the game since near the end of shadowlands and I think like many wow players at that time. I was only still there because like them I got pulled into a "kind of b.s. expansion called shadowlands).
I have left since then and I have played some older games. Check out my other post I put up if you are interested.
I even found some free rp communities that though have their own flaws at least have original writing and is largely made up of different generations than I think a-lot of the current wow developing team is from. Which makes it interesting.
Saying that the current team is flawed is not a bad criticism as I think some if not a-lot of it is true.
I read of numerous reports for example of present day writers who have the privilege of saying that they even have a job as a writer in the entertainment industry completely trashing the source material in which their jobs are based from.
People like that, do not deserve jobs where they are hired to expand these stories but in a way that still respects the old lore that established these worlds to where they are presently at.
So if wow eventually gets rid of these people and replaces it with even new writers that can understand they have a duty to respect old lore in order to build future adventures in such a world and this can apply to any longstanding fictional world. I don’t see an issue with that at all.
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OP is not alone, This is why alot of people left retail and play classic. I hate to say it but I really feel some of the talent that left the company due to the scandel regardless of what happened may have been responsible for making warcraft feel like warcraft… Not sure… But the game really does feel different thats for sure.
Only prob I had with BFA was azerite traits being tied to everything you equipped. Other than that, I enjoyed it. My opinion dragon gliding is the only positive about DF. SL they never pulled that ripcord whatever lol.
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You’re right, WoW’s focus is absolutely, 100% on the endgame and that focus is to its detriment. That is also the only thing we are going to agree on, because that last paragraph is a sorry excuse of an argument.
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It’s true though, and I don’t care about being a heretic.
That new starting zone is a travesty and I’ll call out all of these weird role inversions in any media I see.
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Ah, my bad. How uncouth of a woman to wear heavy armor and wield a sword and shield. They’ll get their robes and dresses and staves and like it.
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