#0 - Oct. 14, 2009, 8:30 p.m.
A: Because Blizzard said so.
Q: But blizzard said that - "We’re asking World of Warcraft players to become a part of Battle.net now as part of our preparation to launch these new tools."
A: Asking implies a choice, Blizz are not offering one, Blizzard are demanding you move, in short Blizzard lie.
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Honestly Blizz , if your going to force people to move accounts, at least be honest about it in the FAQ. If people wanted to move to Battle.net to take advantage of the new features, they would have. Everyone knows it's there, but they choose not to switch. Now you demand that they do.
Up until now it's been a pretty classic account transfer strategy. Step 1 - grab early innovators, Step 2 - offer an incentive to move people over (mandatory for beta registration), Step 3 - Close account for new clients, Step 4 - Make a big noise about everyone needing to move. Though you seem to have merged Step 3 & 4 in one, brave...or stupid. And judging by the shock of many people, I'm going with stupid.
I would love to see the figures on how many people had moved before your 12/10 announcement. I'm assuming it's far more than people realise for you to take this step, I guess beta registration is a big carrot.
I also wonder what you will do if people simply refuse to switch? Traditionally there are 2 blockers that can force old account systems to stay open for years on end, a) high value clients refuse to move (well everyone pays the same, so that isn't a factor), b) too many clients refuse to move...which is the one applicable here. Is there a number you are willing to cut?
You have clearly calculated the savings from consolidated hardware and potential reselling from the new Battle.net and tallied this up against potential losses. So how many people are you willing to lose? More importantly how many people does it take to pull the plug on this? 2%? 5%? 10%? And do you think they know that actually they hold the power, and all they need to do is refuse to switch? Just like they changed Blizz policy on so many other things.
This will be an interesting one to watch.
