Days after Mike Morhaime lamented that World of Warcraft has become less social, Blizzard’s President J. Allen Brack remarked in the Q1 2020 Earnings Call that WoW is actually, “a very social experience.”
For context, Mike was discussing how in their intent to make World of Warcraft more accessible, the game actually became less social as a result,
“I think that's a question of accessibility and time investment. I wouldn't say that MMOs wouldn't have a resurgence in the future, but maybe there are other types of games that are able to capture the social experience even more. I would also just observe that as World of Warcraft evolved over the years, it actually kind of became less social, because in an effort to achieve more accessibility, we removed some o the reasons why you need to play with the same group of people over and over."
During the Q1 2020 Earnings Call, Blizzard President J. Allen Brack chimed in on the topic. To be clear, the context of the question asked was surrounding subscriber trends, as noted by Wowhead. But it isn’t difficult to imagine Brack’s reply below as an indirect response to the previous comments made by Mike Morhaime,
“I want take a step back and just say we're really thankful that our games are able to play a part in how they bring people together during what's really an unprecedented and challenging time for us all. World of Warcraft has been fortunate to be engineered as a very social experience, and that's as true today as the day we launched. Over time, we've listened to feedback from the community, and the game has evolved to what we now call the "modern game," which has really expanded the breadth and the depth of gameplay, as well as making it easier to kind of find friends, group up, make progress, or play alone, all within the social environment.”
He continued, remarking that he views the World of Warcraft and WoW Classic communities a single unified community, concluding that the variety in the experiences provided is actually an inherent strength.
What are your thoughts? Do you agree with Mike Morhaime, or J. Allen Brack? Or, do you stand somewhere in the middle? Sound off below.
Image credit: Blizzard
