World of Warcraft: Super Hip… or Super Hype?

By Greg “Doogmeister” Wood

Computer games these days have moved into Hollywood territory! They now cost more, take longer to develop, and require resources that are beyond most small operators with a few networked PCs in a back office somewhere! They are becoming the province of a number of major production companies, just as most movies these days are the province of one of the group of major production studios!

World of Warcraft required four and a half years and 50 million euros to develop, and with most computer games these days and in the future likely to cost tens of millions of dollars and take several years to develop, it’s a major investment for a major business! So naturally that investment must be recouped! In short, many people must buy your game!

Now while, of course, making the best game you possibly can will go a long way to achieving that result, it’s not the only part of the picture! These days, the publicity machine is just as vital! People must know about your product to create interest! After all, if they don’t have an interest in going to a computer software store and taking YOUR company’s game down off the shelf, how is your company going to get those sales?

So, just like with Hollywood movies, the PR machine has to kick into high gear before your product is released to the public! Your market must know something about what your game can offer, and be given reasons why that software box is the one they MUST buy when it hits the shelves!

This leads to the question: Is all this publicity good for the computer game? What happens if people’s expectations are set very high and then the game fails to live up to them? But on the other hand, what occurs if you really do have a great game, but not enough PR so therefore not enough sales? Getting the balance right is even more difficult than most of the development issues in the first place!

Has World of Warcraft lived up to its publicity? Was the amount of hype and advance publcity justified? Is WoW really hip, or just really over-hyped?

Really, the cold hard numbers speak for themselves! With over 6 million subscribers around the world and a 50% share of the MMOG market against many other competing software titles, World of Warcraft has not only met expectations, but by most measures of success in this industry exceeded them! WoW has not only pushed the boundaries, but completely shattered them, elevating the entire MMOG genre to a whole new level! 

Despite all the forum bashing, I feel that the majority of the game’s subscribers would agree that World of Warcraft is a worthy addition to Blizzard’s collection of hit software titles. If the game had not lived up to the marketing blitz that preceded it, I don’t believe it would have been able to sustain its position at the top or near the top of the sales charts for as long as it has. Also, the rate of new subscriptions being taken out would have already levelled out and maybe started to decline if the game was not good enough! But the figures show that new subscriptions are still being taken out and that sales graph is continuing to climb upward! The fact that it is doing this 18 months after its release also demonstrates that the game is attractive for many more reasons than just a good PR campaign!

Also in Blizzard’s favour here was the fact that their past track record helped in generating interest! After all, Blizzard have well and truly put the score on the board in the past, and they have a stellar reputation as only releasing quality software titles! So this made the job of marketing World of Warcraft far easier, because Blizzard were able to point to their past successes in their PR effort.

It also didn’t hurt that World of Warcraft, while using a new game platform and genre that Blizzard was trying for the first time, was based on a enormously popular and successful game universe, with 3 previous hit software titles (and expansions) based on it! These two factors alone generated a huge amount of interest in the game, an interest that was based on past success and not solely on the glitz and glamour of a massive marketing campaign! Indeed, World of Warcraft was a game that in many ways sold itself, and while the publicity associated with it was extensive, it didn’t require a huge effort from the advertising creative people to sell it!

With World of Warcraft, Blizzard may not have created an incredibly revolutionary concept, but they did revolutionize the way the mainstream computer gaming populace thought of massively multiplayer online games! Yes there were MMOGs before World of Warcraft, and yes Warcraft itself was not a new idea but one that had been out there for 10 years. But what Blizzard achieved was to take this popular game world, adapt it to be played as an MMOG, and along the way make several new developments in the MMO genre, such as instanced areas. By refining and polishing many aspects of MMOGs and then basing it all on a storyline and lore that had a proven track record, Blizzard brought massively mulitplayer games to a whole new market that hadn’t really been interested in trying them before, as well as still being able to capture much of the already existing MMO players!

World of Warcraft has cleary shown by now that it can live up to its hype, and already the amount of excitement and interest there is in the Burning Crusade expansion (at this stage to be released late 2006) is yet another testament to the fact that here is a game that is here for the long haul! Gamers everywhere will watch with interest if the Burning Crusade delivers on its considerable promise!

No game can dominate the market forever! Eventually, World of Warcraft will slip from #1 as other game developers learn from its success, and apply those lessons to new and different games that will supercede WoW! But for now, there is no disputing that WoW is on top of the heap, and Blizzard are kings of the hill!

But I (along with many other WoW fans) would agree that World of Warcraft has proven its worth, and earned its current dominance of the MMOG market! We will all watch with interest as World of Warcraft continues its growth and development, and whether it still deserves its accolades in the future! 2005 and 2006 have certainly been Blizzard’s years in the MMOG market, but whether this trend will hold in 2007 and beyond is still unknown! We can only await what new secrets, wonders and adventures still lie ahead in Azeroth’s future to answer that question!

If you have any questions or comments regarding this article please feel free to e-mail me at [email protected].