So, the new WoW expac is called Legion, and will focus on the Burning Legion's massive invasion of Azeroth.
After having seen the highlights (Illidan? Really?), I can only say one thing:
Why didn't they do this instead of Warlords of Draenor?
It would have made a LOT more sense to tinker with a few things and keep a normal timeline rather than going Azeroth-2 like they did with Warlords.
As it is, I do see that Blizzard seems to have finally gotten a kick in the pants as far as putting the story in-game as opposed to in books and other media. Still, the damage there has been done. They can't put old story back into the game, and since they're not interested in fixing the previous storylines it's kind of a moot point.
But I am still shaking my head, wondering at the change of venue for the presentation. Blizzard has always done their own thing, and their customers have loved them for it. Why decide to abandon their current business model now?
Perhaps there's more to the subscriber drop than Blizzard is letting on, but what I think is more likely is that the rest of the industry is threatening to pass Blizzard by. Blizzard finds itself in an unusual position with MOBAs in having to play catch-up, and they can't seem to get that mojo back in holding onto their WoW subscriber base. On the Activision side of things there's Skylanders, but Disney is muscling into that space with their own version*. I get the feeling that Activision/Blizzard sees the other game houses as more of a threat than before, and to stay relevant they can no longer afford to isolate themselves from the rest of the gaming populace.
*And they've got the Marvel and Star Wars properties to attract buyers of Disney Infinity as well.
After having seen the highlights (Illidan? Really?), I can only say one thing:
Why didn't they do this instead of Warlords of Draenor?
It would have made a LOT more sense to tinker with a few things and keep a normal timeline rather than going Azeroth-2 like they did with Warlords.
As it is, I do see that Blizzard seems to have finally gotten a kick in the pants as far as putting the story in-game as opposed to in books and other media. Still, the damage there has been done. They can't put old story back into the game, and since they're not interested in fixing the previous storylines it's kind of a moot point.
But I am still shaking my head, wondering at the change of venue for the presentation. Blizzard has always done their own thing, and their customers have loved them for it. Why decide to abandon their current business model now?
Perhaps there's more to the subscriber drop than Blizzard is letting on, but what I think is more likely is that the rest of the industry is threatening to pass Blizzard by. Blizzard finds itself in an unusual position with MOBAs in having to play catch-up, and they can't seem to get that mojo back in holding onto their WoW subscriber base. On the Activision side of things there's Skylanders, but Disney is muscling into that space with their own version*. I get the feeling that Activision/Blizzard sees the other game houses as more of a threat than before, and to stay relevant they can no longer afford to isolate themselves from the rest of the gaming populace.
*And they've got the Marvel and Star Wars properties to attract buyers of Disney Infinity as well.
I said elsewhere that to me this feels like trying to re-animate a pretty corpse. TBC and WotLK were wow's prime time and obviously they hope they can bring that back, but maybe it would be better to let it lie. alas.
ReplyDeleteIt's looking more and more like Cataclysm inflicted a wound that WoW can't completely recover from.
DeleteWhile WoW veterans don't have trouble following the basic post-Cata storyline, that's because they're Wow veterans: they were around for the Old World. But a new person coming into WoW simply gets confused as to the storyline. I've harped on it before, but Blizzard should have put priority on fixing this disconnect between post-Cata Azeroth and Outland/Northrend, but they never did.
WoW simply can't get its mojo back to retain subs for more than a couple of months after an expac drops.