Why Blizzard's Secret MMO Isn't A Sure Thing

11 Jan 2010 at 00:00:00 by Bill Vaughan

Blizzard Entertainment shot to fame after its MMO based on the popular Warcraft RTS games became a raging success. To this day, World of Warcraft has a firm grip on the MMORPG crown, five years after the game's launch. It's faced tough competition, including a game set in the long-running Warhammer universe, one based on the Lord of the Rings books which was released not long after the blockbuster films, and an MMO set in the Hyborian continents that are home to Robert E. Howard's Conan. Therefore, it was understandable that when rumours arose of a new MMO from Blizzard, which were later confirmed, the anticipation was almost palpable. The world's finest MMO creators are working on a new game, so should we expect another WoW from Blizzard, or was the king of MMO's success just a fluke?

It's been argued that WoW's popularity was down to a number of factors; Some say the developers took the most enjoyable concepts from existing games in the genre such as EverQuest and Ultima Online and built on them. Features like the rested XP bonus meant that players could catch up with friends more easily if they had been unable to play. The death penalty in WoW compared to other games was very low, enabling defeated characters to be up and fighting again within seconds, at the spot they had been overcome, rather than forced to return to a binding point. Other things, including the lack of loading screens between zones, lots of quests and a simple user interface, attracted casual players to the game, people who perhaps hadn't tried MMOs before.

The influx of gamers was possibly down to a chain effect, as players moved from other games over to WoW, taking friends and acquaintances with them. The player base grew, and soon, gamers who hadn't considered paying a monthly fee to play a computer game before (me included) were gladly handing over the nine quid or fifteen bucks each month to be able to stay in the world they had discovered, created characters and made friends in. But let's be clear, the thing that got a fairly large-sized chuck of gamers into WoW wasn't the graphics, music, quests or the lack of a harsh death penalty, it was knowing someone who already played the game.

It's also been argued that WoW's continued success is partly down to this social aspect, and that anyone who is tempted to leave the game for another one is put off by the thought of leaving their guild mates and friends who are staying put. This is probably true, but I've also seen whole groups of people leave WoW to start up somewhere else. When LOTRO was released, I saw virtually half my guild disappear from WoW – only to have them return a month or two later when they decided the new game wasn't as much fun as they'd hoped, and most of them had kept their subscription to WoW going while they were away, “just in case”.

The subscription is another thing that prevents people from trying other games. Gamers can justify spending a tenner a month on a game, but are we willing to fork out double that and sign up to two games while we try out a new one? Once the free period is up on a new MMO, gamers are forced to choose between abandoning a game they've likely put months, if not years, into and starting out on a new game that they're probably not sure about yet. My feeling is they're likely to stick with the more familiar game – another reason why WoW has managed to accumulate and keep over 11 million players?

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