The other never ending story.
Blizzard, well known for making Starcraft, a game at which you cannot win unless you're Korean. The incredibly delayed third part to the Diablo series. And of course, the never ending and "immortal" World of Warcraft. All very interesting feats I understand, but today I will specifically be talking about Warcraft. Why? For the sheer thrill that is incorporated in writing! Or something else that sound less creepy...moving on...
Warcraft's history is pretty much one of constant success, and seeing as it would be a waste of time to make a chart, just imagine the CEO's firing money from literally every orifice. Enough pussy footing around, they make just around(ish) a billion a year, varying slightly from pounds to dollars etc. But deducting the cost of hiring staff and the investing in new projects, not forgetting the cost of Warcraft's servers...I'm not brilliant at maths but they are still certainly in the green with their profits. However I don't even begin to pretend that I know even a quarter of their earnings report and such, I suppose in the grand scheme of this post it is irrelevant to the subject.
Warcraft has even received a bludgeoning from various groups from the religious to the simply outraged parents. Claims that the worshipping of gods or demons or whatever is just wrong. If someone is worshipping a fictional deity from a video game they are beyond help anyway. As for the parents, the complaint that the game has warped your children is just...well isn't it your job to do what is right by your children, not the developers? Either way it's not my place to interject into an argument such as these. Still, live debates like this are as old as the earth, people just like complaining, enough said.
Here comes the part I've been waiting for, I can hardly contain my excitement over the subject. Is The World of Warcraft really dying? A difficult matter to discuss anywhere on the internet. Mainly because nothing is worse than a gamer who thinks his opinion is the ultimate decider, which, let's be honest, is a large sum of people. It is true that Warcraft has been bleeding veteran players, yet each day someone new fills one of those slots. The argument is that the quality of the game has been declining since the expansion Wrath of The Lich King. And then many jumped the band wagon when Blizzard claimed that the changes in the expansion Cataclysm are only critiqued so harshly is because it is just simply too hard for them, and not that they are simply changing the game to suit incompetent minors and the like. Or something along those lines.
Then came The Mists of Pandaria, an expansion featuring Panda's (which to be fair, are an old lore character), an irrefutable Pokémon-esque system and a world which for some reasons reminds me of Spyro, the last one probably just being my imagination. Whilst I lay no claim to know half there is to know about the ins and outs of the expansion, I can say with up most certainty, it is the final nail in the coffin for most of the original Warcraft players.
There is no use in me simply telling you what to think, it is down to you to decide whether Warcraft is heading down a slippery slope of death from which there is no return, or that everything is hunky dory. Either way Blizzard still has a few more inevitable years where the profit margin will be unaffected, beyond that, who knows. Cheers to them all the same, there was a time when I played that game and had a lot of fun, so I kind of have to thank them for that, I guess the old folks have to move on at some point...
P.S. Murgurlurgrlgr!



















