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World of Warcraft: The Sunset of Its Reign
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In a new opinion piece over at GameTheoryOnline.com, Nadia Oxford clearly lays out her theory that World of Warcraft is in its declining years. Citing the gradual decline in subscribers, the encroachment of F2P revenue models and more, Oxford makes her case, not that WoW is dead, simply declining.
The next World of Warcraft expansion will certainly perk up interest in the game, but in the long term, World of Warcraft might be in the sunset of its undisputed reign over the online gaming landscape. The free-to-play model is letting players experiment in all kinds of fantasy lands, which gives them pause before committing to paying out rent to the land of Azeroth. World of Warcraft recently went free-to-play until level 20, but consider its competition: Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons & Dragons Online, and the big beastie looming on the horizon: Star Wars:The Old Republic. World of Warcraft is no longer the obvious choice in what was once an under-realized genre.
Read more at GameTheoryOnline.net.
Comments
Don't be mad because your game is losing subs.
She brings up some good points.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
I think its pretty obvious that WoW peaked and its in decline.
I for one left some time ago but I know many former guildies who still have an active sub just to hang out with the guild and that they dont even have interest to raid anymore.
News about the game are pretty much stale. Some days ago there was a well founded rumour of a new expansion, the Mists of Pandaria that was quickly forgotten. Very little hype for new things.
The game still has and will have for many years alot of players, but its top was already reached, and the next years, with games like SWTor, GW2 and even Titan if it meets the 2012 release, will not be easy for Warcraft. In fact I expect it to go bellow the 11Million before this year ends. And less then a year ago it was on 12M
Love them or hate them, I think we can all agree that Blizzard is not a stupid company.
They see the landscape about to change, but that doesn't mean they'll lie down and give up on the millions they make a month from subscriptions. There's no question that they will have lost subs a year from now, but I do think it will still reign over all other games for a while.
A common theme that I hear from Blizzard is what they can't do or what they don't have time to do with WoW that other, less profitable games, seem to be able to pull off with ease. Armor dying, player housing, increased character customization, updated character models, player generated content ... just to name a few. Archaeology, which was implemented with Cataclysm, is terrible - boring and uninspired. Where is the clear future message from Blizzard about the future of this game? Why does it feel like they are in maintenence mode with WoW? The impression to 6 year vets, such as myself, are that Blizzard is simply riding this baby to the ground to fuel their other projects. WoW could turn this around with just a handful of signs that show Blizz's solid commitment to continue to improve and adapt this game.
I'm of two minds about this.
On the one hand, WoW has had a good run. The best run in fact and if it winds down now, it's fine for the game and for the genre. Blizzard can just more or less coast with WoW adding expansions as it pleases them until Titan comes out. They could make most of the leveling game F2P and it would probably still garner them a LOT of money. What's funny about this is that Blizzard may have moved on from WoW a long time ago, and the rest of the world is just now catching up.
On the other hand, finally losing subscriptions could be really good for the game. Just because Blizzard can lose millions of subscribers doesn't mean they want to lose millions of subscribers. Maybe they'll start innovating a bit with WoW instead of waiting for Titan and that can't be a bad thing for the people who play the game. They might consider things they normally would have never considered, shaking things up for the game and for the industry.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
No doubt.
Its going to take a long time to lose the 5 million subs they have in NA/EU.
Maybe two or three years and WoW wont have 1 million left playing.
Funny thing is it wont have anything to do with other games, people will just get tired of WoW and it will be considered too old to join as a new player.
Blizzard could have fixed this, with the amount of money they make they could have revamped the graphics engine and rolled back some of the stupid changes they made since Wotlk, but that would have affected their bottom line right?
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Don't be mad because your game is losing subs.
She brings up some good points.
I actually don't play WoW, I. Think there must be more interesting topics to feature than something that's been posted about over and over. Although I'm not sure why I'd expect that to be the case.Not really this entire site covers one sub genre out of hundreds in the videogame hobby.
We only get one to three quality game releases a year and old games other than the big three arent interesting to read about.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Not a chance. Seriously, I still resub now and again, WoW is as busy as ever with no real signs of decline.
LIES!!!!!!
The game has half of its NA shards on low pop.
please stop lying to people. WoW gives players the illusion that its active because every lick of content is done through cross server queues that take people from 10-15+ server pools.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Using Raptr as an example: http://old.raptr.com/game/PC/World_of_Warcraft?qt=game&qi=6
On the little graphic there change it ti 1Year view and see whats happening on the last 7 to 8 months...
Ofc this can be seen in many other tools of measuring, like XFire and such. Not that they worth alot but either way shows a trend between the people who use this things.
I'm back playing it as we speak on the 10 day welcome back Cata trial . Its noticably less busy and this is in the summer when its normally at its peak . Hes abosoluty right I've checked the servers around half in the EU are on a low population and only between 10-20 are ever full now . While its certainly nowhere near dying its all to obvious to the objective eye that the game is in decline .
The loss of over a million players this year shows that theres been around the loss of between 8-10 percent of WoW player base this year and this is before the big beast of a game like StarWars TOR is released ( a game that has already broken record for pre orders ) . If it delievers ( which is still a big IF) then the loses we've seen this year will seam small in comparison .
Take my word on it Blizzard will have something up thier sleaves in responce to the challenge from TOR (and numerous other mmos )and it wont be just a patch it'll be something a lot bigger like an extension of free to play or maybe different types of servers beyond what we see now . As much as I don't paticulary like Blizzard they are smart buisnessmen and I guarantee they see the writing on the wall and are planning a responce as we speak .
That would be cool, if free play was extened to level 60. I've got a dozen toons in the game, and the highest is level 55. Free play to 60 would prompt me to return to my account and play a bit more of the game to 60, then bail again, right around the time that SW:ToR launches.
"To dust, as everything must. We fade away in time"
WoW had a good run.
I know for a fact that many posters in this forum will be way happier the day WoW dies than the day they get married.
It´s sickening.
Rawr.
I already despise this lazy cash cow game and its community but now you really have people excited about a possible expansion with pandas? lol@World of Warcraft
Once its proven that basic themeparks no longer mean instant millions the genre will be better off.
If WoW has to be near death to wake up these moronic developers then thats the price we are williing to pay.
We need developer to take risks, change the direction of the genre, evolve it.
For me personally RIFT is the last "wow type" game i buy.
I've already canceled my TOR pre-order.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
wow. i mean the word, not the game.
this site's forum members have been declaring the death of wow (the game) for years. and this time they'll probably be right.
i mean if you repeat the same prediction that a game is going to die off or has passed its prime for long enough, eventually believe it or not, you're going to be right.
wow.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
You do realize that just because WoW gets old and loses its appeal, it doesn't mean that the idea of thempark MMOs will suddenly die off, right?
Only problem is, like most game companies, you probably won't get to use your existing 'sub' account for f2p. You will need to start a new f2p account...
I still can't believe the Pandaland expansion is real . It seamed more of a late April fools prank to me than anything else .I guess only time will tell .
Lol, GJ at her stating the obvious.
WoW was in decline with the end of WOTLK already. Cataclysm temporary brought back some of the people but we can clearly see it wasn't enough and people left again in drones.
Now the decline and loss of subs will simply become more and more drastic with new games on horizon and lack of huge changes with WoW itself.
I can see WoW having 4-5 million subs by 2013.
You can already upgrade existing account to 1-20 free2play extension. If blizz sticks to subs after TOR and GW2 they will get hit hard and i mean real hard.