EverQuest And The Skaff Effect Explored

Posted by simoniker on Tuesday December 16, 2003 @08:01PM from the didn't-the-daleks-live-there? dept.

Thanks to the QT3 forums for pointing to a Bastion Press column discussing why EverQuest and its sequels may always be the most popular MMORPG series. The author argues that EverQuest, though not without its problems, is good at keeping up with the competition: "Sony learns from other products released into the marketplace, and they continue to watch new developments from new games and absorb the more innovative features." This is all part of what he calls 'The Skaff Effect', referencing a similar phenomenon seen in another genre: "Despite a number of very good games in the tabletop RPG marketplace, none of them have ever managed to topple D&D as the #1 game in the field. Skaff Elias (one of the guys behind the Magic revolution) hypothesized that any new game released into a marketplace dominated by one brand would only serve to drive more consumers to that brand."

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I know why! by Guppy06 · 2003-12-17 00:32 · Score: 1, Offtopic

"why EverQuest and its sequels may always be the most popular MMORPG series."

Because nobody thinks that Phantasy Star Online counts! Of course soon we'll also need a hand-waving arguments against Final Fantasy XI as well...