05-16-2007, 02:17 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-16-2007, 02:27 AM by Chesspiece_face.)
Jumping threads and adding to my battle.net 2.0 thoughts. i'm almost positive that this will be announced sometime soon. what exactly it will entail I can't be entirely sure, and i won't say that it will be the only announcement. it may coincide with an announcement for starcraft 2. I also expect that blizzard will take this revamped battle.net and incorporate a lot more web based apps as well as mobile.
edit: also don't throw out the idea of a Starcraft MMO. people always fall back on the fact that blizzard doesn't want to bite into their WoW cash cow. but there are 3 fallacies to this reasoning. first being that gamers really only dedicate themselves to one game of each genre at a time. not meaning one genre like RTS, MMO, or action but genre as in Fantasy, Sci-fi, etc. it is quite possible that by opening up a new MMO blizzard could actually help themselves. they may lose subscribers from WoW but they will just be losing them to another game they make. And this is much better than losing subscribers to other companies games. by creating a couple different MMO's blizzard could essentially sidestep the biggest problem with the MMO market: HUGE turnover. NCsoft already works like this.
this first part feeds directly into #2 and the Battle.net 2.0 idea in that if all these games are built under one umbrella it is very easy for blizzard to create tiered subscription plans. where you can cover all your games at a reduced subscription.
the third reason the "too many MMO" argument doesn't fly is that if they do announce a new MMO this thing isn't going to be hitting the shelves for years. who knows what WoW will look like by then. WoW is doing fantastic, no arguments. but to assume that no other companies are going to come out with great games in the next few years would be suicide. there will be new games. MMO players will jump ship and move to them. blizzard needs to have more MMO plans down the line if it hopes to keep the subscribers coming back.
edit: also don't throw out the idea of a Starcraft MMO. people always fall back on the fact that blizzard doesn't want to bite into their WoW cash cow. but there are 3 fallacies to this reasoning. first being that gamers really only dedicate themselves to one game of each genre at a time. not meaning one genre like RTS, MMO, or action but genre as in Fantasy, Sci-fi, etc. it is quite possible that by opening up a new MMO blizzard could actually help themselves. they may lose subscribers from WoW but they will just be losing them to another game they make. And this is much better than losing subscribers to other companies games. by creating a couple different MMO's blizzard could essentially sidestep the biggest problem with the MMO market: HUGE turnover. NCsoft already works like this.
this first part feeds directly into #2 and the Battle.net 2.0 idea in that if all these games are built under one umbrella it is very easy for blizzard to create tiered subscription plans. where you can cover all your games at a reduced subscription.
the third reason the "too many MMO" argument doesn't fly is that if they do announce a new MMO this thing isn't going to be hitting the shelves for years. who knows what WoW will look like by then. WoW is doing fantastic, no arguments. but to assume that no other companies are going to come out with great games in the next few years would be suicide. there will be new games. MMO players will jump ship and move to them. blizzard needs to have more MMO plans down the line if it hopes to keep the subscribers coming back.