Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
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So can I.
I can see all the major game studios crashing, to be honest. They need to start to realize that of all their stakeholders, their loyal customers are more important than their shareholders.
My prediction is that in 8 years, the only major game studios still around are the ones that have made this realization.
I doubt it will happen any time soon to be honest. Despite all their fuckups, the AAA games companies still make money on their games, usually from people who are either oblivious or don't care about what is happening in the industry. The various sports games (fifa, NBA Madden, etc) release practically the same game every single year, chocked full of microtransactions and loot box mechanics, and yet they always make a profit.
The majority of consumers don't really care about the company behind the games they play.
And this might be a controversial opinion, but I think a big part of the problem is just that people aren't willing to pay more for better games. A lot of players are happy with replaying old games, or they're happy with F2P games-as-a-service (I am in this group), funded by whales and MTX. Good, sub-fee MMOs are basically a top-shelf product. And like all luxury products they cost more, are only slightly better, have a more niche clientele, and aren't as common. The majority of consumers and producers will focus on lower-grade products. So until the majority of gamers can afford to pay luxury prices, I think we'll continue to see publishers cutting corners, pushing out half-baked content to keep the masses occupied, while hunting for the whales with MTX and premium features.
All of that might sound a little cynical, but I think it's actually not bad. There are still diamonds in the rough. And I think it's probably better overall to have lots of half-decent games, than for developers to put all their time and money into fewer, better games. That's how most of society works anyways: good enough is good enough 90% of the time, and greatness is rare.
Shareholders don't wait until a company stops making money before they bail, they bail when they think that may happen in the future (such as when your customers openly protest).
Add to that the inevitable outcome of lootboxes (the EU will eventually sue major studios for actual billions, and lootbox mechanics will be removed from all games, lowering profits), and it's fairly easy to see how it *could* happen.
look at EA after the backlash from StarWars battlefield 2 it does prove that we do have some sway over game companies
Why you don't trust the devs? And what harm they can actually done?
It is easy to believe that we will see a new WoW expansion during Q4 in this year. Blizzard has produced new content with steady pace over 15 years now and we will see this same trend continuing also in near future. It also look likes the devs are listening fans and testers more than ever and they react faster to problems than earlier. Of course there has been this problem with BfA having a good amount of bad features and general flaws which needs some fixing. Anyhow, I have always trusted the company even I have partly disagreed with the course of the development and necessity of some implemented mechanics. The story and lore is always polished triple AAA class and almost only that makes the game at least worth to play for casual fun or as a filler. I personally trust that we will get a solid next expansion from where many people finds out something interesting and pleasant activities to accomplish. Player- and fanbase is still solid and it will hold easily, partly thanks to classic, and even it is hard to see Blizzard back in the numbers of their best years, still it would be easy to argue against claims that WoW is going down or getting killed by any other game/company.
On the one hand I agree with you, but then I see the shit they pulled with Warcraft 3 reforged and I have my doubts.
This may not come as a surprise to people, but I disagree.
The last good game Blizzard made was Warcraft 3.
Their games have polish, possibly more so than any other game developer, but I don't consider them good games by any other metric.
Polish, however, does fool an awful lot of people in to thinking a thing is good. McDonalds is another good example of this.
That is unlikely to happen since WoW uses it's own custom game engine. They have added more textures to the game over time but nothing more than that. It's a shame too because this is what WoW would look like in Unreal Engine 4:
It looks incredible.
By devs, I meant to say Activision blizzard not the people working on the games themselves. as for why well in the past few years they have
just to name a few
BUT...
What I think most people forget about WOW is that it already had a HUGE fan base before the MMO came out. It already had a strong core base well before launch. This along with being at the right place at the right time helped spurn the mega giant we know today.
I'm guessing most of who still play is part of that fan base. I think the heart and driving force of WOW got it's heart ripped out when the creators left for greener pastures. You can definitely tell WOW had a different air about these days.
Will WOW die? Not in the near future, but boy are those peeps who run the company trying very hard to push it off the cliff.
@Nagash Well fair enough if we think the company in general. However, I referred only to WoW.
WoW has over doubled montly subs from Q2 2019 to Q4 2019, and Classic has been obviously the main reason for this. However, some people who came back for classic are later got back also to retail, and hey why not, because they share the montly subscription. I could not find any exact information of current subs, but most likely that is confidental anyway. Blizzard has announced that WoW, Diablo Immortal, Overwatch and Hearthstone have together over 32M montly subs and maybe that gives some perspective of the situation.
Blizzard Entertaiment's Q4 2019 Segment Results:
Now this does not include Activision which revenue is almost three times bigger, so I would say these studios are doing a pretty good result at the moment and it is a very hard to see any killshots and dives anytime soon. ;-)
https://warcraft.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/activision-blizzard-q4-2019-results-transcript
Err... How can you say that WoW monthly subs have doubled and then 2 sentences later say that you couldn't find exact information of current subs?
Because Blizzard has told that those have doubled, but they have not told what was the starting point. ;-)
is that before or after they fired 800 employees?
The massive Activision, Blizzard and King layoffs started during Q1 2019 mainly because missed expectations of year 2018 and lower expectations for year 2019 in specific areas. At least this is one reason what they have announced. Layoffs hit mainly for non gaming development departments like esports and publishing. However, layoffs were not necessary because of the bad results from 2018, those were about ghange in company strategy.
Monthly subcription is only one income and the company makes also a huge amount of money from different character services and cashshop. Therefore the financial situation of Blizzard is really good and on a solid base, so there is no reason to shutdown a profitable business. Moreover, all these delays and cancellations in MMORPG genre only strenghten WoWs position, as also other MMORPGs out there.
At the end of the day we are working with limited information here so it's all speculation. I just find it odd that the company will proclaim the highest financial growth that they've had in years, then 1 week later sack off 800 employees.
that's my point as well
Well not that much speculation if people would do some research and read news. ;-)
Activation Blizzard achieved a record result in year 2018 so it is understandable if people are confused why they still decided to layoff 800 employees. I have found few reasons for this: Fusion, Projects, Unprofitable business and greed.
When Activision, Blizzard and King have merged that have created one on the other tasks and some of those multiple positions are not necesserily anymore needed. The work can also be very project oriented which causes problems when a certain project ends. After the end of the project there is not automatically offer new tasks for everyone and perhaps in new projects different kind area of experties are needed than earlier. Also it seams that the management was unsatisfied with the results of certain non-game-development departments. And like in every business it is almost everytime about money and the original sin of humankind, greed. Investors expects profit and even more profit.
It would be easy to argue that the 800 people layoffs are some kind of mix of all these reasons and maybe easily there is something more involved as well. I understand that fusions can cause these kind of problems and project work can be temporary and not so secured. What I do not personally understand is greed, if you already get a piles of money why on earth you need to get few piles more in trade of someone's else missery.
TLDR The fallacy of exponential growth that plagues the AAA games industry.
EDIT: And I am talking about Blizzard Entertainment here, I have not played any Activision or King games.
While I agree that WoW and Ashes have different demographics, I will always believe that good products will sell no matter what. If the game is good enough people will come play it even if they don't usually like sandbox mmorpgs.
That is true.
If we think of the phrase "WoW killer", it is has an over ten years history and it is totally hackneyed notion within these years. Almost every new MMORPG is predicted to be a new WoW killer so it is getting quite annoying utterance tbh. I do not understand why any new MMORPG should aim to be a new WoW killer? And why people even care? Perhaps WoW is already displaced by FF14 or at least was before release of WoW Classic.
Because of BfA Blizzard sunk deep, but with Classic and upcoming Shadowlands they have turn the course up again. We are also (most likely) going to see TBC Classic and retail expansions which are taking influence from Classic and other old expansions. I guess Blizzard has finally understood that there is no reason to change something which is working already. Blizzard has tried too hard to implement new mechanics which have been away from the actual content. I really hope that Blizzard takes the step back with mechanics and really focus on the playable content.