Month: May 2015

It seems that ever since the information about Blizzard losing 3 million World of Warcraft subscribers, YouTube has become over run with videos from gamers claiming the loss is all because of the expansion Warlords of Draenor.

Now let me start off by saying that I have yet to purchase and play Warlords because of the fact Blizzard refuses to support my operating system. You see, many Windows gamers do not realize that other operating systems exist. Most believe Windows is the only PC operating system.

My PC operating system of choice is Linux, a very stable and fast operating system which is why I switched some 5+ years ago from Windows.

Late 2014, I began a petition requesting Blizzard finally show support for Linux like they did during the WoW beta phase. In early 2015 I posted a reply from Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime in which he stated that there is no need to support Linux because we can just use Windows. As you can imagine that answer got a lot of gamers who want to play Blizzard titles on Linux extremely angry.

As of this posting, the petition has almost 3,500 signatures but since many gamers are not up to signing petitions, especially since a Linux client request has been going on since WoW first launched some 10 years ago.  It is also unclear just how many of those 3 million Blizzard subscribers were Linux supporters. Many of them could have been Linux supporters who have said “fuck you Blizzard” over Mr. Morhaime reasoning to not support Linux.

For those who say Linux market share isn’t high enough, there are two things you need to realize;

1) Linux is a free operating system and therefore no real way to calculate market share unlike Windows and OSX which is easily calculated by how many units are sold.

2) Blizzard has had no problem supporting Mac even when it’s market share was far below what Linux is today yet they had no problem then.

So in closing, there is probably more than just the Warlords expansion that may have caused the loss in 3 million subscribers.

I just received an e-mail from WWE and amongst the items mentioned was news that the WWE Network is FINALLY available to all Canadians and not just to those who subscribe to Roger Cable.

As great as that news is, some Canadians will still not be able to subscribe.  Service fees for television, cable or satellite, rises every couple of years and with so many jobs in Canada leaving to places like Mexico or China, paying for television service becomes harder and harder to do.  This of course results in many Canadians cancelling their service and instead turn to torrent sites or using such services that hide ones location to access services like Hulu Plus which is not available in Canada.

The cable and satellite providers are trying to combat this with their own Hulu Plus/Netflix type service but they are doing it completely ass backwards.

What they have done is setup these online viewing services BUT you still have to be a cable/satellite customer.  Subscribing to both services is absolutely ridiculous.  Those who are turning to torrent site are doing so because they can no longer afford the high cost involved for cable and satellite.  If these companies want to get them back as customers, then they need to allow people to subscribe WITHOUT being forced to also take cable/satellite.

This brings us back to the WWE Network.  No one is allowed to subscribe unless they also have a cable or satellite subscription.  WWE really screwed up when they made such a deal with Rogers Communications.

Myself, it looks like I will have to continue downloading all my WWE and regular TV content until Rogers, Bell or Shaw get their heads out of their asses and start caring about the Canadians who either can not afford or do not want cable/satellite service.  If WWE and Hollywood want to blame someone for torrent downloading, they only have to look at Rogers, Bell, Shaw and the CRTC for they are the ones driving Canadians towards such places.