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Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

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Re: Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

#21

Post by zinclozenge »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #8

I can't say what's driving all the playerbase losses but: They stopped development on Diablo 3 a long time ago. It doesn't have the staying power of more modern online games where new content is added continuously. They stopped development on HotS, which never achieved the same level of pull as League of Legends. Overwatch faces stiff competition from Valorant and other competitive small team FPSes, and also has over…

Diablo 3 gets a new season with some changes. It's not a lot, but there's still some attention being paid to the game.

Re: Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

#22

Post by tibbon »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #8

I can't say what's driving all the playerbase losses but: They stopped development on Diablo 3 a long time ago. It doesn't have the staying power of more modern online games where new content is added continuously. They stopped development on HotS, which never achieved the same level of pull as League of Legends. Overwatch faces stiff competition from Valorant and other competitive small team FPSes, and also has over…

WoW also just got boring for me a long time ago. Sure, they keep adding new things, but it's still riding in very deep treads they dug long ago. It's still fundamentally the same game, and in my eyes showing its age.

I'd love to play a new MMO that explores new ideas. WoW explores WoW.

Re: Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

#23

Post by taneq »

sergiotapia wrote: post #6

Their games just don't feel like labors of love anymore. They feel like icky skinner boxes through and through. Every aspect of their games are a/b tested up the ass to convert as many MTX as possible and personally it's a total turn off. I downloaded Warzone and tried it out this weekend and uninstalled after 2 matches, it just felt off. Hard to describe. Like a AAA graphics Candy Crush. yuck!

The Blizzard we knew and loved is long dead. What you see is the logo with its head held up and arms being waved around by the moneybugs in suits.

Maybe somewhere inside the carcass is a new Blizzard with fresh ideas and a passion for games. I hope so, but I don't hold out much hope.

Re: Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

#24

Post by MangoCoffee »

i used to be a active Blizzard's game player. i started to play WOW since the Cataclysm release but each expansion is the same stuff over and over again (go gather this, go kill this...etc.). I stopped my subscription a while back. i only play it with if i got enough gold to pay for the subscription time and time to play.

Hearthstone is a money sink with each expansion release the cost of acquire new expansion cards is too much. the wild format is not balance. Blizzard rarely trying to rebalance the card after the expansion goes to wild. after buying couple expansion bundle. i stop purchasing each expansion bundle. i only buy some special bundle.

Heroes of the Storm, its an interesting take on MOBA but it seem like Blizzard is abandoning it. i've spend some money on early deal but eventually stop playing the game.

Diablo II and III, II is a great game. III suck until Blizzard fix it with Reaper of Souls and they wanted $15 for diablo iii rise of the necromancer that just add another class.

Re: Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

#26

Post by ocdtrekkie »

tibbon wrote: post #22
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #8

I can't say what's driving all the playerbase losses but: They stopped development on Diablo 3 a long time ago. It doesn't have the staying power of more modern online games where new content is added continuously. They stopped development on HotS, which never achieved the same level of pull as League of Legends. Overwatch faces stiff competition from Valorant and other competitive small team FPSes, and also has over…

WoW also just got boring for me a long time ago. Sure, they keep adding new things, but it's still riding in very deep treads they dug long ago. It's still fundamentally the same game, and in my eyes showing its age. I'd love to play a new MMO that explores new ideas. WoW explores WoW.

I've tried a bunch of MMOs since WoW... and despite newer engines and some neat features, they often end up just being... mostly WoW once the sheen wears off. I occasionally revisit WoW because if you're going to play a WoW clone, you might as well just play WoW.

Re: Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

#27

Post by mvzvm »

tibbon wrote: post #22
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #8

I can't say what's driving all the playerbase losses but: They stopped development on Diablo 3 a long time ago. It doesn't have the staying power of more modern online games where new content is added continuously. They stopped development on HotS, which never achieved the same level of pull as League of Legends. Overwatch faces stiff competition from Valorant and other competitive small team FPSes, and also has over…

WoW also just got boring for me a long time ago. Sure, they keep adding new things, but it's still riding in very deep treads they dug long ago. It's still fundamentally the same game, and in my eyes showing its age. I'd love to play a new MMO that explores new ideas. WoW explores WoW.

Ive recently revisited GW2, and its been fantastic.

Re: Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

#28

Post by david422 »

Covzire wrote: post #14

I still can't believe they butchered WC3:reforged so badly. It could have been a massive boon for them were it not for the hideously greedy ToS along with all the technical issues and straight up downgrades from the original in terms of multiplayer. There have to be some epic stories of mismanagement or hubris, if only someone would tell them.

WC3 was my favorite game ever, so much so that I bought multiple copies. I calculated that I probably played so much that my price per hour was a couple of cents.

But I didn't buy reforged after how bad it was - and still is. It should have been easy money for them, and instead it was just a half finished money grab.

Re: Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

#29

Post by freshair »

"Do you guys not have phones?" -Blizzard staff in 2018, in response to booing fans upset that Blizzard wouldn't make a PC version of a game those same fans obviously wanted to play.

This company has been contemptuous of their players for years. They fell into that classic trap of "If we [do something that will alienate all our customers] we can get 10x as many customers from [untapped market]" As anybody should have been able to foresee, the old customers were indeed alienated and the new customers never materialized.

Re: Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

#30

Post by mschuster91 »

tsimionescu wrote: post #15
sergiotapia wrote: post #6

Their games just don't feel like labors of love anymore. They feel like icky skinner boxes through and through. Every aspect of their games are a/b tested up the ass to convert as many MTX as possible and personally it's a total turn off. I downloaded Warzone and tried it out this weekend and uninstalled after 2 matches, it just felt off. Hard to describe. Like a AAA graphics Candy Crush. yuck!

Also, the once famous Blizzard polish is all but reversed - Warcraft 3 Reforged speaks for itself, but also looking into World of Warcraft commentary, it has become common to expect systems present in the game at launch to require major fixes or overhauls over the coming patches. The very fact that players and commentators alike have grown to expect this speaks volumes to me about the changing perception.

This is something that's common across the entire industry (e.g. Cyberpunk 2077, Fallout 76 as the worst offenders).

Testing costs a lot of money, automated testing isn't widely spread / feasible, and the cost of distributing patches is low - so many studios opt for the economic advantage of using their players as guinea pigs.

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