Daily Archives: December 16, 2023

Reviewing My 2023 Predictions

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We are back once again for another review of yet another round of poorly considered and occasionally ill-defined predictions I made at the start of the year.  My usual rule is that if it hasn’t happened by December 15th, then it likely isn’t coming to pass.

I have engaged in an almost annual experiment in proving how wrong I can be about the future for a good fifteen years now.

My 2023 banner courtesy of our daughter

My track record so far with predictions

Time to score what I predicted back on January 1st.  Technically, I did not make predictions, but simply asked questions… but I also added in what I though the answer would be come the end of the year, so it amounts to the same thing.  All questions are worth 10 points, with partial credit available.  My prediction, or a clip thereof, in quotes below each of the titles.

1 – Will Microsoft be able to close its deal to acquire Activision Blizzard?

The FTC is suing, which Microsoft says is unconstitutional, though I am pretty sure a courtroom is where one ought to work that out. Anyway, will the deal go through. Yes, I believe it will.

Yes, the deal closed, just in time for BlizzCon, where the XBox chief made a dull appearance on the stage.  10 Points

2 – Will Diablo IV hit its mark?

June 6th is the day. I am going to say it will be delayed.

I didn’t think it would make June 6th, but Blizz managed to launch it on time.  However, I was wrong, they did ship on time… they even had early access for those willing to pay extra.  0 Points

3 – Will Dragonflight hold on to players or will is fall off like Shadowlands?

So my first of the year answer is fall off. I feel as though Blizzard has learned nothing, that the “answers” this expansion is trying to provide is to give people pretty dragons and flying from day one while holding onto the conviction that what everybody really wants is to sit at level cap for the next 23 months grinding rep and raiding to get that one drop they really want.

This is a tough one… sort of.  I think Dragonflight did, in fact, hold onto players better than Shadowlands did.  That would make my guess incorrect.  But I cannot really tell and Blizz isn’t helping with its MAU numbers across all products and the fact that Dragonflight never actually obtained the numbers that past expansion had.  We know that because there was no press release about how it had done better than past launches by even the most tenuous metric and the fact that they put it on discount and were giving free trials before its first month was done.

So 0 Points for my specific guess, but I still wouldn’t be bragging about how well Dragonflight did if I were Blizz.

4 – Will Cataclysm Classic be a thing?

Cataclysm Classic will be announce in 2023.

As we heard at BlizzCon, Cataclysm Classic will most certainly be a thing in 2024.  10 points

5 – Will we get anything concrete about Blizzard’s survival game?

Are you kidding? Nothing but vague references in 2023.

Did we even get vague references?  Anyway, I said “no” back in January, and we still know nothing now in December.  10 points

6 – Will Daybreak announce something… anything… new?

Expansions don’t count.  I mean a new title.  They screwed the pooch last year on the best opportunity, a Marvel version of DC Universe Online.  So no, they won’t.

I explicitly disallowed expansions in my prediction.  Only new titles count.  Did we get anything?  Sort of.   Ji Ham spoke about three new titles at the Stockholm Syndrome Capital Markets Day presentation back in September.

One was a new MechWarrior title for next year, but that isn’t Daybreak, so it doesn’t count.

Another was a new EverQuest title with a soft target of 2028.  But even Mr. Ham said if this was an official announcement it would get a lot of press, strongly implying that this was not.  Certainly the whole thing was pretty hand-wavy.

And then a new H1Z1 title, which sounded like H1Z1 Just Survive, so I am not sure how “new” we are really talking here.  It was also not even set to start development until next year and there has been no real press release, so it feels pretty soft.

So I don’t feel like I can claim the win, but I also don’t think Daybreak really announced anything solid or new enough to count, so I am going to split the difference with them.  5 Points

7 – Will Daybreak give up on its LOTRO on consoles fantasy?

I think they will. But I also think they won’t come out and say it, that they’ll do their usual routine and just pretend it was never announced and was never a thing and Columbus Nova was never part of the deal with SOE.

I said they would and I believe they have absolutely, if indirectly, killed that idea when they announced the LOTRO would not be getting any sort of remaster.  So pretty much what I predicted; killed off without directly saying so.  10 Points

8 – What About Ji Ham’s Acting Career?

I said he would continue to act because EG7 wasn’t going to be any effort into finding a real CEO, so Mr. Ham remains the only CEO they have, acting or otherwise.  10 Points

9 – Will CCP be able to hold onto its current EVE Online player momentum?

It was a tough summer and fall for CCP, but once they got the Uprising expansion out, player counts jumped up.  But even though they have addressed some long neglected areas of the game, I feel the usual player attitude of, “what have you done for us lately?” will kick in.  Also, the 33% subscription price increase will continue to bite.  We’re in for some decline and another weak summer if they don’t have anything in the tank between now and Fanfest in the fall.

The going back to expansions thing seemed to keep players engaged and there wasn’t even a summer slump.  0 Points

10 – How will CCP celebrate 20 years of EVE Online?

For twenty years I doubt we’ll get another physical box.  I suspect, instead, there will be a set of special virtual packs with special anniversary SKINs and, if you want to collect the full set it will cost you more than the $99 the ten year box did.  CCP will be whaling for the anniversary.

We did, in fact, get a physical box.  We haven’t gotten the box and we don’t know when we’ll get the box, but there was a box.  They did do packs as well, so whaling was a thing.  0 Points

11 – Will CCP reveal either of their other projects?

There is the perennial FPS that they have been working on in London since they had to close DUST 514 and then the mobile strategy game a crew in Shanghai is making.  But for 2023 CCP will remain EVE Online only.

Well, they revealed all sorts of products at Fanfest.  We got the long awaited shooter announcement with EVE Vanguard, a new mobile called EVE Galaxy Conquest, the cryto blockchain scam that is Project Awakening, and even a board game with EVE: War for New Eden.  Nothing is apparently shipping anytime soon, but they were all revealed this year.  0 Points

12 – More Biomes for Valheim?

There is still the Deep North and the Ashlands to finish up before we can finish Odin’s work.  But I bet we don’t get either in 2023.

We actually got the Ashlands… so happy to be wrong on that.  0 Points

Update: I am reliably informed that the Ashlands did not make it in this year.  10 Points

13 – Are we done with crypto garbage in online games?

In the sense that no studio that isn’t looking to be highlighted as a fly-by-night scam will engage with crypto, blockchain, or whatever, yes, we are done.   That doesn’t mean that VentureBeat won’t still be out there shilling for the latest crypto scam or that Lord British will gain an ounce of self-respect or common sense.

Sort of.  I mean, VentureBeat has moved on to 8 out of 10 headlines on their site being about AI as opposed to the Metavers or Blockchain, so things have certainly quieted down save for the occasional announcement that somebody has lost yet another bored ape or whatever.

But then there is CCP out there with Project Awakening.  I mean, if Andreesen Horowitz gave me $40 million I guess I’d use it and maybe try to leverage some of the work done to support other projects.  In the end though, they will want a crypto based video game where all assets are on the blockchain so they can tax every transaction.  (In case you haven’t noticed, that is the end goal of all large scale crypto projects, to take a cut of transaction, so it is all a giant rent seeking opportunity.)  I am sure it will all end in tears, but we are not done yet.  0 Points

14 – What will be the next Pokemon Games?

Remakes of Pokemon Black & White.

Nope.  Dammit.  0 Points

15 – Will Meta Horizon Worlds be a thing at the end of 2023?

Yes, but you, I, and the dev team working on it will still not find it worth playing.

Given how many people the Juicero guy has had to lay off as Zuckerberg’s attention moved to AI and taking on Twitter, Meta isn’t going to be doing any more press releases about giving users legs.  But it is still there, quietly doing whatever it is that it does.  It even got a first party studio to make things to do in it.  So forgotten, but not gone.  10 Points

16 – Will we see anything like a real metaverse title in 2023?

Lots of visionary talk, but nothing will be online to play.  I mean, it depends on how you define “metaverse” these days.  You might already consider we have it.  But all the current claimants pretending to be building such a thing… and milking investors with the vision… will carry on with empty promises.  Alas, even Playable Worlds, which is the most earnest and likely to deliver something in the long term, will just be some more “Riffs by Raph” this year and little else.

The empty promises continued, though at a much reduced rate as people abandoned the metaverse concept for AI… and no actual metaverse title emerged, unless you consider the internet already is the metaverse.  10 Points

17 – Will any of the usual crowd funded MMO suspects go live with anything?

Camelot Unchained, Pantheon, Squadron 42… I’m probably missing a few…  they’ll all be no-shows again in 2023.

This was clearly put in to give myself 10 Points for no effort.

18 – Will Elon Musk still own Twitter at the end of 2023?

Yes. For all of his mismanagement, the attention he gets feeds his ego in ways no electric car or rocket ship ever can.

I said yes and in hindsight I wish I had been wrong.  I feel like I should deduct points for just how insane the last year was at Twitter.  But I didn’t ask if it would be a wild ride, just if the richest idiot in the world would still own his social media platform, no matter how much he had devalued it.  10 Points

Scoring

If I have totaled things up correctly, that is 95 105 points out of a possible 180 points, which gives me a 53% 58% guess rate.  Better than some years.  In 2022 I only hit 43% and called it a success relative to some past efforts.  If I could manage that rate in Vegas I would be a high roller eventually.

Was I off the mark on my scoring?  Tell me.

Of course, at the end of the year I wonder what else I should have picked out, or what I might have missed.  I certainly did not call, for example, Blizz screwing up its licensing agreement in China nor, as I noted, some of the rank stupidity from Elon “GFY” Musk.

And now I have a couple of weeks to come up with what to guess about come next year.  What is on the horizon?  My crystal ball fogged up after I used that store brand glass cleaner on it.  But I’ll come up with something.  History shows that I always do, so at least that seems to be a safe prediction.