WoW, short for World of Warcraft, is the most popular Massively Multi Player Role Playing Game (MMORPG or MMO) ever made. For those of you unfamiliar with MMOs, they are online video games where thousands of people at a time play together in an online world that takes hours to get across on foot. Some individual game tasks, or quests as they are called, take hours to complete and require up to 40 players cooperating. The game cannot be paused. At any given time there are thousands of players in a realm (a copy of the world) and hundreds of realms are available in countless languages. The game has races, professions, skills, and requires an amazing amount of time to master. In order to attain the highest ranks (called levels), it would take the average player 15 or more days of play. That is 15 times 24 hours of play.
Many games have tried this formula and even been successful, but never on the scale of WoW. For a multitude of reasons, graphic style, features, buzz, and maybe even a good dose of luck, WoW has truly become a sensation. As of today, WoW has approximately 7.5 million subscribers. Now keep in mind that the game is purchased for around $50 (now around $30) and users pay a monthly subscription fee, around $15/month. A little quick math makes that around 350 million dollars in game sales and 1.35 billion dollars a year in subscription fees. That puts the revenue from WoW subscriptions above 27 world countries' GDPs. In other words, WoW publisher Blizzard/Vivendi Universal has not only done well, they have rewritten the standard for profit in entertainment media.
Not surprisingly, with this overwhelming success, companies everywhere are scrambling to put out an MMO. When I did a quick search at a PC gaming magazine website, I found over 80 MMOs in development right now and thus is the problem... Market saturation is coming. I believe the wave of MMOs that are coming due to WoW's very success will guarantee no MMO matches WoW's level of success anytime soon.
When WoW's membership begins to decline, and it will, where will WoW players go? Some will stop playing MMOs, much to the celebration of their spouses (certainly mine). Some will go to other fantasy based MMOs and some will look to branch out to other genres. The market will no doubt be flooded with MMO options and thus the 7.5 million former WoWers will be spread and thinly at that. Now I am sure there will be industry leaders, but they will never get the number of players that WoW has right now. Even with reasonably increased MMO players, there just will not be enough players to go around.
My other concern is the quality of the MMOs that will attempt to follow in WoW's footsteps. Simple supply and demand says with drastically increased supply and similar or only marginally increased demand, subscription fees will have to come down. If fees fall, so will game quality. You just can't maintain the level of quality of content that Blizzard has without solid money flowing in. And good luck convincing your publisher to shell out more money for expansion development or improving your game, without first showing solid returns on the publisher's initial investment.
With diminished quality and with many MMOs likely rushed to the market, many an MMO franchise will likely suffer a premature death. When that happens, expect many a jaded MMO player. After all who wants to play a game for 360 hours to find out they are the only one left playing? Low quality games, cheap WoW clones, failing franchises, and a spread thin customer base is bad news for any company trying to make a high quality MMO.
Of course one way to distance yourself from other MMO competition in such an environment is with massive advertising. Companies like EA and Sony have such advertising budgets and are already gearing up MMOs to try to topple WoW, but those two companies and those like them are known more for their broken promises and lack of innovation than giving gamers what they want.
I am sorry to say, I strongly believe an MMO success stories like WoW is a one time event, similar to the surprise success of Star Wars IV-VI. In both cases, try as they might, franchises that follow will not be able to equal their success. My suggestion to anyone who hasn't tried WoW comes from a recent South Park, "Join the online sensation." WoW is hands down the most fun I have ever had on a video game. Enjoy it while it lasts, because although it has its flaws, you won't see anything like it for a long, long time.
Friday, December 22, 2006
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4 comments:
Since I'm working on a followup to an article on MMMORPG futures that I wrote in 2003, let me address only a couple points here (others will be addressed in the followup).
While the number of MMORPGs in development have certainly increased since WoW's success, there were already dozens in development when WoW was announced. The Korean market, for example, has been saturated with MMORPGs well before WoW made the genre mainstream in the States.
The manner in which you qualify "success" is also misleading. If we're talking pure numbers, I can see a good argument that no MMORPG in the short-term will have the player-base that WoW has, and therefore, its publisher/developer will not make as much money on their MMORPG as Blizzard is making on WoW.
However, players will hardly be spread thin. Only a handful of MMORPGs in 2007 and 2008 will become "hits", just as only a handful of FPS games will become best-sellers. That's simply how it is in the gaming industry.
I also take pause with the statement, "You just can't maintain the level of quality of content that Blizzard has without solid money flowing in." Firstly, Blizzard's level of quality is questionable. The recent fiasco over honour points in WoW is just one example of poor beta testing. As are class rewrites for balancing, a lack of understanding for class roles, etc. Blizzard has shown again and again that while they are good at making a polished product, no matter how much you polish a piece of shit, it'll still only ever be a piece of shit. (I exaggerate - WoW is certainly not shitty, just not a particularly innovative MMORPG compared to its predecessors).
Secondly, the quality of content in WoW has not been in parallel with the amount of money the game brings in. Games with much smaller incomes like Everquest have had way more expansions in much shorter time than WoW. Also, games like Guild Wars, which makes no money on subscriptions, is able to bring dynamic content to the forefront; NCSoft does the same things as Blizzard when it comes to altering the world for holiday events, etc.
In other words, Blizzard isn't doing anything with WoW that other companies aren't with their respective MMORPGs. What Blizzard managed to do is bring in an enormous audience to the MMORPG genre, but with the state of WoW, this audience will falter when an MMORPG comes out that actually does innovate on the genre. The key is emulating WoW's learning curve, feel, and balancing graphics with computing power.
In the end, it's possible that no MMORPG will be able to beat WoW's player count for the next couple years, but happen it will. More importantly though, we will most definitely see an MMORPG that exceeds the gameplay experience that WoW offers, and I'm guessing that will happen by 2008 at the earliest. And that is far more important to gamers than being part of a massive sensation, because more often than not, pop culture sensations cater to the lowest common denominator, and that doesn't make for lasting fun.
I disagree with WyldKard, but none the less appreciate him taking the time to write such a well written response. It is hard to define what I feel a massive success is. He is correct that it cannot simply be measured in number of active accounts. To me, it is when it is simply "that game" that everyone is playing. When there are countless references in TV and media. When quite simply, it defines a genre to most people. Given that measurement, I stand firm that there will be no new WoW for a long, long time.
On a side note, I must say I chuckled when WyldKard alluded to the pop culture sensation (in this case WoW) appealing to the "lowest common denominator" and not making "for lasting fun." I wish to point out that playing almost daily for a year or so, probably qualifies for most people as "lasting fun." I say this simply because I know both myself and WyldKard played WoW regularly for almost two years.
Now although it is true that I am still playing, albeit much less, and WyldKard quit, I do believe that WyldKard's view may be a bit prejudiced against WoW and possibly a little to optimistic on the prospects of what may replace it. I understand breaking up (with WoW) is hard to do, but as of now I am yet to see prospects of any game that will be any better or have nearly as many people playing.
For WyldKard's sake, I truly hope I am wrong. As for me, I will continue to enjoy being one of the 7.5 million lowest common denominators. :)
WoW appeals to the lowest common denominator by focusing purely on the game's grind. A good majority of decisions Blizzard made since WoW's initial release have been to this affect, from the returns in raids, to the revamp of conceptual design regarding the Paladin/Shaman classes. Blizzard is no longer in the game for spinning WoW into a more immersive, complex product, but rather into one that continues to suckle up money from the existing cash cow.
In fact, a good lot of people aren't playing WoW anymore because of the fun factor they tapped into when they started; thousands of people PvP'd in Battlegrounds because of the gear, and they hated most every minute of it, because it was the same old shit, albeit necessary, to get the items they wanted. Same for a lot of raiders, or those trying to build reputation with whatever faction was able to offer players recipes or other items.
I don't think my WoW history is that different from most people. I gave the game up for almost two months after a year of playing, because I hit the raiding wall that casual gamers find it difficult to break into. I took another stab at the game thereafter, with a different class, and again started to lose interest at end-game, because grinding the same rep I previously did, just to acquire a few small items, was plainly painful. And then to top it off, Blizzard decided to not only change the roles of my classes, but revamp the honour system to make my previous grinding futile.
Your accusation that my view is prejudiced is silly, particularly when you quote the amount of time I've played the game. None of my opinions on WoW are based on preconceived notions not backed on my experiences.
Finally, the number of people playing has no real bearing on the game's experience. A game with half the player population, and half the servers as WoW, will foster the same in-game experience.
Be it optimism or not, it's hard to argue with the changes games like Warhammer are implementing, At the very least, Warhammer won't be any less of a game than WoW, since the similarities between the settings and art style/atmosphere are miniscule.
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