Then he’s fired
The problem is that most companies don’t know how to run a game. EverQuest is still going on and receiving expansions. Yes, it is a tiny game now, especially compared to what it was, but it is still there. Same for RuneScape, Lineage 1 which came out in 1998 I think. In fact Lineage 1 is still one of the biggest MMOs. While most games don’t manage to last, MMOs are the genre that survives. I played Cabal Online a few months ago and was surprised to see its servers were as full as they were when that game was more mainstream popular.
Blizzard has one huge advantage over any other company and it is in how famous WarCraft is. Every 2 years, Blizzard comes out with a new, premium WarCraft product. This keeps the franchise in the mainstream’s eye, preventing it from dying. Yes, Warlords of Draenor hurt WoW, but it didn’t come close to killing it. The IP itself has a much greater value than the game over a 2-year period. For Blizz to kill WoW, they need a disappointment after disappointment. Battle For Azeroth was having record early sales, showing the game was doing alright.
Take a look at NC Soft. Lineage 2 never managed to become THAT popular. It never beat the original in anything. It’s still receiving updates, the game is alive and well, getting around 15k concurrent players. However, NC Soft keeping that fledgling game alive for 17 years paid off. Big time. They launched Lineage 2 Mobile, which is a completely new game, nothing like the original Lineage 2, and when it came out, it immediately doubled the entire NC Soft’s revenue. Them keeping a barely profitable game alive, one with a huge IP value paid off. There’s more to business than immediate return on investment.
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