How Wargaming Makes Money
(Keep in mind I am ingnoring WoWp and WoWs for the most part, as well as any other WG game)
World of Tanks has been a massively successful game from 2011 to 2014, with huge additions to tank trees, physics changes, and insane numbers of premium tanks. This is all well and good for a paying player-which were common in these years. This game has its largest player base in RU and a decent size in EU. EU also seems to have the largest Clan Wars scene, as well as housing the most E-sports teams. (China/East Asia have not been taken into account as I am an NA player and China servers are not actually owned by WG atm)
Since then, the game has been less about adding in new tanks, but more about adding in premium tanks and UI changes, as well as improving the game as a whole, but not cranking out new content every month. Their initial strategy worked for a while, without having to really worry too much about balance. This is definitely evident in the power differences between the main nations and the smaller nations that are newer to the game (but still, TVP OP). This mostly goes for games in the random battle mode, as Clan Wars demands a more specific kind of tank. Also, Wargaming has moved the game to favor Russian tanks over any other, they have high DPM, decent alpha, and good mobility. However, there are other, non-Russian lines, that are strong, but meet these criteria. Arty is a major factor of this, as well as the slight change away from open maps to corridor maps.
The introduction of new tanks promotes the purchase of premium tanks (crews for new sets of vehicles, i.e. Skoda T40 for TVP crew) and premium account, in order to get these top tier vehicles faster. This strategy worked, until they ran out of tanks.
From 2014 (or so) onwards, Wargaming made greater balance changes, and larger additions to tank tree depth (T8 LTs, being one example), as well as UI. This does not mean that the game was better in the "old days" (We miss you TBC and Wrath of the Lich King), as the game contains more balance and varied gameplay. Clan Wars has also improved greatly for the more casual player interested in higher level gameplay, but no access to top tier tanks, or an insane amount of skill.
Wargaming will also always make money on players that collect tanks, but they need to start looking to make the game better for the average player (which is free to play, maybe $20 spent). Also, Wargaming will now no longer make money on the top level players, as they (me included) now play this game for free with Clan Wars gold. This means that Wargaming need to create a better game that promotes fairer gameplay and has more variety/depth. There are two was to go about this:
Wargaming could develop a skin system like CS:GO. This would destroy a already broken game by making skins/camos valuable for real money, and have varying degrees of rarity. This would hurt the game as World of Tanks is not currently balanced, and adding this would give the developers less incentive to create new content, other than skins for tanks. (CS:GO is balanced so they could do this)
The other option to do what they are calling the "Global Rebalance". This would help solve the fairness problem and hopefully address the impact of corridor maps by helping all tanks fit their new roles, instead of going on the roles they established years ago, for outdated maps. This would undoubtedly promote more interesting gameplay. Their "Sandbox Server" should show this in the coming weeks with the Global Rebalance coming either at the end of summer, or the October/November patch. Personally, I think that the summer patch would be best for monetary reasons, as to start the next big gaming part of the year with a big incentive to play. This rebalance will also mostly effect lower levels, up till 10 because currently most higher tier tanks have some degree of balance.
This rebalance will hopefully promote WoT as an Esport which will generate the most effective revenue stream for Wargaming and promote the game's longevity.
If you are still ready thanks a lot,
-Spirtwalker
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