#NoFlyNoSub #BringBackFlying

The 2 tags that defined my weekend šŸ˜›

And Wow. The last few days have been a flurry of activity on the website, all over the no-flying announcement by Watcher.

Not least there was a real spike in site traffic over the weekend and the first half of this week, which saw traffic into the thousands and 160 times the normal daily reader count šŸ™‚

Looking at the traffic referral links, the last blog post about flight has been linked and re-tweeted all over the place, from the official US forums to MMO-Champion, from Twitch TV channels even so far as a knitting website (hello ladies! šŸ˜‰ ), right through to even being used as a reference in one guy’s sub cancellation request!

The vast majority, and I do mean VAST majority of comments relating to the blog post were in strong agreement, and the feedback I received on it were 98% FOR wanting flight returned.

There were 2 (count em, TWO) negative comments in reply, one calling me a Blizzard fanboi (lol), the other a whiner šŸ™‚

I’ve often found when the majority of ppl disagree with certain people’s world view it’s “a lot of noise by a bunch of whiners”. Oddly though when they agree on something with that same person they suddenly transform into ” the voice of the players”.

/pinchofsalt

Heh.

Anyway, there is a live streamed Q&A with Watcher to be held over a week from now.

June 6th.

Seriously, leaving the community hanging for 2 whole weeks from the no flight announcement to the Q&A reeks of cowardice. Hoping that the furore caused by the interview in Polygon will die down, so they can run through a bunch of softball pre-approved questions where they’ll essentially re-iterate what they’ve already decided.

I doubt that they will either address or acknowledge the massive numbers who I’ve seen unsubbing over the past 6 days, and it’s A LOT. In as many places as I saw the blog post linked I saw the same reaction time and time again.

People were pissed over several things, but stayed subbed on the same assumption that lead them to buy the expansion, that flight would be coming in soon.

However as soon as Watcher dropped the bomb on Friday past, people have been cancelling their accounts left right and center, and posting proof in forums, on Twitter and YouTube. So it’s not just people paying lip service to the idea. They, like me, have actually followed through and really cancelled their subscription.

I totted up after cancelling how much I’d spent with Blizzard over the past 7+ years, and it’s demonstrably over Ā£2000, more than a quarter of which was in the past 15 months alone.

If even committed, big spending players like me are quitting over this, then Blizzard look like they are in fact, whilst not commuting suicide, certainly biting off the hand that literally feeds them.

MMO-C have had a poll running for 6 days about this, and for 6 days, regardless of the number of votes, the percentages have remained the same:

64% want flight.

36% don’t want it.

That’s a pretty risky gamble to take with your livelihood, when you’re pissing off two-thirds of your potential revenue stream.

All for what? Potential production cost savings down the line? At what point would you be saving more in production costs vs the lost revenue from sub losses from those that quit over this?

From a business standpoint it’s daft beyond belief. They have a bigger team now, so surely they should be INCREASING production costs? Especially after WoD has been, and looking at 6.2 will continue to be, the poorest expansion yet.

Not just in content, but in terms of quality, customer satisfaction, fun, and good creative ideas.

I said onTwitter at the weekend that Warlords is so bad, it’s actually improved my estimation of Cataclysm.

IT’S ACTUALLY IMPROVED A 4 YEAR OLD EXPANSION.

Sheesh, that’s taken some doing, but it managed it nonetheless.

Anyway, I’ve put a transcription of the last blog post up as a video, and I’ll be putting another video up tomorrow night, so keep an eye out for that šŸ˜‰