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Once upon a time, Warcraft was the most valuable gaming IP in the real world. But the days when people flocked to pay per month online are gone and it's now a game of ‘How can we reduce the level of loss?'.
Back on 9th May 2013, Forbes reported that Blizzard had lost around 1.3 million subscribers in Q1.
Word in to KitGuru today says that the current rate of bleed out is closer to 150,000 a month – which would be 450,000 a quarter.
If you were measuring Blizzard's success by the rate at which decline was being slowed, then a drop in ‘lost customers' from 1.3 million a quarter to just 450,000 would be a huge success.
But shareholders probably prefer increased customer bases and more money/profit.
So what do the players themselves want?
KitGuru is not about to interview 8 million people, so we did the next best thing and spoke to a kid we know who plays WoW a lot. We asked him what the problem is and why so many people are leaving.
His comment was pretty clear, “It used to be all about the game play, but that has changed. You can see it clearly when you go to the Blizzard store. Right now, they have 3 helmets on sale that do nothing but change your appearance. They don't add any abilities or improve your chances of success with a quest, they just let you pimp your character's look. There's lots of stuff like that. Stuff that is aimed directly at noobs and idiots to try and attract them in. It's all about transmogrification. It's just retarded”.
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KitGuru says: Whatever the reasons, one thing is for sure, the decline is on-going. When you factor in the changes in Titan that were reported by KitGuru earlier today – it seems that Blizzard's golden revenue days are over, but can they adapt and survive?
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What ‘kid’ used “transmogrification”?
@torsken WoW games, no matter what age, are smarter than they seem.
The actual problem with the game is that they’ve made it too easy, catering to casuals and f***ing over what used to be the majority – the hardcore.
@Chris If you think the hardcore were ever the majority, you are an idiot. The idea of players being ‘hardcore’ means that they are significantly more active than the majority. If they were the majority, they wouldn’t be referred to as hardcore.
Since vanilla, the majority has always been casual. There were a few guilds per server who constantly raided top-level content, and were referred to as the ‘hardcore’. There were, however, countless more who tootled around doing dungeons and lower level content that was more suited for them.
Saying Blizzard is catering to the casuals just means they are catering to their primary audience, which would seem the sensible option for any business. Hardcores have always been, and shall always be a minority.
For me the game got boring, its almost as if Blizz stopped caring about releasing quality content, having a full set of purple armor used to mean something, now everyone and their stupid pet has it, and speaking of pets… if I wanted to capture creatures and duel other players I would play Pokemon.
Blizz put the game on EAZY MODE and added a bunch of useless cosmetic crap and little mini past times to attract kids I guess… and so everyone who played WoW for the challenge is moving on…. I can’t wait for The Elder Scrolls Online 😉