…would that be cool? Or troublesome?
What features should it have? Or not have?
And what if it enabled players to gift the creators some in-game gold as a reward?
Just random thoughts really.
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Never unless it’s an addon as well. Blizzard isn’t going to maintain its functionality.
Having WoWup or something similar in your load screen would be nice though.
That said, I’d rather the game didn’t require addons 
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You mean something that can install addons from a repository like CurseForge? And the repository would be hosted by Blizzard?
Nope, not gonna happen. It’s a legal nightmare, and the bandwidth costs are pretty heavy too. If they did it, they’d have to curate the addons very heavily, to the point of the repository being nigh useless, because everyone would end up just using additional managers.
I am thinking something on the lines of what steam has, although I have no understanding of where the data is held or legal yargon.
I do not think that listing and accessing addon links from the game platform means they would have to be hosted on the Blizzard servers?
I have seen an ‘addon’ section in many games… how do they do that?
My question being: if other games can have an in game menu where addons can be updated automatically… why can’t Blizzard do the same?
I don’t think they would have more budget or less legal issues than Blizzard…
They would either need to partner up with a hosting platform like Curse/Overwolf or Wago (ie: fork out money, a lot), or host them themselves.
In most other games, addons are much, much more limited than in WoW, and as such, pose less risks and such. Many other games rely on them a whole lot less too.
Say it’s a ‘paid feature’.
If 20 euro buy a token worth 250.000g… 1 euro is what, 1.250g? (Edit: yes I am silly and missed a zero in my quick calculation… should have been 12.500g… wishful thinking probably…)
I’ll happily pay Blizzard 1.250g (cough) 6.250g from my main character’s pockets monthly for an in-game addon updater. 
Heck, I will even give 1,250g (cough) a tip in gold to each of the creators of the addons I use, whereas I would hardly donate as much in real life currency.
Just saying. I do remain curious about how smaller companies handle it however. Guess I will have a look around for info.
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Wouldn’t that be 12500g per 1 euro?
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You’re quite right.
I missed a zero and feel ashamed now.
Guess I will lower my offer to 0.50 cents ^^
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It’s alright, my friend. Mistakes happen. 
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So then people would just use an alternative addon manager like Overwolf/WowUp and watch some random ads instead of paying. The Blizzard one wouldn’t generate enough profit to make the hassle worth it.
A built-in addon manager only makes sense if it provides significant functions over the existing ones. Being built into the game… isn’t significant enough, especially if using it comes at a cost you don’t have to pay for the others.
If they would fire Bobby, they could probably afford 3 CurseForges while nothing of value would’ve been lost.
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Ok, that made me laugh out loud, literally.
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Indeed, indeed. But alas, they did not, and now we have Microsoft on top who’ll want their share of profits for the amount of money they spent on buying ABK.
time to close the addon api and blizzard ban all addons from the game and update the game to a level 2022 deserves. More UI customization and remove all non ui stuff from the game. no more carry with addons. Design a game that works without addons.
That would actually be lit
That is not true, there are many games, like Bethesda ones, that can be modified in such ways that it is impossible in WOW, including adding new models, new zones, new quests, new spells, or new races, or making things NSFW (that most game companies do not allow on their own platform but it is possible to do it so they need to curate their site to ban such kind of mods). Compared with other games WOW addons are the more limited modification.
A.nd those companies have their own host platform for addons/mods. If Bethesda is able to do it, Blizzard should be able to do it, especially by the fact that soon both will belong to the same parent company.
Bethesda games like ESO? No, their addons are nothing compared to WoW’s. Yes, in some ways, they can do more, but in many ways, they can do so much less. The API is much, much, much more limited there.
It’s not a question of being able to. It’s a question of whether it is worth it for them. Of course Blizzard would be able to. Would it be worth the trouble, though?
Like I said, to make people actually use it, it would need to be significantly better than the competitors. They’d need addon developers to use it (= pay them better than overwolf), they’d need players to use it (= have all their addons there; if there’s any addon not on it, and people need to use a 3rd party manager for even one, they’ll use that for everything). I don’t see that happening.
My thoughts are that this overwolf company is trying to monetise something that wasn’t allowed to be monetised and wondering what Blizzard is gonna do about it.
MMOs are not the only kind of games that exist you know? Bethesda games like Skyrim Special Edition and Fallout 4. And also Skyrim Legendary Edition, Fallout 3, and New Vegas too but using Steam Workshop. And many other games from other companies using Steam Workshop, soon an Epic mod Workshop or their own mod workshop. Addons are just the fancy way games like WOW have called mods.
Any Blizzard Addon Management will be better for users than any 3rd party manager for the mere fact of exits because it will be integrated into the game (or at least Blizzard launcher). Once it is released people will stop using third-party manages, why would when they have it integrated into the game? and that would eventually make developers move their addons to the official management, or, as most addon developers do anyway, upload their addon to every option possible.
EDIT: Blizzard do not even need to compete with third-party sites add-on monetization, they can just change their addon EULA to forbid that kind of monetization. I don’t think Blizzard should allow Overwolf to profit at the expense of their property.
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