Yesterday, one of our readers raised a good point about Blizzard cannibalizing their own games, especially if they plan on releasing 3 games in one year (which would indeed be quite unusual.) I figured I would make a post about it, because it's an interesting topic.

Basically, there's only a fear of cannibalizing World of Warcraft players.

There's little concern about taking players away from Starcraft or Diablo. If WOW steals away players from D3, it doesn't matter because D3 players already bought the game, but WOW has a subscription fee which provides Blizzard continued revenue. The same with SC2; if WOW were to somehow steal away SC2 players, who cares.. they already bought the game.

This can also apply to Titan, especially if it uses a new revenue model (both RMAH and Product Placement/Advertising combined.)

WOW is a subscription based game which constantly generates revenue. Diablo and Starcraft are not, they are only one-time costs (excluding DLC of course) so those players are of no consequence.

To help even better explain: World of Warcraft PROFIT needs to be protected from cannibalization, not the PLAYERS. :)

So, what Blizzard needs to do is create new systems or methods where players will still contribute to subscription fees, but they will also one-time purchase their other Blizzard titles.

This is why the WOW Annual Pass was such a great idea. It locks players into a 12-month purchase plan, but they will still be getting the Diablo 3 game. It comes with a beta invite to MOP, so even though they might play Diablo 3 for a few months, they're still guaranteed to return to WOW when MOP releases (and probably 'coincidentally' close to when the WOW Annual Pass expires.)

Blizzard wants players to use Diablo 3 for the RMAH, and start building up Battle.net Balance Credit, and use that to purchase other Blizzard titles and monthly WOW subscription purchases.

Because the RMAH system is so critical (especially for their future), it's the reason why HOTS nor MOP will be released before Diablo 3. They want players to start building up B.Net Bucks and get comfortable with the new credit system.

Diablo 3 actually complements MOP very well (it won't cannibalize players) because it's a "free game" (or a one-time cost), and since there's no subscription, there's no rush to play it and players will use D3 to pay for their WOW subscription.

Blizzard will also find other new or clever ways of motivating you to use your B.Net Bucks or ensure you buy WOW:

• Release MOP 6+ months after D3, say, when most WOW players and Diablo fans already own D3.
• If they can roll out the D3 RMAH, and then the SC2 Arcade, users from both the Diablo and Starcraft franchises will be selling virtual items on those systems and building up Battle.net Credit to purchase other titles or subscriptions.
• This is also why it's so important to increase their game catalog. (Talked about in other posts about Activision games in Battle.net.) If the RMAH and Arcade are highly successful, they'll need to increase their Blizzard Store merchandise, features, and titles. I think they're going to wait and see what happens with the RMAH first though.
• Blizzard may drop prices if B.Net Credits are used to purchase games or subscriptions for friends and family members. You might not be able to get a SC2 gamer playing WOW, but you can at least get them to buy gifts for their friends. And, perhaps you can receive bonuses yourself (appeal to our selfishness) if you invite friends.. like, special banners or aesthetics in D3 or SC2. WOW already does something like this for friend invites (power leveling, mounts, free subscription time, etc.)
• The B.Net Credit will be much easier to setup than the PayPal system. There will more restrictions and punishment in place for using the PayPal system (e.g. hefty cash out charges to encourage you to use the B.Net Balance system instead.)
• When Diablo 3 is released (or right before), make WOW as undesirable as possible. Implement changes that piss off players, don't make any updates, make them bored, etc. The intention is to get them playing Diablo 3, but then make MOP extremely desirable again when it comes out (very positive changes and an overpowered Monk class until after Christmas, etc.)
• For the above, this will probably be around the time too that Blizzard removes the 10-character restriction from realms. Removing that restriction is a great way to bring players back.
• Make certain WOW virtual items (specialty pets or aesthetic changes) only available via B.Net Balance credits.
• Make certain payment methods more difficult, region locked, or restricted to control which methods players are more statistically probable to use. Hard to see buttons, missing instructions or support, etc.
• Special events where users can save money using B.Net Credits for purchases. For example, you can save 5-15% on the MOP or HOTS pre-download if you purchase using B.Net Credits earned through Diablo 3.

Ah, here we go. Blizzard is going to be releasing three games this year (D3, HOTS & MOP.)

And you thought I was crazy yesterday for suggesting that Blizzard was going to release 3 games this year. :)

What's nice about this quote, is that it's not from Bashiok or Zahrym (which would immediately discredit what they're saying): "we're set on channelling that into the three games we have coming out this year."

As you noticed, he didn't say "plan on coming out" but rather they're going to channel their energy into the three games that they DO having coming out this year. :)

I'm going to cautiously downgrade this to "Blizzard is 'planning' on releasing 3 games this year" though. But, it could be like what I was saying earlier; they're getting all of the bad stuff (Blizzcon 2012 cancellation) out of the way first, and they'll have a surprise announcement on (or just before) the Feb 9 2012 Quarterly Shareholders meeting.

* UPDATE:

A double confirmation!

Rafal6613 pointed out a VGA backstage interview video with Blizzard that didn't make any rounds on the internet and went largely unnoticed.

In it, Mike Morhaime says "We've got 3 titles coming out next year." That should make investors quite happy this year.



* UPDATE:

Within 24 hours, Blizzard deleted the forum thread I linked. It was a very short thread, and very tame, so there weren't any policy violations that would have warranted a deletion (if anything, it would have been locked.)

The image on the left is from the EU Battle.net post, and the image on the right is from the US Battle.net post. (Thanks qmk and rpgguy.)

Since the cache from the original US post is gone, and Blizzard had made modifications to their website to prevent archiving (e.g. change detection websites, archive.org, etc.), I don't have a copy of the original US one. Luckily, some individuals copied and pasted the original post which confirm that these changes did indeed happen within the US post.

So.. notice something missing?

"Download the digital version via Battle.net for free when the game launches early next year" has instead been replaced with "Download the digital version via Battle.net for free when the game launches."

As of right now, the EU post hasn't changed, and this could just be a result of those users who want to cancel their WOW Annual Pass by claiming that Blizzard did not uphold their end of the contract since they explicitly stated "Early 2012" or "Early Next Year." If that's the case; not cool.

Users are also reporting that other WOW Annual Pass verbiage has been modified to remove the "Early 2012" mentions. If you look under all of the WOW Annual Pass Support Articles, you'll see that they have modification dates of January 16 or January 17.

While I was doing some digging around for PayPal and Battle.net Balance updates a while back, I also noticed the same "Updated On: Jan 16 or Jan 17" dates. I just ignored them, though, because I couldn't view the old cache. Surprisingly, when Blizzard makes changes they are updated almost immediately by Google. Same thing with the latest WOW Annual Pass changes. Even when pages or forum threads are deleted, I see that Blizzard leaves some of them Google cached and others not, so I imagine they have some measure of control over this.

This article update might not mean anything at all, though, but we'll know for sure over the next two weeks (see my post from earlier today.)

So, you all know by now that Blizzcon 2012 has been cancelled in lieu of an eSports Tournament event "somewhere in Asia".

I'm really disappointed. Not because it was cancelled, but because I was saving up a post for September about Titan!

Right now, "professionals" have predicted that Blizzard's Next Gen MMO is going to be announced at Blizzon 2012, and that number was only going to increase substantially as the date approached (ie, analysts predicting that the Next Gen MMO would be revealed), but I really wanted to wait until the opportune time to say "NOPE", that it wasn't going to be announced. Damn.

I'm still sticking to late 2014-2015 by the way, even though everyone else is saying 2013 or 2014 at the latest right now. :)

You weren't going to miss much at Blizzcon 2012 anyways. If you have read my earlier posts, I made one last year predicting what to expect in 2012-2014. The only game they were going to announce in 2012 was Diablo 3 X1, but due to the major setbacks they have been experiencing with D3, it's understandable that it has been delayed (to 2013), and Blizzcon 2012 would have had no release announcements to speak of. It would have actually ended up just like the "Demon Hunter Blizzcon" (2010) which caused some great disappointment.

This means that there will very likely be two games revealed at Blizzcon 2013 (D3 X1 and WOW X5).

Plus, setting up Blizzcon is a very exhausting event for the team members. Sure, it's a very profitable event, but they have other stuff to worry about without having to deal with the pressure of Blizzcon. During the past Quarterly Shareholders Meeting, Thomas Tippl committed to a "minimum of 2 Blizzard titles in 2012". It really doesn't matter what CUSTOMERS are told or promised; what really matters is what the SHAREHOLDERS are promised.

I think some of the big problems they're having relate to Battle.net. Not stability or performance issues, but rather integration problems with PayPal and their new Battle.net Balance / Blizzard Store / RMAH systems. This might put their integration plans of the Activision Game Catalog into Battle.net on the back burner (e.g. using B.Net Balance to buy Activision games rather than just Blizzard titles, and selling other publisher's games to compete with Steam and even Origin which has just added 11 new publishers.)

On that note, Blizzard has recently started hiring for a ton of "Critical" positions on the Battle.net team. :)

Back To The Announcement, Though..

According to the Blizzcon 2012 cancellation announcement today, more details about the event will be revealed "in the months ahead." Meaning that they're releasing this information very early, when they could have just announced it a few months before Blizzcon. They're making this announcement early for a very good reason.

For a while now, I've been talking about keeping a very careful eye on this week and next.

If a release date announcement is made, it will be done right before the investors conference call (and on a Monday.) If it's not made before the investors call, then the game truly has been delayed until after March. If the release date announcement is not made on the Monday, then the chances of a Q1 release greatly diminish (meaning a Q2 delay off-hand comment made by Mike Morhaime is highly likely during the Q4 call.) Monday, February 6 is the most logical choice but I had said that we don't necessarily have to wait until Feb 6 and that there would be other signs of what might happen beforehand.

For example, if we don't see any new information released during this week and the week of Jan 30 - Feb 3, the probability of a release date announcement diminishes. But, if we see a lot of interesting or unexpected posts (especially about Battle.net), then there's a very good chance of an announcement.

This recent announced by Blizzard is very disappointing to everyone, but it's also surprisingly being done very early. Either this means that they have more bad information to share and they just want to rip that bandaid off now and just get it all over with (so expect more bad news during the call.) OR, they're just getting the bad news for the year out of the way first before revealing the really good news; like an imminent release date announcement, with the game coming out earlier than people were expecting. Blizzard has "promised" Q1 after all, so I'm putting my trust in Blizzard.

This just leaves us back to what I've already been saying; pay attention to the other details they release over the next 2 weeks (up to the days before the shareholders meeting.) And because they have all of this extra time now, we can even certainly expect to see 3 releases this year (instead of just 2). :)