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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

#101

Post by floatingatoll »

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’d love to play World of Warcraft with Diablo/Starcraft fixed-POV and gameplay controls. It could be such an interesting story if it weren’t for the camera controls that make me wish I had a flight simulator joystick.

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

#102

Post by lovelyviking »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #18
Rooster61 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blizzard didn't develop Warzone. Yes, they are both published/owned by Activision, and they share a launcher, but they are from very different developers.

It's odd how often people put studios and publishers together, when the relations are (often) a lot less close than people on the outside realise.

For me being outside of thess relations are indeed it is not so clear. Can you describe it more ?

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

#103

Post by robotmay »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #26
tibbon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

FFXIV is the one that finally hooked me. It improves on WoW in a lot of areas. The learning curve is a bit steep and the hell that is mogstation are points against it, but I've been very much enjoying it.

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

#104

Post by setr »

ronsor wrote: post #71
haunter wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will 100% be like Genshin Impact. Sure you can treat that as an MMO too but don't expect anything like WoW at all

So there's going to be a gacha system trying to extract hundreds of dollars from you?

Well, they have it LoL, so that's to be expected. (the hextech chest stuff)

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

#105

Post by Svperstar »

donatj wrote: post #25

I'd almost entirely stopped playing Overwatch for a couple years, but I got back in recently and feel like the tone is overall better than it had been. I think a lot of the toxic players may have actually just moved on?

I was super hyped for Overwatch, I loved my time with the beta. I thought Overwatch was going to be the new Counter-Strike, Quake, or Halo. One of those games that just defines its time period.

Then it launched and I got bored after 1 month. Too few maps too few variety.

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

#106

Post by void_mint »

AlexandrB wrote: post #82
void_mint wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't say what's driving all the playerbase losses but: "The Blizzard Way" doesn't work anymore. Fortnite releases content monthly/quarterly. Massive updates with huge out-of-game tie-ins, changing worlds, in-game events, etc. Other games have changed to match/compete. CoD and Valorant both implement similar season-pass style systems. Blizzard, on the other hand, insists on delaying/cancelling games, releasing "o…

This analysis is probably correct, but it's also depressing as hell because Fortnite is a shallow, money-hungry game. Nothing like Blizzard's best work from the past (Diablo 2, Starcraft) that could be played for years with no "season passes" or other MTX.

Eh I mean. It's the biggest game in the world for a reason. It's shallow and money hungry to you, but a huge % of its players love it.

> Nothing like Blizzard's best work from the past (Diablo 2, Starcraft) that could be played for years with no "season passes" or other MTX.

The people responsible for that iteration of Blizzard no longer work there, is the problem.

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

#107

Post by jodrellblank »

TOSSAWAY_1 wrote: post #19

I quit playing overwatch and hots when they sided with SJWs (and by extension censorship and china). I also skipped tlou2 and other big titles. I'm old enough to stand up against censorship and for the right to use ugly speech. I'm not saying I expect blizzard to not exercise its rights as a private company, but I am saying I dont support companies that dont support unfettered free speech.

> "I'm old enough to stand up against censorship and for the right to use ugly speech."

Then why are you hiding behind a throwaway account?

> "I am saying I dont support companies that dont support unfettered free speech."

Which companies do you support? Are there any which support unfettered free speech on their platforms?

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

#108

Post by dstaley »

tsimionescu wrote: post #88
dstaley wrote: post #37

I've been an off-and-on World of Warcraft player since the Burning Crusade days, and I honestly think that Blizzard is struggling to evolve the MMORPG genre into something suitable for the modern day. There was a great article in Kotaku[1] that illustrated this quite nicely. Essentially, what made World of Warcraft successful when it launched can't really exist today, especially with our hyper-connected world. Blizza…

Blizzard hasn't produced even one single-player-focused game since... Diablo I? Their strength has always been multiplayer, I very much doubt they could deliver a blockbuster single-player open world game.

Totally fair point! But I'd also like to point out that prior to World of Warcraft, Blizzard hadn't released an MMORPG. Prior to Overwatch, Blizzard hadn't released a first-person shooter. I totally understand your point that Blizzard might not have the talent to pull off a single-player RPG game, but I still think it's within the realm of reality.

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

#109

Post by tsimionescu »

bluescrn wrote: post #93
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you've played a lot of WoW, you also spot glaring flaws in other games very quickly. Usually the 'feel' of combat/animation/movement just isn't up to Blizzard standards, and UIs are often very inflexible compared to WoW's moddable interface (without that, nobody would play healers for long!). Sometimes the travel timesinks are just unbearable (SWTOR), or the global cooldown feels glacial (FFXIV) And WoW keeps gett…

I would say WoW is getting less and less polished, at least for existing, active players (the new player experience has just received a massive boost).

The WoW community has become accustomed to systems getting launched in a poor state, expecting future patches to fix glaring flaws in core gameplay, with the developers all but admitting this in interviews (if you're really into the details, Torghast would be the latest example of this pattern).

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

#110

Post by brobdingnagians »

reedf1 wrote: post #51
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You should try playing some older MMOs: EVE, Anarchy Online, Ultima Online, Runescape. All stuff fundamentally untouched by the WoW design - and they are much better for it IMO. When I've played these games, even 20 years on, I am completely stunned. Makes me realize how psychologically kneecapped we are by WoW.

I logged into Ultima Online recently and played a bit. Still fun, though the community is a lot smaller now. It is a shame that Origin took so long to try to fix the nonconsensual PvP and other issues (then split the worlds instead of just doing consensual flags), which resulted in lots of people leaving. They really did a very impressive thing with UO, and the original graphics still beat the cartoonish 3D stuff they added later. Again, goes to show that a solid foundation can endure for a long time. Lots of good memories, friends, and immersive play.
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