Lessons From World of Warcraft Classic

Have Blizzard Entertainment done the unthinkable, and brought life back to a dying brand... or will this simply phase out as another 'fad' that captured the attention of gamers for a couple of weeks, to be forgotten about next month?

If you didn't know, the World of Warcraft is returning to its roots.

It isn't returning, it has returned.

Launching worldwide yesterday, my friends tell me the servers have queues of 250 minutes to even get logged in.

My response was.. 'Who has three hours to wait to play a game?'

Apparently, lots of people.

I paid ￡10.00 for a monthly subscription to an old account and tried to log on.

21,234 in the queue. 265 minutes. Right.

Apparently, 20,000 people just on that one server based in the UK have four hours to wait to play a video game that was released in 2004.

Worldwide?

It must be millions.

What has Blizzard done to warrant the investment of collectively millions of hours, just queuing up to play the game?

Do you know how many million hours will be spent on World of Warcraft Classic this week?

Plenty of those millions, I assure you.

All of these people encapsulated as Orcs, running around Durator for hours-on-end, attempting to kill the same monsters to be awarded a 'kill' for their quest, tripling the time it takes due to the crowded fields of players running around with their Troll Avatars.

A friend told me 'that's me for three years at least.'

Three years? Commitment to a video game?

I know people who have five relationships over three years with five separate people.

I thought he was going to say three months - that would have been bad enough.

He played from midnight (launch) until 6am, woke back up at 9am and has been online since.

If he didn't have a girlfriend and kids, I think it would consume his life.

What can we learn from all of this madness?

Your customers know more than you

I'm sure with some of the problem's associated with the launch, there will be plenty of complaints by the fanbase of this game about yesterday's launch.

But to keep it real, Blizzard did a great job to even get this into development and the hands of their playerbase.

It was a direct response to the sentiment of the community.

It wasn't an easy task, nor was it one Blizzard wanted to make.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRNuRWizzDE

In 2016 they were asked about World of Warcraft Classic. The team laughed off the question.

'You think you do, but you don't' has become a bit of a cult-saying in the World of Warcraft community.

And then a year later, we have a presentation to announce the game was in development.

And two years of hype has been real for the fans of the game.

Too real.

The friend I mentioned earlier? He has been talking about this day for months.

It's like a sanctimonious date for World of Warcraft lovers.

The power is real.

And listening to their community will undoubtedly keep this 15-year-old game at the top of its genre for many years to come.

Capturing the inner child

Tapping into nostalgia is a strong way to capture your audience's attention and hearts.

And this was proven yesterday when multiple generations of young (and old) men queued for hours and hours to play the game they spent their childhoods on.

And their children did the same, just to see what all the fuss about this 'Classic' thing was all about.

This may only work for well-established brands that have a longlasting audience.

But could it also work for you if you took a piece of the past that was precious, and associated that with your brand?

I'm not sure what exactly we can learn from this, besides the power of nostalgia and the effects it can have when you want to capture the hearts of your audience.

We all want something to take us back, to show us what life used to be like, to remind us of the good old times.

I don't know how long that lasts, that we shall see in the coming months...

Sticking to your core fanbase is key

New players don't know have an idea of what Classic World of Warcraft is.

I played it when I was young, my father was the first one to introduce the game to me and the aforementioned friend.

But even I don't know what the experience was actually like, I was far too young to explore the world the game offers and navigate through the complexities of the game.

And that's the point: people want to work things out for themselves.

The game in the modern-day has become a case of 'awarded for playtime', or something like that.

If you put in the hours, you get the same as everyone else.

The old game?

It wasn't about that.

The items were rarer.

The levelling was harder.

The group finding was impossible.

Which makes it all the worthwhile when you actually get somewhere.

That's what the gamer wants: a challenge.

And now, there is some virtue in being accessible and easy to navigate, and rewarding players of all levels.

Which makes the 'choice' between the retail game and the old, vintage experience a masterplan.

Choice. That's what matters.

The video game has evolved over time. As it should.

It's grown and players have been able to experience that growth incrementally over fifteen years.

It's what kept it the most popular game of the genre, and one of the most popular in the world, for nearly two decades.

Nobody would ask the team to devolve the entire game and force everyone to play the original experience.

But offering old and new players to experience the original game?

That's golden.

It's hard to dethrone to first in the mind

The first game to make people go crazy across the world wasn't Minecraft, it wasn't League of Legends and it wasn't Fortnite.

It was the World of Warcraft.

And the fanbase... is committed.

People dress up in Warcraft costumes.

They find their true love in the game, where they spend their lives together.

Young men suspend their motivation for real life ambition to get to maximum level and grind out the best pieces of equipment on their characters.

And people all over the world are queuing up to do so, right now as I write this article.

It's the only game on there within its genre.

It's one of the few games that is restricted to one platform as a PC exclusive.

It's the game that was released first.

And yet, the popularity of this game is higher than it's peak.

Fifteen years after release.

To top all of that off, it's in an industry that has evolved so much over the years, it's unbelievable to think.

In 2004, when World of Warcraft was released, we were playing on the Playstation 2.

We're close to the Playstation 5.