Blizzard Hopes Faster WoW Expansions Will Halt Sliding Subscriptions

[Andy Chalk]

Blizzard Hopes Faster WoW Expansions Will Halt Sliding Subscriptions

Blizzard wants to speed up the development of future World of Warcraft [http://www.amazon.com/World-Warcraft-Pc/dp/B000067FDW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1305040832&sr=8-2] expansions in order to satisfy players who are blowing through the game and then moving on to other things faster than ever before.

Blizzard President Mike Morhaime revealed during the Activision Blizzard financial results conference call yesterday that World of Warcraft subscriptions had "returned to pre-Cataclysm [http://www.amazon.com/World-Warcraft-Cataclysm-Pc/dp/B002I0HKIU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1305040832&sr=8-1] numbers in the West," sliding from more than 12 million subs in October 2010 to 11.4 million currently. And although pretty much every MMO publisher on the planet would kill to have 11.4 million subscribers, it's still a loss of 600,000 players and that's nothing to sneeze at.

Part of the problem, Morhaime said, is that years of experience have made players better at tearing through WoW content, after which they mosey along to other games because there's nothing left to hold their interest. The solution? More new content at a faster pace.

"We need to be faster at delivering content to players," Morhaime said. "And so that's one of the reasons that we're looking to decrease the amount of time in between expansions."

"What we have seen so far is that people have been consuming this content very quickly, and so the subscriber levels have decreased [following the release of Cataclysm] faster than in previous expansions," he added.

Blizzard's notoriously long development cycles are balanced by the fact that virtually everything it releases is mind-blowingly awesome, so the obvious concern is that rushing things will lead to either less content or lower quality. At this point, however, Morhaime said Blizzard isn't ready to get into the details about future expansions, only that it is "look at ways to speed up the development process."

Sources: Kotaku [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/34569/Blizzard_Speeds_Up_WoW_Development_To_Address_Subscriber_Churn.php]


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[RanD00M]

What they need to do is make original content again instead of this rehash bullshit they seem to be pulling. Also making it easier and easier may get the casual crowd in, but it alienates your biggest fans.

 

[GothmogII]

It's their own fault really. The Heirloom items, levelling bonuses, guild levelling bonuses, XP from battlegrounds mean that people are reaching the end-game content faster than ever.

I don't feel it should be a grind like the pre-TBC days were, but it could stand to be a bit more difficult.

 

[Keava]

Cunning.
More expansions = more money form boxed sales, each box is worth ~3 month of subscription.
Want to keep players interested Blizzard? Stop trying to rip them off and instead expansions start releasing promised and proper content patches, you know, for free.

 

[Proteus214]

To quote a guildmate 2 hours after the release of Patch 4.1:
"Yup, I'm already done with this new patch. See you when the next one drops."

 

[Anjel]

Part of the problem, Morhaime said, is that years of experience have made players better at tearing through WoW content, after which they mosey along to other games because there's nothing left to hold their interest. The solution? More new content at a faster pace.

Um, try 'harder' content? How many of those 12m subs are seeing the content you have released? In TBC they released figures showing that under 5% (I think it was) were seeing end game content. Follow the example of Rift - end game content followed by more difficult version of said content. It saves on the cost of new expansions and doesn't alienate the rest of your players who aren't clearing all content that quick.

More money than brains comes to mind.

 

[Exterminas]

The problem is not with the addons. The problem is with the content patches. Because there are none.

The Non-Raid-Cata-Content was pretty meager for players who didn't have the need or desire to level new characters.

There is just nothing left to do ingame, once you played heroics for a week. (Aside from farming for raids, which is done really fast, or going to a raid)

If they want to keep people, maybe they should offer something new.
And no, Repfaction 3252342 with ugly mount 123321412 doesn't count as new. They already have plenty of these.

 

[TheSuperiorXemnas]

We need more Tophats in the Game! I demand more TOPHATS!

In all seriousness though, most of cataclysm is remade content from the past. I admit it, I joined the Game during the Wrath Expansion but I have an Older Sibling who joined earlier than that. But compared to what I saw and what I play now, its nothing but Queing into places and the feeling of Never having to leave the Major cities for quests and dungeons. This is a major toll on Role-Players and fans of the past system.

 

[Baldr]

They made the game to hard again. A lot of raiders were casuals who work jobs/school and only have a couple hours a week to play. When you loose progression, of course your going to stop playing. That is what happen in the last couple months.

 

[SIXVI06-M]

Bahahahaahaha, try reinventing a product. But WoW is so heavily entrenched- there is no new take on it unless they make a whole new different MMO.

I personally think WoW is done, it's plateaued, and any further attempt is just adding another geological shelf to what's already dead flat.

Go and focus on innovating up and coming titles- say, diablo 3.

 

[minimacker]

Nyeh. It feels like they ran out of source material and is now just pulling it out of nowhere. Burning Crusade was based on Warcraft 3. Lich King was based on the Warcraft 3 expansion, The Frozen Throne and Cataclysm was based on... backstory.
But Cataclysm offered a whole revamp of the World of Warcraft as we know it. Old areas were completely changed and lots of stuff had been altered.

So now they're abandoning the whole "Big expansion, big changes" to lure back the old folk that stopped playing and are now going for "small expansion, more money" to try and lure new folk to the series while no big changes alienate fans that come back for more.

Meh.

 

[Findlebob]

I stoped playing as it feels more like their tacking more and more on each year without any though of progress.

 

[RobCoxxy]

What else would get more people playing?

FREE EXPANSIONS

It works for EVE Online, it can work for WoW. That's more money the gamers can spend on subscriptions.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

"look at ways to speed up the development process."
How about making the dev team 50% larger?
Or buy more free candy for the team.

 

[Anjel]

They made the game to hard again. A lot of raiders were casuals who work jobs/school and only have a couple hours a week to play. When you loose progression, of course your going to stop playing. That is what happen in the last couple months.

And this. I stopped playing because it demanded too much time - it's not the raiding itself that takes so long, it's the herb gathering, fishing, mining and daily quests required (for the gold). I'd get home from work, have a shower and dinner, log on and before I've got what I need for tomorrows raid I'd been online for 3 or 4 hours and I missed Eastenders and Corrie (joke, I don't watch that crap).

 

[Tragedy's Rebellion]

It's not that it isn't fast enough, it's just that WoW has become really boring of late. The current season is far, far, faaaar worse than S5 ever was, the dungeons are uninspired and too few, the raids are meh. Instead of redoing the 1-58 leveling (which people forget the minute they level to 58) they should've just focused on end-game content.

Graphical upgrade will come a long way too, but i just think people are starting to lose interest all together.

 

[John Funk]

I think it's funny that on the one hand you have people saying that the game is TOO HARD which is why they're leaving, and on the other people saying it's TOO EASY which is why they're living. When you're making a game for 12 million people, pleasing everyone is nigh impossible.

But man, the actual content that's there? Is some of the best there's ever been. I can't believe that there are people who actually want to go back to the crappy environment of pre-BC. That was horrible, yo

 

[Cowabungaa]

It's their own fault really. The Heirloom items, levelling bonuses, guild levelling bonuses, XP from battlegrounds mean that people are reaching the end-game content faster than ever.

Worst is that now it's more of a shame than ever, seeing how the quality of the questing content has risen in the past 2 expansions. When leveling was relatively boring it took ages, now it's awesome and you race through it in no-time. How odd.

Anyway, everything is pointing to the fact that WoW is starting to reach it's end. No matter how much I love it, I can't deny that now they're pushing the limits of both the ingame universe, because really how much more areas can they add, and the actual game engine itself. I still love the art style, but game mechanics-wise the game is really starting to reach it's limit. There isn't much left that they can do.

Part of the problem, Morhaime said, is that years of experience have made players better at tearing through WoW content, after which they mosey along to other games because there's nothing left to hold their interest. The solution? More new content at a faster pace.

Um, try 'harder' content? How many of those 12m subs are seeing the content you have released? In TBC they released figures showing that under 5% (I think it was) were seeing end game content. Follow the example of Rift - end game content followed by more difficult version of said content. It saves on the cost of new expansions and doesn't alienate the rest of your players who aren't clearing all content that quick.

More money than brains comes to mind.

It wouldn't keep me playing, seeing as it's still, basically, the same stuff. Gets rather repetitive.

Instead of redoing the 1-58 leveling (which people forget the minute they level to 58) they should've just focused on end-game content.

No they really shouldn've. As it was right before Cata, there was a huge quality gap between WotLK's leveling content and the 1-58 content, with TBC sitting in the middle of it. Potential new players were often dazzeled by commercials and info of WotLK, only to be confronted by the drabness of the Vanilla leveling content they had to deal with.

Fact is still, no matter how good the endgame will be, there's still more game content int he leveling departement. Neglecting that is making any other game complete shit except for the final boss fights, it's just incredibly foolish.

But honestly, I don't know where you got the uninspired bit from. Mechanics-wise there's more variation in boss fights and instances than ever, and there's a much more rich variation of environmental styles to choose from.

 

[theultimateend]

They made the game to hard again. A lot of raiders were casuals who work jobs/school and only have a couple hours a week to play. When you loose progression, of course your going to stop playing. That is what happen in the last couple months.

Yeppers.

I have a full time job. I had to give up the goat because it was not fun to use up all my free time raiding.

I think it's funny that on the one hand you have people saying that the game is TOO HARD which is why they're leaving, and on the other people saying it's TOO EASY which is why they're living. When you're making a game for 12 million people, pleasing everyone is nigh impossible.

But man, the actual content that's there? Is some of the best there's ever been. I can't believe that there are people who actually want to go back to the crappy environment of pre-BC. That was horrible, yo

This is true.

Personally I've always thought their biggest mistake is not having skills work uniquely for PVP and PVE that way they can balance both sides completely separately and never need worry about side A harming side B.

Also a small part of me wishes pvp achievements weren't art of holiday requirements for the majority of their population that plays strictly PVE . But whatever.

Nostalgia is their biggest enemy these days, well that and their forums.