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Can Anyone Beat WoW?
Next Generation is running an article penned by DFC Intelligence Analyst David Cole, exploring the overwhelming popularity of World of Warcraft. Coles asks Is It Possible to Surpass World of Warcraft? He explores the reasons behind WoW's success, and what it means for the market as a whole. From the article: "All of these factors point towards one conclusion: World of Warcraft's success, admirable as it may be, will be extremely difficult to duplicate. This will be bad news for all the frothy investors who are suddenly discovering the MMOG business model. In the new DFC Intelligence Online Game Market report we forecast revenue in the MMOG market to grow over 150% from 2006 to 2011. However, this doesn't account for all the investment money that is likely to be lost chasing after that revenue growth."
to beat WoW is to cancel your account and start the arduous process of putting your life back together. Call the wife that left you and see if things can be worked out. Take your kids to a park and marvel at the sunshine - it's been a while since you've felt how warm it is. Apologize to all of those ex-coworkers that covered for you when you overslept from a late night raid or leveling. Look in the mirrow for the first time in months and decide you might need to shower and shave.
Yup, I beat my addiction to WoW. The day I pushed that cancel button was the day I was set free. So it is possible to beat WoW!
Space for rent, inquire within
A quarter of the population of South Korea along would sign up. You'd get a minimum of 12 million subscribers and the return of Starcraft Breakfast Cereal.
There will always be that one game that defines a genre. Doom was not the first FPS, but it was the FPS that made the genre a sensation. Command & Conquer did the same for RTS. WoW is just that defining game for MMORPGs; it built upon the pioneers and has reached that critical mass where MMOs stop being a niche genre and have become mainstream.
The question is: do we really want a single dominant game in any genre?
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
No, that's why they made a level cap.
All joking aside, WoW will not be beaten... in this generation. In any emergent industry based on non-commodity goods, the first player to hit mainstream success will be the benchmark that all others fail to meet. After the first product goes mainstream, competition increases and even an increasing market has too many players for any one to achieve the saturation of the first one.
Now, if the whole MMOG industry was to die down, it's quite possible that someone new could come in and create a renaissance where they could dominate a larger market than existed during the previous incarnation... like Nintendo did after the video game industry 'died' in the early 80s.
However, I don't think the MMOG industry is going anywhere anytime soon. It's natural outgrowth of the online socializing that today's youth has grown up with -- I expect more variety, but don't see any shrinkage for quite a long time.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
It will be incredibly difficult to reproduce the success of WOW for a number of reasons. The main being that WOW is incredibly accessible to gamers of all skill levels. Having played many different MMORPG's WOW was easily the easiest to pick up and run with. Other games have an incredibly steep learning curve and to the casual gamer are turned off. With WOW you can jump right in and get to doing quests without having to go through the tedium of starting off so weak you can't do anything. Additionally, Blizzard has been incredibly successful with almost every game they have released. I'm hard pressed to find a Blizzard title that wasn't both a commercial and critical success, with the exception of the long-anticipated, maybe to eventually be released Starcraft: Ghost. Additionally, from my experience WOW is the only MMORPG you can play for short periods at a time. If you have a half hour you can jump into WOW and actually accomplish something. Other games, they require large chunks of your life to achieve a modest level of success. I'm not saying that the other games are bad, because they are by no means, but they are not as accessible to the casual gamer as WOW is. WOW definately isn't perfect, what with the lack of overall storyline, but in terms of quick fun it beats the others hands down.
In about 2-5 years, WoW will start to fizzle out as people grow up and away from the game. As well, improvements in computer hardware, GPUs in particular, will start to make the cheesy character graphics that WoW uses seem old.
Games run their course. Blizzard has been really lax in adding new content, and fixing bugs. If they are going to average a major update once every 2 years, customers will start to leave for other games.
While it may be a long time before anyone beats the subscription numbers that WoW currently boasts, as more people get broadband and more people start having better systems, the MMO market can handle more people.
But it won't happen for a few years. As much as I am looking forward to Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, it won't challenge WoW for numbers. And nothing else in the works that has been talked about is really lighting any major fires. And even Eve's slow but steady growth will only go so far, as it's a game of Haves and Have Nots, and new players are mostly Nots.
The only thing I can see beating WoW in terms of MMO Competition is if a number other high-quality games enter the market and drop their price point and subscription fees. It's really Blizzard's to lose. If they release a string of bad patches, quit putting out expansions, the like, and people hit 60 (or 70) and lose interest, they'll flock to Eve, Lineage, Guild Wars, CoH, and others.
My opinion is that World of Warcraft's popularity is due to its original base in the hugely popular Warcraft series of games. Without that, it would be just another EQ clone like the rest of the games. For 3 million people, the name Warcraft introduced them to the MMORPG, something a new title like Everquest or Dark Age of Camelot wouldn't do. Would Spiderman the movie have been nearly as popular if it was called "Webman" and was loosely based off of Spider-man? I'd say not.
Star Wars Galaxies could have done it but they were too busy reinventing the game every 4 months.
StarGate can do it if it's done right. They have the brand name. They just got to remember this is a MMORPG and there needs to be more than one way to succeed in the game. If they can break this cycle that you have to always fight something to advance they'll win over big. That's what Star Wars had. Docs, dancers, musicians, and artisans could do what they liked doing and succeed.
Believe it or not some people just liked standing around chatting.
..at all the time I wasted playing WoW brings a tear to my eye. I neglected my loving wife, my friends, I would occasionally skip work, school, or other activities just so i could 'raid.' That's the worst part about that game. It hooks you with the ease of leveling and the fact that you CAN level on your own. You don't need to be in a giant group to gain experience (a la FFXI).. The questing system is intuitive and enjoyable, the storyline is great wether you played the original Warcraft installments or not.
The game was successful because everyone wanted a 'casual friendly' game to play - and that's exactly what it *WAS*. But once everyone reached 60 and the developers lollygagged their way to the first expansion (after what? 2 years? 3? I can't even remember how long the game has been out thanks to being locked in a cold room full of empty coke bottles and a broken '2' key for Sinister Striking!)
Once you hit that top level and started raiding, it became a horrible addiction. The only way to see real character advancement is through new gear, and the GOOD STUFF (as all crack heads want!) is only available via raiding A LOT. I went from a happy casual player to a 5 day a week 'second full time job' player.
I don't think another game will have that much success anytime soon - im sure it's possible.. but I also think that the hayday of WoW is going to slowly come to an end. I don't know if their numbers are still going up or not, but im sure as more and more new games will be released that will slowly steal games from WoW... Blizzard might try to hold onto the throne with World of Starcraft or World of Diablo or basically just rehashing WoW with one of their other brands to keep it 'fresh', but eventually even they will bow down eventually.
Besides... WoW is in a whole new 'era' of gaming IMO. 20 years ago a fun game was playing cards after dinner with your parents (maybe a few more years than 20...whatever) The point is that as technology continues to develop and becomes accepted, more and more people jump 'on the wagon', and thats just part of what the gaming community is seeing today. Is it that WoW just happened to be 'the right game at the right time', or will it be looked at years from now as 'one of the first good games in the 'Gamers-Generation.' (I know that sounds a bit silly but hopefully you understand my point.)
Disclaimer: I fall upon my rights as an american to post this message without using spellcheck. Thanks!
Its Deluxe, son. Deluxe!
First off, this article seems to have been written by someone who played two MMO's: Everquest and WoW. Most of the "revolutionary" features of WoW were present in other MMO's (instances, battlegrounds, solo centered play) previous to WoW's existence. Some were done worse, but I'd bet some were done better as well. While WoW is an international success, in my opinion, it's an average MMO. I've played my share of the genre and beta'd a few that never made it as well, and I found WoW to be technically sound but overall pretty sterile. I was bored enough to cancel pretty quickly and even tried to return with some friends thinking that would help, but alas it was not meant to be. If it works for you, that's cool, but I disagree with anyone that calls it the be all end all of MMO's. It's not THAT great.
What I do like about WoW is the quality, it seems minimally buggy in comparison to most MMO's (except for the Blizzard servers after release). This is so important and it's a problem in so many of the games in this genre.
If another MMO comes out with the same quality control and a well known license attached, you'll see a split in the user base. The casual players will stick around mostly (as will some of the hardcore fanboys) but a new challenge is something an MMO addict can't pass up.
"I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability."-Oscar Wilde
I'm convinced that a lot of WoW's appeal is the color and graphics style. There are many other MMOs out at the moment but most of them have graphics more seated in reality. Unfortunately, it seems that many game artists are not capable of working with earth tones very well and most of the graphics end up washed out and grey. EQ2 is a prime example of graphics-gone-wrong. EQ2 had a lot going for it, actually... the crafting system was pretty damn innovative and was a throwback to UO (post-T2A) where your skill directly impacted the quality of your goods. You couldn't get away with a blacksmithing mule without putting a lot of effort into it. Contrast that skill and time-based system to WoW's crafting system where any dumbass that gets 300 Alchemy can transmute Arcanite every 2 days just as well as you can. A lot of other games tend to have similar graphics problems (Note: part of this is hardware limitations. With a more cartoon graphics style, you can get away with a limited number of polygons and colors. Realistic graphics need heavy shading and heavy textures to make it look good.)
I think for a game to beat WoW they will have to trump graphics and remain simple. Let the casual user have an easy game but make it complex enough for those that want complexity. WoW has done this fairly well. Anyone can get to 60, but a true game fan can find and adventure for specific equipment items and specific stats. A fanatic fan can break the game down into math and figure out exactly how much his DPS (damage per second) would increase if he got a certain item or certain enchant. But you don't have to do that.
Customization is a big (HUGE) key that WoW has completely missed. You cannot create a community in WoW beyond a guild. Again going back to UO.. that was a great feature, albiet implemented very poorly at times and the implementation/security of it varied greatly every content update. If you wanted to, you and some friends could build a small town out of user-purchased homes, complete with NPC vendors that you controlled. Second Life has huge customization features but is lacking graphics, intuitive UI, and just doesn't have the appeal that most games do.
/me casts Improved Zerg Rush
:)
"You have insufficient creep to cast that now."
5 Elite Protoss Zealots unstealth and gank you.
"LFG 3M marines, 1M medic"
Or seeing a cloud of Carriers or Mutalisks come screaming over the horizon, hell-bent on laying waste to your camp.
"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - Major Mike Shearer, UK
like WoW does. If you had said Warcraft 5 years ago, how many people would know what you were talking about? Lots. They already had the brand recognition and that sold a lot of copies for them right there. I think the next big MMO you'll see will also be built off of another franchise game (and NOT starcraft!). DDO's only real attribute is because it has D&D in the name. That sold it to a lot of people right off the bat, even though it is just enough D&D to be confusing to newcomers and not enough for a lot of fans of D&D to like playing it. Most of the other MMO's you see out there don't have that recognition (puzzle pirates, eve, guild wars, etc.) and an MMO is a hard place to build brand recognition these days.
Watch for a big name title to go MMO...
I played everquest for years. If it weren't for mismanagement of Everquest we would be shaking our heads and wondering how a single MMORPG could dominate the market for 6 years. However, the gorilla on the block since 2005 is now WOW though I suspect it is starting to suffer the same problems. I hope sanity returns and they avoid EQ's fate.
The reasons I left EQ (and why WoW may not avoid these problems) were...
1. The game was so hard you cannot meaningfully accomplish things solo once you're high (e.g. 60th+ level). As a casual player who does not spend a long time online in one session I spent a large percentage of my time looking for a group. I even arranged a second subscription so that I would have two characters whilst I was soloing. Wow was therefore more accessible because you can solo meaningfully and it also halved my subscription costs. However, both systems are designed so that the greatest rewards are only achievable by massive multiplayer effort. and at that point, all the players who have real lives drop out.
2. Very few pieces of software are perfect, with a MMORPG this sometimes requires human intervention. The customer support at SOE was appalling. GMs sometimes abused their powers and if you had a problem you sometimes had to wait days for resolution. WoW support used to be fairly good and prompt, but I've noticed a drop in quality over the months.
Over time, it looks like the WoW software has got more buggy to the point where I suspect EQ has the upper hand now. If you've got 40 people who spend hours trying to achieve a goal and all wipe because of lag (for example) then they're going to be fed up.
3. Even though the area to explore was huge, (and I'd explored for almost 4 years), I had only visited maybe 50% of the regions that were available. A lot of the new regions required quarterly expansions costing about $45. Every time an expansion comes out you are reminded that you're paying a subscription AND you're being asked to pay for the expansion. Blizzard had been very good at improving WoW for the standard subscription and I dont begrudge them an expansion every 18 months or to, but Sony's 3 monthly expansions to add broken content drive people away.
4. It became obvious that some mechanisms in EQ were overt time sinks (e.g. some people waited days for certain creatures to appear), now, obviously, the whole idea of a game is to be an entertaining time sink, but you're supposed to be enjoying yourself whilst doing it. WoW has a few irritating time wasters, such as flight paths but generally its a lot better.
So in summary, Sony destroyed Everquest's dominance of the MMORPG market by offering poor support for buggy software and charging lots of money for it whilst only a few hardcore players got bragging rights over their leet characters (at the cost of family, jobs and sleep). I can see a few faint shadows of this disease on WoW, and hope it won't get worse.
If someone wants to make a killer MMORPG then listen to the majority of players, not the vocal hardcore. Allow people to stop and attend to real life. Listen to them when they've got a problem and fix it as a priority before working on something shiny, new and broken. Let them play the game as fast or as slow as they like, so they can socialise or be a tourist. I'd love to play a casual wow-type game in the Everquest world, there were so many cool areas, monsters and quests that I miss.
-- Don't believe everything you read, hear or think
I think WoW was good for one thing. It got people who never heard of MMO's, or people who were afraid to try the more hardcore MMO's to "get their feet wet".
It's not necessarily something that future MMO's should draw from. Of course there will be WoW clones, but I think all of the companies will benefit from the success of WoW.
You'll see people start with WoW and find that they need more depth and challenge. Games like FFXI, Everquest, and the soon to come Vanguard will all benefit from the influx of gamers into the genre.
I don't think WoW will be "beaten". It will co-exist with all the other MMO's, and everyone will benefit from WoW's ability to attract the casual gamer.
is to, oops, got to go. Raid.
thxbye
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Let's look at this rationally, Wow isn't just a great game it's a phenomonial game. Just like EverQuest wasn't a great game it was a phenomonial game when it first came out. It's like Super Mario Brothers 3, best selling game ever. But is it beatable?
Well to beat WoW you need to approach it the same way. Take a well built world that has been seen in multiple games that everyone knows and loves, something like Mario or Zelda (note Final Fantasy doesn't have the same world so it doesn't work the same way) Make it identifiable but playable, allow the players to play any of the major races, Invent a couple new ones and you should have WoW.
The problem is no one has a game that was as popular as Warcraft available for this quite yet. And those that do arn't willing to go to MMORPG. Mario and Zelda will never be MMORPG if there's a god in heaven. Stuff like Command and Conquer doesn't have the races to go along. GAmes like Final Fantasy doesn't have a viable world.
The problem really comes in when games try to be so different it hurts. Star wars galaxies anyone? If there was a game world that could be better than WoW it would be Star wars, but there's not enough developer items. LOTR is coming soon but isn't sounding like a strong contender. Star trek could work, Ender's game would be fun but too obscure.
The problem is for something like WoW you need to have Devs who've created successful games in the world, interest in going into MMORPG, and the patience and money to really create solid beta, Just paying a company money to make a MMORPG won't work because they might not work with the source material, they might not have enough time, they might just not understand the material (Scarface? The main character is going to get up from the ending, so the whole moral is gone and it's a stupid run and gun). WoW will be beaten, but probably not for another 4-5 years. But that's ok. That's actually the way MMORPGS work. They have very long life times but it also takes a long time to create a successful one.
UO - Released on September 30, 1997, by Origin Systems.
EQ - EverQuest (EQ) is a 3D fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that was released on March 16, 1999
I will not have your revisionist history. UO pioneered the genre.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
"There are ATTRACTIVE women who play the game."
Or at least that is what the guys playing those characters tell you.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I know that addicts can't conceive that everyone doesn't share their addiction, but it's true. Gambling and drinking are two good examples. Most people never get addicted to those things, and indeed just aren't wired in such a way that they will. They do them both when they want to, but they have no need to do them all the time. To an alcoholic, I'm sure it's hard to understand how it feels to not NEED to have another drink, but most people just don't.
Well, same deal with WoW. There's plenty of people who play just for fun, and play on their own terms. I have a coworker who just now, after like 2 years of play, got his first level 60 character. HE just doesn't have time to play a whole lot, has a family and all and that takes priority.
Even those of us that do play a lot aren't addicts simply because we do. Personally, I'm evaluating what I want to do in WoW. I enjoy raiding, but it's getting a little old. I'm trying to decide if I want to switch back over to a PvP server, or maybe just cancel my account and play other games. I don't feel any "need" to play WoW or meet some artificial goal, it's simply what I choose to spend a fair amount of my free time on because it entertains me. I suppose I could spend it watching TV, or knitting, or in a bar, or any of the other more "acceptable" activities but I like games so that's what I'll spend my time on. At this point, WoW is the one that gives me the most entertainment, though as I said, it's growing long in the tooth.
So if you find yourself addicted to a game, unable to quit, having it interfere with your life, then that's not a good thing, but don't project that on to all others. There's plenty of us that can just play for fun, and leave when it's not any longer. WoW is my 4th MMORPG to date. It has lasted much longer than any others (9 months was the prior record with DAoC) but I doubt it'll last till next year. It doesn't force you to play it, you force yourself to play it.