WoW is not a real success

[Kanzler]

"Gaia CEO: "WoW is not a real success" by Nessaj @ 10 Apr 2008, 03:52 PM

At the recent MI6 confrence, the world's largest video game marketing conference, a discussion panel featuring the MMO business models and the potential growth of free-to-play MMO games in the future, had Craig Sherman, who is the CEO of Gaia Interactive, among the speakers, was quoted stating that World of Warcraft's 10 million subscribers is not a "real" success.


His original quote was: "There are 800 million teens in the world. That's not a success." - A success for Sherman would be to at least have 10% of those 800 million people, who he believes would like to take part in an on-line game such as a MMO.

Min Kim of Nexon also stated in regards to future MMO's that "There's a whole audience of tweens and teens out there who want to engage, but don't have access to plastic, and only the free-to-play business model can attract those gamers to on-line worlds and on-line games.".

Further more it seems that the future of MMO gaming is taking a deep casual turn, dumbing down games in terms of learning curve and allowing casuals easy access to the core gameplay with little to no effort.

The panel also agreed that MMO's in the future needs to be free and have as much social networking built-in together with the gameplay as possible. Top of that MMO's needs to require less time of their users, having players decide how to spend their time and when, rather than forcing players to commit a certain amount of time in order to be able to play the game fully. "


What do you think of this?

I was a wow player myself for a year, cleared all content there except the lastest Sunwell raid adition. Stopped for various reasons such as university, got bored at the game and a few personal reasons

...10 million active players that pay a monthly fee to play the game...well i think the game its not a success in terms of game sales, there are games well ahead in that matter that we can call "a success" such as The Sims that recently reached the 100 million mark of games sold.
WoW was released 4 years ago and in that time how many games of the same genre we saw being released? 1, 2 or 3 tops?

Wow is a success ONLY in the massive online games because there is only maybe a full hand of games of the same genre. WoW is good because its better than the competition..period
Blizzard was smart, used a brand that is "fanatical followed" by asian countries.

10 million players?!: 1.5 million are chinese, 4 million are koreans..that says all.

Dont know if any1 has post a similar thread on the forum, if so i'm sorry to do it again.
Tell me your thoughts..cheers

[IwantMORE]

I would say success is compared to other products trying to do the same not comparing to a made up potential market.

Has WoW made more money than it cost?
Has it brought more people into the franchise and kept old fans happy?
Has it been well received by press and players?
Has it been a success?

Yes to all if you ask me.

But I don't think that's the real point of the article. I think it the ago old problem of children wanting to play online games but not being able to pay for subscription model games. These people will look for free alternatives, which as they get better will become a threat to the WoW model.

My take is Blizzard have made as much money as possible in the short window that there has been to do it this way. If they are smart they will return to single payment games with free online play and the franchise will continue to grow.

[MAT]

"There are 800 million teens in the world. That's not a success."

Of which around 600 million live in poverty. Yeah, WoW is a success.

[Scream]

Of which around 600 million live in poverty. Yeah, WoW is a success.

Ya, the idiot who wrote that article is definitely way out to lunch. It's amazing some of the morons that get their words published on the web (present company excluded of course ;)).

[Geir]

Wow is set for a hardcore Warcraft fanbase. Blizzard intended to reel in the Warcraft people before the general audience of MMOers out there. The reason the CEO of Gia Online said what he said is because Gia is set to a general fanbase right out of the bat and is very similar to Hobbo Hotel. I think Mr. Gia is a little jelious that Blizzard has a pay-to-play MMO that's so popular.

[alexgk]

10 million players?!: 1.5 million are chinese, 4 million are koreans..that says all.


What the hell?!

[Daedolon]

The problem is that not all subscribers play every day, or not at all. It's not really 10 million.

[Superczar]

Wait, wait, wait... Gaia online, this crap??? (http://www.gaiaonline.com/)

I didn't even know it was an actual game; a girl I really, really, really liked and went to school with not long ago was into it. I didn't even know it was an actual game, it just looked like a retarded "social networking" site. All she did was sit there and dress up her character. Stupid. The whole time she was doing that I never seen her actually "play" anything. There is getting gold and items but it seemed to be just for show... :o

I fail to see how the folks at Gaia can talk anything about WoW as it doesn't compare to their own "game" in almost any aspect that I could see...

[alexgk]

The problem is that not all subscribers play every day, or not at all. It's not really 10 million.

But if we consider that these 10 million people paid at least 1 dollar, that's 10 million dollars. Not bad at all. Of course, they've paid more.

I agree with Superczar. That guy has NOTHING to talk about. Racist and retard.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

They pay $15 a month, which is $150,000,000 going towards blizzard each month.... nothing to sneeze at.

[Kitsumi32]

Of course it's not a success. WoW=FAIL. :p

[Hudson]

10 million players?!: 1.5 million are chinese, 4 million are koreans..that says all.

What are you a racist or something?

[ZuljinRaynor]

It's a success.

/End.

[Rider]

Agreed.

Wait... is the 3DRBB in agreement on something? *Gasp*!

[Klaus Kinski]

Oh common, we all agree on Duke being great, that's why we're here, right?

[John]

Not all of us agree on that. *looks at fjallraven*

And Gaia is a crapfest intended for the tween anime fans. *cringe*

[ShadeEX]

WOW is a success period..

BTW:
Where was this originally from??

I mean the source, link please..

[Destructor]

WoW has been a success at spreading Asperger's syndrome, that's for sure.

[Superczar]

What are you a racist or something?

I think he was trying to get across that the game is huge in Asia... :confused:

[Destructor]

Maybe he's saying because they follow Communist dictatorships they are more easily able to follow WoW. And so he considers that a form of cheating, preying on people who can't think for themselves. What he forgets is there's about a billion people in China or something like that, which pales in comparison to the number of people playing WoW.

[wayskobfssae]

Maybe he's saying because they follow Communist dictatorships they are more easily able to follow WoW. And so he considers that a form of cheating, preying on people who can't think for themselves. What he forgets is there's about a billion people in China or something like that, which pales in comparison to the number of people playing WoW.

No, I think what is meant by it is this...

how many other MMO's have a presence in those countries at all?

AFAIK, WoW isn't just top dog in Asia... it's the ONLY dog.

[Destructor]

AFAIK, WoW isn't just top dog in Asia... it's the ONLY dog.

Wait for it...

Because they ate all the rest! :D

:p

[Mountain Man]

I think the OP can be summed up as, "Bah! Those grapes are probably sour anyway."

[Fraeon Waser Duhni]

AFAIK, WoW isn't just top dog in Asia... it's the ONLY dog.

Um, what (http://www.gameogre.com/freemmorpgs.htm)? The Koreans and the Chinese have lots of their own MMOs out there. In fact, that's pretty much the only sort of game they do since doing games our way (mostly single player, pay once play forever) is not terribly profitable due to mass piracy. Maple Story has around 50 million accounts (no, that 50 isn't a typo). Lineage and Lineage II both have a little under a million unique players each ...and that's not counting all the other little MMOs that they're running.

And as I see it, the our gaming market is taking a cue from the Asians, not the other way around (see: Mythos, BF: Heroes, Trackmania).

[0marTheZealot]

I think what he meant by that reference was that Chinese/Korean people are pre-disposed to playing MMOs. The hardcore element comes from that region of the world. You almost never hear of an American or a European dying from thrist from playing video games 90 hours straight, but it happens in China/Korea.

[jimbob]

sure WOW is not a succes, it wil only be a succes when there is no more money to take.

[bobthefish]

WoW is a success. it succeeded in eating the souls of many people

[evanazzo]

WoW is a success. it succeeded in eating the souls of many people

hahaha Its true

I know its a success it succeeds in taking my sisters boy friends money each month as he plays for himself and my sister. *cough* whipped *cough*

[Jeff]

WoW used to be good, until TBC was released and Tom Chilton's E-sport you know as the arena system took over. E-sports don't work well with MMOs. Some people compare it Counterstrike.

[Skullmonkey]

WOW is a success. It has over 10 million current subscribers. So, YES, it is. It has sold an ungodly amount of copies and the fanbase continues to grow.

[Kanzler]

I think he was trying to get across that the game is huge in Asia... :confused:

lol..i'm only saying that half of the total current subscribers are from asian countries..thats all..nothing more.

for those who are interested where the article came from:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/World-of-Warcraft-Is-Not-a-Real-Success-82909.shtml

and

http://www.mi6conference.com/


One of the thing i'm sad about this wow thingy is that blizzard is messing a lot with the warcraft story. I think they are killing the warcraft RTS formula which i enjoyed a lot in the previous games. Not much of a point in making a Warcraft 4 RTS if u'll be able to kill/defeat Arthas in the next WoW expansion.