Untill subscribtions start to fall or theres some 1 who even comes close to challenging WoW, Blizzard would be dumb to change the game, if it aint broken dont fix it. Their #1 goal as it is for ALL companies is to make money.
Blizz have released 12 free content updates for WoW (pre-TBC): www.wow-europe.com/en/info/underdev/implemented/index.html these include 7 new dungeons, new quests, new skills/talents, new iteme/gear, new world bosess, class revamps, new battle grounds, PvP changes, world events, UI tweaks, Weather effects, zone revamps and more.
For my money I get a very active game with bi-monthly content updates... I think thats a good deal, by the end of the month we'll have our first TBC content update.
Stop compairing AC1's content adding to WoW. AC1's world map was so simplistic and unreal that they added new content by simply making a new purple portal in the middle of the desert that teleported you to a new 6 room dungeon that was beaten in most months in a record 30 minutes by groups. WoW has a more realistic world where if they want to add something they have to change the map or use what is already there to create the new content. They do not just make portal and dungeons that probably take a programer 1 hour to create and add. You can not compair the depth of detail that Blizzard adds to dungeons and such that AC1 would put in. Blizzard make a new weapon they design a new weapon Turbin would create a new weapon by taking an old and adjusting the stats. If you want Blizzard to dumb down like that they could create content just like Turbin. Here is your portal to the new uber dungeon that does not really fit into the world.
Very little of what Turbine create was enjoyable for more than 30 minutes each month.
Stop compairing AC1's content adding to WoW. AC1's world map was so simplistic and unreal that they added new content by simply making a new purple portal in the middle of the desert that teleported you to a new 6 room dungeon that was beaten in most months in a record 30 minutes by groups. WoW has a more realistic world where if they want to add something they have to change the map or use what is already there to create the new content. They do not just make portal and dungeons that probably take a programer 1 hour to create and add. You can not compair the depth of detail that Blizzard adds to dungeons and such that AC1 would put in. Blizzard make a new weapon they design a new weapon Turbin would create a new weapon by taking an old and adjusting the stats. If you want Blizzard to dumb down like that they could create content just like Turbin. Here is your portal to the new uber dungeon that does not really fit into the world. Very little of what Turbine create was enjoyable for more than 30 minutes each month.
Thats a good point and goes with my quality vs quantitiy argument, how much play time do you get out of the updates?
WoW updates last far longer than any AC1, for example it took my guild over 2 months to clear Zul'gurub (20man dungeon), From what ive read of AC1 update content will last about a week.
Take Zul'gurub (patch 1.7) again blizz created a huge outside dungeon (20man), created 8 NEW bosses, not rehash or enlarged mobs, but 8 new models with all the polish WoW is renowned for, add to that a handf full of new weapon and armour models, add that the the reputation system for ZG...along wth the dungeon a small island off the coast of STV was created with NPC that sold all kind of things (depending on your ZG reputation), from weapons to crafting recipies and a handful of quests.
Also in that patch was a new battle ground, the dressing room UI feature, new weekly fishing event.
You keep bitching about the math, but I don't see anyone providing any other numbers.
We've got all these people with opinions... let's see some reasonable math and let's get a few good numbers so we can accurately discuss this issue in plain light.
There is nothing more to discuss. This is not even a topic. As someone pointed out on page 2, WoW was not ment to be innovative. It was ment to simply be a mmorpg that was as fun as possible, and as un-fun as little. Part of Blizzard's definition of fun was no death penalty, easy quick leveling, extreem ease of finding quests (take that EQ!), TONs and TONs of underwater adventures! (Many mmorpgs have water but nothing under it = waste of geography!). And much, much, more fun things! Many of which no other mmorpg has, or is even planning to have.
More of Blizzard's definition of fun comes from what made the Diablo games insanely fun. They took much content from the Diablo games and imported it into a mmorpg. WoW is Blizzard's game, and they can do anything, or not do anything, they want with it. And there is nothing wrong with either choice they make.
Originally posted by cupertino Untill subscribtions start to fall or theres some 1 who even comes close to challenging WoW, Blizzard would be dumb to change the game, if it aint broken dont fix it. Their #1 goal as it is for ALL companies is to make money.Blizz have released 12 free content updates for WoW (pre-TBC): www.wow-europe.com/en/info/underdev/implemented/index.html these include 7 new dungeons, new quests, new skills/talents, new iteme/gear, new world bosess, class revamps, new battle grounds, PvP changes, world events, UI tweaks, Weather effects, zone revamps and more.For my money I get a very active game with bi-monthly content updates... I think thats a good deal, by the end of the month we'll have our first TBC content update.
I won't argue your dungeons point, despite them coming out over a year after release. AQ20 and especially ZG were good improvements when we finally got them.
-New quests: Having sunk almost 3000 hours into WoW, I'm scratching real hard here trying to come up with new quests that weren't related to new instances. Silithus? Is that really what prompts this 'category' of new content? More Kill X, bring Y items.
-New skills/talents: While I'll leave the heavy debate to the WoW forums, but when exactly did these new skills and talents change anything? First of all, new skills were not implemented. SOME new talents were and SOME talents were a skill. Second of all, the food chain was never disturbed by talents/new spells. Mages were casting frostbolt on day one, mages are still casting frostbolt today. I'm not arguing that it's bad, but if you want to bring up points about 'new content' atleast let it not be fodder.
-new items/gear: So... to continue the trend of listing things multiple times with different names: Talents bring new spells. Instances bring new armor. Class revamps bring new talents. Battle grounds -> pvp changes. We get it. Stop listing items multiple times under different names. The fact that you have to do this might make you wonder wether you really got new content.
-New battlegrounds: Granted. Battlegrounds were not in the game and implemented a whole new aspect to the game... while killing world pvp. But that last bit is personal frustration.
-World events: never heard of em.
-new world bosses: shitty loot. Fights are easily screwed up, hardly considered worth the effort by ALL.
-UI tweaks, weather, 'zone revamps': Don't consider the first two as content and a few areas of a couple zones were made easier.
So let's recap, should you have tried to be honest, your list would have looked like this:
"...these include 7 new dungeons, new talents, new battle grounds and what goes with them"
Now take this with a grain of salt. I understand that cutting your list down to 3 elements doesn't necessarily give proper credit. You could easily argue how much there is to do leveling your first 60 or your second one. But when discussing new content, 2 years down the line you stop telling yourself you live in the best of worlds possible and start to wonder what exactly you log in for. Raids, BGs, occasional talent tweak.
Now the obvious thing to add here is that they just released an expansion but we'll revisit threads like these in a couple months to have the same discussion. A whole new continent and 50 other things to go along with it and yet the WoW forums still show that people are only logging in when it's time to raid or when it's time to pvp.
3. Blizzard needs to keep some of the money for themself, why? because otherwise it would fail as a company, EVERY company wants to make money for themself, not just blizzard so dont drag them down and call them greedy bastard because they are rich, we could say that even worse about microsoft and bill gates then.
Amen Andorae About your point #3 It's funny that people are so quick to jump to conclusions about businesses without ever really KNOWING how a business works. Funny how I know for a fact that, not only Bill Gates, tons of other companies have either A) open their own charity foundation (the Gates foundation) or have given money to charity foundations (my company gave thousands of dollars to Katrina victims and we're a small-medium sized company) and YET, somehow, according to the misinformed customers, all companies are run by greedy fat cats that have no redeemable value, when the fact is usually quite the opposite. Funny thing though, I've noticed that it's usually (notice I said USUALLY because this is not always the case) that it's the CUSTOMER that is the greedy/needy bastard because they want everything done THEIR way no matter WHAT it takes, and they don't even bother to take into account the bigger picture (in other words, they want a product to do extraordinary things, without even bothering to wonder whether the technology used to make the product can even do what the customer is asking for)
No, I'm not trying to defend ALL companies, as I am well aware of companies that do have unethical practices. However, this does not mean that the customer doesn't do/ask for pretty ridiculous stuff, then make accusations because the company won't/can't give them what they want.
I don't think you realize that making this game didn't cost more than 100 million.
Regardless of the figures, the biggest issue is the money being made and how much publicity the entire thing is getting.
The most important thing you can get from understanding this is that there will be TONS and TONS of clones.
>>>>EVERY company wants to make money for themself, not just blizzard so dont drag them down and call them greedy bastard because they are rich, we could say that even worse about microsoft and bill gates then.<<<<
In my eyes, every company is greedy and every wealthy person that doesn't do something good for humanity is scum of the earth.
It's for this reason I will continue to run people who drive expensive cars off the road.
Now you know why I carry a crowbar...
HAH! This post alone shows your obvious lack of knowledge of how businesses work. Remember, it's a BUSINESS that's giving YOU, your paycheck so you can continue living your lifestyle. Please refrain from making ignorant statements so you can at least save what little dignity/respect you have left
above all else i know that it will be FUN, and thats what i play for.
Oh yeah, I forgot... life is about happiness and fun.
Did it ever occur to anyone that maybe we're here to continue the evolution of the human species, not to have fun and happiness?
By the same point, we should be continuing the evolution of the genre...not succumbing to the lower reptilian brain that seeks only to find enjoyment and satisfaction.
----
You've got a world full of Christians who are expansionistic and preach their faith, and yet none of them follow the path that their lord, Jesus Christ set for them by example. Instead all they think about is fun, happiness and going to heaven. This is also why no one gives a damn about global warming, these people think this world doesn't matter, that god will take care of everything.
I got news for you, when you die, that's it, game over. Do what you can for the world, so your children and grandchildren and future generations can enjoy the things that you either A) turned down, or take for granted. This includes fresh water, clean air, animals and rain forests, among everything else.Whether or not the MMO genre grows and evolves is NOT WoW's prerogative, nor is it THEIR fault that a bunch of unoriginal hack companies decide to copy WoW instead of making their own original MMO. So don't point the finger at Blizzard for something that wasn't their goal to begin with. If you want to blame someone, blame SOE for messing up SWG because THEY (not blizzard) wanted to make a WoW clone, blame LOTRO (again, not blizzard) for choosing a UI similar to WoW's. Blizzard should, if anything, get merit for making MMO's finally more enjoyable for the rest of the masses, rather than being a massive grind fest to level cap.
I don't think you realize that making this game didn't cost more than 100 million.
Regardless of the figures, the biggest issue is the money being made and how much publicity the entire thing is getting.
The most important thing you can get from understanding this is that there will be TONS and TONS of clones.
>>>>EVERY company wants to make money for themself, not just blizzard so dont drag them down and call them greedy bastard because they are rich, we could say that even worse about microsoft and bill gates then.<<<<
In my eyes, every company is greedy and every wealthy person that doesn't do something good for humanity is scum of the earth.
It's for this reason I will continue to run people who drive expensive cars off the road.
Now you know why I carry a crowbar...
So you have a problem with your perception of greed, and then only by making a rash observation you advocate violence against someone. Congrats fuckstick. For all you know they may have been driving to make a donation to a worthy cause. You wanna talk about people who you perceive to have problems but admit to having some issues yourself. Talk about pot calling the kettle black.
-New quests: Having sunk almost 3000 hours into WoW, I'm scratching real hard here trying to come up with new quests that weren't related to new instances. Silithus? Is that really what prompts this 'category' of new content? More Kill X, bring Y items. HA! and what do you expect? You think other MMO's don't have "Kill X amount of this and bring back Y amount of that?" don't get me started boy. If there's anything I've noticed about ALL MMO's (not just WoW) is that they all share common types of quests: a) Kill X amount of this, followed by, bring back Y amount of that b) escort person X to place Y I can't remember what the 3rd category of quests is, I'm sure I'll remember soon though. But it doesn't change the fact that ALL MMO's have this and they will use them either on the already finalized product, or in live events -new items/gear: So... to continue the trend of listing things multiple times with different names: Talents bring new spells. Instances bring new armor. Class revamps bring new talents. Battle grounds -> pvp changes. We get it. Stop listing items multiple times under different names. The fact that you have to do this might make you wonder wether you really got new content. Oh please! Again, what MMO today doesn't do this? I have seen this numerous times in EQ, FFXI and more, where all they do is they grab a current item, dress it up a bit, change the stats and then they give it a name of "X of light" -New battlegrounds: Granted. Battlegrounds were not in the game and implemented a whole new aspect to the game... while killing world pvp. But that last bit is personal frustration. -World events: never heard of em. Oh? and what do you call the Darkmoon faire? what about the seasonal events? We just recently got another event going on as well, and I know I've seen other NPC's advertising other events, I just didn't bother with them since I was busy finishing quests, but they were there nonetheless. Just because they're not the type of epic live events you want, doesn't mean they're not there. -new world bosses: shitty loot. Fights are easily screwed up, hardly considered worth the effort by ALL. You mean for those that only want the Uber gear right? Some of us do dungeons and boss fights for the fun of it, heck some of us RP! I'm sure you've heard of it right? Who said you need the Dev's to do the RP events for you? Would you like them to hand you everything and take you by the hand too?
Ok, so lesee... bad maths aside, yes. they've earnt ALOT of money on this.... they have stable servers and regular maintnace, they have the _neccesary_ support.. errr... well by that I mean you may eventually get a reply to what you ask about... eventually.... but hey.. their subscriber numbers just keeps growing, so why should they waste more money then necesary on something that has about 6mill fanboys/addicts to cheer them on and say hurray hurray 4evah n000bz...
it's all business to them... and as long as they keep a steady income, why'd they wanna change that?
and regarding the EQ clone point.. you can say and say on and on that you want something different... I enjoyed Ryzom, Ryzom is different.. and yet most people that tried it complained that it didn't follow the normal mmo rules :P think it through turoughly what you REALLY want, and wether that's possible with todays online/gaming community, I did, and I realised that I'm likely to never see the perfect mmorpg as I want it... It'd haveto be a invite only mmorpg that put you through a iq test (well maybe not that harsh) first I think :P
my two fhaad
*hugs from lil me*
*Brain down for upgrade, don't try to understand my logic, I don't...*
EBITA is an acronym that refers to a company's earnings before the deduction of interest, tax and amortization expenses. See EBITDA. It is a financial indicator used widely as a measure of efficiency and profitability. EBITA margins in developing telecom markets can be as high as 60%, but margins vary greatly across industries and over time.
-> Revenue
Revenue is a U.S. business term for the amount of money that a company receives from its activities in a given period, mostly from sales of products and/or services to customers. It is not to be confused with the terms "profits" or "net income" which generally mean total revenue less total expenses in a given period. In Europe (including the UK) the term is turnover. For individuals, the equivalent term is income. For government, revenues refers to the gross proceeds received from taxes, fees, and the like. For non-profit organizations, revenue from products and services can be expanded to include proceeds from donations, grants, trade in lieu of cash, and other liquid assets.
The only thing I think actually makes sense here is production of new content vs revenues. However, if that is the case, people could just unsubscribe. As long as they're pleasing their users enough to keep paying, they aren't going to do a hell of a lot extra. If people want more out of them, they should demand it. And if they don't get it, they should stop giving Blizzard money until they do something new.
So what if they made a lot while not being innovative? They wouldn't have if people hadn't wanted to play non-innovating games. Hating Blizzard because their user base doesn't really give rats ass that some other MMO players have done the same things WoW does since EQ is nonsensical.
Innovation is overrated if the game is buggy, boring mess with no actual content. That pretty much sums up every Innovative game out there so far. They're all messes. I'd rather have a fun game that works, has LOADS of content and offers exactly what people have been asking for, FOR YEARS. Innovation comes in many forms. Implementing a whole slew of ideas and concepts from different MMORPGs in one working FUN package is about as innovative as it gets. Doing it right for once is innovative.
Fantastic implementation beats lousy innovation any day of the week. It seems 8+ million people agree;) We're all still waiting for something NEW, innovative, fun and working.
He makes a great point, since I know people who work with Blizzard, they tell me that the even though they are paid half decent, Blizzard is a big business and are sucking up money left and right, if you look at the way the stocks shot up, if Blizzard invested in their own stocks as well as making their own money, they would have multi-billions income, thats taking away employee payments, server maintenence, Blizzard has been sued over thousands of times due to prices and ripping off employees, they are the same way Wal-Mart works, they have different levels of employment, GM's in the game, 50% of them arent paid and are only doing it for fun, but are still legit people. According to a their financial statements last quater their income was mainly from subscriptions and it was in the 3 billions range, they spend less then 2 millions paying employees, and less then 15 millions keeping every server maintained, apparently TBC wasnt even a billion dollar project, so if they are making almost 9 billion dollars a year, income, with the current amount of customers, so they prolly were making somewhere around hundreds of millions of dollars before but are now at the point in which their income is greatly overcomming their outcome.
And no offense but look at the way WoW is working out now, its lost little under a million players with TBC, they are losing money left and right, due to all these kids who are fat, and sueing, remember that just because a company has billions doesnt mean they arent giving back, Blizzard holds conventions that are millions of dollars to hold, but either way Blizzard could easily reduce their monthly price to 5 dollars and still do fine, they wont be all driving escalades but hey atleast they help out their young audience who is the most abundant in their world.
Welcome to the World of Business- WOW makes money off you, WoW uses money for food, you suffer.
Dunno if it hasnt been said before but Blizzard sure as hell isnt making billions of cash. Most of the money goes straight to Vivendis pocket so that they can pay off debts to companies they owe. WoW is pretty much Vivendis only stable cash cow so they are milking all the cash out of it that they can.
Comments
Blizz have released 12 free content updates for WoW (pre-TBC): www.wow-europe.com/en/info/underdev/implemented/index.html these include 7 new dungeons, new quests, new skills/talents, new iteme/gear, new world bosess, class revamps, new battle grounds, PvP changes, world events, UI tweaks, Weather effects, zone revamps and more.
For my money I get a very active game with bi-monthly content updates... I think thats a good deal, by the end of the month we'll have our first TBC content update.
Stop compairing AC1's content adding to WoW. AC1's world map was so simplistic and unreal that they added new content by simply making a new purple portal in the middle of the desert that teleported you to a new 6 room dungeon that was beaten in most months in a record 30 minutes by groups. WoW has a more realistic world where if they want to add something they have to change the map or use what is already there to create the new content. They do not just make portal and dungeons that probably take a programer 1 hour to create and add. You can not compair the depth of detail that Blizzard adds to dungeons and such that AC1 would put in. Blizzard make a new weapon they design a new weapon Turbin would create a new weapon by taking an old and adjusting the stats. If you want Blizzard to dumb down like that they could create content just like Turbin. Here is your portal to the new uber dungeon that does not really fit into the world.
Very little of what Turbine create was enjoyable for more than 30 minutes each month.
WoW updates last far longer than any AC1, for example it took my guild over 2 months to clear Zul'gurub (20man dungeon), From what ive read of AC1 update content will last about a week.
Take Zul'gurub (patch 1.7) again blizz created a huge outside dungeon (20man), created 8 NEW bosses, not rehash or enlarged mobs, but 8 new models with all the polish WoW is renowned for, add to that a handf full of new weapon and armour models, add that the the reputation system for ZG...along wth the dungeon a small island off the coast of STV was created with NPC that sold all kind of things (depending on your ZG reputation), from weapons to crafting recipies and a handful of quests.
Also in that patch was a new battle ground, the dressing room UI feature, new weekly fishing event.
There is nothing more to discuss. This is not even a topic. As someone pointed out on page 2, WoW was not ment to be innovative. It was ment to simply be a mmorpg that was as fun as possible, and as un-fun as little. Part of Blizzard's definition of fun was no death penalty, easy quick leveling, extreem ease of finding quests (take that EQ!), TONs and TONs of underwater adventures! (Many mmorpgs have water but nothing under it = waste of geography!). And much, much, more fun things! Many of which no other mmorpg has, or is even planning to have.
More of Blizzard's definition of fun comes from what made the Diablo games insanely fun. They took much content from the Diablo games and imported it into a mmorpg. WoW is Blizzard's game, and they can do anything, or not do anything, they want with it. And there is nothing wrong with either choice they make.
I won't argue your dungeons point, despite them coming out over a year after release. AQ20 and especially ZG were good improvements when we finally got them.
-New quests: Having sunk almost 3000 hours into WoW, I'm scratching real hard here trying to come up with new quests that weren't related to new instances. Silithus? Is that really what prompts this 'category' of new content? More Kill X, bring Y items.
-New skills/talents: While I'll leave the heavy debate to the WoW forums, but when exactly did these new skills and talents change anything? First of all, new skills were not implemented. SOME new talents were and SOME talents were a skill. Second of all, the food chain was never disturbed by talents/new spells. Mages were casting frostbolt on day one, mages are still casting frostbolt today. I'm not arguing that it's bad, but if you want to bring up points about 'new content' atleast let it not be fodder.
-new items/gear: So... to continue the trend of listing things multiple times with different names: Talents bring new spells. Instances bring new armor. Class revamps bring new talents. Battle grounds -> pvp changes. We get it. Stop listing items multiple times under different names. The fact that you have to do this might make you wonder wether you really got new content.
-New battlegrounds: Granted. Battlegrounds were not in the game and implemented a whole new aspect to the game... while killing world pvp. But that last bit is personal frustration.
-World events: never heard of em.
-new world bosses: shitty loot. Fights are easily screwed up, hardly considered worth the effort by ALL.
-UI tweaks, weather, 'zone revamps': Don't consider the first two as content and a few areas of a couple zones were made easier.
So let's recap, should you have tried to be honest, your list would have looked like this:
"...these include 7 new dungeons, new talents, new battle grounds and what goes with them"
Now take this with a grain of salt. I understand that cutting your list down to 3 elements doesn't necessarily give proper credit. You could easily argue how much there is to do leveling your first 60 or your second one. But when discussing new content, 2 years down the line you stop telling yourself you live in the best of worlds possible and start to wonder what exactly you log in for. Raids, BGs, occasional talent tweak.
Now the obvious thing to add here is that they just released an expansion but we'll revisit threads like these in a couple months to have the same discussion. A whole new continent and 50 other things to go along with it and yet the WoW forums still show that people are only logging in when it's time to raid or when it's time to pvp.
Amen Andorae
About your point #3 It's funny that people are so quick to jump to conclusions about businesses without ever really KNOWING how a business works. Funny how I know for a fact that, not only Bill Gates, tons of other companies have either A) open their own charity foundation (the Gates foundation) or 
have given money to charity foundations (my company gave thousands of dollars to Katrina victims and we're a small-medium sized company) and YET, somehow, according to the misinformed customers, all companies are run by greedy fat cats that have no redeemable value, when the fact is usually quite the opposite. Funny thing though, I've noticed that it's usually (notice I said USUALLY because this is not always the case) that it's the CUSTOMER that is the greedy/needy bastard because they want everything done THEIR way no matter WHAT it takes, and they don't even bother to take into account the bigger picture (in other words, they want a product to do extraordinary things, without even bothering to wonder whether the technology used to make the product can even do what the customer is asking for)
No, I'm not trying to defend ALL companies, as I am well aware of companies that do have unethical practices. However, this does not mean that the customer doesn't do/ask for pretty ridiculous stuff, then make accusations because the company won't/can't give them what they want.
Did it ever occur to anyone that maybe we're here to continue the evolution of the human species, not to have fun and happiness?
By the same point, we should be continuing the evolution of the genre...not succumbing to the lower reptilian brain that seeks only to find enjoyment and satisfaction.
----
You've got a world full of Christians who are expansionistic and preach their faith, and yet none of them follow the path that their lord, Jesus Christ set for them by example. Instead all they think about is fun, happiness and going to heaven. This is also why no one gives a damn about global warming, these people think this world doesn't matter, that god will take care of everything.
I got news for you, when you die, that's it, game over. Do what you can for the world, so your children and grandchildren and future generations can enjoy the things that you either A) turned down, or
acually, who cares how much money they are makeing, good for them, lets give them a big hand...
im just pissed cause i didnt think about it first
it's all business to them... and as long as they keep a steady income, why'd they wanna change that?
and regarding the EQ clone point.. you can say and say on and on that you want something different... I enjoyed Ryzom, Ryzom is different.. and yet most people that tried it complained that it didn't follow the normal mmo rules :P think it through turoughly what you REALLY want, and wether that's possible with todays online/gaming community, I did, and I realised that I'm likely to never see the perfect mmorpg as I want it... It'd haveto be a invite only mmorpg that put you through a iq test (well maybe not that harsh) first I think :P
my two fhaad
*hugs from lil me*
*Brain down for upgrade, don't try to understand my logic, I don't...*
-> EBITA
-> Revenue
The only thing I think actually makes sense here is production of new content vs revenues. However, if that is the case, people could just unsubscribe. As long as they're pleasing their users enough to keep paying, they aren't going to do a hell of a lot extra. If people want more out of them, they should demand it. And if they don't get it, they should stop giving Blizzard money until they do something new.
So what if they made a lot while not being innovative? They wouldn't have if people hadn't wanted to play non-innovating games. Hating Blizzard because their user base doesn't really give rats ass that some other MMO players have done the same things WoW does since EQ is nonsensical.
Fantastic implementation beats lousy innovation any day of the week. It seems 8+ million people agree;) We're all still waiting for something NEW, innovative, fun and working.
And no offense but look at the way WoW is working out now, its lost little under a million players with TBC, they are losing money left and right, due to all these kids who are fat, and sueing, remember that just because a company has billions doesnt mean they arent giving back, Blizzard holds conventions that are millions of dollars to hold, but either way Blizzard could easily reduce their monthly price to 5 dollars and still do fine, they wont be all driving escalades but hey atleast they help out their young audience who is the most abundant in their world.
Welcome to the World of Business- WOW makes money off you, WoW uses money for food, you suffer.