I’m fairly confident that anyone who frequents Epic Slant will be confused by the title of this article. Don’t worry folks, I’m not actually going to be defending World of Warcraft! I’ve just discovered that a catchy title can bring a lot of discussion. People even skip your article and assume what your argument is based on that title alone. I wanted to write on this topic due to some really great and spirited discussion that has resulted from one of my recent articles and a few message board posts. What exactly is “this topic?” That would be why people defend World of Warcraft and why others attack it!
The over exaggeration
It is my contention that World of Warcraft is to blame for anything and everything that is going wrong in the MMO industry at this time. It is the root of all evil and the herald of doom. WoW is the seed of destruction and has no redeeming features. Anyone who enjoys it is clearly a fool and would be better off chained to a stake in a yard. Now I don’t actually believe any of that but I’d say roughly 25% of the people who “read” this article will infer those few lines as my meaning and will comment/email/repost as such. Might as well give them something they can quote right?
I’m going to take some time to outline some of the actual problems I do believe Blizzard has introduced into the MMO industry. I’m also going to look at why players like me are so discouraged with that model of game play and why there seems to be a zealot like support base for World of Warcraft! All of this in one easy Friday article!
It’s the economy stupid
Defending World of Warcraft is easy. All anyone who wants to forward that agenda has to do is parrot off “11 million accounts,” “11 Million accounts,” “market has spoken, market has spoken!” Clearly so! Since WoW has 11 million accounts it wins. Article over. All MMOs from now on should be WoW or there should be no new ones. Only, for some unknown reason, WoW players seem to want new MMOs. They seem to want to try them and are excited when someone hypes one. More importantly, they seem to hate new titles that “clone WoW” but are really angry with those titles “lack features in WoW.” That is quite the conundrum! I’m not so sure these people know what they want! They do know that EverQuest players are the enemy, though. That is one thing they’ve gotten down.
In truth I think the economy argument is starting to look weaker by the month. Does WoW make the most money? Absolutely it does! Does it have the most users? Sure it does! By that argument it is safe to assume that Windows is the best operating system and MASH’s final episode was the greatest TV show ever to air. In those terms it seems awfully flimsy right? A lot of people would argue against Windows. They would tell me that Windows has the most users because of marketing forces and other “lock ins.” For MASH they’d point out that while no TV episode since has gotten a higher percentage of eyes as that one, there is now “more choice” in television and a repeat success is unlikely. Lets key on that last phrase, “a repeat success is unlikely.”
World of Warcraft’s rise to fame was seen as the nod to the MMO industry. This game was going to bring in millions of new players to our small, elitist demographic and in time they’d spread out to other games and grow the whole market. New games would chip away at those numbers and everyone would have a big piece of the pie. That never happened. I wonder why? It is my contention that WoW did grow the MMO market but, for the most part, remained in its own market. That market is, of course, the Blizzard market. I’m certain that there are plenty of WoW players who don’t know about other MMOs or have no intention of trying them. They are there to play in the WoW/Blizzard ecosystem and nowhere else. There is nothing wrong with that but we can no longer consider them as “part of the equation.” I’m sure I’ll see the usual “Blizzard isn’t the reason for WoW being a success” but there used to be a quote back before all this. That quote was, “Blizzard could sell 1 million copies of an empty box.” Their name stood for quality, polish and exceptional game play and still does. Do you honestly believe that if StarCraft II didn’t have that name on it it would be anything more than average? I don’t for one minute. Every reviewer basically points out how StarCraft II IS StarCraft with more polish and somewhat newer graphics. Any other company would burn for doing that but not Blizzard. Instead of calling it a clone or a rip off, millions of PC gamers will rush out and buy it, myself included. Don’t write off the Blizzard name. It does matter.
MMOs may be about the economy and subscription numbers but if we base everything solely on that we’re in for a world of hurt. WoW clones aren’t getting a fraction of the WoW business and other MMOs are hanging in there with fairly strong numbers. Since they don’t beat WoW they’re all considered a “niche” title and I just don’t see that anymore.
Shut it you minority
Despite the fact that all early MMOs focused heavily on replicating the real world experience of hard work paying off, that demographic is now considered a niche. In fact, any game play that doesn’t mirror World of Warcraft’s can only succeed these days as a “niche title.” That is the new “bad word.” Oh you like PvP? That is cute, you’re a niche. Skill based play? You’re a niche too! You liked EQ1? No you didn’t, you just think you did. You’re an even smaller niche!
The problem with this argument is that it essentially says every MMO in existence that uses the subscription model and isn’t WoW is a niche! If you don’t have 11 million players you’re unimportant and a failure. Forget the fact that prior to WoW no US MMO exceeded 1 million players. These days most MMOs seem to peak at around 300,000 subscribers once they get past the hype point. That seems to be a solid, profitable number (despite what Mark Jacobs said). If you have 300K you’re making money and turning out content. How is that a niche? Isn’t that a commercial success?
When do you stop being a niche? Do you have to pass the 1 million player mark? Is it higher than that? Are you niche until you pass World of Warcraft? Wouldn’t that make WoW a niche? It basically comes down to players like me being told that since we don’t like WoW there is no “real game” that is going to support us. We should just accept that Warcraft is the best, there was never anything better, and in the future we’re just going to get a newer version of that and we should like it.
I do have some bad news for the fans of this argument, though. World of Warcraft will soon be a niche. I’m not sure everyone has heard but Facebook is the new “real deal.” Games like Farmville and Mafia Wars are where everything is really happening. Those games already have more players too! That means we should be doing everything like those games right? Of course not! More players doesn’t always mean better!
You only think you like it
The most upsetting piece of this argument from my perspective is being treated like I don’t know what I like. I’m talking about the “rose-colored glasses” argument. Players today will tell us EQ fans that we only think we liked that game better. It was our first MMO and as such it has a special place in our heart. Today we wouldn’t enjoy that sort of thing.
To this I have multiple arguments. The first is the most fun. It is “how dare you madam.” How dare you suggest you know what I like better than I do? I like EverQuest because it was less of a game and more of an alternate life. In that life there were actual challenges. Life was not easy and to exist successfully you had to act like a mature human being. You know, kind of like Americans used to act. It was a time of personal responsibility, hard work and rewards. I like that in my games. I don’t want to be given things or treated like a child. I don’t need help! That is why I like EQ, because not just anyone can be good at it without trying. It took real effort.
The argument also breaks down because many of us misguided EQ1 players actually go back and play the game every so often! I played the progression servers; I checked out the live game, I even built my own server that was as hard as the original! There are no vague memories here. Every couple of years I have to revisit EQ1 to remember why I even like this genre! I’m pretty confident I know what I like.
What interests me more is that WoW players used to like these things too. They too have tented glasses as they try to pass off the current game as the one that released years ago. They’re not alike in the least. Vanilla WoW, as it is called, was not as hard as EverQuest. I can’t make that claim. It was probably somewhere between 80 and 120% harder than WoW is now! This is exemplified by the very top of the raid game. The top 100 of WoW is about as hard as it gets. There is no explaining that away. No, EQ players don’t have rose colored glasses; we just refuse to be softened over time. We go against the grain! We delight in the challenge of it and bore with a system that rewards both the skilled and unskilled. I’m not interested in playing a game. I want an alternate life sim!
What is your point?
I realize that this has gone on in what appears to be a long rant. In all actuality it was! Sometimes we all need one. My point is that defending WoW like a zealot doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in the long run. What exactly is the point of stomping out every other play style that doesn’t mirrow WoW? Everything isn’t perfect over there!
Blizzard has set unrealistic expectations for the marketplace. That leads investors to expect more than what is possible from development houses which, in turn, leads to bad games. World of Warcraft also wields undo influence over what “has to be” in a game. If you don’t go far enough you’re a failure. If you go too far you’re a clone and a failure. From what I can tell, any product that isn’t equipped with a built in audience (I’m looking at you SWtOR) will be unable to succeed at this rate.
Despite this fact the traditional MMO market will continue to be compared to the Blizzard market and will only end up more and more marginalized despite the fact that our “niche” seems to be growing daily. I do hope developers realize that this “copy WoW” system isn’t working. No game that mirrors the values of that game has done any better than our “niche” titles. For all we know EverQuest still has more players than some of these products! It is time to try something else and accept that you will not get “WoW money” with your title. Set a realistic goal like 400,000 and go for it. If you get 11 million subscribers good for you! Would a new EverQuest clone really pose a threat? I don’t think so. I can tell you, for a fact though, that another WoW clone isn’t going to defeat the original. I just wish developers were more interested in the “niche” instead of the “WoW.”
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I agree with most of what you said. I will, however, say that there is an element of rose-tinted glasses when talking about older games. I think some people probably didn’t like EQ, but the tolerated it because it was the game their friends were playing. Yes, some people really do like the challenge, but I think there are a lot of people who prefer playing games as a low-impact social pastime. The exact breakdown is debatable, as always. So, the real question is: how large is the population of people who would like to see something that is more of an EQ1 clone than a WoW clone?
Of course, I’d still like to see games that aren’t necessarily clones.
I’d think there would be at least 300,000 out there that would play a slightly modified EQ clone! If I ever hit the big game I suppose we’ll find out!
I agree that we’re talking about two different demographics, but I think the different has more to do with minimum time commitment than a specific fondness for Blizzard.
In general, grouping requires longer sessions with less time AFK. Because that was far and away the most supported form of gameplay in the pre-WoW era, there was a kind of a soft-minimum time commitment required to play and enjoy the genre. By allowing solo play in WoW, Blizzard dropped the minimum time commitment for a productive game session down to almost zero. That dramatically expands the pool of potential players.
If you look at the approximately 4-6 million US/EU WoW players (excluding China for more of an apples to apples comparison) versus the 400-600K subscribers for the most popular pre-WoW games, you’re talking about a 10-fold increase. Some of that increase is improved quality and some of it is an undue fascination with Pandaren et al, but I’d argue that the majority of the increase (i.e. possibly 75-80% of the WoW demographic) are basically single player RPG fans who are only willing/able to play online RPG’s that allow soloing. Whatever the proportion is, you’re absolutely correct that those players cannot be enticed to go play games like EQ1, because those games just won’t fit in player schedules.
Moreover, solo play has steep quantity requirements that favor the large production values of a “game launches when it’s done” company like Blizzard. This is why it consistently ends so poorly when a game that has no intention of devoting the majority of its resources to solo content attempts to tack on solo leveling in the hopes of cashing in on WoW players.
The catch in aiming for 10% of the market (whether you choose to call that a niche or not is your call I suppose) is that you can’t have 100% of the budget. The costs per user aren’t exactly linear, and you could theoretically charge more if the market will tolerate it, but your developer will inevitably have fewer resources to work with.
P.S. When people look back fondly on how much better/harder WoW raid content was in 2006, you have to bear in mind that 90% of the content Blizzard was adding to the game was aimed at a single digit percent of players who were able to run the toughest raids.
“Blizzard has set unrealistic expectations for the marketplace. That leads investors to expect more than what is possible from development houses which, in turn, leads to bad games.”
Thing is, I don’t think that’s Blizzard’s fault. They managed to make a game that’s hugely popular and achieved a massive amount of subscribers. It’s not their problem that other developers are unable to achieve the same success or think they have to clone WoW to get it.
Oh I fully agree with you there. It isn’t their “fault.” It is just a product of their game. The problem is investors still expect that so something has to be done to change that attitude.
Investors are a big part of problems with a lot of things in the economy. Unfortunately, since MMO production is still an expensive beastie, they will be a significant part of MMOs for a while.
“They do know that EverQuest players are the enemy, though. That is one thing they’ve gotten down.”
Pfft. You haven’t read many F2P rants lately.
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