With vacation and a few real life concerns to think about, I neglected the blog these last week. Plus, I have a few drafts that I don’t feel like I have the energy to finish now (I just hate going through the trouble to add pictures to my posts!).
But yesterday Oestrius wrote an interesting post about the recent subscriber loss and how these people are real people that we met in game. First I wanted to comment, but then I felt like this deserved a whole blog post.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that we’re losing people. Let me stress that. We are losing people. We’re losing loved ones. We’re saying goodbye to friendships and memories and ties that we have formed with one another. It’s more than just lost revenue and subscription numbers.
Oestrius is right, but I find that a bit excessive.
While playing WoW, I met and became friend with a lot of people, and many left the game. Each time a friend leave the game, it makes me sad, because I know there’s a good chance I’ll never see him again. People leaving are real people. But you know what ? People leave your real life too. Remember your best friend from when you where 7 year old. Do you still know her ? Do you still write letters to your foreign correspondent from secondary school, or to your friends from your holiday camps ? How long since you last spoke to your friends from university, or from the last place you lived ?
Making friends and then “losing” them is part of life. Be it in an MMO or in real life. But you don’t loose them. There aren’t part of your life anymore, but their life is still going on. And, from the WoW friend I lost, most of them left because they had an happy busy real life other wise.
Loosing WoW friend is always sad, but it has nothing to do with Blizzard subscribers numbers for me. What Blizzard subscribers loss say to me is that WoW will no last forever. Some day, Stormwind streets won’t be crowded anymore. It’ll be hard to find groups on low population realms, until some day when these realm will be merged together or with some bigger realms. Content patch and extensions wil come less and less often. Blizzard saw this too, the signs are obvious. I didn’t remember it, but Oestrius said that the Dungeon Finder tool went out just after the first subscribers loss was announced. Recently Blizzard encountered a new loss, and a cross realm Raid Finder tool is planned for the next patch. This is the simplest way for Blizzard to keep activities on realms even if the population get lower and lower. There are also clues that makes me think we’ll have a new expansion in less than a year. Extensions make people come back to the game, and keep current players interested in the game.
WoW is on his dying slope. I get that, WoW has to die some day anyway. But thinking about it is still strange. Will WoW stop existing altogether ? Or will it continue with a few irresistible players ? How is it going to impact me ? Will I still be playing at this time ? That’s what Blizzard subscribers number means to me. It means that some day, my favorite game, and almost the only game I really played, will no longer exist. Maybe I’ll even be part of the next subscribers number, as many of my WoW friends plan to play Star War, the Old Republic when it’s going out, and I might very well follow them.