BusinessWeek inside the world of Blizzard
by Michael Gray 
Aug 25th 2008 at 2:00PM
BusinessWeek spent some time examining the indisputable success of our Blizzard overlords. At the very beginning of the article, BusinessWeek credits Blizzard's mastery of gaming to the often-spoken, often-hated "when it's ready." In a quote from Jay Wilson, Blizzard says that if "a product isn't good enough, we cancel it."
The BusinessWeek article talks a lot about the overwhelmingly involved culture of Blizzard employees. The developers play their own games, both on the clock and off the clock. Dedicated "strike teams" spend lunch cruising the games' latest builds. Players in beta provide instant feedback, which executives and designers hungrily consume to make the best possible decisions. And if a game isn't deemed "fun enough," it's sent off to black-can land, where it will never see the light of day.
According to the article, though, Blizzard still plans on releasing a new expansion every year. This is in addition to Starcraft II and Diablo III. While we can obviously expect these games to show up "when they're ready," it paints a very active, competitive future for the Activision Blizzard group. The article does credit a new milestone for our beloved World of Warcraft. According to BusinessWeek, the subscriber base is now nearly 11 million. With the Recruit-a-Friend benefits, I hope we see this number grow to 12 million by the end of the year.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items, Expansions
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Nick S Aug 25th 2008 2:08PM
new expansion every year!? somehow i'd missed this news.
wrath is old news! time to talk about... umm... return of the lich king?
Saelorn Aug 25th 2008 2:12PM
Is that 11 million players or 11 million accounts? Is that including only active accounts?
Tridus Aug 25th 2008 2:17PM
Blizzard's numbers are based on active (IE: first 30 days with a boxed copy, or current paid for subscription) accounts. Trial accounts and cancelled ones aren't included (but 'cancelled' acutally means paid time is up).
What bugs me about recruit a friend is that as far as I can tell, far more people are using it to create second accounts to level alts faster (and get a special mount) then actual new people are signing up for the game.
vlad Aug 25th 2008 3:22PM
blizz announced milestones every 90 days. its last however was 11 million over 220 days ago. wow stopped growing.
wowcensus puts the count for total characters at 6,846,029
and that includes alts and banks and trial accounts etc for eu and north america.
its not accurate but at least when blizz announced it had 11 million subscribers wow census showed about 13 million characters.
do the math.
blizz is in panic mode. hence recruit a friend, no press releases on milestones, hurried progress in LK and the most obvious is "when its ready" is not as used as it used to be. they are more interactive with the population as far as the progress.
Pzychotix Aug 25th 2008 4:34PM
PROTIP: Over half of the WoW market is contained within Asia alone. WoWcensus does not take data from Asia. You do the math.
Rihlsul Aug 25th 2008 2:25PM
Many, many of my guildmates are using the RAF opportunity to try out dual boxing. So, bet on that 12 million, even though I doubt it'll be NEW accounts by NEW players, just new accounts by existing players.
J. A. S. Aug 25th 2008 2:34PM
>I hope we see this number grow to 12 million by the end of the year.
Why? You get kickbacks?
my2cents Aug 25th 2008 6:25PM
Well, the more successful WoW continues to be, the longer it's likely to be around with new content being added for those of us who would like to experience the game for years to come. So I'm always happy to hear about them doing well. Until Sargeras lays dead in front of me, I demand more expansions! =P
Nith Aug 25th 2008 2:34PM
For players those 'total' numbers do not matter, it's not like all of them are on the same server.
Those numbers are for business and economical assessments and hence like Tridus said they count accounts with paid subscriptions. So from that perspective it doesnt matter whether that is 11 million players; it is 11 million payed accounts.
About the whole expansion once a year, knowing blizzard, it wont happen. At best well see them every year and a half or so. Well know they will be released only "when it's ready".
Iwanttobeasleep Aug 25th 2008 3:06PM
"Some fans howled at Diablo III's public unveiling, complaining that the art direction too closely resembled that of World of Warcraft. The flap, to which designers quickly responded with an open letter explaining their choices, is evidence that Blizzard could yet stumble."
Yeah, no. That's a few nutters not getting how video games work--a few nutters who will buy the game anyway. If the game was met with apathy that's one thing, but every game gets people complaining, that's no indication that the game will "stumble" or suffer in any way.
Other than that, the article was good! A little shallow, but that's to be expected since its directed at people who don't know the industry.
dotorion Aug 25th 2008 3:31PM
As long as we have enough time to "finish" content from an expansion, and the quality of the next won't be endangered to meet the "must release new expansion this year" feeling, I don't mind.
But i prefer quality over quantity. Would rather have an expansion every two years if it means they're better designed.
Illirien Aug 25th 2008 3:59PM
I'm so tired of people being upset by Blizzard saying something will be done when it's ready. Why do people think they have some right to know when something will be done in the first place? Believe me people, your curiosity is not the center of the universe, and settling for something made on a deadline instead of made to meet quality is just sad.
Kassu Aug 25th 2008 5:00PM
I wonder where they'll take the lore in future expansions.
In WOTLK, there will be a fight against one of the Old Gods and Arthas, but what next?
Deathwing? All the other Old Gods? Sargeras? The best weapon will be Gorshalach?
Encounters as epic at these would be hard to top, making the rest of the world's high level instances completely obsolete, so if you thought that the death of Molten Core etc was bad, wait until Arthas is being solo-farmed for Frostmourne...