Oh no, you’re completely right my comments are frequently very contentious. But In this case I was actually wondering what you thought the future held.
And I’ve made it very clear, that I think the game is currently in decline. But it’s hard to argue with that, so you resorted to literally just trying argue over whether or not you could understand me.
It’s just boring, man. It’s boring and tedious when someone makes literally everything an argument, just to kick up dirt.
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Let’s see if I can do links. Looks like it in the preview. Oh never mind. Nothing is in concrete, of course, but I don’t feel that worried about Diablo long term.
https:/ /www.mmo-champion.com/threads/2464612-Newly-hired-Creative-Director-to-work-in-D4
That’s an MMOC thread, and most of it is just them arguing about whether or not the original statement is even true.
I also know they’re currently working on another Diablo installment, but they’re not going to just shut down operations because things look bleak. That’s would be suicide. Things look bad, so we should stop making products… wha?
i wouldn’t put much stock in D4 being good then
I really hope it is… I love that series, but they don’t seem to anymore.
There were people saying Diablo Immortal would be the death blow to the Diablo series similar to C&C.
Don’t think much of the Witcher guy, or just no faith in Blizzard? I’m more concenred it will take 4 years than be bad.
Nothing says trustworthy like a file in the FBI White Collar unit.
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I can’t argue with that.
I’d say (and keep in mind I don’t have a heck of a lot of insight on corporate), the worst case scenario would probably be Blizzard’s properties being shaken to pieces and the company going underground for a few years (no Blizzcons, etc.) as they rebuild them into something new.
So a new WoW could very well happen. I don’t know how likely it is, but I would put money on Blizzard being frustrated with how long in the tooth the code is.
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Worst case is liquidation and selling of IPs like THQ.
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My feeling for quite some time is that Blizzard has been using WoW as a cash cow to fund other projects and the actual number of players it needs to break even is considerably lower than where we are.
But it is tied to Blizzard and Activision, so if the main ship sinks something like that could happen.
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Magic and enthusiasm from the senior development is gone and the only thing coming up with ideas is the new talents they hire until bled dry and let go so the execs can enjoy their Anaheim Mansions with minimal effort. WoW is on maintenance mode until further notice.
It’s not in a good place but by definition this is far from the truth.
From an annual perspective, for me, $180 a year this game does not justify itself. And being fed supplemental quests and a weeks worth of content, that’s time gated, a month does not justify it either. Not counting expansion costs. For me it feels like maintenance.
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I’ll throw my two coppers on the pile: I agree that the worst case scenario of a complete shutdown doesn’t seem likely, but there is definitely a steep decline going on. The thing is, all any of us mooks can do is speculate. We don’t know Blizzard’s hard numbers on basically anything or what’s going on behind the scenes; we have no data on how bad things truly are (or are not) and no idea what (if any) contingency plans exist should a crisis develop.
In short, the future of WoW is not rosy right now, but it isn’t time to either break out the torches and pitchforks or to start digging its grave.
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When quests are drip fed on a month by month basis when there’s no reason for them to do so it sure feels like it’s getting pretty close.
We’ll have a much better idea once the next expansion comes out I’ll wager. Subs have changed pretty much irreversably from year-round subscribers to “eh, I’ll buy a month when a patch comes out and nothing more”… even when people are happy with the game. I thought Legion was great but I still didn’t stay subbed through the whole thing because things are just different now.
So subs are opaque to us and probably low even in good times when a patch hasn’t recently released: we’ll get a good idea of the game’s overall health when we see the sales for the next expansion. They’ve held fairly steady at around 3.3 million 1st-day sales for almost every expac since cataclysm (with MoP being the only one to drop below that at 2.7 million).
So that makes me think that WoW’s “core” audience is about 3.3 million. That group buys every expansion pack as soon as it releases, and though their sub length varies wildly now they still play every expansion pack. I am in this group, I have often let my sub lapse for months at a time in the past few years but I always pre-order the expansions and try new patch content.
If the next expansion releases and people are so disillusioned that the sales drop below MoP levels, something is seriously wrong. But as long as 3.3 million people show up like clockwork when new content releases, even if they complain a lot, the game isn’t in its death throes.
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So how many people here have actually played an MMO that’s actively dying? Most of them would give their first born to be in WoW’s position right now.
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I remember pretty much every time I logged into Conan someone was talking about the game dying for like… maybe 10 years?