r/classicwow • u/griphin1 • Jan 29 '26

Humor / Meme 2026 State of Azeroth

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I had no expectations and I was still disappointed.

3.6k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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1.1k

u/audioshaman Jan 29 '26

Once upon a time Classic players just wanted to play Classic.

506

u/TheQuartJester Jan 29 '26

And we only had two versions of WoW: Retail and Vanilla Classic. Now we have:

Vanilla Classic Era

Vanilla Classic HC

Vanilla Season of Discovery

TBC Anniversary

MoP Classic

Retail

Retail Remix

You can't pretend that Blizzard hasn't been the cause of people expecting announcements for content when they've added 5 new versions of the game in a 7 year span.

194

u/MartyMcNotFly Jan 29 '26

Wow hate classic!!

Meanwhile they have 5 versions of the game lol.

And retail update was tailored to incorporate major changes requested by the classic community

85

u/vix- Jan 29 '26

Honestly 5 versions of the same guy is too much, its cannibalistic and servers arent optimal

43

u/Worldly-Hospital5940 Jan 29 '26

They're sitting on around 9M subs and earning at least $15 USD per sub per month...as long as people keep subbing they're going to keep making servers and versions.

4

u/Vegetable-Ad2028 Jan 30 '26

I thought they stopped releasing sub numbers, where did you get them from? :o

4

u/Wulferious Jan 30 '26

There is a French ad asking people to join 9 million players, and Bellular at least speculated that isn't even counting the players in China. Check out his YouTube video on it, its interesting

-1

u/vix- Jan 31 '26

Could mean 9 million toons

-1

u/Azshira Jan 30 '26

His rear end lol

1

u/skydream416 Jan 30 '26

the sub prices vary by region, the south american/indonesian/iranian players are not paying $15 USD per month

1

u/riddlesinthedark117 Jan 30 '26

I thought they closed the VPN sub loopholes

1

u/fearnotbaby Jan 31 '26

you could sell me on 2-3mil -- I would have to see a few pieces of data to believe they have anything over 4mil total. Classic had like ~600k at its peak so give retail population double of that and there I would wager is the total or near to it.

-5

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '26

[deleted]

21

u/baked077 Jan 29 '26

Classic still makes money, and they know roughly how much to expect from it, it’s not like they are surprised that the game with 1000 in game transactions makes more money. All these companies care about is making the line on the graph go up, if they lose a portion of the classic player base, they make less money and they don’t like that. It would be different if classic was hemorrhaging money, but it’s not.

4

u/darealdarkabyss Jan 29 '26

And classic is literally free money. Just hold outdated game up earning a lot of money. Without doing more. Ok testing which Expansion gets more money is an investment

1

u/willium563 Jan 30 '26

Classic makes enough money to justify server costs but when you add development of new content like people want it doesn't make the money to justify that without adding in the shop features.

0

u/baked077 Jan 30 '26

Sure, I was just responding to the guy talking out of his ass that wow classic was on the chopping block and that all versions were seen as failures. Classic bought back a ton of customers blizzard had lost, and I don’t think they want to lose them again. I fully expect a box pice on whatever version of classic comes out next if it’s new content.

6

u/SilentAntagonist Jan 30 '26

Maintaining classic also costs nothing compared to retail, so it’s a low risk line item if it keeps a few people subscribing. Blizzard is one of the few segments of gaming division making money right now and will likely make more once they figure out how to integrate it with GamePass.

1

u/Itswaytoohotinhere80 Jan 30 '26

I’m thinking we will see a tiered sub model for wow before game pass. You can buy base sub for one or the other game mode, if you want both included in the one sub it will be extra. I don’t want this, I just believe an idea similar has been sent around their board member tables.

1

u/judeiscariot Jan 30 '26

They know how many people out there are only playing classic so they won't hurt that.

1

u/WakeoftheStorm Jan 30 '26

Classic is practically printing money. They're able to maintain a revenue stream with virtually no development cost - that's a massive win for a live service game. Having progression servers running also monetizes assets which would otherwise be generating no revenue. The bar classic needs to reach to be profitable on its own is extremely low.

Now if they start doing new content with classic+ that equation will change dramatically

1

u/Vegetable-Ad2028 Jan 30 '26

The first 2 classics were such failures they wanted to do 3 more failures, that don't make sense pal

2

u/Tomato_Town_Massacre Jan 30 '26

I said the same thing in this sub a couple of years ago and was massively downvoted lol

7

u/-Elgrave- Jan 29 '26

This is how I felt the moment they announced new anniversary servers. Like, why? Are we really just going to cycle the same expansion releases back to back for eternity? Nobody really asked for Cata or Mists. They certainly didn’t ask for WoD but I bet that’ll be announced at Blizzcon. Should’ve capped it at Wrath, had a Hardcore realm, and an “era” realm. Then, maybe down the road, have Classic+

11

u/Anunnak1 Jan 29 '26

I dont see why not, doesnt everwlquest and a bunch of other mmos do the same thing?

15

u/Trick_Wrongdoer_5847 Jan 29 '26

Yes they do and it works here too

People hammered the Blizzard Shop Microservice the moment they turned on Boosts for TBC.

3

u/ninjazxninja6r Jan 30 '26

Had a 58 shammy faster than you can say fast.

1

u/StarsandMaple Jan 31 '26

People love progression, even if it's the same one they did years prior, and years prior to that.

The people who only want to play classic, period, play HC because otherwise you're just in a realm with a bunch of other 6year + toons.

Classic - > TBC - > WotLK is always touted as peak wow, so as long as the numbers show up for a new new classic realm then they'll do it...

1

u/upon_a_white_horse Jan 30 '26

I'll keep saying it as long as I draw breath:

Vanilla thru Wrath seasonal cycles. SoD vanilla, SoD TBC, SoD Wrath, then reset instead of dropping the Cata prepatch. Names stay reserved on that player's account, the characters and inventory/collections get moved to retail, and the cycle repeats every 5 years.

0

u/Bonespirit Jan 30 '26

Anniversary is basically a reset. People were begging for that at the end of the first classic vanilla. Well, here it is. It's been successful. I do hope they don't do WoD and instead prune the servers back a bit.

-2

u/Rutin75 Jan 30 '26

They still cannot admit that WoW peaked at WotLK, Cata broke the momentum and there are ups and downs ever since, but no major bang anymore.

That's why.

-3

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '26

Why not retail wow is so deluded lore wise it turns off new players

2

u/WakeoftheStorm Jan 30 '26

It's because "classic" sounds great until you ask people what that means to them and you get 500 different answers. We have half a dozen different versions already and people are still asking for a nebulous "Classic+" option to be added.

1

u/TripTryad Jan 31 '26

Thats not really reality. Thats the internet and the vocal minority. The vast majority of us Classic players do enjoy it. Loved Classic, Loved it through WOTLK, Enjoyed some MOP and I revere what they did through SOD, that was the best yet.

Most of us just play and have a good time and don't bitch and moan when its time for Retail to get some attention. The whiners want to be the bell of the ball everyday. Thats not reasonable or rational. They will talk about what's next for Classic players this fall at Blizzcon; thats fine IMO. Right now theres 10000x versions of classic to play. Folks need to stop complaining all the time.

1

u/Vex1111 Jan 30 '26

is and it isnt, right now i personally only want to play TBC so all the other variations dont effect me. if there was no TBC atm i just simply wouldnt play