So a post on NeoGAF drew my attention to a Newegg listing for a World of Warcraft branded Xbox Live credit voucher, leading many to speculate that a console version of the MMO king could be on the cards.
Elder Scrolls Online is in development for Xbox One, which will likely have led to the development of a more refined policy for MMOs on the system. Previously the only subscription based MMO that had any sort of prominence on the Xbox 360 was Final Fantasy 11, which was an exception.
Honestly it seems that this Newegg listing is likely a clerical error, but it begs the question… could WoW work on consoles? Are we likely to see it?
Blizzard have always touted the ‘easy to play, hard to master’ philosophy when it comes to gameplay design, and whilst the former is truer than the latter in modern WoW, this presents a problem for any possible console outing.
World of Warcraft is fundamentally a PC game. It is action orientated, fast paced and has a heavy focus on movement. PC gamers would argue this is true of FPS as well – but when enemy players turn as slowly as you do, we have balance. Difference with WoW is, PVE boss mechanics are designed around being able to 180 with a mouse turn, abilities are designed around having access to a menagerie of keybinds to mash, the game is designed around using a mouse cursor to select team mates for healing. The game really does not lend itself well to a controller.
For Blizzard to consider a console based MMO, there’s a few things that would need to be accounted for.
A: Do console and PC players share servers?
Pitting keyboard and mouse armed players against joystick armed console players would create an imbalance impossible to rectify, in both PVE (player vs. computer) and PVP (player vs. player) scenarios. There’s simply no way to balance this without either restricting console players to a console-only server, splitting the already diminished user base, OR, getting Sony and Microsoft to open up their consoles to keyboard and mouse.
B: Why not allow mouse on console?
There are a number of reasons. First and foremost is the user experience. Console gamers expect to be able to use their controller, comfortably, wherever. Keyboard and mouse suggests sitting at a desk, which many console players simply do not do. Also it could open up the flood gates to requests to add mouse and keyboard support for FPS games, which again present a balance problem. Jo Gamer gets home from school and joins a server only to get destroyed by the one guy who is using mouse and keyboard? That is a horrible experience.
Also there’s the loss of the peripheral sales market. Controllers are expensive, if people suddenly start buying £10 USB mouse and keyboard combos instead of controllers, that presents a threat to a lucrative revenue stream for the big two, who see little return on the console units themselves.
C: Redesign WoW to be more controller friendly?
This would represent a massive investment of time and money on Acti-Blizz’s part, money which they may not be willing to spend. To rebalance some of the harder boss fights for controllers, as well as retro-fit classes to cram all their abilities onto a pad (some classes optimally utilize up to 30 abilities, cooldowns and trinkets keybinds in battles, not including custom macros).
WoW has been slowly dying for quite some time, in my opinion because Blizzard completely gutted the immersion by allowing people to enter easy-mode variants of big boss battles, making everyone blissfully aware that their hard earned accomplishments were the result of a numbers game rather than fighting a huge demon etc (that’s another story…). One could argue that their PC market has peaked, and that consoles represent an untapped resource. Despite ESO launching to tepid response on PC, it will likely do very well on 8th gen consoles, which at present have zero competition in the MMO RPG space.
So, could World of Warcraft work on console?
Hell yes it could, but not in its current form. It would require a significant investment in time, planning and development to achieve. This is not Diablo, World of Warcraft at the higher levels is incredibly competitive, and difficult for new comers to break in to. There is a wealth of gameplay for casuals, but it is the hardcore players that remain subscribed for months (years) on end and represent the core of the game’s success.
I’m not sure on whether or not this could happen… it could certainly be lucrative, but it would be require costly investment. Activision can afford it — but are they willing? If they are- we’ll no doubt hear something this November at Blizzcon 2014.
Would you give WoW on Xbox/PS4 a try?
Jez C is a games journalist, Executive Editor at Windows Central. They contributed 16 articles to ICXM between 2014–2015, focused on game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: an early Jez Corden byline before he joined Future plc’s Windows Central as Executive Editor.