Leap Day Predictions - 2.29.2008


So, I felt the need to make a post on Leap Day. Leap Day is an occurrence that only happens once every four years, yet nothing really special happens. I never understood why Leap Day isn't recognized as some sort of true holiday, and yet we have April Fool's Day, Talk Like A Pirate Day, Pi Day, etc. It's just another Friday...

However, this Leap Day got me thinking in a weird way. After almost 3 and a half years of life already, will WoW still be around when the next Leap Day comes in 2012?

The way it looks right now, if Wrath of the Lich King was to come out in the Fall of 2008 and the third expansion was to come out sometime close to the second/third quarter of 2010, we would be looking at WoW going to about the first quarter of 2011 - without any patches - and just then becoming stale content. While it's not official, we can assume that there will be at least three expansions over the course of WoW's life. Do I anticipate a fourth expansion? Maybe, but it just doesn't seem very likely in my opinion.

Now, with that, if my off-the-top-of-my-head-calculated predictions are correct, my lack of belief in a fourth expansion, and the fact that content patches would have a hard time carrying a game for an extra year and a few months, then I don't believe we'll be playing WoW on Leap Day 2012 - at least not in the form it's currently in.

I have faith in Blizzard and I love their games, but let's face it, not a whole lot of MMOs in this new generation go strong for eight years.

That's just my two cents on this fine Leap Day.

-Matt Graham

2 comments:

Aticus said...

I think it will still be around in 2012 but with a loss of over half its subscribers. I know I'll probably stop playing before then. It feels weird actually say that but I don't believe it can hold my interest and many other players. I'll compare it to EverQuest: It's still going but nowhere near as populated as 5 years ago. WoW just won't die off but it will slowly lose popularity.

Anonymous said...

Don't even try and pin this on talk like a pirate day, that day is truly sacred compared to any other holiday out there.... yar!