Activision/Blizzard announced their Q1 2015 earnings and one of the not-so-shocking results was the subscription loss in World of Warcraft. Specifically, the loss amount to 2.9 million subscribers, which is a pretty massive loss ($43,500,000 in revenue per month potentially). What happened? And why is this not exactly surprising?
I’m going to speak purely anecdotally about my theories on the subscription loss (and gain too). Warlords of Draenor started off strong by attempting to appeal to hardcore Warcraft lore lovers. Traveling back in time, players can see Draenor in a twisted way that differs and seems similar to the Burning Crusade from a storyline point of view. We encounter famous characters in the Warcraft lore up close and get to interact with them through instances, quests, raids and cut scenes.
However, once you hit 100 we get back to the same old crap that we’ve seen since Vanilla. More quests, more grinding, more gated content and more time being vested into something that quickly loses its appeal. While Garrisons did provide “new” content, it ended up becoming little more than a fancy Facebook game that easily could be managed through a plugin. The rest of the expansion just is another grind fest that loses its appeal once you get your gear or meet whatever goals you intend in this expansion.
For myself, I felt the burnout after I started to level my second character. Yes, the quests were decent and the storyline was solid. The cut scenes ended up becoming my favorite aspect in this expansion beyond a few quality-of-life changes. However, being on a server that got physically transferred to Australia, I started to experience lag that I didn’t when the server used to be in my timezone. The only benefit of being on that server was to be able to farm mats when people were asleep.
Yet that part is irrelevant since your garrison provides all the farming mats for the most part. Honestly, that didn’t bother me and in fact made me happy because I like convenience. Unfortunately, the main problem of being able to do anything meaningful related to end game content still was too dependent upon me being in an Australian timezone. In short, I can’t raid without transferring servers or even setting up odd time schedules for myself. And I do not want to pay $200+ for transferring my toons just to raid.
Of course, my only real outlet for raiding would be using LFR. I can’t really use the Raid Finder for normals or heroics even because of all the constraints. And I didn’t even bother doing the dungeon instances because I would be forced to queue with potentially crazy people, an issue that has not disappeared since the advent of dungeon finder.
Now, that wouldn’t be a huge problem if the queues weren’t ridiculous in time. I dislike doing randoms and prefer mastering one instance at a time to build confidence up in myself as well as get the gear so I can pull my own weight. But the queue times are atrocious.
The real thing that killed it for me was the Molten Core anniversary event. The event was a horrible farce. I didn’t even care about doing it for the mount, mostly just to get an epic helmet. However, the wait time was stupidly long. And the event itself was a joke because how the developers wanted people to “experience like back in the day.” Yes, 40 people with no coordination. Better yet no loot until the end. So once people got their mounts, killed Ragnaros and got their silly helmets, there was no purpose to re-farm the instance, making finding a group extremely hard for those of us who couldn’t gear up fast enough for the stupid ilvl gating.
That aspect told me everything about WoW and pretty much destroyed any hope of my desire to continue. Of course, there was a practical concern where I was looking for a new job. But it’s all related. I didn’t want to waste more time on something that was taking far too long to accomplish anything meaningful as opposed to something I absolutely needed to do in my life.
So I quit.
And I haven’t returned.
In speaking to various friends and watching other streamers, I learned that a lot of people have quit for one reason or another. And once people leave the game in troves, it causes a massive ripple effect. Furthermore, I expect more people to leave outside of hardcore raiders, PVPers and those who have friends still in the game.
Another issue that this game faces is the required people to do anything. Let’s be realistic. In order for a game of this genre to survive, it needs warm bodies. Without warm bodies, the game becomes unplayable because the mechanics don’t scale. Sure, we have things like flexible raids but it doesn’t solve the issue of requiring people to do something. Obviously, group finders solve a small portion of this problem but is not the panacea for the overarching issue. And the issue gets worse as people leave while requirements in pre-made groups exist.
Along this line the other problematic thing is how the game is about trending and events moving in parallel with progress. In short, you pretty much have to play and do what everyone is doing to keep up. If you return, the game changes (not always for the better) and you must re-learn everything at the same time clawing and scratching to catch up. If you’re limited on time then it becomes pretty rough matching pace.
And it really doesn’t matter if you’re good or not. It’s kinda like going through grade school; if you fall behind, you have to push to play catch up, even if something isn’t your fault (maybe your parents moved or you had health issues).
I feel that many people over time have come to recognize these issues. When the game was in a newer state, they wouldn’t mind because the game felt fresh. And the game also became accessible. However, the game has traded some of the accessible features for entrapment. Like removing flying in Draenor or creating gates to gear despite having features such as LFR.
However, as an aging game engine, the core mechanics and ideas that started the game’s popularity aren’t as relevant anymore. People demand more content, easier access and faster game play. Our activities are consumed by other things beyond the virtual gaming world. These aspects and the lack of new experiences contribute to boredom and burnout.
But it’s been also said that the MMORPG genre is a dying breed. The desire for social connection that MMORPGs would produce perhaps has lost its appeal especially as other formats such as Twitch are generating new environments to make up for that loss. And games like WoW suffer from their own success due to being held hostage by internal formulas that are considered stable and reliable as opposed to solving some of the core issues like consistent and new content being produced.
For myself, I had a chat the other night with a friend who agreed with me on these points. One thing I observed about the game is that the peak of popularity only occurs during the introduction of an expansion when people level (which is where the vast majority of the accessible and interesting content is) and at the end when people can face the end bosses and receive access to catch up mechanisms as the game winds down and prepares players for the next expansion. Given that trend, there really isn’t much of a point to play the game during non-peak seasons since the catch up mechanisms don’t exist.
Unless Blizzard provides more customizable content for the game engine through a map editing type of system like the Foundry from Neverwinter Nights, the only real hope for creating a more sustainable and consistent game is through lowering the barriers of perceived entry, ungating content and eliminating unnecessary and occasionally difficult grinds. This is especially true for group mechanics like LFR. People shouldn’t die or deal with fights that last forever without rhyme nor reason. I’m not talking on behalf of hardcore/high end raiders but for the populace who simply want to experience the game on their own time. Also, you have to provide nearly the same rewards like tier gear and trinkets to create incentives for the easier content. People will hate me for saying this, but the Death Wing and Mogu’shan Vaults raids were perfect in my view in terms of difficulty and where the game needed to be as well as providing rewards.
At any rate, I do think outside of the lore and cut scenes, Warlords of Draenor was just too big of a step backward in terms of overall direction of where the game needed to go. Outside of Garrisons (which apparently a lot of people ended up hating due to the newest mindless grind), the game was just more of the same. I think once people realized that the smart ones ended up leaving because there’s a lot of better things in life to do than mindlessly and pointlessly grind all day and night.