Is World of Tanks Dying?

the popular online multiplayer game World of thanks is experiencing a significant downtrend as it's losing thousands of players every day even though the game has been extremely profitable with around $7.1 billion generated throughout the years according to third party sources it looks like wargaming the gamees publisher is getting ready to finally pull the plug this by being plagued by significant issues such as terrible matchmaking predatory monetization tactics and laily reskinned and overpriced premium tanks War gaming is intensifying its aggressive monetization strategies once again the this appears to be an attempt to extract every last bit from the player base in this video we will explore and find an answer as to why I think word of TKS is dying this time for good if you aren't familiar with word of thanks it operates on a premium business model where the game is free to play but participants also have the option to pay for premium features the game mainly focuses on player versus player gameplay with each player controlling an armored vehicle from the period of pre-World War II to the Cold War era the most popular game mode is called random battles where players are matched up against others in a 15 V5 scenario World of Tanks has been on the market for almost 15 years which is already impressive combining this with the data I could gather online from different third-party websites the game has been one of the most profitable Ventures ever created with a rough estimate of making around $7 billion as of 2024 before we delve into this video I just want to say that I love word of thanks and I've been playing it for more than 10 years there is still so much potential in terms of content and player enjoyment so the last thing I want is for it to be neglected and end up like one of those dead MMOs be frequently encounter nowadays going back in the history of word of Tanks things started to take a darker turn for the game's future around 2017 when completely overpowered premium tanks which could only be obtained with real money were introduced until that point most of the tanks available for cash were significant diverse than their freely obtainable counterparts when the first gamebreaking tank the Chrysler GF was released they even went as far as threatening one of the biggest content creators with a copyright strike on his YouTube channel the content creator called him out on their aggressive monetization tactics and although he took on a very vulgar tone towards the developers his criticism was not entirely baseless because the pricey $80 worth of premium tank had literally no frontal weak spots which is a massive issue when it comes to the game balance even though War gaming later apologized for this the release of these tanks has definitely done his damage and made many upset around the 2017 2018 period jumping to 2019 according into third party sources the game had a player base of around 7.1 million active players which is still very respectable however if you look at the numbers between 2019 and 2020 we can see that the player base stagnated which normally would not be a bad thing for an older MMO however let's not forget that this was a period of massive lockdowns and curfews induced by The Surge of the co9 pandemic most online games grew significantly during this period as many people were forced to stay home the player count of ver of Tanks stagnated during this period which is already a bad sign for the game's Health however up until 2019 we had major content updates throughout each year 2021 was when game development started to slow down and it significantly slowed down after 2021 all of these sourced by War Gaming's own documentation of each update throughout the years lesser game development with significantly increased monetization obviously leads to many people getting bored and fed up with this strategy and this combined with the naturally shrinking player base is all very concerning to look at by 2022 according to thirdparty sources the player base shrunk from 7.1 million during the co9 pandemic to a mere 4.5 million which is a sharp 37% drop in my view it was at this point when wargaming realized that the game is rapidly losing players and instead of changing their development strategy they decided it would be best if they start milking the players as much as they can we had never seen so much monetized content before to put things into perspective in the Years leading up to 2023 we only saw one or two loot box events at Max and maybe another major event such as buying a tank using in-game resources worth a couple hundred on average according to third party sources they were making around4 to $550 million every year however in 2023 they started taking things a bit too far the amount of monetized content has been increased twofold and we had four loot box events where you could gamble for tanks two black market events which heavily Builds on the foro aspect and two assembly shop events where one had to spend around $200 worth of in-game resources to be able to buy that single tank and now are you ready for the truly crazy part coming to 2024 just in these 5 months alone we've already had four gamble loot box events full of really bad bad tanks a black market which heavily Builds on the formal aspect once again an assembly shop and two other major monetized events once again these mentioned events happened in just the last 4 months the rate of monetization increase has been absolutely off the charts and especially in the past 3 years looking at this chart and data they've managed to quad druple the monetization and revenue and then this year in just four months we've nearly met the entirety of last year's monetization which was already unprecedented and if this doesn't Scream the game is dying we are entering the milking phase to the general player base I would be absolutely shocked this mil King approach isn't completely alien to online games as usually with any multiplayer game one two years before pulling the plug or entering maintenance the Publishers go crazy with their monetization and they give the notion that nothing is wrong they act like the game is fine and that it's still under active development which is later followed by a farewell announcement thank you for your support over the years but unfortunately it is time we move on take a look at the combination of these charts portraying how much content wargaming edit and how many monetized events were taking place during the years after 2018 you can clearly see the development slowed down significantly and even though the game could have massively grown during the pandemic it didn't as they were extremely reluctant to actively develop their product for example in the last four years we had only received four new maps which is a super low amount and along the regular introduction of new tanks is the basic building cube of the game I've talked about loot boxes before and the main reason they're in as predatory is because nowadays almost every new premium thing can only be obain by buying loot boxes and gambling for them back in the day these loot boxes were very exclusive and only came out during the holiday Ops event around Christmas you could find a lot of good stuff in these boxes including gold the premium currency world of TS and even now these Christmas boxes are generally a great deal plus there's a Pity mechanic that ensures for every 50 boxes you buy you'll get a random premium tank from the list the problem start when these exclusive boxes are no longer special and start coming out almost every month which has been happening this year when War gaming stuffs these boxes with a bunch of Premium tanks that most players already own the chances of getting one of the few new unique ones drop because of this you have to buy more boxes to get that one tank you're looking for which means you end up spending more money usually these unique tanks aren't available on their own until much much later sometimes months or even years which definitely triggers fear of missing out another major issue is that these new boxes don't have any gold in them instead when you open a box worth about a dollar you might get just a single XP booster a decal a camo or a small amount of credits there is no gold at all and many of the new tanks in these boxes are just reskin versions of existing tanks seriously how low effort is that for example the m is a reskin basque the forest spirit is a reskinned su130pm and the alambic is an ason Rex with a 3D style are they out of ideas for new tanks or are they just trying to save on development costs what do you think share your thoughts in the comments on top of that many of the new tanks that aren't reskined and are found in these loot boxes are terribly balanced some are so weak they could be dropped to tier and still perform poorly another strange step is that wargaming recently decided to shut down the word of thanks official forums for good and it's causing quite a story in the community their announcement reads as of May 20th 2024 the word of thanks forums have been closed permanently and threads are no longer accessible we have transitioned our activities to more Dynamic and accessible platforms that facilitate better and more immediate communication with our community the developers St that they want to focus more on newer platforms like Discord Reddit and social media which they think are better for quick and live L interactions now there are multiple reasons as to why they could have made this move platforms like Discord and social media have broader reach and can make for quicker more spontaneous interactions within the community maintaining forums require significant resources including paid moderation and Technical upkeep and by shutting down the forums their team can redirect these resources to other areas of Community Management however a lot of players aren't happy about this move as the forums for a gold mine of knowledge packed with detailed guides strategies and discussions about different game Mechanics for many new players the forums where the goto place to familiarize themselves with the game and get advice from experienced players now all this valuable info is going to disappear and unlike social media where posts come and go the forums were organized and easy to search so you could always find what you needed without this Central Hub a lot of important guides and discussions will be lost making it harder for new players to find what they're looking for the forums also have build a strong sense of community and with them gone this community might get scattered across different platforms which could hurt the quality of discussions there's also the issue of how info is managed on newer platforms Discord and Reddit are great but they're not as organized and it's harder to keep track of topics and valuable post can easily get buried under new stuff this could lead to the same questions being asked over and over again and a lot of useful info will be lost in the shuffle in short whatever reason they might have for all this shutting down the official forums has some big downsides as they were more than just a place to chat they were a Cornerstone of the community and the key resource for learning about the game now a few words about the North American server of word of tanks in short the na server for what is having a really tough time currently the service activity levels are extremely low and it's honestly a miracle that wargaming has not shut it down or merged it with the EU server yet to put things into perspective last Sunday morning there were only about 8,000 players online which is extremely low with fewer players inadequate tank balance is even a bigger problem as there's less Variety in matchmaking for example if there are 100 players in the naq it feels like you're always up against the same overpowered tanks and this lack of diversity makes the game a lot less fun new players have it especially hard as they often get matched against veterans which can be really discouraging this all gets worse at lower tiers where newcomers constantly face experienced players making it tough for them to enjoy the game and stick around these reasons all contribute to the server's reputation suffering greatly and potential new players are being turned off by negative reviews and the Steep learning curve the na competitive scene feels almost dead with players often battling the same small group of people under different tags each campaign unless there are bigger changes like more Rewards or gold on the global map things will keep getting worse says a prominent member of one of the na top clans what's also pretty alarming is that wargaming had just fired the head of community on na could this potentially signal a possible merger with the U server what are your thoughts about this please write me in the comments overall the N is in a really rough spot right now with declining player numbers and balance issues creating a vicious cycle that is hard to break without major changes another Main isue for the substantial player loss and massive disinterest recently is that war gaming rarely introduces any non-monetized content War Gaming's focus on monetized content at the expense of content available to all is quite problematic for several reasons if they release too many paid events it will simply alienate the player base and harm the game's reputation lately a lot of players including myself feel that the game prioritizes profit way over player experience which generates a lot of frustration and makes many outright quit the game now obviously the primary reason for pushing monetized content is to generate consistent Revenue free toplay games like word of Tanks rely heavily on in-game purchases to sustain their operations as it costs a lot of money running the game with all its features and to pay for all this war gaming offers purchasable items to ensure a steady income stream even though the gaming Market is highly competitive War gaming is adopting more aggressive monetization strategies to maximize profits which leads down a road of different issues players who feel that they cannot progress or compete without spending money may lose interest in the game and if players feel that the game is too focused on monetization they will see simply leave for other games that offer a better combination of free and paid content if the general image about a game is that it's too paid to win it will harm the game's reputation and make it difficult to attract new players as negative reviews and Word of Mouth can deter potential newcomers from trying the game clam Wars once a vibrant part of word of Tanks has significantly declined key issues include the long-term disablement of the global map the absence of new and exciting campaign tanks and the general lack of incentives and motivations for players to participate the Clans scene has been extremely stale recently and is essentially dead as there's no compelling reason for many players to engage in it to Breathe new life into Clan Wars a complete overhaul is necessary here's the list of when every single campaign reward tank was released we can see that over the years war gaming has significantly slow than the introduction of these vehicles in World of Tanks initially new reward tanks were introduced almost annually but in recent years the frequency has decreased drastically with only three new tanks introduced in seven years this space is super sluggish and they must understand that regularly introducing new campaign reward tanks keeps the game Dynamic and fresh and without new content the game will become stale and demotivate many from participating in Clan Wars resulting in further player loss from the veterans that have no new tanks to unlock they should also work to design additional rewards and make it so that these are attainable not just by the top tier Clans but also by mid and lower tier Clans too this will make the rewards available for more and drive more players to take part and will ensure that clans of all skill levels feel motivated to compete back in the day every campaign had three different parts there were three fronts where you had to play with tier six tier 8 and tier 10 tanks this will also add variety to the gameplay by allowing players to engage in different levels of competition and this diversity will also cater to a wider range of players from beginners to Veterans making Clan Wars more inclusive and exciting it's absolutely astonishing how the developers have not introduced any new personal missions in World of Tanks for ages right now there are only two sets of personal missions to complete the first one with the object to 60 as the final reward came out in January 2015 almost 10 years ago the second set which ended the object 279e was released in August 2018 and we haven't seen anything new since then these personal missions are welld designed because they keep players hooked making them push through tougher challenges to unlock exclusive tanks and other cool rewards wargaming's reluctance to add more content and rewards in this area might also be speeding up the player base's decline it's very surprising that despite word of thankss being a hugely profitable game there aren't many new maps being added regularly and when they do add new maps they often end up being Corridor based which limits strategic options and makes gameplay feel repetitive and dull just take a look at these maps 25 out of the 39 playable maps at the highest possible tier R Corridor Maps which means that they cater to Hon tanks with good turret armor the most another big issue is that areas on some maps are basically noo zones and trying to cross these death man's lands is almost impossible due to heavy fire from camping tanks which creates frustrating bottlenecks and takes away from the Strategic death that should be part of the game on top of this whenever wargaming reworks a map it somehow ends up in a significantly worse state that massively punishes aggressive players and gameplay new bushes and killing zones are made and it all feels much worse compared to the original version Maps such as erlenberg murovanka or Mountain pest are just a couple of examples of many additionally we've been promised a lot of revers such as the enlargement of enk or rking Empire's border which we've heard nothing about recently map development is the Cornerstone of this game and to keep things fresh and exciting wargaming should make it Priority to create new maps regularly these new maps should feature a variety of terrains and strategic options moving away from the overused corridor based designs additionally bringing back old maps with updated graphics and balancing them for current gameplay can bring a nostalgic feel for veteran players and could make many players return to the game this is key to preventing the game from becoming stale as updating these Maps offers a mix of new and familiar experiences making the gameplay more Dynamic fun and much more colorful matchmaking and tank balancing in World of Tanks is a mess right now there are way too many Scouts artillery and tank destroyers in the que which leads to unbalanced and frustrating battles either the Matchmaker needs a complete revamp or we need changes to control the number of each tank type for example having games with four Scouts two three Rs and five TDS per side is too much we need limits on the super classes to ensure better gamep playay heavy and medium tanks are supposed to be the main focus of the game but too many support tanks simply ruin the balance and this issue is made much worse by the current map designs that do not allow for strategic play and often end in unavoidable Crossfire Maps should support balance paths for both Heavies and mediums overall we need better balance changes and improved map designs to make the game much more enjoyable recently V gaming has been introducing a new mechanic with every new tank line but they must understand that not every new tank in the game needs a new mechanic tank balance is closely tied to the overall game balance before the introduction of the chiefton and object 279 there were many different Metals over the years with TS like the e 5 the 113 the type five heavy and the super conquer being the top dogs for the past 6 years though the meta has been dominated by the Chie and the object 279 with only the AMX M4 shaking things up recently High tier gameplay feels very stagnant and while balance is crucial we need fresh changes at not just tier 10 but throughout all tiers they shouldn't come from new mechanics every 6 months but from making all tanks exciting again the amount of power crap tanks in the game is absolutely enormous and I'm 100% sure that a lot of players would be very happy if they're all premium would get a facelift and would get buffed or reworked to be fun and enjoyable again for example the f215b on the ru server was reworked which brought new excitement speaking about the ru server Lea Studio primarily known for their work on World of Warships took over the development of the Russian version of World of Tanks around late 2021 since then they have implemented several significant changes and reworks focusing on improving game balance and overall player satis faction they have been very active in rebalancing maps and tanks adjusting parameters like Firepower armor and Mobility to ensure a fairer game balance this also includes making weaker tanks more competitive and adjusting overpowered tanks to better fit the game's balance which war gaming usually takes way too long to test and Implement overall Le do see much more Community to evolving the game in response to community feedback and changing gaming Landscapes which is crucial for retaining an active and engaged player base War gaming has recently launched a new battle pass collaboration with the Teenage muton Ninja Turtles introducing theme skins and other content to word of tanks in my opinion a tank game should strive to somewhat keep its historical accuracy showcasing tanks from various periods with great attention to detail the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle skins however are a far cry from The Game's usual look they are colorful cartoonish and just plain different from the realistic 10 designs players are used to and while it definitely causes a surge of nostalgia in some due to childhood memories many thing that adding these fictional pop culture skins messes with the game's historical feel sure C operations like this can be exciting and bring something new to the table but at the same time wargaming needs to find the balance for if they stray too far from The Game's historical routs they risk losing some of the very players who helped make World of Tanks a success as I've previously mentioned I L this game and grew up playing it and as a content creator I still see so much potential in this game but I honestly believe that we are in the 24th hour when it comes to saving the game from its ever increasing depopulation I also feel like we need a bit of fresh air in the room and wargaming has to come up with something huge that will spark a massive positive response from the community there are loads of different ideas for this such as graphical overhaul massive tank rebalancing the introduction of old revered maps to SP some Nostalgia the introduction of very carefully balanced tier 11 and tier 12 tanks more tank customizations and the list goes on most importantly you as a viewer what do you think about all that has been said what is the biggest problem that is ruining the game for you is it possible for word of Tanks to regain some of its lost player base and start growing again one thing is for sure only time will tell whether it developers decide on abandoning ship and moving on from World of Tanks or trying to actually preserve its longevity by starting to care about it again thank you for watching [Music]

Channel: kajzoo

Views: 171,475

Keywords: wot, world of tanks, world of tanks best replays, world of tanks funny moments, wot replays, мир танков, wot blitz, вот блиц, Russian, kajzoo, Premium tank, skill4ltu, Quickybaby, dezgamez, review, Warthunder, WT, tankelit, minecraft, blitz, ворлд оф танкс, wot best replays, wargaming, wot funny moments, танки онлайн, gaming, gameplay, wotb, video games, worldoftanks, iyouxin, quickybaby wot, tanks, war thunder, mrbeast, free 2 play, Is World of Tanks Dying?, World of Tanks Dead, WoT Dead, op

Id: nmVCH09Sz_A

Length: 20min 18sec (1218 seconds)

Published: Mon May 27 2024