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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

#261

Post by bitexploder »

talexy wrote: post #244
AmVess wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of WoW, I'm sure a lot of it is focusing on the top raiding guilds and leaving the casual player with few rewarding activities. Further, one of their most cherished metrics is how much time people spend doing a certain activity. Instead of making those activities more fun and rewarding, they made them take longer to complete and with fewer rewards. To top it all off, they are nearly completely deaf to their…

I think after Mists of Pandaria I stopped playing wow as an MMO and just focused on doing single player stuff for the past many years. To me there is a significant difference in something requiring to farm an instance 50-100 over when you have time vs. doing it over 50-100 days because of daily lockouts. That is just not fun and and disrespectful to me as a player. I don't always have the same free time every day and…

I hate how many different grinds there are in this expansion for legendary weapons and such. Mythics are okay. WoW is just like my home away from home I go to explore lore and goof off for an hour or two a week. The lore and world is very rich. It’s fun to level and do stuff on occasion. It’s fun to collect specific armor and mounts at times. I just don’t enjoy all the grinds and kind of refuse to do them.

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

#262

Post by ehsankia »

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.

While Fortnite is one of the bigger games doing it, I don't think it's unique to Fortnite. Many games have seasons and constantly updating content. That's the bigger takeaway, not that Fortnite is successful with it.

Players will no longer stick around a year or more for new content. Back in the days when there was a dozen different games, maybe, but nowadays there's so much other content out there, why would someone play Overwatch for 4 years straight?

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

#263

Post by jointpdf »

emptysongglass wrote: post #249
reedf1 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No love for EverQuest? Any MMO I've played since hasn't held a candle to the world design and enduring sense of mystery and wonder EverQuest was able to spark in my fragile little boyhood heart. I went back to play in a "static" group on the old school Project 1994 servers a couple years ago. Buncha strangers agreeing to meet online a couple times a week to play, drink some fancy beers and shoot the shit. No wonder l…

> the old school Project 1994 servers

You mean Project 1999: https://www.project1999.com/

(LFG, by the way)

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

#264

Post by kyrra »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #234
seoulbran wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the reason Jeff left was that he was asked to leave for taking so long with the game...? I would rather he not leave as he has been the face of OW for a long time and beloved by the fan base. But, this is a public company and deadlines and dollars matter...

I highly doubt it. Very visible employees that are community-loved are incredibly stupid to let go of. Jeff's community fame is worth dozens of other employees' worth to the company. My guess is that Jeff wanted to move on, either due to issues internally, or for something different.

My money is on Jeff Kaplin joining mike morhaime's Dreamhaven. That studio seems to be stealing lots of top executive talent from Blizzard.

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

#265

Post by blibble »

frozenlettuce wrote: post #129
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.

I used my first salary to buy WC3 on 2003, so I may have an "exaggerated" emotional connection with that game. Two months before the release it was clear that they could not polish the (many) rough edges that the remaster had. Removing features like ladder and tournaments was something so unprofessional and unreal that even today I can't digest it. Looking at the screens for the Diablo 2 remaster, it looks like that…

diablo 2 has been entirely outsourced

as Blizzard aren't working on it: it's possible it might actually be good

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

#266

Post by blibble »

bob1029 wrote: post #160

What I don't understand is the financial equation around AAA studios like Blizzard. Our software company is not even 10 people big and we are able to deliver extremely high quality software multiple times per day to many customers, while supporting a wide range of business contexts. The annual budget for our whole team is something like $750k. Our part of the AWS bill is less than $400/m, but we seem to make due and…

this is more or less what they did with Hearthstone and Overwatch

but then the standard development process sunk in, at least to Overwatch, and now the content pipeline is dead

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

#267

Post by jodrellblank »

TOSSAWAY_1 wrote: post #127
jodrellblank wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " 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?

Because I can? I said nothing about anonymity. Odd... I'm from an age when anominity was a good thing. But do encourage all the current folks to move away from it, because I want to see them fail. Lol I dont support any social media company. Social media is a net negative for the human experience, but that's just my opinion. I'm just a person who found the internet more fun before it needed to be safe for day time te…

> "Because I can? I said nothing about anonymity. Odd..."

Not odd at all. You claim to be "standing up against something" but you aren't, you're not standing there, you're hiding. Your actions undermine your words. Rosa Parks didn't write an anonymous letter to the editor about people's right to sit on bus seats. Those who did write anonymous letters to the editor about it don't get to say "I'm standing up for black rights" because they ... weren't.

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

#268

Post by t-writescode »

srg0 wrote: post #251
mbesto wrote: post #86

It's worth noting that this is specific to Blizzard . They have: - an MMO (not a growth area compared to other genres) - a FPS that tried to create a unique twist - a card game that essentially created a new genre (with a commercial ceiling) - remastered classics Compared to the rest of the market that is growing in the following areas: - large mobile presence - MOBA (HotS has been discontinued) - battle Royale

counterpoints: - HS is strong on mobile - OW is arguably a MOBA/FPS hybrid - CoD/warzone is the most streamed battle royale on twitch

I've said before that it's what PUBG should have been (and could have been, given enough polish)

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

#269

Post by ehsankia »

void_mint wrote: post #40
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…

> 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…

> there would be no more Overwatch updates until Overwatch 2

I honestly don't get wth they were thinking with OW2... In what world is it the right decision to fracture your game community in two?

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

#270

Post by blibble »

gmaster1440 wrote: post #5
nickstinemates wrote: post #3

Not surprising, Blizzard has lost its way and its brand doesn't mean what it once did. The fall from grace started with the advent of paid services, and in game cosmetic shop in WoW and all of the issues surrounding the launch of Diablo 3 (let alone the disaster that is OWL/Overwatch, complete abandonment in HotS, etc.)

What about Overwatch is a disaster?

it's a fantastic game artistically, technically and gameplay wise

however it's managed really, really badly

it's a billion dollar franchise and can't even put out a new map for the regular game mode in 24 months

(or slightly alter two broken ones in 12 months, hlc + paris)

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