Hmmm... so you think Hearthstone is gonna save ya?

[Ludes]

Just thought this was interesting... it was the Free to Play format that killed it but they have stated that a new free to play platform will save them.. talk about beating a dead donkey..

http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugge...oses-1-3-million-players-three-233637952.html

 

[yars]

lots of other variables to consider, remember 85% of all statistics are usually wrong. and 6 out of 4 people have trouble with fractions

 

[Voodoo Bad Mojo]

Statistics are like a bikini.
What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital!

 

[Ashlynn_L]

I think it is showing a few of the signs that UO has in it's history. I suspect WoW has a lot of life left in it but it will suffer a slow dwindling of numbers. Of the game series that gave WoW it's name, there hasn't been a new warcraft game since WC3. The gameplay of WoW is stale and has been widely copied - hugely so - so that you can get the exact same game a hundred other places just with different skins. So the market is saturated with lots and lots of MMOs, a large number of them "WoW clones".

It was going to take it's toll on the giant eventually.

 

[Mitzlplik_LS]

Eventually F2P will replace or at least put a major hurt on subscription games. I for one would rather pay when I want for what I want rather than being stuck with a sub and getting what I get. But as far as UO goes,unfortunately it`ll go the way of the Dodo before it will be made F2P. I know I`d still be logging in and doing stuff if it was but I`m not droppin $26 a month to just get a few hours of play time out of it. F2P is much more accomodating to those who have busy summers/lives or whatever.

Not to mention (imo) F2P is a much better motivator for devs. Keeps the updates and new content churning out otherwise the income takes a hit.

 

[Uvtha]

Eventually F2P will replace or at least put a major hurt on subscription games. I for one would rather pay when I want for what I want rather than being stuck with a sub and getting what I get. But as far as UO goes,unfortunately it`ll go the way of the Dodo before it will be made F2P. I know I`d still be logging in and doing stuff if it was but I`m not droppin $26 a month to just get a few hours of play time out of it. F2P is much more accomodating to those who have busy summers/lives or whatever.

Not to mention (imo) F2P is a much better motivator for devs. Keeps the updates and new content churning out otherwise the income takes a hit.

Eventually? There are only major 2 subscription games left, EVE and WOW.

 

[Berethrain]

ONLY 8.3 million customers left?

I wish UO would have half that.

We have maybe what, 100k?

 

[Thrakkar]

it was the Free to Play format that killed it

Killed it? World of Warcraft? LOL...
It is still the most successful MMO with a monthly subscribtion and it is as healthy as a 8½ year old MMO can be. Of course will subscriber numbers dwindle after rechaching such an age. But it will run for several more years...

 

[Thrakkar]

The gameplay of WoW is stale and has been widely copied - hugely so - so that you can get the exact same game a hundred other places just with different skins.

That is so far from the truth. Gameplay is definitely not stale. WOW has one of the best tuned and fun encounters as well as really good tuned and fun to play classes.
Of course you can't compare UO with WOW since sandbox and themepark has no common basis. So it's not far fetched that someone, who likes UO, thinks WOW might be stale. You just can't apply the same measure.

As as for the WOW clones, yes there are tons of them, I tried several over the years and not a single one does as much right as WOW (yes, it too doesn't do everything right, but still way more than its clones).

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

i think it is amazing a almost 9 year old game still has more than 8 Million subscribers....
it wont see 15 years as UO but surely 10 years...

I mean, if you do the math, they surely hit the 1 BILLION $ sub-fee yet for sure - and we didnt calculate the game purchasing fee's yet - the FIRST release, without any expansions, surely ot them an easy 600 Million $ income hehe

I guess the total income WoW made the last 8 1/2 years must be almost 3 Billion $ yet...

imo the most sucsessfull game of all time yet....totaly CRAZY

 

[RaDian FlGith]

it wont see 15 years as UO but surely 10 years...

There's absolutely no reason to suspect that it won't see 15 years, much less 20. It's nearly 10 years old (it'll be 10 in a year-and-a-half) already, and even if we grant that it loses another 1 to 1.5 million subscribers before its next expansion, depending on what it is and what it includes, we can safely expect it will add another 2 to 3 milion subscribers back at that time. Keep in mind that WoW is presently now a bit late in the expansion cycle for Mists of Pandaria, and while Blizzard does a great job of keeping content flowing, there is definitely attrition between expansion.

Thing is, WoW continues to improve, and even if there were only 2 million subscribers, that would be enough income to keep the game going, albeit with a lesser development team than today (and yet, significantly more than the development team currently working on UO). I suspect we won't see WoW turn off anytime in the near future, and I doubt we'll see a dip below the 1 million mark until sometime near its 20th anniversary -- if I were a betting man, I'd say after its 20th anniversary.

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

That might be very true if their new game, which should replace it, wont be a burner...
But you are totaly right, even with 1 Million paying subscribers they make an easy 180 Million $ a year of it - pretty enough for a big support team and new expnsion codings hehe

 

[Uvtha]

i think it is amazing a almost 9 year old game still has more than 8 Million subscribers....
it wont see 15 years as UO but surely 10 years.

I fully expect WOW to run 15 years. If they lost 20% of their player base a year (which I doubt they will) they would still have well over a million players by the 15th anniversary.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

I suspect that "Titan" won't be direct competition with WoW. Much like Diablo III, I think there may be people who subscribe to both (or whatever model they use for it -- I suspect subscription though, because with Blizzard, you know the money is well spent on the future of the game), but I doubt they're even the same genre.

As to the OP... Hearthstone can't possibly have been touted by anyone at Blizzard as something that would "save" them, because Blizzard isn't in any danger of becoming irrelevant. There are people who dislike WoW, who dislike Starcraft, who dislike Diablo... but fans of Blizzard (who tend to outweigh those who aren't) understand and respect Blizzard's design and release process. "When it's done," has been their mantra for years, and it shows in the overall quality of their games. Heartstone is something new... and there will be people who enjoy it madly. I suspect the IP will do well. Most Blizzard things do.

Everyone is welcome to their own opinion on Blizzard's games and their enjoyability factors... those are very subjective. However, objectively speaking, the numbers are in their court, and there's no coincidence between those numbers and their staying power and their approach to game design.

 

[Assia Penryn]

I know my husband and I closed our accounts because of the latest expansion. Pandas. Ugh. None of it appealed to us.

Even minus 1.3m subscribers it isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

 

[Flagg]

You could find ton of examples proving on behalf of whichever side of argument you support.

Having said that, it is undeniable every single larger sucess story on MMO market within last few years has been flirting with F2P in one way or another. Lord of The Rings Online, Dungeons & Dragons Online, The Secret World, Star Wars, The Old Republic. All of these games started sub-based. All of them eventually went FTP. All of these games have devs suggesting heavily it was F2P that saved their game. Two of the most recent examples on that list (TSW, SW:TOR) are EA games just like UO. One can very easily say EA has very positive experiences of turning sub based MMOs into F2P.

Due to it's sandbox nature, housing and, most importantly, itemization I believe Ultima Online would make an excellent F2P game. It is already halfway there, really. Many functions and mechanics that work as honeypot in F2P have already been brought to the game. (We have had a cash shop for years.. ) I find it likely it'd bring tens of thousands of brand new people to the game. ) However, since it is getting very questionable wether this game actually has a live dev team anymore, obviously it is not something we ever have to/get to worry about.

I believe lack of resources,lack of devs,lack of PR muscle are the things keeping UO from going F2P. Not lack of desire among the remaining handful of it's devs. It'd take a major development and advertising push to pull it off. Hell freezes over come day UO ever gets either of those for any reason;(


..And yeah, when it comes to numbers of WoW it is good to remember the game is 10 years old soon. Being able to hold 8 mil active subs 10 years after release is utterly crazy. To put it in some perspective, Eve Online and SW:TOR, which I guess are both in top-3 most popular western MMOS, have around 6% - 8% of WoW's subscribers.

....Typing that, I realized WoW is as old today as UO was in 2007;o Yet small part of me still views WoW as 'that new thing' When did I get so old

 

[Zosimus]

I am no WoW fan or even played the game but it has plenty of life and years to go.

If UO can last this long with it's current population WoW's population has at least 20 years left at this time

 

[JoO]

The majority of WoW's subscription drop was in Asian markets. The numbers went down as they released the 2 best selling PC games of the last year. They were their own worst enemy. Maybe they got bored and decided to compete against themselves.

 

[yars]

You could find ton of examples proving on behalf of whichever side of argument you support.

Having said that, it is undeniable every single larger sucess story on MMO market within last few years has been flirting with F2P in one way or another. Lord of The Rings Online, Dungeons & Dragons Online, The Secret World, Star Wars, The Old Republic. All of these games started sub-based. All of them eventually went FTP. All of these games have devs suggesting heavily it was F2P that saved their game. Two of the most recent examples on that list (TSW, SW:TOR) are EA games just like UO. One can very easily say EA has very positive experiences of turning sub based MMOs into F2P.

Due to it's sandbox nature, housing and, most importantly, itemization I believe Ultima Online would make an excellent F2P game. It is already halfway there, really. Many functions and mechanics that work as honeypot in F2P have already been brought to the game. (We have had a cash shop for years.. ) I find it likely it'd bring tens of thousands of brand new people to the game. ) However, since it is getting very questionable wether this game actually has a live dev team anymore, obviously it is not something we ever have to/get to worry about.

I believe lack of resources,lack of devs,lack of PR muscle are the things keeping UO from going F2P. Not lack of desire among the remaining handful of it's devs. It'd take a major development and advertising push to pull it off. Hell freezes over come day UO ever gets either of those for any reason;(


..And yeah, when it comes to numbers of WoW it is good to remember the game is 10 years old soon. Being able to hold 8 mil active subs 10 years after release is utterly crazy. To put it in some perspective, Eve Online and SW:TOR, which I guess are both in top-3 most popular western MMOS, have around 6% - 8% of WoW's subscribers.

....Typing that, I realized WoW is as old today as UO was in 2007;o Yet small part of me still views WoW as 'that new thing' When did I get so old

my biggest question would be what would they offer for free and what would be paid content? i dont see much in UO i would pay cash for, deco? nah. skills? too easy to train up. they would have to introduce new content,which means more devs time,which means hiring,which costs money and investment. not part of the EA standard it seems.

 

[Flagg]

my biggest question would be what would they offer for free and what would be paid content? i dont see much in UO i would pay cash for, deco? nah. skills? too easy to train up. they would have to introduce new content,which means more devs time,which means hiring,which costs money and investment. not part of the EA standard it seems.

Rolling a character, gearing him up. Training him (up to 100.0 skillspoints) and doing the basics could be 100% free. When it comes to cash-side.. Housing, first and foremost. Wanna be able to place a house or ensure your current one doesn't decay? Pay up! Soulstones, vendor spots, ability to use powerscrolls, current cash shop items, ethy moutns, stable slots.. ah there's ton of stuff they could ask cash for in-game already.

I'm guessing deco items in cash shop would be the single largest bread winner, for sure. SW:Tor is making gallons of cash off cash shop, mainly via mostly useless vanity items that provide no direct advantage besides looking nice. If this works in most modern F2P MMOs, I'm positive it'd work in UO as well; base value of a (vanity) item is UO is vastly greater than in any other MMO. This being mostly due to way UO handles items and in-game objects. You can use an item as a deco. You can put the said item on display. Item actually exists as part of the world rather than just something that is limited to being either in your inv or on your char.

 

[Orkster]

Micro transactions is they way everything is going now. Make the game/platform free but offer special little nuggets you can pay for. Playstation, X Box etc. have mastered it. Look what ITunes makes selling songs a buck at a time. UO does this with things like reforge tool, gothic packs etc. There is only going to be more and more of this coming soon. UO just decides to double dip by charging subscription fees and offering the little nuggets.

 

[Tanivar]

The game is currently set so everyone starts at UO:ML, have that be the F2P situation, anything past ML you pay for.

You could also move it back to AoS, LBR, or SE as the F2P game since thats how the code was set up, you had access to the latest expansion you paid for, that expansion on back. Get people to start playing and hope they want more, either going to a subscription, or paying for access to the next expansion's material, all together or piecemeal. Then from SA on go with items in the store.