Slashdot Mirror
World Of Warcraft Crushing PC Game Industry?
simoniker writes "Age of Empires co-creator and Iron Lore co-founder Brian Sullivan has been discussing his studio's first game, Titan Quest, but along the way has openly wondered whether World Of Warcraft's success is part of the reason for the decline of the PC retail game market. Sullivan commented: 'For retail PC games, I think the biggest problem is World of Warcraft... It is such a compelling MMO game that it sucks up a lot of money and time that would normally be spent on other retail PC games.' Does WoW's growth actually mean that PC games in other non-MMO genres may sell fewer copies?"
As for making a name for themselves in the market, Sullivan feels that some of the biggest competition comes from MMOs, not because they are competitors in the genre, but because people simply enjoy playing them so much.
...Really, that isn't an argument, it's stating the obvious.
His entire argument is that any game that's more popular than his, especially MMOs, takes away from his game.
Gamers are an educated demographic, for the most part, and have fantastically high standards. When something that comes out is so good that it shakes up the entire industry, complaining about it will get you nowhere. It's kinda like he's making an "I'm hardcore and therefore better!" argument, but applying it to the big kid on the block (yes, WoW is a "casual" game in many respects, but he's not addressing that aspect).
And even at all that, aspiring to understand why it's so wildly popular so that he may make better games seems to have escaped him.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
Unless you're a PR guy for a MMORPG, the gaming world is not some kind of world that grows indefinitely to accomodate more people. If 1.5 million Americans are playing WoW then there's got to be a lot less Americans available to be playing something else. Is this necessarily a bad thing, though?
competition (countable and uncountable; plural competitions)
1. (uncountable) the action of competing
The competition for this job is strong.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
I was going to RTFA, but I have a wow raid in a few minutes, so like, whatever.
Something like "World of Warcraft is making the game market more streamlined because game companies now have stiff competition." I think that's more appropriate to a world where game companies don't have an automatic right to revenue regardless of how poor their products are.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
I have been playing Titan Quest non stop with my room mates since we got our hands on it. I love WoW and all... But Titan Quest is the BEST RPG for your friends since Diablo 2. It has every element I loved about D2 and some new things. So never fear Brian, we LOVE Titan Quest and can't wait for more!
While I'm not a huge player of WoW; I do play that /other/ MMO. It has all but eclipsed purchases of other games. Pretty much anything that's not in the maybe top 5 of games I haven't played. In fact, when I asked my friend the other day "Hey, what games are out there?", the response I got was "World of Warcraft". We had this very discussion, and yea, that's pretty much it. Everything else seems short lived.
~Rebecca
You're standing in EB Games checking out the PC games. There are millions of options. Flight simulators, first person shooters, strategy games, and now MMORPGs. First, you consider the newest first person shooter, but then a thought comes to mind. "Hey wait, don't I own twenty copies of this same game? Aren't these all just the same thing? I'm an attractive guy that the ladies love and I shoot things. Yeah, I'll pass." Then you put down that box and study the strategy games in front of you. You're not quite sure how entertaining roller coaster tycoon 3 will be in a few weeks though. $50 is a lot of money after all. And then you step toward the MMORPGs. Now here's something a bit different! Something that you could play with your friends. Something that won't ever end! Why not buy this instead?
Let's face it. The video game market is flooded with terrible games that are the same thing over and over again. I mean, seriously, besides really little kids, who bought the Finding Nemo game? RPGs have always been better sellers than other titles because there is a strong market for them. It only makes sense that a game that also allows for social interaction AND is an RPG will sell out other video games.
Though, I personally dislike WoW. I'm all about Guild Wars.
In all honesty, how do people have time to play MMO games and do anything fulfilling with their lives?
I'm not terribly torn up about the gaming industry going downhill, what with the only titles recently released being yearly updates to re-hashed sports titles or GTA variants, but I do wonder how the industry became profitable in the first place.
Almost nothing is geared towards a casual gamer any more. I maintain an Everquest subscription for old time's sake, and to have the option available if I want it, but I'm lucky if I log on two hours per week. Between my education, employment, volunteering, and interpersonal relationships, I have very little time left to put into something like that. At the endgame, where I've managed to get by plodding along an hour or two a week, it can take up to an hour to find a group of people to play with in the first place. All the other MMO games are the same, and even a lot of the non-multiplayer games involve a lot of grinding or gruntwork to actually get anywhere in them. The only good casual games out there are Nintendo platformers, and these are so devoid of maturity in any respect that I can't play most of them. (Exemptions given to Mario and Zelda games, because those are classics.)
I just wonder, how it is possible to participate in an MMO and still do anything with their lives?
I wager that, in fact, it isn't.
A friend of mine, meanwhile, neglects the first three and a good portion of the fourth items in my list of other activities there, in favor of playing videogames for the better part of 8 hours a day. He's capped out multiple characters in World of Warcraft, but in reality, has nothing to show for it aside from a hole in his bank account and a slightly bigger imaginary e-penis. Actually, on further inspection, it's not just one friend...it's all half-dozen friends I know who play that game, do it at the exclusion of other activities they previously found enjoyable and profitable such as jobs and friends.
China's three-hour-rule seems like a very, very good idea to be put in place on the server end, all around the world.
Like this guy is just upset that his game hasn't got the stuff, and in one last final grab at attention he tired to get it on Slashdot, because before this, I had never heard of the game (probably because it doesn't have a big enough fan base to really get it mentioned alot, atleast not in the corners of the internet where I lurk. Seriosly though, he needs to figure out that an RPG unless really innovative these days isn't going to attract attention because they have been done over and over again.
Infact the last innovative RPG I remember was themed after an MMO infact (and I would love to see more on similar theory. Players want more freedom (something the MMO introduced, another player to a traditionally single player world) and now the RPG makers are going to have to catch up, they have to introduce a human like AI, that can give the element that for so long they have been lacking (and Yes I know there are multiplayer RPG's out there)
Did someone say cake?
I've barely had time for a life, let alone other video games. That reminds me, guess I'd better cancel that XBox Live account so I can funnel the subscription fee into next month's WOW fee....
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
The only way that I'm going to play another game is if I can play it inside World of Warcraft. It's all part of the same zero-sum entertainment-time.
The pc game market has been in a steady decline for over five years.
EQ/WoW and other subscription pc games have just accelerated that decline. The result is pc developers are either going out of business or fleeing to Sony and the PS3 to save them. The pc gamedev companies going out of business are mostly the small ones that no one has ever heard about. But almost all of the big pc devhouses are looking now to Sony to bail them out.
So now you have thousands and thousands of developers who know nothing other than the x86 architecture and DirectX whining about all their code won't run on the PS3. Sucks to be them. It's not like the downtrend in the pc games sector was any big secret.
The pc game market won't completely die, there will always be shareware games. But pc developers are facing a harsh test, fade away into irrelevance or prove they have the skills to compete with the big boys in the massively lucrative console market. So far what pc developers are putting out for the PS3 it looks like they aren't up to the task of competing with console developers.
I was swept up into the WoW phenomenon for about a year, but once I hit 60 I learned that the end game wasn't really my thing. Waiting around for hours trying to assemble a group to raid with just wasn't fun. And playing in those massive groups took away the freedom that I played the game for in the first place. Suddenly it was all about following linear paths through dungeons like some boring FPS.
Now that I've recovered from that addiction I am buying new games again. Actually I am mostly buying old games from the past couple years that I never got around to playing. I expect there are many other gamers following similar trajectories
by making the game so terribly addicting and time consuming that I have no time (or interest) left over that would motivate me to even THINK to keep my eye out for new releases. i honestly haven't even looked once for new releases since i started playing wow 4 months ago! i feel i have above average self-control and maturity, so there's gotta be some even more affected lusers stuck in the same hole.
/ZOMGCRITPWNT! .o0^.^0o.
even moreso now that i've vowed to not give up until i have my own Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian for my lock
Ok, it may be that people are caught up in WoW. But that will fade eventually. Then they'll move on to something else.
And then there's people out there who, like me, look at WoW and go "Geez, I don't have the time to devote my life to this." and never play it. I've looked at it in fascination, but I've also woken up on Sunday after a long binge of Civilization X, and wondered where my weekend went. Those experiences taught me that I need to pick my gaming prudently. So I don't play WoW. I've already seen people's lives disappear when they start playing.
Also, like any other "where are the gamers?" question, you need to make sure the games you're making are fun or you have no room to complain.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure I'd love to play WoW, but I have a job, I take night classes, and I'm trying to find that elusive thing called "girl". Dumping time into the hole of WoW would kill off at least one of those. And I think when I'm 50, I'd rather look back on the fun times I had with (eventual) children than fun times I had with avatars in a world that didn't exist.
Maybe it's just me.
Reeses
Personally, I can't stand WoW - I just don't much go in for that "I put on my robe and wizard hat" crap, but something else did turn out to hook me in rather completely - in my case, it's EVE Online. Since I've started playing that, I haven't spent any time with CS:S, BF2, or any of the other titles I generally spent time on (not even GTA).
I'm not saying the game I like is better than the game in the article, but what I do observe is that a well-crafted MMOG can pull a player in for hours and weeks at a time. I know I don't bother considering buying games right now, because I know that I probably won't play them - hell, I'm not playing the ones I already have. So you have probably four big MMOGs dominating the landscape, which is great for Blizzard, CCP, etc., but the rest of the industry sees a decline.
So what's the problem? If you want to compete with the market leaders, produce something more compelling, exciting, shiny, and innovative than what's out there. Don't whine that better games are eating your lunch. From what I see, the big MMOGs are winning because they are that good. Now, if someone were to put out a spaceship-based MMOG where you could dock into a station, exit your ship, and engage in FPS combat to take over the station, land on the planets to do missions, PVE, PVP, world-building, etc., I'd be in line at midnight to give it a try. I bet if someone did a robe-and-wizard-hat MMOG where there were no shards or instances (a-la EVE's ginormous server cluster with anywhere between 15,000-25,000 players on at any given time), then you'd see guys in tunics camping outside Fry's.
In the games industry, if you can't beat 'em, go work for EA, where you can at least be sure of steady income for producing shit rerun knockoffs. Or you could do better, and actually beat 'em.
political_news.c: warning: comparison is always true due to limited range of data type
was posted sometime last September here on /.
I was heavily involved in WoW at the time and know that it affected my game-purchase habits; I can only imagine how much impact it's had on the PC and console game industries as a whole. When you have dozens of days (and I was on the low end compared to my peers) invested in several characters, it sure seems hard to do anything else but to continue to play just. that game. After all, isn't that part of the hook? That if you stop, you're "throwing it all away"...?
Isnt the logical argument: If no one plays your game becuase they think someone elses is better, Then, shouldnt you make a game that is better than the other game? -Red
Guns don't kill people, "with glowing hearts" kills people.
It's not about WoW taking all of the gamer's money. $15 a month is not even a dent in even a casual gamer's entertainment budget.
It's about time. Between work, WoW, and the occasional outing into the real world, there is no time left for these other games.
In fact, WoW has actually SAVED me money. Now I spend $15 a month for my gaming needs, instead of the $200 I previous spent buying a new game every week.
WoW isn't killing PC games, the game companies are. I haven't even bothered to LOOK at WoW, much less try it. I finally got kicked out of caring about PC games by two things:
1. The nasty, intrusive copy protection on Half-Life 2 where it took ten minutes saying "mother may I" to the servers every time I tried to start it up (and then the gameplay sucked.)
2. "Starforce" copy protection (which can wreck your CD/DVD drive) being used by game companies.
If the game companies aren't going to make it pleasant to use their product, they have only themselves to blame.
For me the biggest problem was the monthly fee. It was like a clock ticking in the background. Why spend 8 hours playing a massive game of Civ4 when I'm paying WoW money per month, I should spend that time playing it. That for me was the biggest turnoff. It felt like I needed to spend all my time playing it or I was wasting my money. I've never been able to get into one game that hardcore, so I quit, bought a bunch of new games, and had more fun than I ever had playing WoW.
Introducing Microsoft Vacuum 1.0 The first Microsoft product that doesn't suck.
I was a heavy player of WoW for almost a year. From the initial release in 2004 until about early spring of this year. I just got tired of the grind after getting to 60 in June of 2005. My brother continues to play to this day but I just don't see the fun. I might check it out when Burning Lands or whatever it's called shows up but I've since discovered some decent games to play for fun like BF2 and others.
I'm sure there are a lot of others like me who didn't feel like raiding another dungeon yet again for that one piece of armor
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
I'm too busy playing Civilization 4 to play WoW!
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
Along came WoW
Suddenly, in addition to $50 USD - usually my bi-monthly game budget for games - I spent on the copy of the game, I found myself spending ~$15/month (roughly my monthly budget) on WoW subscription. In addition, since woW is quite a time-intensive game (don't get me started on log in - spend 45 min forming a raid - start a raid - disband a raid 45 min later routine) I found myself spending 95% of my gaming time slots playing WoW. And so it went for, well, over a year.
Now, I'm happily 'off the WoW' for over half a year. Since then, I picked up a reasonable number of games that seemed interesting (Dawn of War, Sid meier's Pirates, Morrowind etc - 8 in total) - and I would've gotten more, if I didn't waste some time on auto Assault and D&D Online Betas. Thus, I have to definitely agree with TFA - WoW does seem to be harming other game markets, although I'd dare to expand / elaborate : MMOs are hurting the game market for less 'massively-teamplay' games. It's not solely WoW's fault - merely its popular content and quality (let's not start a Blizzard flamewar here, please) compared to other MMOs that's causing proportionately more market disturbance.
'...computers in the future may have only 1000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 tons...' Popular Mechanics, 03/49'
I've played World of Warcraft since launch. I fall somewhere in between the casual people and the uber raiders with my play time. My significant other and several other people I know in real life also play the game on the same server as I do. I do work a full time job, have a house, etc. and do other things prevent me from being able to play 8 hours every day like some MMO players seem to be able to do.
World of Warcraft is a good game and the best MMO I've played. Every previous MMO I've tried I've given up within a month or two. Usually I didn't find the game too fun, or too time consuming. World of Warcraft has things set up a bit differently. There are still some annoying time sinks, but I've found that the following things keep it compelling to me where other MMOs have failed:
1. Grinding a character doesn't take too much time. If I want a change of pace and try an alt of a different race/class, it doesn't take a huge amount of time getting them up to where I want them, even if where I want them is Level 60.
2. Tradeskills don't detract from the main game. In other games I've played, I found if I wanted to build a tradeskill, it took away a huge amount of time from the "fun" parts of the game (fighting monsters). WoW's tradeskills may be less complex, but they don't have as much of an impact on my playtime.
3. On a regular server, PvP is always an option I can do when I want. Normally when I am doing things, I don't want to be ganked by some guy with uber gear. However, I can always flag myself for PvP or go to a Battleground when I am in the mood for PvP.
4. The quests and Warcraft Story make the world much more interesting to me than other MMOs I've played.
5. Good balance of the general world and instances. I spend enough time on the general world servers to make things feel like I'm part of a massive world, but most of the difficult tasks and bosses are in instances. So I don't have to worry about some group of people who are more l33t than me camping the enemies I want to kill in most cases.
6. Blizzard has released new content so far without requiring an expansion. There is plenty of stuff for me left to do I haven't even touched yet, giving me quite a bit of replayability for a while to come. Maybe the ultra hard core players have done everything, but for those who can't play 8 hours a day, there is quite a bit to do.
I used to buy at least one new PC or console game a month. Even if the best release for the month was mediocre at best, I usually completed the previous months game, and wanted something new to play. I still look into buying other games, but I'm not going to plunk down $50 for a less than stellar title since I always have stuff I can do in WoW. A really good single player title will come along once in a while, but I'm not going to buy just any new game.
It is not WoW's fault, it is that WoW makes the problem more visible. We have a game that potentially can last a player months, if not years, that is fun. $15/mo. We have a bunch of other PC games that are mostly mediocre. $50/ea. I think I'll stick with WoW and only buy new games that are REALLY good.
I have a friend that used to pick up 1 or 2 FPS games a month. Since he got hooked into WoW... well, that is all he has played. (I think he picked up Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter a few weeks back). But, by having a huge game like WoW, people put their money, and their time into that ONE game. Heck, when I played WoW for 6 months, I only bought 1 or 2 new games. Generally, I would have bought 5 or 6 new games in that time. Heck, it even stuck with me AFTER playing WoW. My buying habits are WAY down. To 1 game every 3 or 4 months. I was generally buying 1 or 2 new games a month. (I would say 4 new games every 3 months). From just what I have seen in myself, and others, I would say that WoW has a very real, and very negative affect on PC gaming in general.
they truly have nothing better that they *want* to do. The *want* is the key. Oh sure they have better things to do but that takes more effort than sitting down at a computer and playing a game. I personally know someone who lost a house over his obsession. It can be very real and it can be very hard on their friends. You really cannot understand how difficult it is to make someone you know and like to see that what they are doing is not good for them.
The ease of success in WOW is one of its major attractions. You don't have to be a great gamer to succeed, you just need time. That is the key, success, even in a video game provides the gratification they will not work for otherwise.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
1/ Rip off Diablo 2
2/ ?
3/ No profit
4/ Blame MMO by same company
Blessed are the 1337, for they shall pwn the earth.
Many people complain that WoW either sucks up your whole time, or you don't get anywhere. That's not true, you can easily play the game two evenings / week and still see the whole end game content.
The solution? Find a group that's *organized* (i.e. has a webpage and a forum). Their raids have fixed schedules. You show up at 7:50 p.m., buff up, raid starts at 8:00 and at +/- 23:30 you can go to sleep. Since the big raid instances only reset once a week, you don't have to do more than two evenings (and if your group is getting really good, you can even clear MC in 4 hours), which you would have wasted with reading slashdot or watching TV anyways.
- Rhonac (60 Shaman on Thunderhorn EU).
That whole article was him trying to convince people that his game isn't a Diablo clone, yet he went on about how much he loved Diablo and all the other Blizzard games.
Near the end he said that WoW is killing the gaming industry, but then admitted to playing it because it's "extra fun" and he can play with his wife.
So the whole article came across as him just whining that his game hasn't sold better and he's just bitter about it.
Here are my suggestions to Brian:
1. STFU.
2. Don't make clones -- make original games.
3. If you do make clones, don't charge full price. We've played them all before: Diablo, Diablo 2, Darkstone, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale 1&2, etc. The list goes on. We can't be bothered spending our hard earned cash on yet another frickin action RPG.
OR:
1. STFU.
2. Get a new job.
Publishers and game designers just have not got it through their thick skulls that we want new and fresh games, not rehashes and sequels. We're trying to get the message through by not spending our money on their games. They're not taking the hints.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
You've pretty much hit it on the head.
My friend runs a guild with about 50 ppl in it, not including alts. He's a student and has his summers off and other than a trip to China which was for credit in school, he's done nothing this summer but sit and play WoW. The ppl in his guild come home from work and sit and play WoW. It's actually fairly frustrating because we were working on some personal projects that he's relegated to "After I play this raid/hit lvl xx/get through this dungeon." So I'm seeking help elsewhere (since i'm a horrid programmer) and have found some former WoW players who were able to get away.
He gets away with playing as much as he does because his g/f comes home from work and plays with him. I suppose though, 6 million people globally play. I would wager the population of just the US that sits and watches TV all day is higher.
No sig for you!!
IMHO there are only really two spaces within PC gaming in general where people could have trouble competing with WoW:-
a) The MMORPG space. This is a given, and there isn't really a whole lot other people in this space can do about it, IMHO. WoW is the single most mature implementation of the MMORPG genre that I've ever seen, and that possibly includes the offline RPG space as well. Blizzard have learned from the mistakes of UO in particular, and have created something which has taken the RPG out of the autistic/various other underground subcultures and genuinely into the mainstream. You don't need to be the stereotypical unemployed, socially/neurologically handicapped virgin (who have traditionally been the MMORPG's target audience) in order to appreciate WoW. This is finally an RPG which entirely normal people can find accessible.
b) The FPS space. This is a possibly even more difficult lock which Blizzard have established for the rest of the market to overcome. For probably a decade after Doom, PC gaming was almost exclusively about the first person shooter. The Sims was perhaps the first large scale title to reverse that trend somewhat, but it is still very prominent.
Having played capture the flag in the Warsong Gulch battleground, I find it virtually impossible to believe that Blizzard have not realised the historical importance of the FPS market, and intentionally tried (and very largely succeeded) to lure probably 80%-90% of the traditional FPS audience into a genre which, before WoW, said audience would not have dreamed of going anywhere near.
The real challenge that WoW presents to the rest of the industry IMHO is in its' versatility. WoW represents a large number of different types of games in one package. On the pure Diablo-like side, there is both an extremely flexible questing system, and instancing. For people more inclined to it, there is also an auction house which can actually provide a mini-game in itself, in that you can study trends and play the market in a similar way to real-world markets. Then there are the professions, as well as another mini-game associated with the fishing skill. On top of that, you have the roleplaying aspect, in which players can develop backstories and dramatic elements of their characters, and integrate that with the political situations which exist between the various nations in the overall backstory.
On the PvP side, you not only have Battlegrounds such as the aforementioned Warsong Gulch, but player-run scenarios where various settlements held by each faction will need to defend themselves against assaults by the opposing faction. The Battlegrounds are themselves another demonstration of Blizzard's brilliance in being able to avoid the kind of end-game boredom experienced in such games as Ultima Online, in the sense that they mark a point where the game transforms from a more traditional RPG into a limited, but large-scale clone of Unreal Tournament. This last element is what has allowed Blizzard to steal the FPS market.
So...what can the rest of the industry do? My own thoughts would be to move away from the elements Blizzard are already delivering...and as usual, it seems to be Will Wright who is leading the charge in that area. Spore promises to be about as different from anything within WoW as you can imagine, although in a lot of ways, is arguably going to be Wright's magnum opus, in that it will really incorporate all of the elements which up until now he has been putting into seperate games. (Sim Earth, Sim City, the Sims, etc)
I've said before what I believe the real problem with the gaming industry is...it's not WoW. It's the managerial staff of companies such as Electronic Arts, who quite aside from being open to innovation, are actually enormously averse to it. The one thing companies like EA want more than anything else are generic staple games which they can sell and rely on economically in the same manner as cereal boxes, year in and year out. We're talking about the sort of people I've described before as l
Big duh there. Blizzard makes games that run on Windows and Mac. They write the engines to use DX9 or OpenGL so that they run relatively easily on Linux as well. They target older hardware so that everyone can play. And they don't make websites that require flash. I can play WoW fine, but I can't even look at the Titan web page on my 64 bit linux machine...
I've stopped buying PC games, but not because of WoW - I stopped playing WoW almost a year ago. PC games just don't appeal to me anymore because most of them aren't any good. PC games have devolved into just a bunch of "sequels," however, many of them are not so much sequels as they are blatant knockoffs of games that were hits in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I still own most of the originals, and I can just go play those again - no need to pay extra just to see some more polygons.
It doesn't help that the cost of a high-end video card has become absurd - I used to get a nice midrange card for $250-$300, with prices in the $400-$500 range, I'd be better off to buy an Xbox and not go through the hassle of upgrading my mainboard, video card, RAM, and CPU just to be able to play games that are just going to give me deja vu.
If PC game developers want to woo back gamers, they need to start making games that are worth the costs. Right now I just don't think they're doing that.
I picked up Titan Quest because my son wanted a "Diablo-like" RPG, and we as parents wanted to keep him off line and in a T-rated game.
It's very much a Diablo wannabe, but if that's what you're looking for, without a monthly subscription, I suggest checking it out.
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
I have seen, for a fact, that WoW is not only a bad game (very repeticious, boring, time-consuming), but also leads to the point of putting off other things just to play it and waste time on it.
For example, a date with a gal - no, sorry, you have to play WoW. Another example would be one of my friends in my dorm last year - he played WoW and literally stayed up entire nights just playing - not even achieving any goals, but just standing around. He eventually ended up with a GPA around 1.0 that quarter - 'nuff said.
Trackmania Nations, albeit a free game, has over 1,000,000 players
Then again, I refused to play until I finished my degrees in college due to MY addictive personality. But hey, it's better than crack!(Seriously)
- Kal`Goblez
I play WoW, I'm in a raiding guild, I hit 2-3 raids a week and I run 5-10 man instances on a daily basis. Outside of that time I have a ful ltime job, do school, and have a grilfriend I talk to daily and see atleast once a week. You can have a normal life and do well in WoW, just gotta get it all straight.
Yeah, it's big, everyone's amazed. This too shall pass.
I played for 6 months, beat the game, got to the point where it sucked and I quit. I'm ready for the next big thing now. Sooner or later, the next big thing will come along (or given the gigantism of WoW, 10 next big things) and people who have left WoW or even never played it will pick up the new thing.
Some of these guys are just whining. There's some truth that it's harder to build multiplayer critical mass in this market, but I think mostly their games just aren't good enough. Defining "good enough" is left as an exercise to the reader.
Start Running Better Polls
HECK NO!!! There will always be people who refuse to just press a couple buttons and sit back and watch a spell being cast. Give me my G3 assault rifle and i'll wait in the bushes until someone comes near, then jump out and play battle of the aim, or i'll do an all out frontal assult on a squad with little hope of winning, but when my skill overpowers 4 people's, I tend to be pretty satisfied - probably even more satified that, lets say, a lvl 60 priest gets a glowing brightwood staff. (the only way I know about that is purepwnage)
I don't play WOW or any other MMORPG. I don't buy most PC games because I find them dull beyond belief. Thumb-twitchers for the most part, or lame Diablo inspired RPGs. The stuff I like, adventure games, is getting harder and harder for me to find on the shelves so I'll soon be buying them exclusively on-line.
How about instead of chasing the 60% of the market, cater to the rest of us who do play games that don't neccessarily require Alienware or some juiced-up PC game station (although Dreamfall did require some serious 3D hardware). It doesn't take much to please me; nice looking relatively static graphics (e.g., background paintings) and a good story. I know it can't be costing that much to make my favorite adventure games because they are typically half the cost of the average thumb-twitcher PC game, and with the smaller sales volume, it's gotta be cheaper than the multi-million dollar budgets of WoW or they couldn't keep putting out these games.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
There is literally one line saying World of Warcraft is a problem, and that was from the point of view that it is a powerful competitor not that its 'crushing the industry'. It wasnt even a question about 'the decline of the PC retail game market'. It was about 'making a name for themselves in the market'. The guy even goes on to repeatedly say how much he loves what Blizzard have done and plays all there games.
The way the articles been presented, and a good chunk of the posts here, makes it sound like hes some resentful whining failure. When actually he sounds fairly positive and eager to try claim back some of the market.
that PC games in other non-MMO genres may sell fewer copies?"
No it means that shitty games will sell fewer copies. If you have a good game, like Morrowwind: Oblivion, for example, it'll fly off the shelves.
learn2play kthxbye
Sincerely, Blizzard
It makes the time waiting for DNF much less painful. I know WoW has filled the void in my life that was spent scouring the web for tidbits for the best game never to make it to market.
No, I don't believe the uber-parent's argument is the case. The PC gaming market is not a zero-sum game. The market can be (and has been/is being) enlarged via new and innovative products, and I have seen no proof that if a gamer plays WoW, then they buy less games in total. I'd like hard facts, not causal and economic fallcies.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
I've seen a fair few posts here about WoW addiction/etc, and I'll admit, I play WoW too much too, but it fills a gap that TV no longer satisfies, and to be honest, if a better option presents itself, going out/going to the pub/seeing a band/etc I'll be off like a shot. But I would still play a single player game if it were actually any good. I've recently tried Titan Quest... and I just can't see what the fuss is about, they've made a 10-years out of date clone with pretty pictures..., I just haven't seen any demo of any game recently that is better than WoW.
Sorry Mr Developer, but you're actually going to have to make a good game if you want me to buy it. I won't put up with any old crap any more just because it's better than the other dross out there.
So the old generation game designer is whining about being pushed to the side??? Uhm, 2d games have looked a bit dull for nearly a decade now, haven't they? Personally I find WoW very unattractive, but AoE, dont make me laugh. It looks likes something for the IBM PC XT. Way way over it's sell by date.
"raid starts at 8:00 and at +/- 23:30 you can go to sleep."
And if you don't want 15 hours of raiding?
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Until there is a leeeeeeeeroy jenkins feature in new games nothing can compete with WOW.
I've made fun of my fair share of EQ addicts but fact is I and many other people were or still are addicted to some MMORPG or another. I spent my 6 hours a day on EQ in the ol' days before I realized I was wasting my time and my life. I like your reference to e-penis btw. A few weeks ago I had this idea for starting a website called virtualpenis.com where you could show other people your virtual penis. Kind of a myspace like situation where people could vote your virtual penis larger or smaller. Then you could link to your virtual penis. Copyright Atroxodisse.
Fact is, I still spend some of my time surfing the web looking for 'the next big mmorpg'. I got hooked in Ultima Online but at some point that got old. Then there was EQ, DAoC and WoW, not to mention the beta tests and open betas of more than a dozen other games. They all offered basically the same gameplay, each adding more features, more reasons to keep playing. They all also offered interpersonal relationships, some of which I still have. I think thats what keeps me and others coming back to the game even when we've camped the same dungeon 500 times, killed the same mob 20000 times and randomed for our favorite loot too many times. I'm still looking for the perfect MMO. I think WoW's success is due to the fact that it's the least repetitive. It being Blizzard and it being the Warcraft franchise didn't hurt either.
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
A lot of people seem to think playing WoW a lot is a waste of time, but you know what's worse? Arguing on /. about whether playing WoW a lot is a waste of time.
MMORPG's are the goose that keeps on laying golden eggs. Once you've got somebody hooked in to monthly fees and a continual source of revenue, why make anything else?
I do think that the whole MMO trend has somewhat set back regular games. I personally don't have the time to devote to Massively Multiplayer world's, and have found the selection of non-MMO titles somewhat lacking (although I am tempted to try EVE or something else that doesn't require constant massive time injections).
I will say, first off, I have a somewhat bitter and biased view towards MMOs - or at least their companies and dev teams. I love them to death, but I am also a since-launch Star Wars Galaxies veteran, and, well, you get my drift.
Now, I play World of Warcraft. I wouldn't have picked it at all, save the fact that many of my friends and boyfriend migrated there before SWG's demise. While I still regard the game to be the inspiration for SWG's "enhancements" (and wouldn't play it should I not know anyone who is already established on it) it is, without a doubt, a very well done game. This is why it draws millions of people to play it. While it lacks the 'sandbox' feel of galaxies and, from what I hear, EVE online, it is a solid game which can be both obsessed over or played casually. People complain about the lack of things to do after end-game, and the 'long grind' in WoW, but I can't see why. Yes, it is often just a quest to get the shiniest item and sitting around watching those Night Elf girls dance while waiting for a raid, but that's why it should be played in moderation, the way I look at it. Those who devote some time away from Azeroth can draw other people in from real life, people who they probably would have a better time playing with, and still interact with in real life.
But that's just my experience. As far as WoW killing the market - well, just make a better game. It's called competition. No amount of whining is going to make Blizzard pity you and release crappy content.
I'd like to have some fun with friends every once awhile. But how a long term commitment on some game seems a bit much. After all, a game is only a small part of a hobby, not like investing in gear for rock climbing, snowboarding, and other neat hobby.
WoW is to PC Games what Magic was to pen & paper RPGs. Sort of. I remember back in the early nineties when Wizards of the Coast was a > 10 employee shop that published this little Card Game called Magic. All hell broke lose and 4 years later the RPG market was crushed beyond recognition. The only ones that survived and still are around and not bought by Hasbro or crushed are Steve Jackson Games and Palladium Books.
I have the feeling WoW is doing the same. It's the only game that's still selling well that runs well on my box. Guild Wars only means of success is being not like WoW and cheaper (free) to play.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
A bit tongue in cheek, but since everyone is only playing WoW and the Mac has a perfectly in sync version, does this mean the Mac is now a more viable gaming platform?
I have a Macbook Pro and thought about a bootcamp partition to play games. "Why bother" I thought "I only play WoW and I get 60-99FPS on the MBP in a window under OS X"
So the theory of opening up my world to a host of new games has actually resulted in the practice of playing WoW natively on the Mac.
I play FPS pretty regularly, it's one of my favourite genres. WoW didn't really interest me (I avoid games with levelling - grinding sucks) until they introduced Battlegrounds. This got me really excited, from the description's I read it was like super-CTF, even more so than stuff like Battlefield or UT2004 Onslaught (both of which I like a lot). This was something I'd really like to play.
:(
So, I visit a WoW-addict friend who is really pleased that I'm finally interested and is happy to show me and lend me his level 60 character (a Hunter) to have a go with. My verdict:
Christ, this is SLOW! And I can't attack when mounted (jogging speed instead of running speed), which makes it much worse.
Where's the skill? I just click the icons. No aiming, dodging, cover.
I'm aware there's a bit more to playing effectively than that, but I don't think there's much. Being a Mage seemed more interesting, since you can choose between spells and use the teleport-forwards ability, but the one I had access to wasn't the right level to play battlegrounds, and wouldn't be for weeks
So, basically, I don't think Battlegrounds press FPS-player buttons. It's a bit like playing Onslaught at 25% speed with no vehicles, massive autoaim, and you only get to pick 1 gun. i.e. boring. This is not to say that FPS fans won't get something out of it, it's just not in the same genre.
Think about it - one reason FPS games tend to be similar is so genre fans can jump in and get instant results! Spending two months levelling just to get to CTF-in-molasses doesn't fit that description.
I have personally not tried WoW or any other MMO's, ever since I got addicted to Everquest and realized after 6 months of playing that it was pointless and a waste of time (and money). Theres' never any game changing storylines in these games. (like for example wouldnt it be cool if a disease was brought into the game that started killing off players and someone had to find a cure, or if a mass army of evilness (like Sauron from lord of the Rings) Suddenly affected the world and every player was in danger (or could side with evil depending on the character).. No its not like that, its full of kids who shout pwned or TRAIN. or other crap. People arent even in character per se.
I would much prefer to sit down and devote hours to a game like Morrowind, Oblivion, etc than play a huge MMO with a bunch of retards.
Or how about Lucasarts gets round to re-writing Tie Figter or some release Freespace 3 or maybe a better Freelancer game. PLEASE!???!?!?
You really believe EVE could be as popular as WoW and have no shards? I played EVE for over a year and a half (I was in the Jericho Fraction and Aegis Militia for most of it) and for most of that time it was unplayable at peak hours or in hub systems. Even CCP were smart enough to create a separate shard for the Chinese market, and that will probably be broken into more shards if it gets really popular over there. EVE has around a hundred thousand active players, WoW has millions, you couldn't buy a pipe fat enough to allow hundreds of thousands of people to play on the same shard (and even if you could the game wouldn't work with thousands of people at the same system let alone the same planet).
And the main difference between EVE and WoW is that WoW is casual. I was a high end player in EVE and there was far to much work involved in keeping an effective PVP corporation going (logistics is what wins wars in real life and EVE). It was a second job to the people that did it. People whine about having to put in eight hours a week to do end game in WoW, the logistics people I knew put in eight hours a day, and high end PVP corps expected you to be on call whenever you where online (Band of Brothers). I got sick of a game being like a job (it took me three days to move my gear from one base to another) and now I play WoW. And the PVP is just as good, with none of the problems of having to go to extremes to find targets, or a 5:1 ratio of grinding to PVP, or every second PVPer being rigged to run away rather then fight.
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CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
I've played and quit WoW twice now. Started a new character both times during winter break, played a few months, got burned out, and just dropped it. Now that I'm out of school, I don't think I'll ever play again. Yay!
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Other companies need to market "Games to play on WoW server maintenance day".
Remember Everquest? the virtual crack? Remember Diablo2, where people actually DIED playing that game?
Games like these suck up ppl's lives. But eventually things get old, cause the technology of it does. There will be some pretty new game in the future, and the cycle will start all over again.
In the meantime, game companies still churn out games, because its PROFITABLE.
If it's really just money, you would expect that the total amount spent in the gaming industry would be constant with what was spent previously plus the growth in spending on WoW, right?
I have never paid more then $250USD for a video card, so I don't know what your problem is. Like all other hardware the prices continue to go down, and I would say now days you have far more competition in the low to mid-range price bracket. I am using a card that was midrange at the end of 2004 (vanilla geforce 6800) and I can still run new games on medium to high graphics settings (though not at mind blowing res as I don't have a monitor that good). I generally upgrade my CPU or GPU once a year (so that is two years between upgrades for an individual component). Sure I can't run the latest FPS at highest detail but I don't buy games purely for the graphics (as most FPS producers some how expect you to).
Oh and my entire computer (with CPU and mobo upgrade late last year) cost me less then $1000AUD.
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CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
Here's a random thought... Game sales are down because none of the recent games have been any good.
A couple times in the last few months I went out looking for a new game to pickup. I looked at online reviews, walked around stores when I was out... I couldn't find anything. I even went out one time with the sole purpose of finding a random game and making an impulse buy... still nothing.
The moment a decent game comes out I'll buy it. Untill then stop blaming others when you can't sell the same old crap.
There is no story, TQ is yet another Diablo rip off, and from what I've read it's not even a particularly good one. None of these games ever do well because everything they do Blizzard already did, but better.
As to his general argument, I play WoW, and I buy a lot fewer games, but I buy a lot fewer games because they cost $100 here and a very large percentage of them are crap. For me, it's much more cost effective to pay $20/month to play a game I know I'm going to enjoy, and which I can play at pretty much any time for however long I want to play it, than to pay $100 every 3 months trying to find a game which isn't a crappy console rip off, unoriginal, poorly coded, or in some other way unsatisfactory. I get more value for money out of WoW than I would out of buying more regular games, so I play WoW.
15 years ago you could find text adventures on the shelves at Babbages. I could actually find a decent turn based war-game by SSG. Now if you want ANY of these (or other types of games) you have to go online and order/download.
What is popular is determined by what is available and what is available is determined by what is popular. It's a vicious cycle which ends up homogenizing the prime shelves of the stores. An addicting fun game can still sell, but unfortunately game companies (and more importantly investors) see a direct correlation between funds re-cooped in development cost and cost of development. It's the "Hollywood" effect happening to games. Big special effects, star power, etc are banked on to get BIG sales. Software retailers have become like grocery stores where they only make decent money if BIG volume sells.
As a result, the store has BIG name games, with BIG development costs, BIG advertising and what investors hope will be BIG returns.
I've often thought about how Richard Garriot sold Akalabeth at a Game store. That just couldn't happen today. Not because games arent good, but because there is no way for games like his to get the exposure they need.
Somebody needs to come up with a way to get the independent game market back into the minds of consumers. Get the best games (independant) packaged with Dell, or Apple. I don't know..but there needs to be some creativity in thinking about how to get the word out.
Simply look at the total number of sold PC games? Surely there must be some form of statistics about this? If WoW has its huge share of the market seemingly on the cost of others, things look like this yes, otherwise the industry do seem to actually be in decline?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
This is an easy one. Think of all of the people you know who play WoW. Think about their game playing habits before they bought it, and their habits now. The avid gamers I know who started playing WoW are no longer avid gamers. They are avid WoW players. Period.
I started playing a MUD because all my friends did it and I just wanted to fit in. I spent thousands of hours over the next 6 or 7 years grinding through this MUD that lacks a defined endgame. The developers make sure there are always more skills to master or abilities to fine-tune. The actual end for me finally came when my gameplay experience was ruined by a jealous and bitter rival player that became an administrator. I was lucky, many players never truly kick it, they kinda burn out from trying to stay on top and then they enter a pitiful cycle of attempts to regain their past glory. It really does keep people locked away from new experiences.
In the two or three years since I quit cold turkey I put on about 20-25 PC games without even realizing it. Whenever I get even remotely curious about a MMO or a friend tries to get me to just try his guild for a good time I stop myself and admit there is a higher power and a monthly subscription fee. So instead of getting lost in the dark dungeon of leveling I pick up a single player/lite multi-player game that lacks online ranking and locked items. I'm also looking into picking up a console and bunch of controllers to bring back the social aspects of gaming with friends and family in the living room that my own friends and I seem to have lost.
-6 years clean
Perhaps my personal experience will shed some light.
Some time ago my gaming troop was playing tribes2 and waiting/watching/wishing for the new version of Tribes, the new Halflife (which we thought would be an online co-operative at the time) and some other games to come out.
We waited. And waited... and there were delays.. and we waited. We played some Unreal Tournament, etc.
Then while waiting since there was nothing going on, we tried FFXI (Final Fantasy IX - a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game).
We have been playing that for 2+ years now. The new titles came out but we were already satisfied and only one or two of us purchased the new titles.
The game industry lost our troop as customers by taking too long to bring out the next titles.
Some of the group who were playing FFXI concurrently went to try WoW (World of Warcraft a MMORG) but they then came back to FFXI because WoW didn't have the holding power over post-teen gamers FFXI did.
Some of the group (including myself) went to try EVE but eventually dropped that and came back to FFXI. reasons: Servers kept crashing and you couldn't get to parts of the game unless you devoted your life to it and joined a big alliance. To be in a big alliance you had to use some sort of voice-chat and manage 'chat rooms', etc in order to tell your alliance buddies not to frag you because you were about to jump to a new section of the game they happned to be camping. (Camping: to wait for something to happen in-game)
quick note: To those who say you have to devote your life to an MMORG, well you can but I play FFXI for 4 hours a week or less.
The short of it:
I won't be buying another title for my PC anytime soon.
The long of it:
A good MMORG has advantages over new game titles. Below is why our troop moved to FFXI.
1) no hardware upgrades needed since we are still playing the same title for 2+ years. The only hardware upgrades we made are those we chose to make. (one of us bought a Dell 24" screen monitor just for playing FFXI)
2) new content comes out so the game 'grows' and has new things to do/explore
3) new upgrades/content are also for co-operative online play (unlike HL2 (Half Life 2) which was dissapointingly only single player)
4) the server infrastructure for online play is maintained by monthly fee. (I used to be against monthly fees but ran into HORRIBLE performance from the 'free' servers,etc.)
5) Things done in-game builds add to your characters standing and thus to your playing experience. -a game like AOE (Age of Empires) is played against other players, but each time you start a new match, you start from scratch again.
6) We don't have to learn a new interface, a new strategy or run into new setups and connections and new passwords for new accounts... etc. etc.
7) If you want to be busy or relaxe you can choose. Playing styles such as micro-management or laid back playing can be chosen by character 'job' type. I.E. those who want to play and be 'very busy' (example: FFXI job 'Red Mage') can play side by side with those who want to relax. (example: FFXI job 'Monk')
8) I could go on but don't wan't to be a bore.
First, cooperative mode seems to have gone away. I really enjoyed a previous job where, during lunch, we'd close our office doors, hook in to a private network, and run around helping each other kill monsters. We'd sometimes deathmatch blow each other up, but I really miss cooperative play. I don't care much for deathmatch-only games. I think the last co-op game that I played was the first two Rainbow Six games.
Second, I don't care much for MMORPGs, though I do play City of Heroes/Villains (love them supers!). If I'm spending $50 on a game, I want to be able to play it on my laptop when I'm traveling, I don't want to have to be tied to a data circuit to use the game.
And I'll do a general bitch about the price of MMORPGs. I don't mind the $15/month, but I think it is ridiculous that we have to spend $50 for the game, plus the $15/month, to play the blasted thing. Yes, if you're careful you can catch sales or lower prices, I'm just stating the $50 as a general retail price.
As for me and WoW, I'm not a huge fantasy fan. I'm also not in to "crafting" games, the concept of spending a few hours online fishing just doesn't do anything, I want to log on and beat up bad guys. Thus, CoH/V is a great game for me. Now if they'd only do a Mac version... (yes, dual boot a Macintel and you're good, I have friends with older G4/G5 Macs who want to play without buying new systems).
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
Myself, I don't own/play WOW (I play Eve online a bit instead), but that's how I see it.
The only difference between WOW and traditional games is the long-term playability from the online aspect.
However, I can confirm that Diablo 1/2 had exactly the same effect for me (bought fewer games) - in fact I just fired up Diablo2 again last weekend :D
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
PC games aren't selling so well because developers aren't innovating and making games that compel people to buy them. In the meantime we'll play WoW.
I wonder what other things people don't buy because they are too busy playing WoW.
Hint: Condoms.
Other than the fact that Titan quest has
a: No story
b: Infuriating cliched asian people
c: Dialog but no Dialog
d: Worst voice actors, ever
e: "I get to go to Greece then Egypt, then Oriental land!"
f: "The telkin, I so want to fight some floating piece of shit!"
g: "Whoa! my guy wears a dress!"
h: "The level design here is great, all I have to basically do is walk up"
The reason PC games suck is because of this guy. Think of something original instead of riping off diablo, failing, then having a whinge. God what a loser.
Titans quest? BARF BAG CITY
This game is a complete and utter diablo clone, a clone of a 10+ year old game that features ALMOST NOTHING NEW.
Its laggy as fuck to play, skips and required way to much resources to run, while barely looking any better than Diablo 2.
Titans quest is a failure of a game because as a game its a complete failure, its TRIPE SHIT SHAT ON FUCKED UP CRAP.
is the problem for YOU. the problem I have is the rigidity. I'm not a D&D fan, but if I was, i'm not sure I'd be all that interested in a game that basically enforces the rules in a very draconinan manner. IMO, it takes out a lot of the roleplay. But the entire genre is certainly not based on skill, so it's an RPG without RP. The entire point of the game becomes, "get the most [something]"
Ok, well that and the anonymity.. But the anonymity wouldn't be a problem if the game didn't require so very much time. No one cares about who they're playing a pickup game of counterstrike with, and you don't need to "all level up together" if you want to play LAN games of tribes with your friends every once in a while.
Also, their pricing structure is insane. If you want me to pay $15/month subscription there had better be something dynamic about the world that changes every month for that value. And don't say you need that money to develop the expansion packs if you're going to charge for those too.
But those are the problems that I have with it. There are what.. 6 million people who disagree with us?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I just logged into WoW and the Tip I received on the loading screen was "Remember to take all things in moderation (even World of Warcraft)"
Now to go grind some levels.
I have seen the same thing - by the time you hit 60, you get reduced to being a warm body for someone else, and your 1-3 keys get nicely polished. This can't keep the industry busy for all that long.
I have put together a collection of complaints about WoW, do take a look at it
http://www.redrival.com/hateown/
True that WoW introduced a new experience to those who played MMO and those who did not. There where many 'noobs' in WoW on it's release. I think, as most will perhaps agree... even Blizzard was overwhelmed at that. Take a fairly good game maker, concept, product(s) and let them make a MMO. That risk paid off.
But this is now... the people who are playing WoW are looking elsewhere to entertainment. Almost two years of playing the same old Pally even sucks. There isn't much out there because of the other game makers fear to compete. Their looses. Shame that many of the 'experts' have such little insight at times... They are failing their companies with not thinking... WoW is a FAD - it will go away - I know I want something outside of WoW to play. Now here is my money... please help me spend it. Damn - - - only trash games out there.
See also the ideas of RIAA - lack of quality new music promotion (blame them and karaoke TV shows) - see the movie industry lack of new ideas (yawn, remake remake and remake)
Once upon a time, a soon to be mommy and daddy loved each other very much (the lust was strong as well as the drinks)
This is nothing new. Whenever a better product comes out, it will steal market share from a lesser product. It's not an abuse of the market - that's how the market works. Game models that are losing market share will continue to do so until either they raise their level of appeal, or Wow's appeal decreases.
It's sort of like how the iPod crowded out the Walkman. Money that would have gone to the Walkman started going to the iPod.
By the way, this may not actually be a bad thing. There are too many games out there as is. Who wants to play a so-so game when you can play an awesome game? The point of gaming (at least I think) is entertainment. People are not going to go for less interesting games the way they might go for store-brand cereal, to save money.
Instead, they have the employees toss the boxes around wearing sandpaper gloves, then sit on them to give them that "handled piece-o-crap" feel. Once that's done, they stack them (so you won't accidentally recognize a title by its front cover) on one of those island display thingies that used to be reserved for cheezy joystick knockoffs. Further, you usually have to walk down the urine-smelling carpet gauntlet* to the back of the store to find the island of badly beaten up, poorly organized, mostly out-of-date PC games. Then you pay a 20-50% premium over Best Buy for the priviledge.
*why does every EB smell like it's had some kind of serious water damage?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Every addict says, I only do x, only y of the time. for instance, people that "only smoke when they're drinking." Incidentally, at your rate, you'll spend a bit less than two waking months a year on just that game.
The CRUSHING prices they want for the games now. They expect that every kid has an UNLIMITED budget for game... Not at my house. LOWER your prices and you will see a RESURGENCE in game buying. The bloody things have gotten to be WAY to costly for what you get.
As with many things the industry get's TOO GREEDY and keep going until they price the customer out of buying it.
They should've blamed Runescape, which userbase has topped 9 Millions and has an ever growing title awareness between people.
All these consideration demonstrates that WOW doesn't kill anything, it's just people that are influenced by marketing and media education or that, more probably, Brian Sullivan\Gamasutra\Game Developer were tipped by Blizzard PR & Marketing to say so. Netx time I hope they will see a more suitable period to launch a long & compelling game: not MMOG addicted people get out in the sun on Summer, with or without anything to blame, sales would be low anyway. That was that way since 90s. Only titles that cannot compete for a place in the audience are launched during the summer.
They should have concentrated more to make a real RPG Killer Application, instead of weeping for lost opportunities without any clue.
Matteo Anelli
.brain - http://www.dot-brain.com
Playing on one of the launch day relms that has been 'full' for some time we are begining to struggle with people leaving to other games and *gasp* Real Life commitments. With new players joining the newer realms, the number of active players (on the horde side which has always been outnumbered 4:1) is begining to drop and the pool of good players is getting shallower, making recruitment a problem and getting 40 man raids together tricky.
We also have players that from time to time stop playing WoW for another game for a few weeks (normaly random console games) but once they complete the game they are back playing WoW which means either the game lacks something WoW has or just didn't have continued content (from player interactions) that WoW has.
While WoW has been a great hit since launch players are beginning to tire of it and looking for new challange elsewhere, nothing lasts forever.
If a new game was to come along that realy was *better* (or even just as good) I'm sure a large portion of the WoW playerbase would consider moving.
[The Universe] has gone offline.
I, for one, do not like WoW's business model of having me first buy the game, and then rent it in order to play it. I also do not have the time to play so much to make a recurring investment worth it. Finally, the game has no demo version so, unable to try out if it works on my modest machine and if it's good enough for me, I will never buy WoW. I am a demanding gamer who will be playing retail "buy once, play forever" games for as long as some good ones are available (which is forever, since I already have some good ones).
Having played only a week of WoW (free) I do agree that WoW excludes other activities (playing other games or Real world activities) since you need to put time into it in order to get gaming satisfaction.
I think the time issue is true of MMOs in general excluding Guild Wars.
I only play GW because in my 10 hours/week of gaming I do like to have a little of UT2004, .
I have read about battlegrounds, high level raids and all seem nice. I just cannot understand why is has to take so much time to get there.
GW does that. It lets you build a high level PVP character in 1 minute and go into battle. Of course it will not be as customized as a PVE character but it lets you play on a level field.
I've run LAN parties (up to 70 people) for about two and a half years and have observed that since WoW has come out people have bought it and played it incessantly decreasing the ammount other games are played many times over. I have observed that many people stopped buying new games but still play WoW and come to the party only to play that. When I ask them why they don't buy other games, there are mainly two answers. One is that they are poor (this is at a university) and can only afford one game at a time (with a subscription, they would buy normal games w/o subscriptions at month to three month intervals usually picking the most popular game at the time), and since many people there are playing WoW they have that as their chosen game and buy that. The other answer is usually that there are many times no good games coming out, you sometimes have a gem that comes out that people love, such as HL2, WC3(even though old, still bought and played a lot), FEAR, and a variety of others. The same thing that this article says about WoW could also be said about things such as Half-Life 2, aside from the obvious issue of many games coming out that were once free now you have to pay for, and episodic HL2 which you have to pay for, making it a sort of money hole, HL2 is a very diverse game. It allows many games to be built on top of it, allowing you to buy one game and get many, this could be drawn as bein a similar problem to the gaming industry for people whom buy very few games. They get sucked into one game and dont move to others, however this still provides some diversity in that it is not actually only one game and therefore is not the monolith that WoW is, it is just a very good competitor making it hard for others in a flooded market to compete.
WoW is only doing a very small part of the total damage to the PC industry. The worst offender is the XBox. I mean really, it's a Windows/DirectX box with gamepads plugged into it. What better to run PC games on? I mean seriously, all the genres that are big on the PC such as fps, rts, etc. are either dying genres or they have been ported over to the 360. People play alot more Halo now than they play Quake or Counter-Strike. Notice how PC gaming is still huge internationally. It's just not as big in the US as it used to be. That's because most countries in the world are console-deficient. PC gaming is having a hard time because Microsoft won a competition against themselves.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I stopped buying PC games, but I don't play WoW. High cost of upgrades to keep up with the latest games coupled with the lack of variety lead to this. If you're not into MMO, RTS, or FPS, then PC just seems lame anymore.
.02
Just my
... that is all I have to say.
I hope all that isn't happenning in the World of Warcraft.
Nonsense, it's an artificial comparison to compare the expense on a per game basis. Instead, look at the cost per hour of gameplay and do the math.
Let's say that I play games 25 hours a month, a fairly casual gamer. Each traditional PC or console game (Civs aside) take about that long per game, plus or minus 10 hours. So let's say I'll buy 8 games a year - at $40-$60 per new game, that's $400/year. That's compared to $50 startup plus $15/month the first year of WoW, or $230/year. So even if you buy a couple of other games (the only other game I've bought in the last year was Civ IV, which has a shorter-but-similar "long playtime" effect), you're still ahead of the game.
If you game more than that per month, MMOs are even more economical. Clearly, less money is being spent in total on games in that scenario, which I contend is a lighter-than-usual gamer.
The issue isn't the money that's being taken in by WoW, it's the player time. People aren't not buying other games because they can't afford them, they're not buying them because they don't have the time to play them.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
til someone sues Blizzard for being a monopoly.
Why is WoW so successful? I personally don't play WoW. I play FFXI. The simple fact is that the game creates a community environment that causes you to enjoy the people more than maybe the game. Sure, it's really cool to camp a dragon so everyone can get the rare item that the beast drops, but what are you really doing? You're interacting with people and hearing about their lives and creating relationships in the game. This creates a loyalty, not necessarily to the game, but to the characters you play with.
For me, I have a finite amount of time to play games. So I have to decide, do I buy game X and spend that time playing alone or building new relationships, or do I keep the game that connects me to several people I've got a relationships with already?
One day the toilets of the world will rise up... And I'm going to nuke them.
yeah, sure, you pull
erm...yeah..I was just distracted by..
Die, please die.
distracted...yeah...bye, things to do.
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
Im in a queue for AB so could be called away any second.... Seriosly - The games industry has a big problem. I have been gaming for over 20 years and started WoW about a year and a half ago. After 8 months I stopped playing altogether and closed my wow account hoping to find pastures new. But there was nothing. The game industry is in a serious creative vacum of FPS's, crappy recycled sports franchises (Tiger Woods 2004 vs 2005? WTF?) and MMORPG's that all mimic each other with slight variations. So it was back to WoW! Why? Because there quite simply is nothing else out there at the moment that gives the same satifaction as joining 40 other fellow players and downing Ragnaros. Blaming WoW for the drop in games sales is a deperate attemt to draw attention away from the mess the MBA's have made of the gaming scene.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
They looked at the market and saw that things like a false sense of accomplishment, character customization, group activity, and the ability to easily edit the UI, and a complex storyline that you can either dive into or completely ignore and still love the game, and more and more content provided via free patches. These were things that people had craved and loved and begged for for years. So they rolled them all up into one game. To other developers: Don't complain about it, make something better. Trust me if you make a super badass game, people will buy it. If your game isn't selling, it just might not be as cool as you think. Or in the words of WoW players: Cry more noob. Learn2Develop
I've played electronic games off and on for 35 years. WoW has zero attraction to me as I am not interested in swinging swords at things. Games I have played for hundreds and even thousands of hours include: well set up physical pinball games, Arkanoid, Tetris, Centipede and now 3D Ultra Pinball Thrillride (3DUPT). My son was playing a free demo of 3DUPT and got me interested. We ended up buying the game online (via Amazon) for something like $6 plus s+h as the game is no longer mainstream apparently.
The pinball "feel" is truly impressive, playing better than a physical pinball game mainly because the flipper contacts never arc and corrode and become flaky. Unlike most PC pinball games that are portrait-style like the arcade versions they emulate, 3DUPT uses the full 4 by 3 ratio screen to great effect. 3 sets of flippers, multi ball, sub-level playing fields -- not innovative in themselves but superbly done parts of a perfect game.
The 3DUPT demo timed out after you earned 2 million points. Eventually we would try to earn that on the first ball. Whoop. My current personal record on the full 3DUPT is 135 billion, with a typical top game lasting 4 to 6 hours, spread over as much time as I like. I have played and paused games for up to 3 days. Another part of the beauty of 3DUPT is I never have to pay-to-play it again -- even burning a CD backup of the game required no hacking tool, a refreshing change.
Part of the ongoing enjoyment of playing 3DUPT is trying to beat my previous high score. At any point the ball can drain and if it drains quickly just a couple of times my chance of breaking the record during that game will be over so I have to stay sharp continuously. The same is true of Arkanoid, Centipede and physical pinball games in general. By the way, this sounds like the opposite of WoW and many/most of the other games mentioned.
I track my scores in other parts of the game -- longest ball duration, largest bonus, etc. -- and my son and I have talked numerous times on ways we would improve the game. I can't imagine playing a game with a cap on it (e.g. a quest that ends predictably for one and all). Pinball never ends and you get out of it what you put in.
So, 3DUPT is a game I'd pay money for. Before I found out I could easily back up the game I even planned to buy several more copies of it as backups. Make more games like this and I will buy them. WoW is for Sci-Fi types, I prefer ESPN. MMOs are for chatter types, I prefer something that can be paused or played entirely on my whim. WoW and most games in general these days are violent and repetitive, I prefer good old hand-eye coordination activities (including real football, soccer, etc).
I come here for the love
truly possible.. e.g. i haven't bought a retail game in the last months only wow game cards. but don't have time to think about that, gotta go play wow
I'm not sure why I felt that way, I mean I pay a monthly fee for my phone bill and I don't use it 24x7.
I guess it's because wow is more of a luxury and not a utility.
I ultimately ended up closing my account because playing the game was stressing me out too much as I tried to reach Warlord. I'd come home from work every day and start PVPing only to be beaten each week by the college kids that were pvping while I was at work and when I got home. Not to mention I sacrificed almost 100% of my family time to play a silly game.
Now I play on a friends account. Maybe two hours a week. I have a 60 mage that I leveled very rapidly due to all the rested XP between time. I can't do any of the end game content as once my friend logs on I stay off so he can play and that can happen at any time.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
It's a simple truth that when you're ponying up montly fees to play a game, you're going to want to play that game to feel like you've got value out of your dollar. In that sense, it's seems unlikely that most people would play more than one MMO at a time. It's too much of a financial burden to justify a very small portion of your month, at the same rates, to play a second or third MMO.
Next is the issue of time in cooperative gameplay. I don't know about you guys, but most gamers have a day job and a life outside of gaming. An MMO cuts into the latter immediately, and in extreme cases it can cut into you day job. For people that enjoy a good social life, a book, a movie, their significant other, their children, their parents, and so forth, it's a tall order to take much time away from any of those. To commit the time to play in a cooperative environment, especially in a clan structure, can literally be impossible for working people with a family. To justify that monthly cost of an MMO, you need to play it. To play it, you need time you don't have. So, if you can possibly squeeze in time to play 10 hours a week at particular clan-coordinated times, you're only doing it for one MMO.
This is why I won't buy a game like WOW. It's going to suck me in. It's going to take me away from a lot of other things. So, I buy single player games that I can pick up at any time and put down at any given length later. I even like games like Guild Wars, where there is no monthly fee but simply episodic content releases.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
Thats the problenm with most of the games coming out.
I played TQ, for 3 nights and that was it.
-1st night I really liked the mythology aspect, but the fixed view really annoyed me.I was anxious to get sucked into the story though. Worst part of the night was the crash when exiting the first cave.
-2nd night I realized it was the same thing over and over again, that mythological characters might as well have been aliens. It made no difference. The story was not interesting either.
-3rd night, I had enough of the hack and slash, I did not feel connected to the story, character. I clicked my mouse button and pressed keys that was it.
I then uninstalled the game and will probably never play it again.
**
Here's the part that killed the game on the first night: the crash.
I searched and found out that this happend to MANY people. I was suprised this had been over looked, and made me think poor quality immediately.
I created a new character and avoided the cave, but this made it worse as I now realized that everything was identical...same enemies in the same places, exact same 'AI'.
It was pointless that I chose man character over a woman. or vice versa.
3rd night was when I realized how pointless it all was, there was no enjoyment.
that's the problem with games for me these days. FPS are all the same, just different weapons and 'environments'. It the multiplayer aspect is any good, the people usings hacks will ruin it. So I stopped playing FPS.
I played Wow for amonth and really enjoyed it, but also realized that I would easily be sucked in to a Wow addiction like so many others.
Are there any games coming out that are not as 'hardcore' as WoW? Something that isn't 'scripted'. Guild wars was good but I liked the open world concept of Wow.
I'll just get progressively more blunt so maybe it sinks in:
Blunt: How about having a real website? Their official site is hardly more than a flash animated retail box -- it says nothing useful. They say they have some unique things? What? I don't want to have to go to 5 different game mag sites to figure out what makes your game special.
Blunter: Sorry, but you annoyed me. I don't want to have to spend 10 minutes of my time to figure out what your product is and if it's worth buying. Ditch the flash crap and make a real website, not some lame attempt at being artsy. Put some real info on the site, not just some lame generic crap like "A flexible Class system, that allows almost limitless ways for the player to develop their character". Jesus, that's like saying "our perfume smells wonderful".
Blunter yet: If your game is as generic and lame as your website is, then stop crying about how much better the competition is and get out of the game business. If it's not, then hire a marketing team that doesnt suck. Your website sucks.
Bluntest: Based on the amount of info your lame ass site is giving me, your game looks pretty but the content sucks and you're afraid to give people the details up front. Sorry, I've got better things to risk $50 on.
Moral of the story: you need to market your game better. Don't make me work to find out what the hell it is. Right now, all I know is it's a diablo clone. If your game is like your website, it's all style and no substance. It looks pretty but thats it. Dont make me rely on review sites.
If you play wow do you have time for other games good or bad? No you do not it is designed, like all MMOs, to suck your entire life up. People play so much they let their neglected child die while playing WOW http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2005/6/ 21/547. Many people that play WOW are addicts and can no longer make rational judgements about their habbit.
MMORPG take a lot of time. (and thats stating it lightly)
If you play a MMORPG, it will eat up all the free time you let it have. There is no upper limit. Unlike most games, where if you spend 200 hours on them, its over. MMORPG are purposely designed to suck up UNLIMITED time.
If you are playing a game, and having fun, why buy another game? In fact, if you are playing the game, you are NOT in the store to even see other games. And you aren't watching TV or reading magazines, or looking at websites, so you aren't seeming commercials for other games.
This guy should be more concerned about fixing his game that they rushed out. Because its a buggy pos. They released a patch but didn't fix any of the major crashing problems that so many folks are encountering. The game is a lot of fun, but it crashes constantly.
WoW was fun for a year and then everything you hate about it overcomes everything you love about it.
My roommate has a subscription to Netflix we both share, only he pays for it. We both have WoW subscriptons, as you can imagine the movies we once had coming in at a steady stream has gone stagnant. Neither of us want to not play wow for 2-3 hours as of late. I wouldn't be suprised at this point if the movie industry started blaming gaming/WoW for lower ticket sales. Keep in mind I don't even want to go into the living room on the comfy couch to watch a movie, I sure as hell don't want to go to the movies in public (scary!).
I can't play Titan's quest for more than 15 minutes without the game crashing. But I'm sure that's not contributing to the lack of sales...
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
WoW pwned the n00bs. Hell I used to spend months playing WoW without stopping... Only for food and water to survive while my health went to sh!t. When you're a die hard MMORPGr, resistance is futile.
World of Warcraft is the bane of the obsessive compulsive among us. Not only is it the bane of them it's also a huge boon for people if they'd just accept the fact that they probably should see a good Physiatrist, if they are ruining their lives because of a computer game. Just saying. I love playing Guild Wars but I only play it four or so hours a week because, you know, it's just a hobby.
Thanks to eating disorders most chicks are reasonably good looking these days.
I think it's just you. I've got two jobs (three if you count my Assistantship/Teaching position that restarts in the Fall), I'm working on my Masters in Comp Sci, and I live with my fiance. All this while I play WoW (and before which I played EverQuest). Granted it helps to get your significant other to play these things with you, but I digress...
WoW (and EverQuest before it) is a shared experience like playing a sport or even tabletop roleplaying... The stories me and my friends share due to it are just as memorable and meaningful to us than anything else we do together. In fact, compared to those late Thursday nights at Buffalo Wild Wings, probably significantly more memorable...
To say that a WoW avatar "doesn't exist" is the same as saying a character you played onstage did not exist. It's *technically* true, but does that mean the experience wasn't worth it?
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
IMHO, that parallel you're trying to make is a tenuous one, at best. Magic in and of itself didn't have anything to do with P&P RPGs, other than the fact that Wizards of the Coast published Magic and then a couple of years later bought out TSR (which was still before Hasbro bought them). I'm sure that a lot of Magic players also play RPGs-I'm one who plays Magic, RPGs and WoW, for example-but I don't think that RPG players were literally abandoning P&P for Magic. (Not to mention that P&P games are, hands down, a LOT cheaper in the long run.)
In good speaking, should not the mind of the speaker know the truth of the matter about which he is to speak? - Plato
Did you know that the genre of text RPGs known as MUDs still exists and is still going strong with new development to older games as well as release of brand new games? The larger, long-lasting MUDs such as Medievia have withstood the test of time and still manage to not only engage the player in a world of fantasy, but also manage to have such in-depth gameplay that they hold the players' interest for years on end. These games are constantly in development and are releasing programming on the cutting edge of AI and gaming. While the playerbases are not as large as WoW, the larger, more popular games get 500 players online or more at peak times. The best thing about MUDs is that the social aspect is a large part of the game, moreso than graphical MMOs. Friendships are made and relationships form that can't be found elsewhere. If you want a new type of adventure, think outside the box, and try (or re-try) a MUD.
Links:
http://www.medievia.com/ - One of the oldest and most popular MUDs, in development since 1992.
http://www.ironrealms.com/ - Iron Realms Entertainment: providing 4 different worlds to explore.
http://www.mudconnector.com/ - The Mud Connector - major MUD portal
http://www.topmudsites.com/ - Top Mud Sites - ranking site for MUDs
To be honest, I hate the time-consuming nature of MMO games. I want a game that plays by my rules, not the rules of the other people in my guild. Some people like these sort of games, apparently (a lot of people). People aren't sheep and won't play games that suck, I think game makers should keep this in mind before they start accusing other matters for the reason their games are not making money. An example of how games can be good and still single player: Oblivion.
Remember how much of a craze Diablo 1+2 were and the clones kept coming out. Some sucked yes but it showed an interest into what the gamer wanted. Rather than forcing what the developer thought the game wanted.
If the industry is in such a funk and needs to compete why not move to the direction that 6 million someodd gamers have made their choice. I can't really see any validity of their game is better than mine its not fair. well '/cry prog newb learn2code'
But if WoW is that much of an attention magnet why have other companies tried not to follow suit and create well made games that adhere to the same principal. Esay to pick up and forgiving gameplay, reward system, vast amounts of small tasks to complete, and relatively low cost. Over 6 months spending 15 a month is alot less than buying 6 new games a month, hell it still trumps some of my one nighters at the bars.
Even in the midst of my WoW obsession I have still purchased a DS, Galactic Civilizations 2 and a couple other worthwhile games. Not just gameplay but price comes into mind too. I'm sorry but 50/60 dollars on a PC game that does not offer the features I expect just isn't going to cut it. Especially when if someone can only offer that they are more hardcore...when I play gmaes to "relax" not learn another skill on another computer application =P
When I was your age we didn't have music file sharing utilities. We had to go out to a store and shoplift the CD.