Next month, Classic WOW will be launching and there's a ton of excitement about the number of returning players. I'm also excited to know how many will be back, but I had one burning question that was more important: will Blizzard report their World of Warcraft subscriber numbers again?

Back in 2015, Blizzard promised that they would never again publish their subscriber numbers because they claimed it wasn't a good indicator of World of Warcraft's success. Yeah, I know. It was stupid and they thought we were idiots.

"Note that this is the last quarter that we plan to provide subscriber numbers. There are other metrics that are better indicators of the overall Blizzard business performance."

Coincidentally during this time, Microsoft also announced that they would no longer provide XBOX sales figures, instead opting for the more accurate subscription data. Meanwhile, Activision announced they would no longer provide subscription data and provide engagement data instead. Blizzard on the other hand promised that they provide more accurate metrics that more appropriately measured the success of their games. Those metrics? Unspecified. And, they change on every whim and every quarter.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Classic WOW Subscriber Count

I think that if Classic WOW achieves a certain metric, then yes, they will announce subscription figures... in some way. They'll make use of a loophole of sorts too: "Well, we promised we would never do this again, but this has nothing to do with World of Warcraft. We're announce subscription figures for the other World of Warcraft. We're completely absolved." Or maybe they'll just say that "Over X players have returned" rather than calling them subscribers.

It will have to be a big number though. Jabracki really wants Classic WOW to fail and he's budgeted next-to-nothing for Classic WOW marketing and promotions. In a way, Classic WOW could be that much greater a success given the fact that the company itself is actively working against it's success. If it succeeds, it was against overwhelming odds.

Obviously if something crazy happens, like they achieve 5 million players, then they'll definitely NEED to announce it. Even if Jabracki "doesn't wanna". But, I think that the target metric will likely be a minimum of one million returning players and ideally retained for at least a couple months. But, then again, when have they ever cared about retention metrics in their announcements or shareholder exaggerations?

Currently, World of Warcraft has less than 1 million subscribers. Back in 2015, they claimed to have 5.5 million subscribers. During this time, they were in the midst of a rapidly declining playerbase and were fully aware that it was irreparable. That figure wasn't exactly accurate as well.

When a company provides what they call "Monthly Active Users" or "Subscribers", but then have to legally define precisely what they mean by those "fictional words" within a 30-page legal document, then you know there's something up. And when mentioning the existence of said "definitions" are buried deep within fine print, while the actual definitions are in hiding or difficult to access, then you know that those figures are incredibly suspect and untrustworthy.


Even after massive redactions, heavily skewed metrics and further juking of stats, it still wasn't enough to conceal the embarrassment. Hence the new plan to "never speak of it again." On the day of the announcement, subscriber counts were closer to half of those final figures.

It Is Known

For a long time, this was one of those funny things that Blizzard was very well-known for: World of Warcraft®: Subscriptions™

Always questionable, like many things they said. Except never questioned by Blizzard cheerleaders and fanbois. They eat it all up, drink the blue kool-aid, and believe every single word Blizzard says.

beacuase there a public company they cannot lie ever. this is fact!!!..; no comapny can ever lie to customers or there investors beacuase it tis illegal and no company ever lies ever. they also cannot make any misleading statemants ether. ist called SECRUTIES FRUAD!! its impossible for anyone to do this so ono no one does it... r u stupd?

They are many other terms or words that Blizzard is also very well known for. For example:

1. "Soon™, Very Soon™, and Soon-ish™". This is the act of teasing delivery without any commitment or solid plans. Often, they tease something that will never materialize, leading to immense disappointment.

2. "When It's Ready". Their habit of delivering a project far out of schedule and not actually ready. Especially servers, infrastructure, and backbone support.

3. "Fun Detected", "Incoming Nerf". Boy, it's incredibly fun destroying the happiness of others, which Blizzard keenly learned when StarCraft 2 melted all of those expensive video cards. Now, Blizzard finds and destroys fun and engaging gameplay elements or mechanics within a game that's not supposed to have any of those elements.

4. "Banhammer". Blizzard swinging around the good ol' banhammer, which is really just an automated system that often strikes down innocent bystanders or is otherwise exploited by a cabal of players, led by a streamer, to ban players that don't give the streamer their gold and worship.

5. "Get Hyped!", "Get Excited!", "The Best Expansion Yet!". There's always a promise that the next one is always better, and that even though things are really bad now, it will get better. We promise. It's always the next time right? The next one will fix all of your problems.

In fact, this is just a strategy used by sleazy marketers, drug dealers, and deadbeat dads. It's usually promised by an individual known for failure and constant disappointment. Like that father who's never around but keeps promising his son that fishing trip that will never happen. Instead, he's lying down in a ditch outside the local bar trying to figure out what the hell happened to BFA crafting professions.

6. "Bobby's Bitch". The completely rational and sensible belief by most gamers that Blizzard has been heavily corrupted influenced by Bobby Kotick and the Activision Gang. This is a very long and complicated story, but the most basic answer to this is that there were key individuals (not the company as a whole) who wanted to appease Activision's investors and suck off the bosses. Although some employees who shared Bob's vision did rise in power within Blizzard, and some other key players were converted, Blizzard would have ended up this way even if Activision had never existed. It's the nature of these beasts. When they grow old, stagnant, and desperate, they copy and steal from shady competitors that are trending in success. It happens everywhere. The theft of OC in forums, or even streamers and influencers who now only steal content or create "reaction to reaction" videos.

7. Blizzard "It Was A Difficult Decision" Entertainment. Another classic. Mass layoffs here, mass layoffs there, and more mass layoffs that aren't really "mass layoffs" because Blizzard would never do that. More recently, there are even more mass layoffs in the midst of record revenue. Firing people that want to make fun games and therefore aren't towing the company line. Destroying eSports due to incompetence, or cancelling projects due to incompetence. It's a very very long discussion, but in the end, incompetence is probably the most simple word to describe what happened.

Speaking of mass layoffs! Many moons ago this blog was under fire by Blizzard, Joystiq, and large media outfits. These are just some of the official statements made in reference to mass layoff claims, that were immediately refuted by Joystiq and Blizzard, but later confirmed to be in fact true.

"The vast majority named in that article are at work today. FB profiles can't be used to confirm anything, especially a mass trend @PennyRush" [LINK]

- Jon Brown (aka Blizzard's Zarhym), November 2011, stating that big data from social media companies can't possibly be used to confirm trends of any kind.


"@talkingcongas I seriously hate that Daeity person" [LINK]

- Mike Sacco (Joystiq's Most Reputable Blizzard Writer), November 2011, stating his immense hate for the blog while his employer continued to steal it's content. Formerly of the viral Anti-#GamerGate Borderlands-racism fame.

You know, you when carefully look at all of those things that Blizzard is most famous for, you realize they have a common trait: it comes down to what they say. This is what's called, The Blizzard Promise™.

The Blizzard Promise™ has been around forever. This is when a Blizzard employee publicly states that something will definitely happen, but never does. Sometimes it's a huge mistake, an intentional misleading statement, deception, or a lie. But usually, it's something they say because it appeals to the masses or they say it to quell anger. It may or may not happen because it was just a fun idea at the time. But most importantly, it's a way to build up hype and excitement without the commitment, hoping that their customers will forget. And, they do.

It reminds me a lot of Soon™. Soon™ was a necessity. After so many failed launched dates and releases, they had to start using the term instead of their frequent promises of release dates. However, they never applied this same common sense to features or elements within their games. So now, they've made thousands of promises for features that never happened.

For my next post, I think I'll list out Blizzard Promises™ from the past. Some things shouldn't be forgotten.

This is outside the typical wheelhouse of this blog, but I can't resist writing about it. The other day while I was driving along the 405, I ended up behind a rather interesting vehicle. It was a ridiculously-lifted neon-colored pickup truck, something you don't see very often around these parts, plastered with faded bumper stickers and decals everywhere. But they were a local. CA plates and built for the climate since the rear windows were cut out exposing the interior.

This truck was must've been blessed by the Almighty Himself. Most of the bumper stickers were religious Jesus Loves and Jesus Fish-related plus some old dilapidated GOP brandings. And, I could have sworn that rhinestones were glued to the panels.

But this amazing spectacle was nothing. Something else clearly stood out over all of this trash and glitter: a massive gaudy wooden cross hanging off their rear-view mirror. It was huge, and must've weighed 10 lbs depending on the type of wood.


I thought to myself: what would possess a person to have something that's clearly impractical and probably dangerous? The wooden cross was swinging back-and-forth, nearly smacking the driver on turns.

Typically, crosses are used from completely impractical reasons. An actual practical reason, for example, would be placing a Holy Cross on a building to publicly identify it as a church and the religion.

However, based on research and surveys, the primary reasons why crosses are used are:

1. to put on display for others to see, like jewelry.
2. for divine protection, good luck, or warding off evil.

In monotheistic religions, the most important and critical rules is that there is only one God. To believe in, or put your faith in, some other type of supernatural power within the universe is idol worship. Idolatry is the biggest no-no and considered an abomination. It's one of the worst things you can do in monotheistic religions.

When you step back and look at how crosses are used within this context, the reasoning behind the activity is quite intriguing. So essentially, crosses are really used for the following reasons:

1. selfish vanity or showing off to others in pride. As in, one of the "seven deadly sins",
2. believing that a physical object contains a supernatural power (other than God) that protects them from harm,
3. or putting their faith in the supernatural power of a piece of wood rather than their God. It's textbook idolatry.

Whatever the case, it's done for completely selfish and sinful reasons. In fact, it's the worst sin possible. Worse than witchcraft and murder according to the bible.

Think about that for a moment. Even believing in luck, karma, fate, or various superstitions is idol worship. Having crosses, angels, figurines, saints, dream-catchers, lucky objects, or anything else within your household that you believe protects you or brings good luck, is textbook idolatry. It's all very clearly stated in the bible that these are abominations. Yet, it's still prevalent in all worldwide religions. The majority of these groups are doing the exact opposite of what they claim they are doing. There's a word for that.

But even beyond that, there's more to this. It doesn't matter what the belief system of the Glorious Holy Roller was because their skewed belief was not skewed or incorrect at all in their mind. Most groups (ie, people within these groups) know very little about their own belief structure. They may claim to be diligent members, but still act accordingly to how their group behaves. However, the group behaves based on how they are incorrectly depicted within the media. They've been bombarded with incorrect information their entire lives, and it was altered their perception of how they should act and what they believe. No original thought, no questions, just another foolish slave to entertainment.

In the end, that's truly the only group that all humans belong to. Everyone thinks they're in separate unique groups and tribes, with their own belief systems, but that's actually the belief system of the group that they're actually within.

A long time ago, I was visiting a game forum shortly after a new patch announcement. The name of the game doesn't matter and neither do the patch notes. But, as usual there were many angry complaints about the new changes. Something typical of many great games.

Having been through this experience before, I already knew what was happening behind the scenes. I've seen it a hundred times: a lot of game developers were probably pissed off, disappointed, or disheartened, while the community managers desperately tried to mitigate the rage.

Most players aren't aware that many employees routinely check forum posts, reviews, and sites like reddit to see what people are saying about their game. Or at least, THEY USED TO. Some members of the game team (whether they're writers, designers, programmers, audio engineers, IT support, or personal exercise trainers) may even obsess over their game reviews, or constantly search to see if their own names have ever been directly referenced.

There is a perception that developers don't care about game reviews or what people say, stemming from the fact that they rarely respond to criticism or speak publicly. Of course, the reason for this is because they're contractually obligated to keep their mouths shut.

Imagine that for a moment. You're trapped in a prison, unable to speak or defend against any criticism. People constantly attack you over a product you've spent years on your life on, but you can't speak. Or even correct their stupidity. It's a terrible existence. Within veteran studios, a "us-versus-them" mentality sadly develops as a result.


There have been cases where some employees can't hold back, though. =]

The younger or unwise may create online alias and use their disguise to fire back on the forums, defending their game. They know they're violating a contract, but they have to scratch that itch. Or sometimes more senior developers, sick and tired from years of abuse, will finally snap on their Facebook accounts, and say thing like "fuck that loser".

Employees and direct developers do read what you say, and it does impact them. Typically, it's a complaint about something they have absolutely no power or decision in. It can be very discouraging and harmful to their performance. They may harbor resentment towards their customers: users are allowed to complain about them, but they're not allowed to complain back in return?

The Sit Down

I had a different perspective towards community complaints, anger, and the toxic hateful response of fans however.

Many years ago, I would often sit down with discouraged developers to describe player resentment within a different context and open their eyes with some honest explanations. It was affecting their performance and morale after all. And one of the best ways to resolve an issue was by explaining the real root cause: why the hate?

Now.. this was a prepared speech that I've given many times over the decade, and it had always changed as my discussion evolved. I eventually create a standard script that I would always deliver, sharing my views.

This isn't exactly how I've explained in the past, but it went something like this. First, I needed to start with the basics.

This Is Your Brain On Drugs

I usually started out describing drug addiction. Starting out with something like: so, you're probably well aware of the extensive research linking drugs and video game addiction? Research has shown that video games can affect the human brain in the exact same way that addictive drugs do. They target the same area of the brain, they use the same neurochemicals and processes, and even have similar psychological and biological effects.

The road to game addiction mirrors that of substance abuse. A gamer might start playing a game for experimental reasons or out of circumstance (a marketing ad pushes it on them, their friends play it, or their parents do), they'll start out casually, eventually moving into more intensive gameplay sessions, followed by compulsive gameplay hours, further pushing them into addiction.


The psychological and personality characteristics between drug and video game addiction are nearly identical as well. A gamer may experience preoccupation, spending a lot of time thinking about the game. They'll crave the game, or feel restless, when unable to play video games. They experience withdrawal symptoms, and can even build up tolerance by playing video games that can provide more excitement than their old ones. Gamers will become more reclusive, give up on social activities, and no longer participate in recreation. They'll risk relationships and employment, continue playing games despite all of the problems happening around them, and they'll even lie about how much they "use". It's an escape for them to reduce stress or anxiety, rather than dealing with any problems they face.

The parallels to substance abuse and drug addiction are too significant to ignore, and they are further perpetuated and exploited by the industry for revenue purposes, because they fully understand this.

With that parallel in mind, always remember that when you're creating a great (video game) product, the process is nearly identical that of a chemist designing, trialing, testing, producing, and reiterating a highly potent and addictive drug product.

No matter which area of Game Development you're in (e.g. music, programming, art, UI, UX, animation, story, etc.), your job is to make the game fun. But what is "fun"?

Most developers never consider this.. what is fun? Usually they'll immediately jump to certain gameplay mechanic designs or story development strategies. They don't understand that fun is simply a neurological reaction to certain stimuli. Fun, just like love, hate, anger, and other emotions, are really -- in the end -- just bioelectrical and neurochemical reactions within your brain. You cannot experience any form of enjoyment without the manipulation of certain brain chemicals. That's all you really are in the end: a brain riding around inside a fleshy vessel. If you want to truly understand what "fun" really is, developers need to understand the neuroscience behind it. This understanding aspect is extremely rare however. Therefore, the only alternative is copying existing gameplay and experimenting on users, through trial and error, until you get lucky.

When you create, or are directed to create, video games that are fun, you are creating a process that targets the pleasure and reward center of the brain in the same way as highly addictive drugs. So, you can expect that your users will react to your game in the exact same way that users (of illicit drugs) will too.

Drug Dealers Call Their Customers "Users" Too

Imagine yourself from the perspective of a VP or Director overseeing a drug operation. This can be a hardcore illegal drug cartel or a legal pharmaceutical corporation - it doesn't matter. They're both run in the exact same way.

You are responsible for creating an addictive product. You have a team of chemists creating the components (ie, content like art, music, coding), teams that focus on designing the product to be as addictive as possible (game directors, user engagement, psychologists, business intelligence analysts), you have a financial division managing your money, you have enforcers (lawyers, community managers and public relations), you have specialists trained in government bribery (lobbyists), your organization mostly employees a high number of dealers who push the product on children and addict as many as possible (marketing and sales), and you have loyal addicts that protect your reputation and incite severe or brutal peer pressure to addict others (fanboys.) The game development industry copies, learns from, steals from, and is run like the gambling industry, the tobacco industry, the drug industry (legal or otherwise), and the sex industry. It's the pleasure business and you can learn the most from the oldest professions.

Yet, developers still don't understand WHY their customers complain when the product changes (even an seemingly insignificant way.)

This is what you need to understand about our work and industry:

• you've created a drug that many people are addicted to. There are shitty drugs but no one uses those for very long. And then there are really good drugs, because they create highly pleasurable sensations exactly as designed. These are labelled as "really fun" games, "the best" and are the most successful.

• when users use your product, they become accustomed to a certain high. And they expect the same high, to satisfy their addiction, when they return to the game.

• you, the developer, are not immune from this. Try not surfing the internet, or using your mobile phone, for a week and see how you feel. Irritable? Craving? Withdrawal? If a game acts on your brain like a drug, have you considered what it does to other people? Especially ones more susceptible than others.

• your users will crave a stronger high, usually seeking it in other products (new games) or new activities within the same game.

• users will crave the dopamine/serotonin (or other) triggers, or feel restless, when they are unable to play the game. There's a difference between making a choice not to play, because you're pre-occupied with something else, and being unable to access your drug. It preoccupies the mind. Tuesday Maintenance cycles, for examples, or those massive server outages during the first few years of service. People joke about user reaction being "withdrawal", but that's actually something different and longer term.

• players can build up a tolerance to the game, and therefore require new engagement strategies to provide the same level of high as before. This is why developers create New Content.

• when users are given a certain product with a certain expectation, they NEED that same high at a minimum. They expect it every time. But what happens when you change the sensation?

• when you change a product (ie, patches, hot fixes, content changes), you are changing the sensation or high that they expect or receive. Often, due to the inexperience and incompetence of Game Directors (or the other decision makers), the new changes actually reduce the high, or remove it completely, rather than change it.

• it's like delivering a high quality drug product, but then switching up the chemical components, reducing the high. To further insult your customers, you sprinkle in some Chili Powder to add a little variety. But, you've still eliminated the core pleasure generators of your product.

• your marketing teams are also constantly increasing your users expectations. In marketing, ads, videos, streams, and conventions, they are constantly telling customers that the "next product will be better than the last", "get hyped", "raise your expectations", "a much better product is coming, we promise". And I use that term "team" loosely: often is the case that marketing department works against other organizational members, making promises they can't keep on their behalf or were never aware of.

• The job of the marketing team is to always promise a better high for the NEXT product to increase sales, but without the product to back it up, you're still shoveling out shit under a different name. It's always the NEXT product that's better, right? Stringer Bell would be proud.

• within most industries, a "team" is really just a group of people, each fulfilling a role but rarely communicating with each other due to weak management.

• when you change the formula, in any way, you can increase, change, or remove the high/pleasure for the specific user. It's mostly the removal however, due to inexperience.

• so, what happens to substance abusers when their only source of joy in the world is taken away from them? Use your imagination. One obvious answer is that they lash out, scream, and yell through any medium available that can possibly get the attention of their dealer. What if your dealer can only be reached through their website or Twitter handle?

• they may further withdraw into reclusion, lash out at others, project on relatives, explode in anger, become desperate, seek other alternatives. There are many different things that happens, with most of it happening in their homes that developers never see. The fraction of their reactions that you do see, are on gaming community websites, boards and forums.

• they complain about the changes to the game, but they still keep coming back don't they? That's the nature of the dope fiend. "They may buck a little, but they're not gonna walk."

You could say that they love your game, and they complain about it because they care about it or "they're passionate" about the game. But in reality, it's for selfish reasons: it's all about their own personal gratification and pleasure. (Within the gambling industry, two common terms used are 'stress' and 'pleasure'. Stress is used a tool specifically tailored to increase pleasure, but the complete removal of pleasure is a big no-no.) And this is fine. Everything we do is for selfish reasons, and you would still act in the same way they do in the same situation.

In the end, the reason users are angry and venting is because you were too good at your job. The more they complain, the more successful you were in creating an engaging video game. Congratulations.

So, how did they react?

I can't recall how many times I've had this, usually private, discussion with various employees. But as I've said, I'm paraphrasing a little and my version of explaining changed a little each time. Although it applies to all members of the game development process, most of the people I spoke to were managers, supervisors and coders. A few artists, but I didn't really talk to any of the musicians.

I'd say that 90% of them didn't believe me. Complete denial. =]

A small percentage took it to heart, learned from it, and in fact helped make their design choices easier (or even creating their own successful development company in a couple cases), leading to them creating some incredibly successful games you've no doubt played. But I remember one certain employee that truly understood the process. They spent a lot of time researching the subject on their own, and ended up feeling guilty about what they were doing. In the end, they ended up quitting, but found a better job building internal apps for their own employees. It paid significantly more but they're much more happy where they are now.

So for those developers who truly want to be in "the game", I have some advice.

If you find someone that legitimately tries to encourage and support your game development journey, cling onto them for dear life. A person like this may only happen once in your entire life. Only a foolish person throws away the opportunity to receive wisdom. Most developers, even longterm AAA devs, never learned any of those high-level game design strategies often discussed in closed-door meetings.

I won't say which AAA, but I was lucky enough to attend many psychology related workshops paid for by the company and get to work consultants that helped explain what exactly "fun" is. How to create fun, how to mold it, and how to repeat it. It's incredibly rare to find professionals talented in both game design and the psychology discipline, so it requires a lot of personal research on your own part. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, there are almost no online resources available that touch on key high-level game design methodologies that ensure the success of games. And I can guarantee you that 99% of indie developers don't know what "fun" is. Even AAA coders. They will typically clone another successful execution or create something they think they'll like themselves.

So, my recommendation is to attend, given the chance, as many workshops as possible that focus on psychology, addiction, or how video games affect the brain. If your studio employs any psychiatrists or psychologists that focus on player engagement, you need to bend over backwards to listen to them. There are a couple key players out there, who are expensive to hire, but completely worth it. Those AAA publishers should know who I'm talking about. Some of the most successful games out there were a result of their consultation services. They'll change your life personally, and show you game design approaches that you never considered before.

This is a topic I was professionally involved in a while back, and although there are few internal players within the industry that are really aware of it presently, it's something I've always wanted to share in a more public venue. I've talked to some personally about it in private discussions, but I'm glad that I can finally talk about this after almost a decade.

What Game Developers Are Missing

To understand the reasoning behind Class Balance, you must first understand game design holistically.

Game Design is comprised of several verticals. A Game Developer is obviously aware of some low-level game design verticals such as programming, graphic design, illustration, UI design, composing music, animation, documentation, and creating sound effects. And, even then, the programming category itself may be composed of several subcategories, like coding mechanics, databases, storage systems, graphic engines, drivers, netcode, etc.

These are considered "low-level game design" components. And they may also encompass other granular or technical details like level design, writing, stories, voice acting, creating quests or objectives. Simply put, there are a lot. So teams are needed, each with different specialties to build a whole game obviously.


Developers are skilled in at least one, or a multiple, of these verticals.

But.. there are also HIGH LEVEL game design aspects.

Unfortunately, it's an area with little in the way of publications or resources, and something that few developers are aware of. Even for many "professional game designers" surprisingly. It's an area of game design that's hard to describe and there is no official terminology for. There are some very good reasons why this is the case, but it's a discussion for another time. In total, I've seen about three articles throughout the entirety of the internet that just barely touch on the subject.

While I use the term "high-level game design", others may have their own personal definition for it. For example: say that someone creates a Game Design Document but they use laymans terms to explain gameplay and mechanics without any technical information. They might call this a "high-level game design document".

When I refer to high-level game design, I mean something on another level completely. It's knowing the right way to design the game. Most developers are ignorant of it and it could almost be described as a philosophy. However, a philosophy generally implies that there is a study surrounding the subject or that it's experimental. But this isn't the case. "Wisdom" might be a better way of explaining high level game design. Wisdom shows you the proper way to build the game. You may have the intelligence to build a game, but wisdom tells you how to build it right.

Generally, there several skills or verticals, seemingly unrelated to game design, at play within this field. For instance, they require that the lead developer comprehend, and understand how to implement principles related to user psychology, motivation, emotion, engagement, gameflow, neuroscience, cognitive development, conditioning, user experience, and they themselves must possess high self-awareness.

An understanding of this hidden field of game design have resulted in the most successful AAA games ever created. And the interestingly, these successful executions were cloned by other industry developers without ever understanding why they worked in the first place. Those were accidental successes, but the world has no idea. :)

The Secret "Game Design Bible"

As a side note, there exists figurative and physical "bibles" containing a wealth of high level game design knowledge that have accumulated over the decades. They're different for each person, depending on where they obtained the information, and some contain more content than others.

Just like how artists and musicians collect and archive old samples and assets for future inspiration or re-use, game design knowledge is also collected and maintained by some.

Low-level game design knowledge is very standard. But for those who were lucky enough to learn about high level game design, there have been versions of this "Secret Game Design Bible" that have been collected and collated. It only exists within the offices of an extremely limited number of Directors or Game Producers. These individuals are the ones who can repeat hit-after-hit, assuming they have full decision-making power that is.

The "Bible" is essential a formula for success. But personally, I'm only aware of two individuals within the game design industry that possess it. One used to work for Blizzard, but they left many years ago. It's difficult to describe, but once you've read it, there are ways to tell if other developers are aware of the strategies or not. You can tell by what they say or in how they implement elements within in their games. There are key indicators whether they follow the rules or not. I'm hoping that sometime in the future I can talk more about the Game Design "Bible", but it would take a very long time to write about. These are the things talked about behind closed doors after all and it would take a couple books on the subject to write about.

Anyways, this is a very long subject for another time.

Content Consumption

Alright, so there's this one engagement model of high level design that consists of Content, re-using Content, and regular delivery of new Content. Content meaning things like new environments to explore, new art assets, new maps/zones, new characters/classes, and new objectives/quests.

Note: I consider The Story (another engagement model within the paradigm) as something separate. Sometimes the new Content might expand the Story a little more, but it should always be treated as a separate entity due to its importance.

Content is a lot like reading a book. You'll read through and explore the world within a book, but then once you've reached the end, there are only a certain number of times that you can re-read the book before you get bored and crave the next chapter in the series. In World of Warcraft, major patches or expansion packs are basically ways to deliver new Content. Then, using gate-locked or timed systems will assist in slowing content consumption, giving them more time to prepare the next batch. When Content is consumed very quickly, a "Content Drought" may develop as users are thirsty for new content but it's unfortunately unavailable for long periods of time.

Content delivery is just ONE of the many strategies used within that "Bible" to secure player engagement (playing the game and having fun) and retention (they keep coming back, and may bring back friends). World of Warcraft, for example, used to take advantage of several more engagement models on top of this, but they've abandoned them, instead pivoting mostly to a Content-based model. This means that it's critically important new content is regularly delivered to their users.

Interestingly, there is significant science and research behind this and something explained in the "Bible". Content Delivery is part of a strategy to maintain a type of addiction cycle of the users. And on the surface, it's something that you can clearly see for yourself. Anyone can see the results, even if they don't understand how it works.

So, to sum things up to this point: there are high-level strategies applied in game design to always make sure users are having fun, they're addicted to the game, and they keep coming back. One of the components of the strategy is Content Delivery. By providing new Content, it changes their gaming experience, keeps things fresh, and provides a variety of new things to experience. This is a critical activity required for user retention.

Class Balancing is a Lie

In ye olde days, Class Balancing was exactly just that.

When a game containing multiple character classes was released, it was obvious and expected that many unintended mistakes would be found that were not originally discovered during testing. A class ability, skill, or spell might be extremely overpowered or underpowered, effecting the balance of play between all of the classes. During combat or challenges, one player might have an unfair opportunity over another. And given the human beings natural drive to chase the path of least resistance, most players would switch over to the class with the unfair advantage.

Teams of developers would spend months researching, investigating, collecting statistics, and analyzing numbers. Changing, adding or removing abilities would have a domino effect across all classes, forcing developer back to the drawing board. It was extremely time consuming, expensive, and the players were never satisfied. They began to realize that a "final" balancing of classes was impossible.

But during their testing, something interesting was happening. An interesting metric arose when fixes were pushed: players reacted to Class Balancing Patches in the same way as New Product Launches.


This was the HOLY SHIT EUREKA MOMENT currently realized in many online games.

Class Balance is the same as delivering New Content. After all, Content is something that changed the game, it made things fresh, changed the rules, created new variables, or encouraged players to play a new class or play differently.

In the end,

• Class Balancing could now be treated more like Content, and not like technical bug fixes.

• instead of just Class Balancing as a FIX, developers could instead allow broken things to happen, or create new ones intentionally, to disrupt the power dynamics between the Classes. This in turn actually improves engagement. (Factual science supporting this related to Content Consumption and what it really is.)

• in the absence of new Content, they can introduce intentional opportunities or disadvantages into the game in order to "spice things up", change player strategies, or freshen the game. And later, it could be "corrected" through Class Balance.

• it can partially be used for minor fixes, but it's more useful as an entertainment medium that has a direct relationship to revenue generation.

• intentional imbalances can use negative or positive reinforcement to change play styles, or even force a player to create a new (overpowered) class, to further drive addiction and retention. Class Balance is an excellent way to encourage players to level a new class or even buy one.

• this also reduces stress on developers. Class Balancing become an internal meta-game because imbalance become less priority, leaving more opportunity for experimentation to see the results and adjust engagement levels.

• it gives every player the opportunity to feel "overpowered" in game, if even for a short period of time, in order to drive them to seek re-experiencing the sensation again (retention).

• unlike Content which can be exhausted, this is an infinitely repeatable psychological strategy that keeps the community engaged and entertained waiting for updates, while also providing a similar positive reaction to that of a real Content release.

• minor tweaks and game breaking bugs could be patched, but the majority of Balance related changes could be saved up and scheduled for a future release.

What's interesting is that some programmers, who are involved in Class Balancing related activities, may not even be aware of this high-level activity taking place. They just follow orders and not aware of the reasons why. Typically, it's a directive from a key decision maker, or possibly a process passed down from earlier managers, that understood the benefits.

Class Balance fixes are now scheduled months in advance. And I don't mean correcting an imbalance. I mean that a change, that intentionally imbalances the game, is scheduled to take effect in the future. This is something most players aren't aware of since they believe Class Balance is a "reactive measure" and not something planned. But in reality, it's a constant meta-game or dance meant to juggle the existing content or introduce something new. A significant change to one ability, for example, can have dramatic changes to a standard playstyle or class selection.. so it therefore becomes "New Content" to be consumed.

Another way to think about it is like a Mom who gives all of their children time to play their favorite game, play the best character in some game, or play The King. Mom rotates through all of her children, giving them all a chance to experience a great or overpowered character, for fun and to keep it fair. This is basically what Class Balance is about. There will always be imbalance, but everyone will be given at least the chance to play the broken character. Everyone gets a chance to eat the carrot, so they always come back for more.

Class Balance is just a word

It's not just Class Balance where this type of activity takes place, it also encompasses a ton of other areas or mechanics within a video game. Class Balance seems to be the one topic that most players complain about however.

The reason for this is because users pay attention to details that only impact them directly or their ability to compete. A change in the UI system, that affects everyone, won't result in the same number of complaints that a Class Balance change will have.

Generally, players see Class Balance changes as a mistake, an unintentional change, or blame the developers for being incompetent or stupid. Why have you still not balanced the characters after three years? Why does x class get a buff, but I don't? Why did my class get a nerf, but those other five got buffs? PVP is imbalanced, it's unfair!

What these complainers are not aware of, however, is that usually it's not due to mistakes or incompetence. It might be deliberate or even RANDOM - but not an error. It has a huge impact on player retention, and forces encourages players to try out new classes that the developers want them to try. And, it's okay if something is imbalanced as long as a different class is intentionally imbalanced the next time.

And, it's not just about balancing the classes. There are other areas where New Content is intended for consumption, but the players have no idea that it's actually just another type of Content. New Content can be disguised in many other deployments of "tweaks", "patches" or "fixes", such as:

• New Talent Systems.

• New XP leveling parameters.

• New Skills, spells, or abilities. Changing their effect or any variable (speed, distance, etc). Or removing them.

• Squishing Damage numbers.

• Squishing Player / NPC levels.

• New types of leveling systems, like a Paragon or Promotion system used in incrementals.

• Changing the size of players, and thereby adjusting their hit boxes.

• Racial trait changes.

• Changing the UI system.

• New rewards or loot system.

• New boss mechanics.

Combined with Class Balancing changes, a huge assortment of these New Content items can be saved up, combined, and scheduled for a release as a major patch. In the end, its reception will, of course be a diminished version of a new product release, but it will result in significantly higher-than-average sales or subscriptions.

Despite what you've heard, those new Spells/Skills, PVP changes, new Talents, Character Traits, Honor Changes, or other Major X Change in Y System/Game is not supposed to actually balance the game for you. If someone told you that, it's a lie.

... But It Doesn't Stop There.

Other than the final act of deploying the patch, and the effect that this New Content has on the players in-game, it has also become a highly useful promotional tool for the game and the company.

Even though a company is not releasing a major new expansion pack or "New Content" in the eyes of the consumer, they are still celebrated by the community for just announcing a simple bug fix. :)

Strange, isn't it?

A new patch with "Class Balance" changes is publicy declared, rather than just kept private. An official release date is announced, just like regular Content. And, these announcements are circulated to the two dozen identical fansites. The forums light up with anticipation, there are thousands of comments, people are excited, and the information is dissected and discussed at length. The company is congratulated for posting something, praise for buffing the users preferred class, and criticized by others for nerfs.

When you step far enough back, it's an interesting event. They're technically not releasing anything special (long ago, it would have been kept private), and yet it's publicly posted now while the community reacts like it's a major expansion pack. It's a great example of how both game content and the media target the same pleasure center of your brain as addictive narcotics. Something well known within the industry.

Basically, this is what users perceive to be Class Balance. It's an illusion. It's not about fairness, competition, or balance: it's a metagame emboldening engagement and retention (or, as more commonly referred to, addiction.)

Path of Exile is a great example of a game that better understands some of these principles. They use infinite re-playability strategies, without the need for creating new assets, art, environments, or characters. World of Warcraft is unfortunately stuck in a loop where major new content releases are required to retain users. Path of Exile needs very limited high level content updates (e.g. UI, map systems, dynamic level design, skills/abilities) since they can constantly re-use the same old low level content (e.g. characters, environmentals, art and audio assets).