Blizzard Blue Vaneras posted about this on a thread today, saying the following:
“Everything ends, even WoW… So a more suitable question would be “When will WoW end?”… my guess is that it will end when there is no one left playing 
There are lots of cool things in the works for the game in the future, so I personally think WoW has quite a few good years in it still.”
Vaneras has a point. No game, even one as huge and mighty as WoW, will ever live forever.
But what will eventually take down the behemoth? Many cite the graphics as WoW’s biggest issue, and while it is undoubtedly true that newer games such as Borderlands 2, Guild Wars 2 or Final Fantasy have superior graphics engines, Blizzard is working to upgrade WoW’s graphics little by little. Furthermore, WoW has a sort of Disney look to it that has stood the test of eight years fairly well, even if it looks gaudy and dated next to other games, it feels acceptable to those like me who play it. Updated models, which are in the works, will do no harm, though!
Free to play is another widely cited bringer of doom to the popular MMO. Firstly, because of the introduction of several games on alternate financing models that appear far more appealing to the buyer than to WoW. Guild Wars 2, as a fine example, offered an initial purchase of the game, followed by free play for what is thus far an indefinite period. WoW has, so far, weathered that storm, but many more are coming. As we’ve discussed on Legendary a couple of times now, the problem for any new game looking to break into the fantasy MMORPG market is that WoW is already 10 million customers ahead. Yes, it ebbs and flows, the Annual Pass expiry will likely result in some subscriber losses, but the sweep is in on the sub numbers being roughly the same come this quarter’s announcement.
Why wouldn’t WoW go free-to-play? Well, the only people who know the answers to that for sure are the folks at Blizzard. But it seems, for now at least, that the funds required to revamp character models, build more content, and fix all the other issues of the game, are likely to come far more from subscription costs than from initial purchases. Tomorrow, we will see Activision Blizzard’s Q3 results announced, do check back to GAMEBREAKER for discussion on that. Of course, it is possible that corporation issues could herald the end of this popular franchise, with recent attempts to shift shares in Activision Blizzard causing a stir in the markets.
There has been many a rumor circulating that this expansion or that expansion will be WoW’s last. Rob Pardo, Executive Vice President of Game Design at Blizzard, has tweeted recently that the next World of Warcraft expansion will be “amazing”, which, while it’s a big claim, at least reassures players that there is another one coming. It seems likely, and this is supported by Vaneras’ blue post above, that rather than having a cut-off where there are still millions playing but no new content is released, WoW will go down slowly. Vaneras says it will end when nobody is playing it any more. And that seems pretty likely.
What do you think? I’ll leave you with some appropriate words from T.S. Eliot:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Loading ...
