World of Warcraft Revenue Dropped 54% in 7 Months

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Status
Not open for further replies.

InvalidError

Titan
Moderator

I had a fair bit of fun with Cataclysm for the first ~4 months - until guild drama killed the guild I was in at that time (hardcore 10-man groups did not appreciate when the GL started asking them to jump into 25-man runs) and I did not feel like trying to find a new guild one more time.
 

jaber2

Distinguished
Jan 21, 2012
702
0
18,990
If WoW loses half of its current players it would still be twice or more of any other MMO F2P or Sub system, 10 years of play makes people like me stick around until the lights are turned off at Blizz or at my place, Sony is still supporting the remaining players who started with EQ, no matter how small it got they kept the lights on.
 

John Pombrio

Honorable
Mar 12, 2013
19
0
10,510
Just bored is all. I can only do just so much of the same thing before I move on. Mists was fun and kept my going for a few months but when I was just doing dailies over and over, that was it. subscription cancelled.
 

qlum

Distinguished
Aug 13, 2013
195
0
18,690
Not supprising, they are milking the game for quite some time now while other free 2 play or buy to play mmo's (guild wars 2) keep getting better. And if that isn't enough the game is quite old, and they have focused on less veteran players with their expanding, where as a game grows older the players who still play get better and better thus requiring more need for really hard content to satisfy those players. WoW failed there bigtime as far as I heard.

Another thing is when people start leaving they will make for more empty servers which will pull more players over the edge and so forth.
So in short no surprises there.
 

xanotherdaydownx

Honorable
Sep 13, 2013
1
0
10,510
As a few others have mentioned. Mists of Pandaria was released in September 2012 and is contributing to the $204 million that this article is reporting. In September, MoP sold 2.7 copies. At $40 each (not even including the extra $60 for collectors editions) that would be around $108 million. Which places their revenue at $96 million from subscribers in September 2012. Granted their are other positive and negative factors that would contribute to both of these monthly figures. But I feel that articles like this are created solely to jump on the "WoW is tanking" bandwagon.
 
Throwing in Pay-to-Win items would really hack a lot of people off. So I am not sure what micro-transactions would be worth it. Mounts? Skins? More Pokemon?[/quotemsg]


Clearly that's the way to go. look at how far Nintendo has taken the Pokemon franchise
 

MfastPrincess

Honorable
Sep 13, 2013
49
0
10,530


Same kind of goes for D3.. fun... fun... fun... then just monotony. Wonder how the console version will do o.o
 

InvalidError

Titan
Moderator

Most people who play WoW do not play for its "great" graphics, physics, etc. so technology is not that much of a factor.

Management decisions to make the game more "accessible" killed a huge chunk of the hardcore fanbase. Similarly, hardcore players and their unreasonable demands from players who are trying to make a name for themselves are ruining the game for semi-hardcore people who play/played on-and-off like me.

So IMO, WoW's biggest failures have absolutely nothing to do with technology.
 

IndignantSkeptic

Distinguished
Apr 19, 2011
507
0
18,980
InvalidError

Its current failures may have nothing to do with technology but its future utter failure certainly should. I have a severe hatred of people who are against technological advancement.
 

horaciopz

Distinguished
Nov 22, 2011
446
0
18,960
It´s a shame that they are ONLY looking for revenue and to increase player's interest on the game. If they aim to increase players on they games, and forget about making more money from fewer gamers they will get a huge chunk of $ in subscriptions. That was what made WOW special, it was a darn hard and addictive, but now it is bored, raids that makes you yawn and content that has nothing special! !
 

Loradio

Honorable
Sep 13, 2013
1
0
10,510
The problem with WoW is that it is stale. Each expansion has been equivalent to a new coat of paint, but in the end, its just the same old game. No amount of micro transactions, expansions or clapping is going to save it from dying. There may be no bigger WoW killer then WoW itself.
 

InvalidError

Titan
Moderator

The sad thing about "high-tech" games is the bulk of them are just rehashed old mechanics. Throwing more 'tech' at the rehash problem will not magically solve that; all it does is make the same old stuff look and behave a little better.

The rate at which genuinely new gaming concepts appear is much higher in "low-tech" games where developers differentiate themselves by producing concepts nobody has seen before (ex.: Bad Piggies, World of Goo, Contrejour, etc.) instead of trying to leapfrog each other at trying to produce a "higher tech" version of the same stuff everyone has already seen dozens of time.

Higher tech does not necessarily equate to fun or genuine innovation.
 

1991ATServerTower

Distinguished
May 6, 2013
141
4
18,715
They changed and removed too many game play systems from BC/WotLK, failed to improve upon what they already had (like making the talent trees and professions more interesting), refused to add systems that people enjoy (housing would be a classic example), left dead servers dead for YEARS, and automated far too community related systems (such that people did not need to form bonds to complete content). I hope they're not surprised with this result. They ruined their own MMO, essentially by making it a single player game with other people in it.

Lore, story, humor, and art-wise, WoW is a great product. However when compared to Everquest II, another game it's own age, it's pretty clear how much pooch screwing has gone on at Blizzard over the years. EQII has more game play systems and "stuff to DO" than any other MMO, yet Sony Online Entertainment sure as heck didn't have as much money to spend or as many as employees as Blizzard (and it shows in how god awful the EQ2 engine is). But bless their hearts, the SOE devs have added a staggering amount of content of all types to EQ since it's launch, on a reasonably frequent basis. The same cannot be said about Blizzard with WoW and I think that plays a larger role in its declining popularity than people might think.

WoW is a very one dimensional game for an MMO. Not a good thing, unless you're looking to have a small community that consists entirely of people who enjoy exactly the same style of game play.

Ps. Most other MMOs have more variety of game play than WoW. I used EQ2, because it's the same age as WoW and the polar opposite in terms of content.
 

IQ11110002

Distinguished
Jul 28, 2009
152
0
18,690
I have not played WoW since Lich King, It became to needy relying on others just to achieve anything, Then you would have someone drop from a group and ruin the run, Join a group and then get kicked by a group of 12 year olds who just wanted to stuff around.
Blizzard as much as I was into full raids and instance runs I also enjoyed the single player element which you have skimped on. After gearing up after months I would go back to different areas just to test myself and see if I could solo a certain boss/instance, Which was satisfying in itself. Then they buff all the mobs and make it so you need to group once again, LEAVE the old instances/raids as they are.
Secondly, Gearing up wether by raids/pvp/arena took months but I noticed after burning crusade they started giving away season gear to noobs for hardly any effort, They made it too easy and made the veterans/pro's pissed off who had spent all their time EARNING it, That was one of the reasons I quit.
Lastly give me lvl 100 and I'll make a return just to see just what I can solo.
Still think Blizzard should have made TITAN to be StarCraft, Their next MMO should have been StarCraft using similar approach to WoW universe! With this you would have a massive universe instead of Horde vs Alliance it is 3 factions, Terran,Zerg,Protoss. And of course with latest graphics/physics etc etc to keep everyone with hard core game rigs happy as well.
 

dimar

Distinguished
Mar 30, 2009
1,035
60
19,360
You'd think with all the money Blizzard made, it could afford to create Wacraft TV series, movies, and a new Warcraft RTS game every year. I wonder where all that money really goes?
 

falchard

Distinguished
Jun 13, 2008
2,360
0
19,790
Blizzard should trust these analysts. They have a very successful record of completely destroying games. I think a few of them are the geniuses from EA and SOE who allowed those games to flop in the wind with micro-transactions. You also can't forget about all the micro-transaction games that fail to gain any traction from listening to their advice.
 

super-smashman

Honorable
May 8, 2012
92
0
10,640
I have been playing WoW since day 1. I've seen the huge cultural shift that, in my opinion, is the real cause of its decline.

The two big things that fell away are player humility and actual progression.

Back in Vanilla, most players were in greens. Most were still learning how to play. There was a small percentage of the player base that was hardcore and everyone looked up to them because it was obvious who they were. Epics were nearly impossible to get on your own. Hell, blues were out of reach for a large section of the population but that was important! It made most players humble. I'd hear things like: Man, look at that item, I could never get that! I'd have to join a top guild and quit my job and put lots of hours into raiding and socializing. People would genuinely FEAR bosses! We'd talk about certain bosses with reverence to their difficulty. We'd feel like kings for a day when we finally took down that boss we were stuck on. That feeling is gone from the game now. The last 3 expansions have lowered the bar to excellence so far that even the most mediocre, casual player feels like they should be able to topple the last boss. Nobody on my server even killed C'thun until the next expansion came out.

Blizzard's biggest mistake came when they decided that all players should get to see all content. They freaked when they looked at their metrics and saw that less than 2% of guilds were doing Sunwell but that made the dungeon actually epic. Could they not see that what made the game so magical and mysterious was knowing that some content was out of reach? I remember going to school and talking to friends about how world first guilds just downed such a boss. I remember the awe, feeling like these people were celebrities to me and my friends. I remember getting attuned to Naxx40 just so I could go in with a friend and LOOK at the instance! I remember feeling so accomplished for getting attuned to instances and working my way up the progression ladder. I remember it took me and my guild a YEAR to get ready to run Kara! We would run content we could do and backed off the hard stuff until we knew we were ready. We knew where we were in relation to every other guild because it took months of prep to move up a tier! You knew that someone had killed X boss because they were wearing Y armor. Progression mattered. There was no jumping up to where the rest of your guild was just because they were running harder content. Accomplishments were palpable. You wore your boss kills. You guild name was your reputation. All of that has been washed away so that anyone can feel epic.

Now... I could roll a character and within 3 weeks be maxed out. This wasn't impossible before it just required a LOT of friends. This need for others to speed up powering your character has been largely removed. You fact that you can be 90% as strong as a raider by yourself cheapened the experience for everyone but the kinds of people who ragequit and call people faggots. Those people, in Vanilla, would get nowhere because your characters strength and prestige was directly related to how social you were.

The catalyst for all this was opening the floodgates by opening cross server PvE. Suddenly you didn't need your social skills to run 5 man content. You need only push the "find me 4 friends" button. ALL of my friends I made in the game were first met in 5 mans. Socializing worked along side progression. You start by yourself, levelling and learning the game, only socializing when you saw fit. You then decided to take the game more seriously and pull 5 people together and maybe make a friend. You'd join up with one of their guilds because they like the way you play or strategize. You'd decide to start raiding and you go to the easier 10 man content. Your guild grows and suddenly you have enough players to go after the harder 25 or even 40 man content! It was a social progression as much as it was a progression through the content. All of that has been washed away in the name of "let everyone see everything!". I'm willing to bet nearly all players who started playing with me are no longer playing because the core engagement of the game has changed so much.

When everyone is epic, nobody is.
 
That has been a cultural thing in games for a very long time now (Look at all the first person shooters nowdays that are almost always 1st person movies with some interaction to it).

Thats what makes hard games so fun to play.
Dark souls, Starcraft Broodwar, Unreal tournament (2000), Guild Wars 1 (parts of it), etc.

I actually still play these games after so many years, and i assume thats exactly what companies dont want nowdays, people playing old games and not buying new ones (thou this is different in WoW).
 

1991ATServerTower

Distinguished
May 6, 2013
141
4
18,715

That was awesome. Why can people like us see this and Blizzard be so perpetually blind to it?

Thanks for taking the time to share.
 

InvalidError

Titan
Moderator

It is called "short term profits" - investors want to see growing revenue and companies often end up sacrificing sustainability for a quicker ramp even if that ramp leads to a cliff. Then they try jumping that cliff to pursue yet more profits, fail and then act like they don't know what went wrong.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.