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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.
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.
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.
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.
..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!