by Savanja on Nov 20, 2006
By: Savanja
<!-- if (!document.phpAds_used) document.phpAds_used = ','; phpAds_random = new String (Math.random()); phpAds_random = phpAds_random.substring(2,11); document.write ("<" + "script language='JavaScript' type='text/javascript' src='"); document.write ("http://ads.tentonhammer.com/adjs.php?n=" + phpAds_random); document.write ("&what=zone:25"); document.write ("&exclude=" + document.phpAds_used); if (document.referrer) document.write ("&referer=" + escape(document.referrer)); document.write ("'><" + "/script>"); //--> href='http://ads.tentonhammer.com/adclick.php?n=a7cd6924'I recieved my monday common content assignments for the month, and as I browse on down the list, I stop at this topic. While it's true, World of Warcraft has made a impact on the gaming world, seeing EverQuest II pitted against World of Warcraft for the bizzilionth time in the last 2 years, makes my eyes bleed. But I'm a trooper! I am a journalist of sorts, and when given an assignment, I will do the best that I can with it. Well, that and they pay me to do what I'm told, and to be truthful, Radar is really mean as a boss. *cowers* Just kidding boss!! I heart you!! You're pretty!!
Simple. Millions of subscribers.
So what has made World of Warcraft the reigning king of the MMOs? I have a few theories on this. I was reminded of one tonight when I was watching CNBC's "Game On". This show was an excellent look at the popularity and life of gaming, and did touch upon massively multi-player games briefly. One man talked about casual gaming, and the need for players to be able to pick up a game for 15 minutes, here and there, and still feel like they are "gaming". These gamers are currently flooding the market and are very rapidly becoming the target audience for producers. This is much more difficult to accomplish with MMO games, but World of Warcraft has made an MMO that is simple enough in it's design, and entertaining enough in it's flavor, that a person who has never played a PC game before, can pick it up rather quickly and become a hero over night. THIS is what these players want.
Major props must be given to WoW for pulling that off, but I think a lot of us who have watched the gaming community for the last decade, see this for what it is, an off the cuff save for Blizzard, a last minute, nothin' but net shot at the buzzer from half court, and a completely unexpected win for a sinking company.
Competition is good for any consumer market. This is why monopolies are so bad, because competition makes companies work harder to earn your dollar. Without competition, a company can push out crap and you have no option but to buy it because there are no other choices. *cough* Can you say Microsoft? Yes, I knew that you could.
The success of World of Warcraft will do one very big thing for the MMO market, it will force gaming companies to step up their, well, game. Up until two years ago, online gaming had a rather limited outlook. The first EverQuest was the pinnacle of success at a rumored 500k subscribers, I say rumored because SOE tends to not share hard numbers. This is what MMO makers could aim for, but no one was really all that heart broken if they didn't make those number because hey, EQ was a ground breaking game, no one can compete with that!
Then steps in Blizzard with that afore mentioned nothin' but net shot, and all of the sudden game makers are faced with a harsh reality, they -could- have been doing better, making more, and setting all new records. So where does this leave game makers now? This leaves them sitting there, with egg on their face, wondering "how the heck can we compete with THAT?". I don't know if they can, but I know this, if game makers don't start leaving their egos at the door, and putting some serious effort into making good games that all people want to play, they will be left in the dust by those game makers that got it right.
How does the success of World of Warcraft affect us? For the players, I'm not sure it does really. I don't like WoW, I think it's a game that has lots of pretty colors, but very little substance. I don't want a dozen level capped characters in 6 months, I want a interesting and challenging game. Yes, before you start sending me hate mail stating that I couldn't possibly know what I'm talking about, I played WoW, for quite a while during beta, and was silly enough to purchase it after release so that I could play with my WoW junkie of a brother. I bought him EQ2, trying to convert him, but he said it took too long to get anywhere and leveling was a pain, so he went back to riding his cream puff, the traitor. I am well versed in MMO gaming, so don't get cheeky with me youngins'.
I do give WoW respect due for cracking the nut of consumer market, but numbers of purchases are not what constitutes a good game in my eyes. I provide for you the phenomenon of neopets. My kid is nuts for these, but not only kids, I know a dozen women who also play on here. There are over 70 million neopet owners on that site!
But why? For research (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!) I made a neopet and played with it a bit, and I found it a complete waste of time. It's not all that interesting, and the goal is pretty much just to get stuff and make friends, but why do that many people find it so completely engaging that they go there, day after day, to play with their neopet? Because, like any other stupid fad on this planet, a couple of people went there, and they told their friends, and those friends told friends, and so forth and so on. People thought it was cute enough, that they took a closer look, and there ya go, you're hooked!!
It's the same thing with World of Warcraft, only people were actually willing to pay money for it.
World of Warcraft did great things for the MMO gaming market overall. First of all, as we have already touched upon, they have raised the bar of success. We now know that heights like this can be reached, and all game makers should aspire to it. In the least, both the up and coming game companies, and the veteran gaming companies should look at Blizzards success and take some serious notes.
They have also brought to light a formerly underutilized entertainment option. 5 years ago, my gaming was more or less a secret from the general public because no one knew what an online game was. You try to explain that you spend 2-5 hours every evening trying to progress your virtual character, and people tend to look at you funny. Now, people know what online gaming is, and I'm a teeny bit less of a freak, and any game that makes me look more normal is cool by me.
Games are very hard to compare, so I rather not get into that. People have different tastes, and while World of Warcraft is not for me, it's clearly the choice of some people, and as long as they are having fun, that's all that counts.
Happy gaming to all, no matter what game you play!
All opinions are mine alone, so if you have complaints, kudos, death threats, or virtual roses, please send them to me!