WoW - The Game That Seized the Globe

The New York Times reports on the global appeal of World of Warcraft. An unmitigated success world-wide, the article examines why the title's U.S. roots haven't stopped it from succeeding abroad. From the article: "Perhaps more than pop music or Hollywood blockbusters, even the top video games traditionally have been limited in their appeal to the specific regional culture that produced them. For example the well-known series Grand Theft Auto, with its scenes of glamorized urban American violence, has been tremendously popular in the United States but has largely failed to resonate in Asia and in many parts of Europe. Meanwhile many Japanese games, with their distinctively cutesy anime visual style, often fall flat in North America. One of the main reasons Western software companies of all kinds have had difficulty in Asia is that piracy is still rampant across the region. Games like World of Warcraft circumvent that problem by giving the software away free and then charging for the game service, either hourly or monthly." Keep in mind that distribution and access rates are different in Asia than they are here in the states. The majority of WoW players pay an hourly fee, and didn't have to buy the box.

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Link & Thoughts

[eldavojohn]

Sorry for the karma whoring but here's an RSS link to the site that doesn't require registration and the no-ads no pictures version.

Pretend you're a news feed or printer and you too can read stories without inhibiting log-ins or advertisements!

Now, for my two cents, I like WoW. But I loved Star Wars Galaxies pre-CU. I had two accounts in that game. It had this special kind of social aspect to it where people were dependent on even the most mundane professions. On top of that, you could level by dancing in a cantina all day, simply chatting with people. The fighting classes had to come in to relieve fatigue and wounds. It was a great system that, in my opinion, could have been more popular than WoW.

In WoW, fighting is the only thing that gains prestige. All the best weapons are looted, there is no dependence on non-fighting classes nor is there such a thing. I think that if anything is going to surpass WoW at this point, it has to be something that so far out there that it's not even well defined yet.

One thing is sure, it needs to accomodate both fighting classes and socializing classes and keep them equally important.