Feasibility and Monetization. A treatise on Legacy servers owned by Blizzard

[TheGroxEmpire]

When watching videos about this yesterday, I found myself asking a few questions. What if Blizzard opened legacy servers and they were successful? What if those legacy servers were more popular than the "main game"? What sort of image would that project?

You know what will happen? Worse than today, Blizz will find main game 'less profitable' and they abandon WoW Progressive lore to static PVP and PVE game. I really wish it wont happen

[TheGroxEmpire]

Well if a group of individuals can develope and run a private server for absolutely no charge (other than unpredictable assets from individual donations), then you would expect a multimillion dollar company should be able to pull through. Blizzard also sits on a vast library of data, archives and analyses from the time of the expansions in question, so they would certainly be better equipted to deal with it than private servers can.




Same as any other expansions. In fact, it would be even less of a gamble than to develope a whole new game because statistics from pirvate servers has already proven that the market does exists, and that there is an unquestionable high demand from potentional customers. It also wouldnt cost the company much as they already sit on the archives necessary, not to mention the millions of dollars ready to fund this relatively light project.



Right now the retail version is suffering from a steady decrease of subscriptions, that fact alone should be alarming enough and promote ideas of changes and radical decisions to be made. Warlords of Draenor saw a suddent surge of sales, but subscriptions soon continued to fall, and ever more drastically.
If the upcoming Legion expansions pack shows the same pattern, then Blizzard should seriously start considering other alternatives.

One fact is true, players do choose private servers because they are free of charge, but players tend to also show very little reluctance to pay for something if it comes in good value. The main reason why subscriptions in WoW retail is dropping isnt primarly because of a tough economic situation from individual players, but because players feel that the value of the game doesnt hold up to the money it demands.
Private servers are often buggy, or has some sort of customization (donation for better gear etc), or unrelyable connection and database. If Blizzard would make a legacy server, one that is completely in blizz standards, bug free, little connection/server issues, and completely true to its retail standards and settings (not to mention safe), then I think even players from Private servers would certainly feel tempted to join.




A Legacy pack could be released in the same fashion as an expansion pack, and sold in the store. This would increase profit likewise a new expansion would, and could definetly help bringing up subscriptions, and prevent the spreading of private servers.

I envision the game to be held in seperate discs, but sold in a collective expansion pack.
Example:

World of Warcraft Legacy: Legends of Lore
Release date: 2017,
This expansion pack features 3 discs: Vanilla WoW. The Burning Crusade. The Wrath Of The Lich King.

World of Warcraft Legacy: Legends of War
Release date: 2019
This expansion pack features 2 discs: Cataclysm. Mists of Pandaria.

Each game from the 5 discs has been completely remastered, featuring better class balances, added some in-game content to enhance the experience, but being 95% completely original content from the time of the game.
Each disc will be required to be installed seperately, they all have seperate servers.

And only 2 - 3 expansion that actually populated, rest expansion are only money sink

[Imperiet]

And only 2 - 3 expansion that actually populated, rest expansion are only money sink

Irrelevant. Customers would still purchase the whole pack for just to obtain 1 of the desired games in it.

[TheGroxEmpire]

Irrelevant. Customers would still purchase the whole pack for just to obtain 1 of the desired games in it.

You didn't get what I mean, yes they still buy all expansion, but only 2 - 3 expansion actually used, who want to play Cataclysm, Mists , WoD, if we have Vanilla, TBC, Wotlk. The "unpopulated" expansion become money sink, if blizz delete those two no one will notice

[Jakkre]

Blizz will much rather try to make the new expansion more "old fashioned" to bring the nostalgia of vanilla and tbc back.
For sure Blizz considered already to re open a older expansion but for some reason they came to the conclusion that its not worth it. Its not as if this is such a original idea that they never thought about it...

[relytgg]

Blizz will much rather try to make the new expansion more "old fashioned" to bring the nostalgia of vanilla and tbc back.
For sure Blizz considered already to re open a older expansion but for some reason they came to the conclusion that its not worth it. Its not as if this is such a original idea that they never thought about it...

I would argue that Blizzard would sooner make old code contemporary than regress their current code. To further explain like I did in the original post, Blizzard would likely need to add these Legacy servers or Legacy server log ins into the Blizzard Launcher, and they would need to have the in-game store still. Even though you are playing in Legacy, you cannot be disconnected from current Blizzard sales models and marketing.

Inclusion of achievements for example, or a new UI menu that tells the user how the Legacy server interacts with the current retail version (through cheevs, pet collection, cosmetics, etc). I highly doubt Blizzard would abandon those trends completely and go all-in with Legacy servers. They need to keep reminding people that retail version is available and that it is "improved" (in their eyes) and that you should want to play it.

Or play both :)

[Baleroc]

If they realize that they can make a lot of money out of it, then its worth that time and effort. In the end, they can buy cores from best server of each expansion. They have money so they can do it. And they have manpower to tweak those cores even more better

Blizzard mentioned the primary reason why they will not implement legacy server's at Blizzcon a few years ago:

While the attraction for legacy server's are high, there is one main issue with this. Blizzard consider's that after the first year or two, the demand for legacy server's will be high; profit will flourish; population will boom; business is great. Fantastic.

Now, let's assume Legacy Server's exist, and 5 year's have passed. Here's the problem:

• Players are now bored of Legacy server's; lots of players have left, business is no longer booming. Profits are slowly drifting and it is not cost-effective with the amount of staff they have developing updates and managing each server. They would have to cut staff.
  
• But, since the legacy server's would have the old code - which contains the 'old' bugs that were present in the server, then those fixes would be needed again. So, staff would be divided fixing bugs on all expansion's while player's are beginning to become bored with the game.

The question you may ask is - Well, Blizzard has had Legacy Server's for 5 years, so surely they will start to drop?

The answer to this question is the reason why Blizzard will not implement legacy server's.

• If they were to implement legacy server's the interest will drop year on year - they will get less profit; have to cut staff. Cut server's. Reduce customer service and quality.
  
• At the moment, the game has been going on for ~11 years by creating an expansion every 1/2 years. That will not be possible if staff is divided with legacy server's.
  
• That means, once Legacy Servers has started, people will leave the current game to join the legacy server's. So once they are bored of the server's, they will never come back. But, while they continue creating an expansion, players will always return to the game (just like in Legion and Warlords of Draenor) which is not possible in Legacy Server's, and would stop being possible as soon as they are added.

To conclude:

• The only time that Legacy Server's would be possible would only be when the LAST expansion has been created, and Blizzard are satisfied that it is their last expansion. Otherwise, they know that with Legacy Server's they cannot create new expansion's, and eventually the interest of Legacy Server's will drop, so the player's will never return, and they will lose everything.
  
• At this moment, while Blizzard attracts new players every year with their expansion, they know they can bring in lots of money. With Legacy Server's, that will stop. Eventually, the end of World of Warcraft.
  
• The main point to take away is: if Blizzard create an expansion every 1/2 years, their profit will continuously increase and increase year on year. They know that creating new expansion's every 1/2 years will increase the life span of the game as players will always return.
  
• Ultimately, having a legacy server will strip away the life span of the game, since producing 1/2 yearly expansion's would no longer be possible.

Remember: if Blizzard did not create a yearly expansion since 2004 - this game would be finished. Gone. That is how Blizzard is where it is today. And if that stops; if the whole process of how they got here had stopped, then this game will sink.

[relytgg]

You're assuming people are going to get bored and that Blizzard wouldn't have a plan to avoid that.

You can have Legacy content without boring people. That's what Diablo 3 does with it's seasons. It's possible that they could do seasonal content that would wipe after x amount of months or years. They could do ladders for guilds or pvp. There are many ways they can have Legacy content interact with current trends and fads in their retail version.

The point of this isn't, "well here's why Blizzard isn't doing it." We know the reasons why. The point is to find out how it could be implemented. What would need to happen? What currently happens with Legacy servers that keeps players involved?

There are plenty of players that play retail and do not play Legacy. Legacy servers aren't for those players. They are for players that want to experience what the old content was or how the game used to be. However, Blizzard, again, could implement ways to move their players interest from retail to legacy or vice versa. That's the point of being a game designer, you answer questions about "How can I get the player to want to interact?"

[saghha]

I think it'd actually be pretty easy for Blizzard to do Legacy Servers. All they have to do is let someone else do it for them. If Mc'Donald's can run a franchise of stores by letting people pay them royalties and fee's for using their logo's and recipes, then I'm sure Blizzard could do it to and all it takes is for one group of people to come forward and say, "sure, we'll pay you X amount of money to use X server(s) and you don't shut us down and we get to use your software, logo's and tech.

and Blizzard says...."sure, thanks for the money".

Also Blizzard obtains all rights over the software and legal rights to shut down the server if they try and add or change something that they shouldn't be changing.

This gives Blizzard more time to focus on new content and a great in depth look on what Players might want to see these days in a game.

[TheGroxEmpire]

I think it'd actually be pretty easy for Blizzard to do Legacy Servers. All they have to do is let someone else do it for them. If Mc'Donald's can run a franchise of stores by letting people pay them royalties and fee's for using their logo's and recipes, then I'm sure Blizzard could do it to and all it takes is for one group of people to come forward and say, "sure, we'll pay you X amount of money to use X server(s) and you don't shut us down and we get to use your software, logo's and tech.

and Blizzard says...."sure, thanks for the money".

Also Blizzard obtains all rights over the software and legal rights to shut down the server if they try and add or change something that they shouldn't be changing.

This gives Blizzard more time to focus on new content and a great in depth look on what Players might want to see these days in a game.

That actually sounds good to me, but if the Private Server stays free and only accepts Donations while they have to pay on server, employees and royalties jow they can survive? Except the royalty is percentage from the grossing of the private server but surely it's less fortune for Blizz

[Ricks2]

Blizz will much rather try to make the new expansion more "old fashioned" to bring the nostalgia of vanilla and tbc back.
For sure Blizz considered already to re open a older expansion but for some reason they came to the conclusion that its not worth it. Its not as if this is such a original idea that they never thought about it...

I'm expecting Legacy servers to be their backup plan for when they close development for WoW soon, to have some steady income till the game completely dies out. Which would makes sense to why it isn't being used already, considering the large private server market, where someone will argue "thats due to it being free!", while forgetting that some people on retail don't wanna switch to private servers but would love to play old expansions. So the "im not paying for it" community has a counter weight already, which would balance it out.

[saghha]

That actually sounds good to me, but if the Private Server stays free and only accepts Donations while they have to pay on server, employees and royalties jow they can survive? Except the royalty is percentage from the grossing of the private server but surely it's less fortune for Blizz

Retail WoW is tanking and not just tanking, but people are losing interest and trust in Blizzard. They can turn a blind eye to this if they won't, but when Legion releases and I seriously doubt that it has the 10mil in subs that WoD has as Blizzard has truly burned some bridges, but what ever sub count they do start with, it'll only be a matter of a few weeks, maybe a month or two before their sub drops back to 5mil and if they pull this WoD **** again this might be the last expansion we'll ever seen for WoW and i'd say about damn time as it's not that the story's really gotten old, it's just I feel for many that people are getting tired of how Blizzard handles their product and how they handle their player base.

Blizzard is trying to please to many different types of people, thus they've been yanking WoW into to many directions and it's just made the game horrible.

[Autumn71808]

They will never do it because even if it started out strong once all content is cleared people will get bored and quit.

People want the progressive aspect.

[relytgg]

Right, so how do they give people both? The example I gave was seasonal content, or ladders, something to entice people to want to play again after the content is cleared for an extended period of time.

Blizzard enticed people to go experience old content in retail, they can do it with legacy servers for sure.

[saghha]

They will never do it because even if it started out strong once all content is cleared people will get bored and quit.

People want the progressive aspect.

Well with multiple legacy expansions, at least the classic one's ( Vanilla, TBC, WoTLK) that'd be 3 expansions people would have to clear in a season or in a (let's say) two year period and then at the end of the two years expansions get rest and players get a chance to do it again.