Quote Originally Posted by 'Jheusse',index.php?page=Thread&postID=132962#post 132962
I see Blizzard looking forward to having WoW and D3 side by side, their overall bottom line and market share improves with them both in the market.

Blizzard will have more paying customers with them both on the market. Sure some people will leave WoW for D3, but I'm going to guess they'll be offset by a larger number of people who will play both. D3 and WoW are different enough that I expect players will be able to justify both costs to themselves. This is particularly relevant since D3 will not be an MMO, most MMO players stick to one MMO at a time for the bulk of their MMO playing. I'm planning on buying D3 and continuing to play WoW. I might drop a few of my MB accounts, I dunno.

Blizzard will also be smart enough to set up cross promotions between the two franchises, whether it's a discount of a bundle or a free trial or what have you. That way fans of one of the franchises who have never gotten into the other get a "gateway drug" to give it a try.

Blizzard's success with WoW I attribute to a few things, mostly already mentioned:
1- Can be played on an extremely broad range of computers.
2- The lore built up through the previous games.
3- Blizzard has built a careful reputation that "there will be no wine before it's time", they've moved their ship dates to assure quality in the past, many gamers simply trust them that they won't release a game that doesn't rock, and will be patient with a ship date change because of that trust.
4- The game itself is very complex and very deep to master, but they have done a very good job of making the early game accessible to Joe Schmoe. You can fire up the game and start killing very easily. New blood is the critical factor in any endeavor's survival, and Blizzard has done an excellent job in making the game accessible.
I'd like to 2nd point 4. I was over at a friend's house last weekend and his wife was playing and I noticed what god-awful gear she has. She's been playing for over 2 years now and her main has never set foot into a heroic/raid and has done very few of the level 70's dungeons. Still though she feels like she has plenty to do and loves to play. Now that's just one person but then I look at an old guild I was in. I hopped into their vent last weekend and was listening to them going through normal slave pens with a full group of 70's.... Naturally my first thought was 'pathetic' but these people were still enjoying the game even at this level. Their whole guild is like that. Sure some of them do Kara and they've tip-toed into a few other raids but still they all somehow find enjoyment on a daily basis just running around and being in the WoW world. Amazing.