Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

Re:Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active player... by AmVess on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @08:31PM (#27057718)

The monetization in WoW is pretty invisible. Many games have a core of players who love playing no matter what and don't mind buying whatever new thing pops up on the store.

Everquest 2 is such a game. It is basically dead in terms of attracting new players, but people who love playing it have been keeping the parent company afloat for a while. IIRC, WoW and EQ2 came out at the same time. I can easily see Blizzard having the same fate in the not too distant future.

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Re:Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active player... by hnick on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @10:27PM (#27058482)

Well the monthly sub is quite clear, as well as paid expansions. Which I'm a fan of (I play FFXIV a bit). Otherwise, there's no clear price signal.

In f2p or bolted on cash shops like FFXIV I'm always wondering, should I buy some mtx? I don't really want to encourage them too much. I don't know what is reasonable to spend to keep the game afloat, I don't want to feel like a leech, but I really have no interest in cosmetics. I don't know if buying or not buying sends a stronger signal to them to spend more effort on mtx rather than the game - sometimes it just seems like all roads lead that way.

FFXI is in a similar state to EQ2 I'd guess, it only has the monthly sub but a really hardcore base who's still there (or dips their toes back in like I did for a bit) after all these years. It still gets minor monthly updates and probably has a nice ROI for the effort.

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