Q&A:
How successful was/is the Blizzard’s moneymaker “World of Warcraft”?
World of Warcraft was one of the most commercially successful and profitable games of 2012. The game still has almost 10 million people paying to play each month.
What do people generally think about Blizzard’s success?
A lot of people attribute Blizzard’s success to the spark of genius in its creators’ minds, but the 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration rule still applies. This means that the success was largely the result of hard work, rather than an inspired flash of insight.
What is the recipe for Blizzard’s ongoing success?
Even after 8 years since the launch of the game, the changes being made to World of Warcraft are still incredibly fundamental and moreover, continue to be aimed at making the game more accessible and more appealing to casual audiences. Blizzard probably has more data about what players actually do in their game than any other developer on earth. Blizzard use that data as a feedback from players to gradually hone and refine the game so that it gets closer and closer to that ideal system. After 8 years, you might expect that a process of data-based refinement would have narrowed down to tiny tweaks - as indeed has been the case in the majority of other online games that have run for more than a few years. Instead, Blizzard use that data to suggest and implement entirely new approaches, allowing it to keep the game experience fresh and challenging.
What is the biggest difference in Blizzard’s thinking?
The biggest difference in Blizzard’s thinking is that it sees successful game as a moving target, and uses data to allow it to make bigger gambles and more drastic changes, in contrast to developers who view maintaining a game as a process of refinement and feature accretion. Blizzard isn't just a development legend because it makes amazing games; it’s a development legend because it has learned who its customers are and how to make them satisfied and happy.
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| wowwiki.com |
Did the release of similar games and the entrance of more firms impact the popularity of the game or did its cult like following keep it strong? After the success of WOW did Blizzard edit their other games to match the style of W.O.W. in order to improve sales?
ReplyDeleteI like how the picture explains what Blizzard is because by just reading the blog post you do not say that Blizzard is an entertainment company in charge of W.O.W.. I think you should explain how W.O.W is different from other games more thoroughly, so we understand why it is better and makes more money.
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ReplyDeleteI like the Q&A format-it makes the main ideas easy to follow. You might want to consider citing an article or two to give more credibility to your argument.
ReplyDeleteAccording to what I know, Blizzard also have several other successful game aside from World of Warcraft, such as Heroes of the Storm and Starcraft II. I think instead of focusing WoW as example, you can also use other games created by Blizzard to expand your blogpost.
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