View Single Post
12-16-13, 08:02 PM   #72
TheWafflian
A Murloc Raider
 
TheWafflian's Avatar
Join Date: Jul 2013
Posts: 8
Originally Posted by spiel2001 View Post
Just because one *can* do something does not imply it is wise, or moral, or even legal to do so. It never pays to bite the hand that feeds you.

WoW had over 13 million active, dedicated, users at its peak. It has how many now? For that matter, how many high quality addons have you seen fall away over the past few years?

The bottom line is that everyone has focused on the vocal minority of whiners who want everything easier, faster and for free and lost sight of who and what it was that created their success.

Yes... Blizzard can choose to do anything they want. As can WoWInterface. However, cutting off your nose to spite your face has never been a good business model.

Where would MicroSoft, Adobe, AutoDesk, Apache, Java, OpenOffice, and on and on and on, be had they not actively *encouraged* and *incubated* the extension markets that have made them who they are today?

Want a concrete example of the difference between an open architecture and encouragement of the market versus a specious restriction of the market? Compare Windows/PC to iOS/Mac in the public space. Microsoft ate Apple's lunch in the business and private sector because Apple was to restrictive of its ecosystem. Likewise, Apple has been slowly but surely losing its market share to Android for the exact same reason. Apparently they're slow learners over there.

Blizzard is making the exact same mistake with their policy. Rather than encourage a rich ecosystem of motivated authors seeking to improve the game experience, innovate and build community, they stifle the same entreprenurial spirit that gave rise to their own existence.

Sure... they *can* -- but they are fools for having done so and it shows in their staggering loss of market share not to mention the quality of the customer to whom they are appealing in the future. When you fill your ecosystem with refuse (polite word), it's only a matter of time before it dies. Doesn't just apply to rain forests, it applies to everything.
For every addon that's fell away, another has risen to take its place. Sure, some good ones have gone, but things come and go.

WoW's decline is not because of its' policy, but because it is nearly a decade old. The peak was around 10 Million (That's the figure I've always seen tossed around, I might be incorrect), and from what I've seen around the web, it's at about 7 Million now. Considering the plain aging of the game, I'd hardly consider it a 'staggering' loss, and of the 3 Million gone, I doubt that a sizable portion at all left as a result of the addon policy. WoW's the most popular P2P MMO on the market; they're doing it right.

I don't think you're wrong to want compensation for your work, and from your emails, you have very noble goals; but Blizzard's policy is policy. The setting simply isn't conducive to your goals in terms of addon-creation.

I'm not arguing against the idea of paid add-ons, I wouldn't really mind it (to a reasonable degree, at least. I'd be willing to pay for a large project like nUI, but not for some automatic grey-seller). I think they could bring some good to the game. Were the argument simply to change the policy, I'd agree. What I don't agree with is the idea that Blizzard is breaking the law, or people calling others 'entitled' for wanting something for free, when Blizzard says they require it to be free. I know nUI can be free, I'm simply saying this from the topic's general sentiment.

Last edited by TheWafflian : 12-16-13 at 08:05 PM.
  Reply With Quote