How would you make up the lost revenue?
The sub is fine. The price of expansions is too high.
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World of Warcraft currently has around 7.5 million subscribers, as reported at GCD. The game has managed this by expanding into different modes like Classic Era, Retail, and SoD, and by focusing on keeping players engaged. Holly Longdale even mentioned that player retention is at an all-time high.
Itâs important to note that comparing WoW today to its peak 12 years ago might not be entirely fair. Many live service games struggle to maintain even 1 million subscribers, so having 7.5 million subscribers after twenty years is quite impressive. This success supports a large team of over 600 developers, not counting other roles like admin, testing, and marketing.
The gaming industry often faces tight profit margins and high budgets, making WoWâs performance especially noteworthy. The game continues to offer greater value for money, and Blizzard has kept the cash shop relatively modest compared to many competitors, absorbing costs to avoid impacting players and even added the boost to lower tier for the war within for a 3 day grace period which doesnât impact users and benefits with the server bloat on expansion day.
Huh, who the f is paying 4.5 for coffee?
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Thats normal for coffee in almost every city at any cafe.
No, no it isnât.
???
xD?
Starbucks here isnât near 4.5 per coffee here and im a daily consumer.
If he means overall on a month, sure, but itâs obvious he doesnât consume it enough times for it to be relevant.
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I wasnât referring to Starbucks, but rather to the average local cafĂ©. As rents, taxes, and energy costs hit record highs, and with consumers facing tighter budgets, small cafĂ©s have no choice but to increase their prices to stay in business. This is a crucial step to remain viable in todayâs tough economic climate. Interestingly, even Starbucks locations in the UK, outside of London, are priced above 5 euros for a single drink, reflecting the broader trend of rising costs.
Yeah but why are you consuming coffee outside except on special occasions though?
It makes no sense.
I used to own a coffee machine, and as an 8 year old coffee consumer (given, I only drink 1 a day) and even so it was somewhat expensive.
Going out for coffee everyday is a stupid choice and whoever does this should feel bad for such an expense lol.
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I understand, but our focus was on the rising costs in the coffee industry. Since Covid, high streets across the continent have struggled to rebound. The trend of gathering at places like Starbucks for relaxation or work has diminished. This challenge extends beyond Starbucks to pubs, cinemas, and other venues. The service sector as a whole is finding it difficult to attract younger generations in the post-Covid era. Combined with soaring utility and supply costs, many high streets are struggling, especially outside of major capitals where salaries and living expenses are disproportionately high.
If we focus on World of Warcraft, the fact that prices havenât increased indicates that Blizzard is absorbing these rising costs. This commitment includes supporting staff unionization and managing expenses without passing the burden onto players as well as adding more value to your sub with classic, SoD and other events.
Why do you need to make up the lost revenue???
Activision Blizzardâs yearly revenue is 7.5 billion and Net income is 1.5 billion USD.
With WoWâs current quality, it is totally fine and reasonable that WoW lost some revenue.
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Are you serious? Revenue isnât the same as profit, and the gameâs quality is higher than itâs ever been. Youâre getting more content, better experiences, and far greater value for your subscription than in the past, all at the same priceâor even less.
If Blizzard took a hit on revenue, youâd quickly see developers getting laid off and entire content pipelines being scrapped. The value youâre enjoying now depends on maintaining that balance, and any drop in revenue could have serious consequences for the gameâs future.
This isnât about corporate greed, especially not from Blizzard. Unlike Activision, Blizzard has often been criticized for underperforming financially under the Activision umbrella. What youâre asking for is a company operating with incredibly thin margins, due to rising costs and budgets, to sacrifice stable revenue in favor of a risky, volatile seasonal business model. Thatâs not just unrealisticâitâs downright reckless.
If you donât think wow is offering you value, then stop paying for it or go to a private server.
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I used to drink coffee every day from a local coffee shop in town before home working became a thing.
The price has been 4⏠or there abouts for a long time, itâs likley higher now, I donât really worry about the exact price of such low value purchases.
Wait until he discovers the 7⏠pint⊠
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Itâs actually staggering how much a pint costs these days.
UhmâŠyeah,sureâŠOverwatch, Diablo, Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone surely need the same hard drives, CPUs, RAM as World of Warcraft. Not!
Not even talking about the amount of servers WoW needs compared to the other games.
Do not forget that WoW needs servers for retail per language, Classic per language, Cataclysm per language, PTRs. All with higher hardware demands than the other games servers.
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Let me undermine everything youâve said with the following:
Diablo IV has the biggest development team at Blizzard.
So whatâs your subscription paying for that you donât get elsewhere without a subscription?
Servers? Every Blizzard game gets the same quality of servers needed to operate the respective game as WoW does. No subscription needed.
Customer support? Itâs shared. Other Blizzard games donât pay a subscription to use the same customer support as freely as WoW players do.
Updates? Again, every game gets updates corresponding to the needs of the respective game.
You can pile Diablo IV, Overwatch 2, Diablo Immortal, Warcraft Rumble, and Hearthstone on top of each other, and combined they get so much resources poured into them that it dwarfs WoW by an order of magnitude. And no subscription is asked for any of it.
Itâs disillusioned to pretend that youâre getting a more premium product with WoW because you pay a subscription. No. Youâre getting a Blizzard game like any other Blizzard game. The only difference is that WoW players give Blizzard 13 bucks a month, and the other Blizzard gamers donât.
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I think they should put wow sub on PC gamepass, as there is barely any overlap I think between gamepass and wow subscribers. Their main income source appears to be micro/macrotransactions
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I despise them, but my local Tory Tavern has the cheapest pints (half the cost of the nearest pub), so I drink there.
Seriously, you can be sure that they do not use the same server hardware for every game they host. And WoW has the highest hardware requirements for servers, no to mention the sheer amount of sevrer just for WoW.
So yes, you probably could
and WoW still needs a lot more, and better, servers then these do.
WoW server infrastructure can not economically survive without subscription OR a bloated real money shop.
And? Hence Diablo VI standard costs 70⏠(80⏠Play Station) and WoW expansions standard only 50âŹ.
And Diablo VI has a premium battl pass and a âbloatedâ cosmetic shop.
Of course not. Why would Hearthstone need the same kind of server infrastructure as WoW? The point is that every Blizzard game gets the same quality of servers needed to operate optimally. But only WoW players pay a subscription.
Itâs asinine to say that WoW players have to pay a subscription because their game requires the most expensive servers. That doesnât detract from the fact that the people playing other Blizzard games pay no subscription at all. Surely they should pay a small subscription fee for access to their smaller servers? The logic doesnât compute here. If WoW players pay a high subscription for big servers, then Diablo IV players should pay a small subscription fee for their small servers. But they donât. Itâs free.
The Online Store already is bloated!!
There is hardly anything more Blizzard can put on that store that isnât already there, directly or indirectly. They are already covering every need anyone could have for wanting to spend money on MTX.
WoW expansion is âŹ49.99 + âŹ12.99 each month. So a minimum of âŹ62.98.
Diablo IV is âŹ49.99. The Vessel of Hatred expansion is âŹ39.99. The bundle with both is âŹ69.99.
So theyâre priced the same. And WoW gets increasingly more expensive if you play it for longer than 1 month.
The Online Store in WoW is more intrusive and expansive in scope than the one in Diablo IV, which is entirely cosmetic. In WoW you pay for character transfers and faction changes and in-game currency and so forth, on top of the same cosmetics that Diablo IV also sells (transmogs, mounts, pets).
And the Battle Pass? Thatâs indirectly the same as the Trading Post in WoW. You pay for the Battle Pass directly in Diablo IV, in WoW you indirectly pay for the Trading Post through your subscription (canât access it otherwise).
Itâs the same. Same same. Same same same. Thereâs nothing that âŹ13 each and every month gets you that other games donât also get without having to pay that monthly fee.
It is what it is, and we pay it because we enjoy WoW enough to validate it, but letâs not cheer the fact that weâre giving Blizzard free money for nothing tangible in return. Thatâs demented.
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