WoW Helping or Hurting the Industry?

alstor writes "The New York Times has an interesting story about the success of World of Warcraft, and whether it is hurting or helping the gaming industry; this goes along with an earlier post on an article from CNN. From the Times article: 'WoW is now the 800-pound gorilla in the room. I think it also applies to the single-player games. If some kid is paying $15 a month on top of the initial $50 investment and is devoting so many hours a week to it, are they really going to go out and buy the next Need for Speed or whatever? There is a real fear that this game, with its incredible time investment, will really cut into game-buying across the industry.' What is the Slashdot opinion on World of Warcraft's impact on the gaming industry?"

Comments

Huge market

[fembots]

I don't believe WoW is the 800-pound gorilla yet, because there are still ways to serve the market.

One request that has often been asked but hardly answered is the free-game-with-subscription model.

While almost all pay-$50-then-$15-monthly gamers may have been attracted to WoW, there must be even more gamers who are only willing to invest in a game which allows them to pay-as-they-play. Is any leading publisher willing to take a risk of no initial income and bank on the monthly subscription?

So I think WoW is in a way helping the industry to identify this subscription-based market, but if the rest of the industry is trying to do the same thing, they are likely to be a distanced also-run.

Re:Huge market

[dishpig]

Actually I could see a free-download/one month trial having more problems than it is worth. Distribution obviously, but more importantly, if they haven't invested their $50, how commited will they be to slugging it through to where they think it might get better? If I've invested $50 in a game, you can be damn sure I'm going to play it for a few months just to get my money's worth, regardless of how much I may be enjoying it. If I got it for free, I feel no such compulsion. I may decide it doesn't run as well as I hoped, or I've seen the cool stuff I wanted to, or 'some jerk ganked me and I hate this crap', or 'I don't have time right now' and end up never coming back to it because something newer and more shiny has come out. That $50 pays a good chunk of distribution and throws a nickel or two at development, but the most important thing it buys is commitment.

Man, what?

[mcc]

It isn't like MMOs didn't exist before this.

It also isn't like Blizzard hasn't ever made a game before that was so absorbing that people just stopped playing anything else.

I don't see any examples of World of Warcraft hurting "the market". What I see in this article is examples of poor game developers, being hurt by capitalism. If Need for Speed is bad enough that spending $12 on WoW makes Need for Speed not worth buying, then the problem here is that need for speed wasn't good enough to be worth $12 to that person. The reason why Matrix Online got "downsized from nine virtual "realms" to three" is because Matrix Online sucks. Notice in the article that NCSoft, who actually makes good games and is competent enough to compete in a fair market, doesn't seem at all worried?

There are a number of developments in video games lately that I would describe as bad for the health of the video game market. World of Warcraft is not one.

Re:I'd have to say...

[guaigean]

Innovate or get out of the way.

Thank you! It's not that WoW is monopolizing. They just happen to have made a good game, and the consumer is speaking with their dollar. If a game comes out that can draw attention from WoW, it deserves the money. I'm sorry that EA can't pump out another Madden and make endless cash, but its about damned time that the Free Market and Economic theory returned to the marketplace. There is no anti-competive work at play here, supply and demand. Low supply of quality games, and a high demand for it where WoW fulfills the need.