Will World of Warcraft ever end?
March 3, 2009 by Jin
Filed under Games, Jin's Corner, Recent
This morning Blizzard announced that it was gathering feedback for content patch 1.13 for Diablo II. Diablo II? Does anyone still play Diablo II? It’s been years since I’ve played Diablo II, and I’m surprised that Blizzard is still releasing patches for a game that’s nine years old! It’s laudable that a game company is still caring about a fan base that is playing a computer game that was designed around the time when the fastest processor out there was around 400 MHz. You have mobile computing devices these days that are way faster than that. Blizzard has long written off profits from Diablo II, so any content updates at this point is pure charity. Kudos to them for doing it.
Which leads me to that other game title that is supported by Blizzard Entertainment, World of Warcraft. WoW was first released in late 2004, which makes it comfortably four years old. Four years! Apparently, Blizzard’s strategy of releasing new content via paid expansions every two years have been successful for keeping 11+ million gamers enthralled with Azeroth. And yet I wonder how long this will last?
WoW players can spend hundreds and even thousands of hours upgrading their characters with the best gear possible.
The Blizzard formula for keeping their players happy is pretty easy to figure out: release new content with great new rewards. The rewards are so much better than the existing ones that it renders the old rewards moot. Also, add new mounts, new achievements and other things that can improve your existing character. While new classes and races are also occasionally added, I submit that these are mere distractions for the real things that keep players playing. Blizzard has figured long ago that the reason why most players stay is that they made a significant time investment with their main characters. It’s human nature to not walk away from something you’ve spent hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours in playing and steadily improving.
Adding to WoW’s resiliency is the strength of their parent company. Blizzard so dominates the PC MMO market that it may take an extremely well heeled adversary to build a game with the feature set, complexity and depth as WoW. Only a game like that can have a chance to siphon off a significant portion of WoW’s subscribership. A number of games have been touted as “WoW killers’ in the past, but Blizzard’s deep pockets make challenges difficult. WoW’s development and art staff can quickly implement incremental updates that can add competitor features or buttress areas where WoW is weak. Right now, there isn’t a MMO in the horizon that can compete with WoW at this point. And creating such a challenger would be incredibly expensive endeavor, a risk that many game companies would be unwilling to take.
One of the "WoW killers", Warhammer Online, never lived up to its threat.
Finally, WoW may be too profitable for Blizzard to ever have it die. WoW represents over $400 million in profit for Activision Blizzard. Further, a captive audience of 11+ million is a marketers dream. It not only allows you to sell WoW fans game related merchandise and in-game goodies (if they are open to real money transactions in the future) but also let them cross sell other upcoming Activision Blizzard games.
So is there anything that can end WoW? One of the things I can think of is possibly technology. While WoW constantly upgrades itself through patches and expansions, the original shell of the game was written for 2003-2004 technology. It’s why the minimal required specs (Pentium III 800 MHz, 64 MB graphics card) are so low. There’s probably some point in the future where to take advantage of some new technology, Blizzard has to think of sundowning WoW and think of creating the architecture for WoW II. The best bet for ending WoW may be Blizzard itself, but only so that it can sell you the more profitable sequel.
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a new content patch for diablo 2? cool! that’s is why blizzard is the best gaming company around.
It’s wonderful of Blizzard to come up with an update (fixes / content) for a game that’s 9 years old. That’s a classy move.
i think this game will last forever,,,,,for the horde
Let’s be clear about the Diablo II update. Many of those people may well consider buying Diablo III, and so obviously the updates aren’t mere “charity”. Charity would be releasing The Lost Vikings for free or something. The Diablo II updates are clearly a part of a strategy regarding a future product.
Interesting point. But let me ask you this question, wouldn’t people still buy D3 even though they didn’t patch D2? I’m not sure one event predicates the other. Also, consider the player base of D2 - I’m assuming at this point it’s quite a bit smaller than its heyday, with many of the players having largely moved onto different games.
I’m not familiar with the current D2 community, so I don’t know the carryover effect of patching the game now as it relates to future purchases.