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World of Warcraft Shatters Sales Records
Mightydos writes " An interesting article was posted on Blizzard.com today... They say World of Warcraft® has sold through more than 600,000* units to customers in North America, Australia, and New Zealand. The fastest-growing massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) has also shattered all previous concurrency records in North America, achieving over 200,000 simultaneous players during the holiday period. "
I just love it when these new "records" are shattered. Saying that a new game sold more than an old game is like saying "The world now has more people in that ever. This shatters the all-time record set yesterday."
http://www.bynarystudio.com
That could be 600,000,600,000,600,000,600,000,600,000,600,000 units--or even more! Simply astounding!
(Of course, it could also be no units sold...)
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
All 10 of us helped shatter the record! If this isn't proof enough of why games should be simultaneously released for mac and pc's users then I don't know what is.
(yes this is a joke, don't worry about it. All mac users, I know there are more than 10 of you out there. and PC users, I know that the pitiful amount of macusers in the game didn't make much of a difference in sales numbers)
"I'm a Genius!"*
*Not an actual Genius
I hate to say it--wait, no, I don't. RTFA:
*Based on internal company records and reports from key distribution partners in North America.
You probably shouldn't click this.
not only do they get 600,000 people buying the game, they have a constant revenue stream coming in every month of what $15/user?
that works out to be a lot of cash over a year, brilliant!
I know that this doesn't garuntee you a perfect gaming experience. But common... For the amount of money they are making, I shouldn't be running into simple problems, such as my character drowning while I'm out of the water, because the server decides to take a nap.
Treat me like a marketing stat, and I'll treat your movie like a series of ones and zeros
Drugs of the future here today. Many people can moderate themselves but it is sad how many lives get destroyed by MMORPG's.
How this compares to the sales or HL2 or Doom3?
A quick google search shows that Halo 2 sold 2.38 million units in its first 24 hours
Hundreds of thousands of WOW Widows have filed for divorce.
In other news, eHarmony is offering a new 'replace my mate' match service; online gamesplayers are banned from signing up for the service.
Have we forgotten already? Money talks, you know.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Highly recommended.
- shazow
Despite the success, not all is well in the WoW. Some of those 600,000 users are pretty pissed about some employees inappropriately using their influence in-game.
I have a copy of WoW, and it's probably the first MMRPG that I've played that I've enjoyed. I tried Ultima when it came out, Anarchy later, and some others - but WoW has me.
Why?
1. Attention to detail. Ever played a game and thought "You know, this would be better if I could do X"? Well, here it is. X is 99% of the time right in WoW. Chat - easy. Macros - simple. Able to compare what you have with what you want to buy - just hover the mouse over the item.
2. Mac/PC compatible. I know, I know - Mac's only include 4% of the "new computers sold" base or some such. But I know several Unix geeks who got Macs just so they could play some games on them (as opposed to Linux, which is even less native ports than for the Mac). So after the kids are in bed, I can sit in the living room with my Powerbook and play the same game my friends are playing in my living room.
3. Performance: you don't need a brand spanking new computer to play. It helps, of course, but I know a guy with a 867 Mhz Powerbook who plays without missing anything.
4. Ease for newbies and oldies alike: Even on PvP servers, you can be a newbie and be fine. Do you lose money for dying? No. Experience? No. Just inconvience (and maybe a little equipment damage, but that's easily repaired). Once Blizzard has the true battle areas in place to stage "wars", there will be a place for those who want to kill other people to head off to.
If you're an oldie, there's lots to do as well. Elite dungeons that you share with your direct friends, not everybody and their brother (so you don't have to worry about waiting forever for some particular monster to respawn - your group and your group alone will get the chance to get him in your custom dungeon).
Most of the time the game is as hard as you want it to be. I usually challenge creatures 2-3 levels above me, where it's "hard but fair". I like that it's pretty fair. If I fail, it's because I wasn't watching what I was doing, not because some arbitrary bit got flipped that said it was my day to die.
Is it perfect? No - I do wish they'd let clerics wear leather (especially as their attacks are underpowered, which is why I switched to a Hunter), and the respawn is almost too fast (there's been a few times I'd died because I was fighting a monster, got it down to 99% dead, then a new monster spawn right on top of me and killed me before I could run off - would be nice to have a 10 second countdown before they started attacking), but otherwise, it's close enough to perfect to make it the only MMRPG that I'll play.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need go hunt some wolves so I can learn to make Lean Wolf Steaks....
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Don't know how it compares to the sales of HL2 of Doom3. But here is my quicky take on how the game stacks up against said FPS's.
Doom3:
+ Finished the singleplayer in ~1 week
+ Neat graphics (I create 3D graphics hardware..'neat' is only barely a compliment)
+ The only game of the 3 that was scary. Really scary. In a paranoid kind of way.
+ 20 hours of gameplay for $49.95
- Can't imaging ever touching this game again now that I am done.
- No interesting multiplayer.
- Unbelievable resource hog.
HL2:
+ Finished the single player in ~3 weeks
+ Awesome graphics 'abilities'
+ Really neat physics
+ Decent AI
+ 60 hours gameplay for $49.95
- Hardly any interesting multiplayer yet.
- Gameplay wasn't refreshing enough to keep me promoting it beyond 'technologically advanced engine'.
WoW:
+ Started playing from day 1. Have not stopped.
++ Though technologically not as advanced, the graphics in WoW are by far the best of the 3 games. 3 words: content, content, content. After two months I still find new areas where I just stop and look around for a while with my mouth hanging open. That good.
+++ 200+ hours gameplay for $49.95 + ~$14/month.
- Real Life (tm) takes a hit. Seriously, if you can't afford getting addicted, you should just not get this game yet.
Um what's the asterisk for? If you're gonna post an article and simply copy + paste the article text into your submission, at the very least re-read it and make sure it makes sense. I wish I could mod an entire submission DOWN...
Driving around town to the various stores looking for the game is a strange real world counterpart to a quest in the game. You mission is go search for this box and bring it back to the computer. I've met other people at the stores also looking for WoW, usually staring at an empty slot on the shelf, "yeah, it's supposed to be right here".
You just have to wait long enough for the game box to respawn on the store shelves. Usually it only takes a few minutes. Did you also talk to the guy at the store with the big yellow "!" over his head first?
This post is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
You Forgot the crucial step: Have a track record of developing excellent games and supporting them forever.
Seriously, there are a lot of people who would buy any game from Blizzard without even having heard anything about it before (including me), because they know they will get an almost perfect gaming experience.
I bet there are a lot of people among the 600.000 that have never before payed a monthly fee for any game (including me, as soon as it's released in Germany).
In addition to sales and concurrency records, Blizzard is also shattering several long-held MMORPG industry myths - including a few of SOE's favorite sacred cows:
Myth #1 - an MMORPG must include numerous "time sinks"; long periods of unrewarding time spent with little or no character progression.
In the series of interviews recently posted where Raph Koster conspicuously omits any mention of WoW, you can almost hear his exasperated sighs as he laments the lack of opportunity to socialize in newer games because the action is so fast. If you want to chat, log into a chat system. Most of the rest of us would like to spend our limited gaming hours killing things and having fun, not waiting for shuttles or running around endlessly looking for things to fight.
Myth #2 - character death in an MMORPG must be a harsh, demoralizing experience.
Go read some of the discussions on this in SOE's forums. It's pretty amazing to think that a software company can entertain a serious discussion regarding intentionally "punishing" their users/players.
Myth #3 - MMOG design must be driven by a philosophy that is inherently different than conventional games [insert lots of grandiose game theory and virtual world talk here].
Bullshit. I'm sure Raph Koster is a brilliant guy and he has a lot of interesting ideas, but at some point you need to pull your head out of the clouds and remember that above all else, a game has to be fun to play.
Myth #4 - any new MMORPG must feature a complex, impossible-to-balance skill-based (non) "class" system.
Again, bullshit. WoW's simple, single-track class system is easy to understand and is well-balanced for both PVE and PVP (the usual nerf-calling notwithstanding).
Myth #5 - the fantasy MMORPG market is "saturated".
This seems to be the industry's favorite crutch - the notion that everyone who will ever play an MMOG is already playing one and that the "long, hard grind" model (EQ, DAoC, SWG, etc.) is the only kind of game those players want. Again, bullshit. WoW is cracking the market wide open and bringing a flood of new players who have never before touched an MMOG. To be fair here though, I think this one is at least partially true, the market *is* saturated when it comes to EQ-style treadmills.
Where other MMOs have seen subscription numbers flat-line after release (SWG, DAoC) or decline (AC), expect to see WoW break new records in the future. This isn't just because of the legions of D2 players migrating over or the Warcraft name - those things help, but they're not the whole story. With WoW, their first and only entry into the market, Blizzards "gets' what the others don't: a successful game is not about lofty "game theory" or grand visions, it's simply about having fun.
The writing is on the wall: fun is in, the grind is out.
Anyone that played from the beginning knows damn well there aren't that many concurrent players, unless you count those:
:-)
Waiting in the queue to login
Disconnected and unable to logout
Stuck doing a search in the auction house
Stuck waiting the insane time to extract an item from your mail
Running around a continent with no mobs or gryphons
etc.
Yes, I'm being overly-sarcastic, but there is a real hint of truth. In all fairness, Blizzard has solved the bulk of the problems they had at launch... and they even extended subscriptions three days and a fourth later for the downtime. I just happen to be on a "lemon" server that was undergoing horrid lag and restarts for weeks. I would've changed servers if I didn't run a guild with nearly 200 unique accounts in it!
WoW doesn't do a whole lot new for MMORPGs, but it has taken many elements from different games and done them right. Huge number of quests that have lots of fun NPC interaction, mobs to grind if you like, cool items (almost as good as AC), immersive graphics with an attention to detail, great sound, a great intro movie, large world, seamless movement between most zones, nice crafting system comparable to horizons, decent pvp (can't block other players, though -- you walk right through), etc.
A couple of new things are the fog of war, gryphons (kind of new, as they show the "real" server as you fly -- you can see fights and monsters, and not just a picture of you moving), and an extensible user interface (missing a desired function? you can program it yourself in a "real" language).
In conclusion, WoW had a rocky start. It wasn't as bad as some games (AO and SWG were pretty horrid) and it wasn't as good as some (AC and CoH were great). It was kind of crappy, in fact. But they quickly announced that billing wouldn't even start because of the downtime, and they kicked ass on fixing the biggest issues on a live system with 200,000 whiny folks complaining about it. And then there was me, not whining of course.
This isn't a new genre - Everquest, Ultima Online, Diablo (no servers, but still MMORPG), There, Star Wars Galaxies, EQ2, and many more have been here first. If you want to get technical, I was playing MMORPGs well over 10 years ago in the form of MUDs.
EQ was considered revolutionary at the time, with piles of Slashdot articles talking about the addictive nature of the game, the scale of the world, the ugly UI yet immersive gameplay... this is nothing new.
As an interesting thing to note, Blizzard doesn't need to make stuff like this up just now. You can't get a hold of World of Warcraft in the stores for love nor money in many cities, and it's plain to see they're struggling under the load of players. More people jumped into this game than anybody anticipated, and Blizzard are usually pretty good at figuring out this sort of stuff. My guess is they're as shocked as we all are. I'm even thinking Blizzard deliberately controlled the release of copies of the game so the player load arrived gradually instead of all at once.