World of Warcraft is universally hated by everyone that I know, that doesn't play WoW and even they have a bad taste in their mouth about the game. Yet, for some reason, this surprising statistic still doesn't put a dent in anyone's logic - there is over 10 million subscribers to World of Warcraft. Well, or were at that a few months ago. As a note, the most that has ever been claimed to WoW's name is 12 million.

The last WoW related press release notes that over 10 million subscribers were playing WoW right now, effectively bringing it back to its almost peak subscriber count. This is a game over 10 years old, it's been around awhile, and had even a huge party to celebrate its 10 years of "success." Yet, everyone I talk to keeps just whining about how horrible the game is. 

I don't get it. I love WoW, I think it's the one of the most fun games I could probably play at any given second in a day, and the only thing that doesn't have me throwing my free time into it is other commitments. For some reason, or another, the same sentiment doesn't exist with... almost anyone else. 

It's odd that so many people play a game that is unanimously hated by almost everyone. It's the worst of everything - yet, there are 10 million subscribers who play it. Don't ask me! Well, you can, but I have a strong opinion that people resent WoW's success because while it is amusing, fun, engaging, immersive, etc. it also is... very vanilla. 

WoW is plain as the plainest jane that ever jane'd. It's like vanilla ice cream with only a hint of vanilla. It's the most absolute, regular, plain game you could ever look at. Even with all of its neat features, like garrisons, there isn't anything distinctive or isn't from some other kind of game out there. It's like the best of everything - done to this sort of mass-produced perfection. It's a balance of as good as you can get it with it being palatable to as many people as possible. 

Which isn't really... fun, even though it is, right? Think about McDonalds (or any fast food chain)... all of my peers hate McDonalds, they will lament its mere existence over and over. Yet, every now and then, you'll see a wrapper or their car in the drive-thru, because while we all agree that McDonalds isn't the best of everything, it's good enough to span the globe and have outlets everywhere, including every state, and most 1st world countries. 

Sure that double whopper single mac thing might not be the best burger out there, but it's the best of mediocrity, because you can be assured that it's going to taste exactly as you think it is, and it's cheap. WoW is inexpensive, there is no huge paywall, and it's the absolute best of anything involving having a fantasy character slinging spells or swords in a persistent world. 

Drill down a bit more, and other games can easily beat it in various aspects, when you put all of the mechanics together, WoW holds the top spot as the most polished feature rich game. The original Guild Wars, to me, had a dramatically better PvP system. Dark Age of Camelot had a much better open world PvP system. I love the combat of Wildstar more than I love WoW's combat. Guild Wars 2's updates and redefining the world with each to me is fantastic. 

Yet these games lack in other areas, areas that WoW gets at least a pass in, if not a thumbs up. Which is why it's so easy to tolerate WoW, while at the same time talking about how everything is better, because realistically various mechanics in other games are superior, but for an entire package you need everything to be good or good enough, in addition to features that define a game. 

This is why you'll always see someone say that x, y, or z is better than WoW or some game in the past was better than WoW or how some game coming up is going to decimate WoW, and these games always fall flat, because the developers really never aim at pure mediocrity. Make everything work right, make everything enjoyable, and also somehow don't clone WoW since it's already existed and iterated on that specific formula for the last 10 years, so good luck remaking it or cloning it (says 2007 through 2010, the years of endless WoW clones).

To kill WoW, you'd need a game that had 100s and 100s of hours of new things to do, along with 1000s of hours of content to repeat over and over again. In addition to all of this, you'd need it to be stable and fluid and appeal to the market.

That or you could probably make World of Garrisons and get 10 billion subscribers. 

What do you think? Do you love or hate WoW? Let us know in the comments below or tweet me @orangekun.