Ask Massively: Wrath vs All Comers
by Kevin Stallard 
Nov 7th 2008 at 4:00PM
Filed under: Business models, MMO industry, Opinion, Ask Massively
Never let it be said that Ask Massively doesn't give everyone a chance to be heard. We believe that everyone should have a voice, and it is in the interest of providing that voice that we bring you the following question.
Dear Massively
I am SO SICK of all of the coverage of Wrath of the Lich King! I demand that someone at Massively write about something that isn't World of Warcraft related this week. Non-WoW players aren't interested in an expansion for a game that they don't even play. Someone throw me a freakin' bone here!
Sarah P.
Someone hasn't been paying attention, have they...
Now that we've taken care of Sarah, let's talk about the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Unless you've been living under a rock, or on the Presidential campaign trail, you are aware the Wrath of the Lich King drops next week.
If, unlike our friend here, you have been paying attention, you are also aware that the rest of the MMO world has scheduled everything around this release. Some games were rushed to market to try to gain marketshare ahead of time. Others have delayed a while in the hope that the flurry of activity surrounding this release will have died down by then.
What does it mean for the MMO industry?
You've heard me say, many times, that there will never be a "WoW Killer". While it is the job of others to disagree with that assessment, the fact remains that any company that can affect the development and marketing schedules of its competitors can assumed to be dominant in the marketplace. Nobody in their right mind disputes the fact that World of Warcraft is king of the MMO market, but can they maintain that dominance?
Unfortunately for would-be WoW-Killers, the market conditions that existed at the launch of World of Warcraft will never be repeated. There just aren't enough gamers out there to expand the market the same way WoW did. Even if there were, the rise of the console gaming market means that it will be harder to draw new MMO players into the market. The MMORPG genre was barely developed when Blizzard made their splash into the market. Now, everyone and their grandmother has an MMO title out there. The market is mature, and it is far harder to steal customers than it is to create new customers.
Bear in mind that older games' subscriber numbers have held fairly steady since WoW's release after the initial sharp dropoff experienced immediately after launch. In other words, "Everquest ain't dead yet." Even if a game like "Copernicus" manages to be the greatest game in the history of MMORPGs, even if Lucas manages to keep his ham-fisted creativity killers away from BioWare long enough for "Star Wars: The Old Republic" to succeed, even if Star Trek Online manages to boldly go where no game has gone before, they're not going to match the dominance of the marketplace that World of Warcraft enjoys.
I don't know if I can say this any plainer. "No other MMO will ever gain more than 50% marketshare in the MMORPG space." There is too much (good) competition and the market is too mature to expand far enough to make such dominance possible again. if Lich King is even remotely as successful as Burning Crusade was, and I don't see any reason why it won't be, you can expect World of Warcraft's dominance to continue indefinitely.
If, unlike our friend here, you have been paying attention, you are also aware that the rest of the MMO world has scheduled everything around this release. Some games were rushed to market to try to gain marketshare ahead of time. Others have delayed a while in the hope that the flurry of activity surrounding this release will have died down by then.
What does it mean for the MMO industry?
You've heard me say, many times, that there will never be a "WoW Killer". While it is the job of others to disagree with that assessment, the fact remains that any company that can affect the development and marketing schedules of its competitors can assumed to be dominant in the marketplace. Nobody in their right mind disputes the fact that World of Warcraft is king of the MMO market, but can they maintain that dominance?
Unfortunately for would-be WoW-Killers, the market conditions that existed at the launch of World of Warcraft will never be repeated. There just aren't enough gamers out there to expand the market the same way WoW did. Even if there were, the rise of the console gaming market means that it will be harder to draw new MMO players into the market. The MMORPG genre was barely developed when Blizzard made their splash into the market. Now, everyone and their grandmother has an MMO title out there. The market is mature, and it is far harder to steal customers than it is to create new customers.
Bear in mind that older games' subscriber numbers have held fairly steady since WoW's release after the initial sharp dropoff experienced immediately after launch. In other words, "Everquest ain't dead yet." Even if a game like "Copernicus" manages to be the greatest game in the history of MMORPGs, even if Lucas manages to keep his ham-fisted creativity killers away from BioWare long enough for "Star Wars: The Old Republic" to succeed, even if Star Trek Online manages to boldly go where no game has gone before, they're not going to match the dominance of the marketplace that World of Warcraft enjoys.
I don't know if I can say this any plainer. "No other MMO will ever gain more than 50% marketshare in the MMORPG space." There is too much (good) competition and the market is too mature to expand far enough to make such dominance possible again. if Lich King is even remotely as successful as Burning Crusade was, and I don't see any reason why it won't be, you can expect World of Warcraft's dominance to continue indefinitely.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
John said on 4:07PM 11-07-2008
This WoW hater needs to shut up. Massively has been writing almost non stop about WAR since it's release...there are indeed other sites to read about MMO's...if she has such an issue...pansy!
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Friday_Knight said on 12:27PM 11-11-2008
I'll tag on your post since you're pretty much the only one here not bashing WoW. You kids ragging on Massively for giving WoW more coverage than your favorite game: "Insert Franchise Name: Insert Subtitle" need to get over yourselves. You need to deal with the fact that WoW is the big dog in town. If you don't like WoW then you just have to have to come to grips with the fact that your first love is a second rate MMO.
Oh snap. I went there. WoW is the king. Their subscription numbers dwarf every other MMO and in many cases dwarf the subscription numbers of several of their competitors put together. There are companies out there happy that they got a hundred thousand fans while WoW is over eleven million. This ought to be information that I needn't repeat. Most of us know the numbers.
Therefore, you can't and shouldn't ridicule Massively for catering to their largest base: WoW players. Also, let's face the facts here. Nothing at this end of the year is going to be as big as Wrath of Lich King's release. None of your lesser MMOs will match it. Period. Whine all you want. It's the truth. Far more people are rabidly chomping at the bit for Wrath's release than people who even mildly give a crap that Lord of the Rings Online is releasing an expansion or that Warhammer Online is getting a new tanking class. We don't care.
Wrath of the Lich King is coming. WoW is plowing on and the majority of gamers everywhere are right on its heels. If you're on of the poor misguided miscreants that hates WoW and is feverishly devouted to some other MMO that is just not as good for whatever reason, stop your whining, go play your crap game and let the masses be excited.
MrGutts said on 4:10PM 11-07-2008
On top of Sarah's bitch ( which I agree with ).
I want to petition that you guys remove then damn default avatar WoW icons from the new reader posts. Pick something else other than WoW. Make it the massive logo or something.
/bitch off
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Uldon said on 4:18PM 11-07-2008
There is another expansion right after Wrath, and that would be Moria for LOTRO. Maybe there should be more articles about games that can SUCCEED in the market today along side the giant that is WOW.
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Dave said on 4:15PM 11-07-2008
Amen! This WoW stuff drives me away more than anything. Now I can understand the normal coverage, but it's way over covered here.
Thanks! :)
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Dave said on 4:17PM 11-07-2008
I agree with MrGutts unless you guys are getting some kickback for the free advertising from them, then I would understand.. sort of..
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David said on 4:26PM 11-07-2008
/seconded for less WoW coverage... and /seconded for the comment for less WAR coverage ...massively does post enough good info on other MMOs for me too keeping come back, so dont tell me to leave :)
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JP said on 4:32PM 11-07-2008
“Indefinitely”
I laughed at this. It’s certainly still in the limelight… but indefinitely? I think after the WotLK content dries out in this ever-growing, cynical, MMO player base, you’ll see WoW’s sharp decline. I don’t think Blizzard will be dumb though. They’ll pump out more expansions yearly or biyearly. In the end though, the number of players that return after each expansion will diminish. And in larger quantities.
It can be equated to the age of the game, to new technologies, to new innovative MMOGs coming out, or just attrition over time, but the foreseeable future is not a WoW colored one the way the past 4 years have been.
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Mr. Pickles said on 4:32PM 11-07-2008
Kevin Staller wrote: I don't know if I can say this any plainer. "No other MMO will ever gain more than 50% marketshare in the MMORPG space." There is too much (good) competition and the market is too mature to expand far enough to make such dominance possible again. if Lich King is even remotely as successful as Burning Crusade was, and I don't see any reason why it won't be, you can expect World of Warcraft's dominance to continue indefinitely.
I'm going to have to disagree with this last statement. Even thought WoW has been such as successful product, I think the game will peak and drop off shortly within the next year. All they're doing is adding in a few new ideas and rehashing the same old stuff from before. Take the entire northern part of the Eastern Kingdom and stretch that to make it 1/3rd of WotLK. The other 2/3rds are Vikings and polar bears...yawn. And, their so called "new ideas" are nothing but stolen ideas from other games that they add to their own, they've been doing it for years (I wish someone would copyright some of these things and then sue them for it).
Maybe a single MMO will not take 50% of the market, but it could be spread across 3-4 MMOs of the ones you mentioned. SW:TOR and STO will bring new people to the market, that's for sure because the IPs have followers that haven't yet entered the market that sure will when their favorite IP gets in. And other games are just starting out, yet only after a year we can see the progressional advancement of them, because judging them in only 6 months is very poor taste as most MMOs aren't even getting started untl 6 months out (but, AoC is close to 6 months and still sucks...that game was released too early).
P.S. Warhammer Online will be a fighting contender with WoW, whether you believe it or not.
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Daelda said on 10:45AM 11-11-2008
First of all, you cannot copyright ideas or procedures for doing, making, or building things; scientific or technical methods or discoveries; business operations or procedures; mathematical principles; formulas, algorithms; or any other concept, process, or method of operation. So, any MMO company that sees a cool method of doing things is free to copy that method. And they do. Not just WoW. Heck, it would be stupid of an company to see something that seems to work well, but not look into how they might incorporate it into their own MMO.
Also, indefinately, in this context, means for the foreseeable future - unknown. It doesn't mean forever, or even for the next X amount of time.
WoW is currently the big boy on the block. That will change at some point, I am sure, but not for a while. Like it or not, unless Blizzard pulls a move like what SW: Galaxies did, WoW will continue on with a larger playerbase than any other MMO for a long time yet.
Xtofer said on 4:32PM 11-07-2008
You guys are crazy if you think that massively has a bias towards WoW. They do extensive coverage on LoTR, WAR and I can't think of anything that gets more coverage on this site than EVE.
Not to mention that WoW has an expansion coming out, but you all realize that they aren't even covering EVERYTHING that has to do with WoW on this site. That's where their sister site, WoWinsider, comes in. If Massively had a huge bias towards WoW, then you'd be seeing every article on this site cross-posted from WoWinsider. And that doesn't happen, so chill out.
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Vlatch said on 4:38PM 11-07-2008
They cover the WoW expansion as if it's going to be popular or something. I can't believe it!
Massively covers all MMO news - hence the "Daily News about MMOs" monniker. You are living in an MMO world that is WoW-dominated, so you're going to be reading a lot of WoW coverage; especially when a huge expansion is less than a week away for it. How many posters, advertisements - hell, even commercials have you seen for WotLK? How many have you seen for Mines of Moria? Right. That should be your answer as to why you're reading quite a bit about it.
To Massively: Please don't turn this site into another one of the WoW-hater sites like MMORPG.com. I like the fact that you cover MMO news whenever there's news to cover.
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Dave said on 4:44PM 11-07-2008
Well, there may not be any bias toward WoW, so then please remove the WoW icons that are next to our names.. :D
Use the green dots or allow us to choose...
Thanks!
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phobic99 said on 4:57PM 11-07-2008
You can upload your own image you know. Or perhaps you didn't know.
Beazy said on 5:46PM 11-07-2008
WoW isnt so great anymore. Just look at how they scramble to copy WARs ideas.
Sayin WoW will be the King Indefinately is pretty crazy if you ask me.
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epic said on 9:19AM 11-11-2008
and WAR online is a completely original idea along with Warhammer itself...
Friday_Knight said on 1:07PM 11-11-2008
Dispite your compelling argument I'm going to have to say you're just very very wrong.
Get over the "copying" thing please. There is little real innovation in the MMO genre now and ever. Implementation is everything and WoW is the indisputable king there.
You can argue all day against WoW being the absolute king of the MMO market and that it likely will be for the foreseeable future, but all your effort doesn't make it any less true.
Tony said on 5:13PM 11-07-2008
Honestly, I never felt the Lich King coverage was too much. It's been a good mix. What are they going to do when the world's most popular MMO has an expansion coming out so soon? Ignore it?
Just before this people complained there was too much WAR. Before that it was too much Conan. If anything, I think that alone pretty much proves there's a good balance.
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mandarin said on 5:19PM 11-07-2008
She's right, I hate WOW
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Chad said on 5:24PM 11-07-2008
I'm of the opinion that games released recently are sub-par non-polished copies of wow. How could any of them have any chance of competing when they are of such poor quality. Wow got its customers through a good game design philosophy coupled with polish. Once another competitor comes out with a fresh game design philosophy coupled with polish, then we might finally have a real competitor to wow. It is my opinion that that game will be a sandbox/linear hybrid. Regardless, polish is really the ultimate key to this market. Your game can be great, but if 4-year old wow still looks better and runs better then your new game, the developer is doomed.
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