So, the Blizzard opening ceremony’s been and gone.
Immediate conclusions – there was a surprising lack of surprising announcements. The single biggest one was, to my mind, the WoW annual subscription promising both Mists of Pandaria beta access and a free copy of Diablo III. Next to that – well, we already knew about Mists of Pandaria, and that was basically the only other major announcement. Diablo III’s coming – we knew that already. DOTA we already knew about.
Is it me, or are things seeming a bit thin on the ground so far?
I tend to think that the lack of other news may also be driving what news there is – but more on that below…
WoW annual accounts offering Diablo 3 free, Tyrael’s Charger mount, and beta access
It’s pretty clear that Blizzard are worried about the competition coming out in the next 12 months. The amount of swag they’re offering WoW players to sign up to a yearly contract – and guarantee Blizzard’s revenue stream for a year – is absolutely unprecedented.
Looking at the math here, the bundle totals at $50 value for free Diablo III (the average value of a new PC game), plus Tyrael’s Charger (click for full info), which as the new sparklepony would normally sell for $25, plus the Mists of Pandaria beta access. That’s $75 worth of goodies to generate a guaranteed $156 revenue for Blizzard – much of which will be from hardcore WoW players, and hence they’d have been expecting it anyway. Are they desperate?
Well, the question is why they’re offering this. A lot of people are assuming that the main reason is Blizzard’s lack of confidence in WoW’s long-term future – however, I’m not certain that’s the only reason.
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The inclusion of Diablo III is an interesting one. This offer will have a second side-effect – it’ll mean that on day 1 of Diablo III’s launch, there are a huge number of guaranteed players. Subsequently, it’s going to significantly boost D3’s base market – no matter how big the game will be, this offer’s going to significantly swell the first-day purchases.
That’s interesting particularly if Blizz’s main intended revenue stream from Diablo isn’t actually box sales, but the real-money AH. In order to get the AH working, they need as many people in the game on day 1, and subsequently, as possible. It’s the Free-to-play model – but Blizzard can’t release Diablo III free to play.
There are also press angles. This is going to be top of every gaming news site for the next 24 hours. As the SWTOR beta news comes out, they needed something to eclipse that – and with no game announcement coming, and their expansion already leaked, what could they do? Answer – offer an amazing deal that’ll get everyone talking. Talking, that is, about WoW.
No single one of these reasons will have swayed the Blizzard executives’ decision to go ahead with this deal – but combined, they make sense. It’s a darn canny move. Ensure a significant revenue stream from your aging MMO, give your new real-money-trade based game a huge boost, and steal the news cycle, all in a single announcement?
I’m impressed.
Update – It also occurs to me there’s another reason to push for a bunch of annual subs – if the next expansion is considerably further away than expected. In that case, pushing hard to get people locked in and unable to leave until the new expansion pack would be sensible, if mean. We’ll see.
Next up, we’ve got overlapping Blizzard announcements – the new WoW talent system, and the new dungeons and raids. I’ll cover the announcements as soon as they happen – stay tuned.
(I’m also on Twitter all through Blizzcon’s panels.)
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Here’s my reaction to the new race.
He, somebody doesn’t like cuddly pandas. :p
But yeah, all of the news coming out assured me in my decision to stop playing wow for good at the start of this month.
Sadly, the whole thing also means I won’t be playing Diablo III (I loved DII), but oh well, there are still some games left which don’t make me feel dirty after having bought them.
Might as well offer cancer infection in a jar if Blizzard is gonna have lame race as pandas.
I am not sure the previous comments have to do with what was posted.
Anyway I doubt the expansions release is that far away. I would guess they are aiming for 2012 Q2 so June-July. The Beta will be a lot shorter than for Cata (a lot less zones to tested).
Good point about getting D3 a strong showing right off the bat.
A strong reaction was probably predicted before the expansion’s announcement anything which divides the player base in the way this has is actually a good thing. It shows a willingness to take risks. It would have been very easy to put out a predictable expansion. By offering the annual pass deal they will take a lot of us with them when it comes out.
The Diablo 3 inclusion is nothing more than desperation to guarantee at least another year’s worth of subscriptions. I’m sure they’ve done market analysis that says that most MMO players only pay for one subscription based game at a time, and they want to ensure that game is WoW any way that they can. The sure as hell aren’t going to do it with pandas and pokemon, so they dangle the carrot of Diablo III. What they don’t tell you is that in the fine print, you lose your D3 access when you cancel WoW.
It is pretty obvious that they have no faith in the WoW IP anymore, and I know I certainly don’t. From dungeons and dragons to pandas and pokemon. All it is missing is some sort of terrible motion controls and you could port it to the Wii for the kiddies.
Pathetic.
They had better be worried about competition – the entire trade channel in my WoW realm is people deciding what game they are going to ditch WoW for in one month, two months, three months.
just a thought that occured to me – what if they want to go FreeToPlay in Jan? At least until MoP hits? That might give them a reasonable secure player base?
but… just a thought
Rauxis, chosen of CAT
@Rauxis – The same thought had occurred to me: I think it’s unlikely, though. Unless WoW takes a MASSIVE dive for reasons we haven’t yet seen, going F2P would leave a hell of a lot of money on the table at this stage.
I agree with Gazimoff of Mana Obscura that we’re likely to be seeing a move to F2P in about 3 years.
Well one thing is good about the new announcements…it’s got people talking. I find it interesting though how negatively people are taking the new panda race and I’m not sure why. I wonder if it has to do with how our western culture perceives pandas in general…cuddly; cutesy; fat and rolly-polly…not to mention two DreamWorks movies that are very similar (eg. the “Bouncy” racial trait). All of it, in looking ahead, reeks of the Gungans…a race that shot itself in the foot with JarJar Binks. I however, am staying positive. Personally I’m more worried about all the class changes that are occurring than I am about a character that looks like a Panda…I mean seriously, nobody got worked up over the Tuskarr or the Taunka and now people getting angry over petty crap…how about waiting until it comes out before one starts hating!
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