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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.
I am sad to see subscription based games survive. Everquest (afaik) started the trend...
You missed the early nineties, when people payed by the hour, and in some cases by the minute, to play games like Legends of Kesmai. People ran up bills, some as high as hundreds and even thousands of dollars per month.
$15/month is a steal compared to that.
Even more, your average (non-MMO) gamer probably buys one boxed game a month, at least -- which runs about $50, these days.
Again, $15/month is a steal.
There are very few services out there that give you "All you can eat" for $15. And most of these games feature regular content updates -- so you're getting a little more than just the privalege of playing, for your money.
Running an MMO costs money. Constantly producing more content does too.
You are trivializing the idea of the game. Anything can be trivialized to the point where it seems pointless.
Videos in general:
It's an environment that I can interact with using my computer. There are normally tasks that I have to complete, and once it's all over, I haven't accomplished anything in Real Life.
Computers in general:
I used input devices (ie: keyboard and mouse) to interact with a program someone else wrote.
Life:
Wake up every day, eat, work, sleep, and repeat. Looking at life without taking in account the details of what goes on; it is a fairly trivial process.
Just because you didn't enjoy the type of entertainment that the game was providing doesn't mean it is pointless. Video games are a form of entertainment to help us relax and enjoy ourselves. If you don't enjoy, or stopped enjoying, a video game, you can replace it with another. Or you can go read a book, or rob a bank... something that entertains you.
Its not what it is, its something else.
Are you defined by what you think of yourself or how others perceive you? Do you really think because you died with a gross income in your life of 10 million dollars, you will be remembered more than someone that only made $500,000 through their entire life? Are you going to have a book written about it? And even if you did, does that make a difference now, if you would be dead when it is written?
I could be spending my time helping less fortunate people, or maybe working on an Open Source program that would benefit thousands of people. I may receive praise for such things, but what does this really do?
I think it's really a matter of what you want to do with your life. Do you care that in 20 years, you can look back and be like "Wow, I designed this amazing program that filled a need for 100,000 people." You will have this memory to satisfy yourself. You will be able to tell stories and brag about doing something "productive" for society.
Or, in 20 years, you can look back at the time when you played only video games. You can remember you had fun doing it, but did not accomplish anything with your life. You will have the memories of those games still, and the fun that you can while playing them.
Though it's not the same thing, I played one MMO for 12 months pretty hard-core. I stopped playing that game about 3 years ago. I can look back at the time I see some things where it hurt my social life. But at the same time, there were parts of the game that really provided pure fun and entertainment. You could say I get a warm-fuzzy thinking about the events and things that went on it the game. Not so much the facets of the game, but the people I interacted with in the game.
Some people feel that they have to help others, and do things beneficial to society, so they can be defined by society as being a productive member. And the only way they can satisfy themselves is to think that what they've done with their lives has made a difference (no matter if it really did or not).
Just because you think something is wrong, doesn't mean it is. Even if laws say that something is wrong, doesn't mean it is. I feel that psychology hasn't fully caught up with the concepts of MMOs, so they tend to be compared to drugs or other bad addictions.
Some work has been done to study the MMO trend, but it will be years before we can really know the effects it has on the world. It will be interesting to see how research projects like The Daedalus Project pan out over the coming years.
Its not what it is, its something else.