Slashdot Log In
World Of Warcraft Crushing PC Game Industry?
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Jul 20, 2006 03:31 PM
from the ouch-my-squeedilyspooge dept.
from the ouch-my-squeedilyspooge dept.
simoniker writes "Age of Empires co-creator and Iron Lore co-founder Brian Sullivan has been discussing his studio's first game, Titan Quest, but along the way has openly wondered whether World Of Warcraft's success is part of the reason for the decline of the PC retail game market. Sullivan commented: 'For retail PC games, I think the biggest problem is World of Warcraft... It is such a compelling MMO game that it sucks up a lot of money and time that would normally be spent on other retail PC games.' Does WoW's growth actually mean that PC games in other non-MMO genres may sell fewer copies?"
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Wrong argument? (Score:5, Insightful)
His entire argument is that any game that's more popular than his, especially MMOs, takes away from his game.
Gamers are an educated demographic, for the most part, and have fantastically high standards. When something that comes out is so good that it shakes up the entire industry, complaining about it will get you nowhere. It's kinda like he's making an "I'm hardcore and therefore better!" argument, but applying it to the big kid on the block (yes, WoW is a "casual" game in many respects, but he's not addressing that aspect).
And even at all that, aspiring to understand why it's so wildly popular so that he may make better games seems to have escaped him.
Re:Wrong argument? (Score:5, Insightful)
This player may have had alot more fun with 6 different games, but he never payed attention to other games because his guild needed his help camping some dragon spawn.
If this is true, then it could have an adverse effect on the PC gaming industry because we will end up seeing less games in general. That means less chance for innovative new ideas, and probably just more churning out sequels. I am not saying that this is the case, and neither was this guy, it was just his speculation.
--
Parent
Re:Wrong argument? (Score:3, Interesting)
You can also add that WoW, or other MMO, requires much more money than any other game in the market. The basic cost + the monthly fees.
It's simply less money to spend on other games made by other companies. All that money goes into the same company. Meaning future releases in gaming will require bigger and bigger companies to be able to rival those kind of assets.
More money required = less "risk", less "innovation", less number of "games", "higher price"
Not money, gamer time (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's say that I play games 25 hours a month, a fairly casual gamer. Each traditional PC or console game (Civs aside) take about that long per game, plus or minus 10 hours. So let's say I'll buy 8 games a year - at $40-$60 per new game, that's $400/year. That's compared to $50 startup plus $15/month the first year of WoW, or $230/year. So even if you buy a couple of other games (the only other game I've bought in the last year was Civ IV, which has a shorter-but-similar "long playtime" effect), you're still ahead of the game.
If you game more than that per month, MMOs are even more economical. Clearly, less money is being spent in total on games in that scenario, which I contend is a lighter-than-usual gamer.
The issue isn't the money that's being taken in by WoW, it's the player time. People aren't not buying other games because they can't afford them, they're not buying them because they don't have the time to play them.
Parent
Cash (Score:3, Informative)
I do think that the whole MMO trend has somewhat set back regular games. I personally don't have the time to devote to Massively Multiplayer world's, and have found the selection of non-MMO titles somewhat lacking (although I am tempted to try EVE or something else that doesn't require constant massive time injections).
Re:Wrong argument? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Wrong argument? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the thing: he's not complaining. He's simply observing that WoW is dominating the PC game market at present. As such, he's probably right.
If you actually read the article, you'll see that he's making a candid and respectful comment about a competitor. I'm sure he's not happy that there's such a potent competitor drawing attention away from his game, but there isn't a trace of sour grapes in his actual comments as quoted. He's not saying WoW is a shitty game, in fact he's quoted saying WoW is "...such a compelling MMO game."
In response to such refreshing candor, you start casting wild and unsupported apersions, that he is a complainer, that he considers himself above casual gamers (despite designing a game specifically for them), that he doesn't understand WoW's success. What's your beef with the poor guy?
Parent
Re:Wrong argument? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not that people are buying WoW instead of his game (most long term wow players have written off that monthly cost and it no longer fits into their available spending money...just goes in witht he other bills) its that wow is so involving that it takes an amazing game to so much as pull someone away from it.
I took off from wow during my first year of college but now during the summer I picked it back up. During school though I didnt have enough time to devote to WoW, there were tiems I stil
define: competition (Score:3, Funny)
1. (uncountable) the action of competing
The competition for this job is strong.
I was ... (Score:5, Funny)
Can we rephrase that? (Score:3, Interesting)
Short Answer: Yes (Score:4, Interesting)
~Rebecca
Re:Short Answer: Yes (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Short Answer: Yes (Score:3, Funny)
The one that takes place in that huge room with the blue ceiling? Man, the lighting effects in that one are so grating, and it's filled with gold-farmers who aren't willing to socialize.
Loads of Bad Games (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's face it. The video game market is flooded with terrible games that are the same thing over and over again. I mean, seriously, besides really little kids, who bought the Finding Nemo game? RPGs have always been better sellers than other titles because there is a strong market for them. It only makes sense that a game that also allows for social interaction AND is an RPG will sell out other video games.
Though, I personally dislike WoW. I'm all about Guild Wars.
How do people have time for this? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not terribly torn up about the gaming industry going downhill, what with the only titles recently released being yearly updates to re-hashed sports titles or GTA variants, but I do wonder how the industry became profitable in the first place.
Almost nothing is geared towards a casual gamer any more. I maintain an Everquest subscription for old time's sake, and to have the option available if I want it, but I'm lucky if I log on two hours per week. Between my education, employment, volunteering, and interpersonal relationships, I have very little time left to put into something like that. At the endgame, where I've managed to get by plodding along an hour or two a week, it can take up to an hour to find a group of people to play with in the first place. All the other MMO games are the same, and even a lot of the non-multiplayer games involve a lot of grinding or gruntwork to actually get anywhere in them. The only good casual games out there are Nintendo platformers, and these are so devoid of maturity in any respect that I can't play most of them. (Exemptions given to Mario and Zelda games, because those are classics.)
I just wonder, how it is possible to participate in an MMO and still do anything with their lives?
I wager that, in fact, it isn't.
A friend of mine, meanwhile, neglects the first three and a good portion of the fourth items in my list of other activities there, in favor of playing videogames for the better part of 8 hours a day. He's capped out multiple characters in World of Warcraft, but in reality, has nothing to show for it aside from a hole in his bank account and a slightly bigger imaginary e-penis. Actually, on further inspection, it's not just one friend...it's all half-dozen friends I know who play that game, do it at the exclusion of other activities they previously found enjoyable and profitable such as jobs and friends.
China's three-hour-rule seems like a very, very good idea to be put in place on the server end, all around the world.
Re:How do people have time for this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How do people have time for this? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry that you have a half-dozen friends that have no self control, but from personal experience, this statement is false.
My roommate, my girlfriend, several other friends, and myself all play WoW. Yet somehow, we manage to maintain education, employment, church attendance and participation, and interpersonal relationships, trips to see family, and even playing other games, watching movies, reading books, and playing sports. Oh, and we still manage to get a good amount of sleep every night too.
The problem isn't that WoW allows you to play for more than 3 hours ( from time to time, my friends and I have been known to play the game all day long ). The problem is that your friends have decided that they like the game enough to play for long periods of time every day ( or most days ). They made a choice as to what was most important to them - in this case, it was the enjoyment they get out of playing WoW.
Personally, I'd be pissed if this ever were to happen - when I want to play WoW for a long time, I like having the choice to do so.
Parent
Re:How do people have time for this? (Score:3, Insightful)
We raid four or five nights a week. It's scheduled during the evenings and we try to keep our raids to a maximum of four hours. I get home from work, eat dinner, then raid in the evening. I'd rather be doing that then watching mindless television or something. I'd say I play around 12 to 20 hours of WoW a week and quite enjoy it. Sure, that's more than a casual player who p
In my experience, ppl don't have time. (Score:3, Informative)
My friend runs a guild with about 50 ppl in it, not including alts. He's a student and has his summers off and other than a trip to China which was for credit in school, he's done nothing this summer but sit and play WoW. The ppl in his guild come home from work and sit and play WoW. It's actually fairly frustrating because we were working on some personal projects that he's relegated to "After I play this raid/hit lvl xx/get through this dungeon." So I'm seeking help e
Re:How do people have time for this? (Score:4, Funny)
Ah, so you live on Sealand?
Parent
Ever since I started playing WOW.... (Score:3, Funny)
I doubt it. (Score:5, Insightful)
And then there's people out there who, like me, look at WoW and go "Geez, I don't have the time to devote my life to this." and never play it. I've looked at it in fascination, but I've also woken up on Sunday after a long binge of Civilization X, and wondered where my weekend went. Those experiences taught me that I need to pick my gaming prudently. So I don't play WoW. I've already seen people's lives disappear when they start playing.
Also, like any other "where are the gamers?" question, you need to make sure the games you're making are fun or you have no room to complain.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure I'd love to play WoW, but I have a job, I take night classes, and I'm trying to find that elusive thing called "girl". Dumping time into the hole of WoW would kill off at least one of those. And I think when I'm 50, I'd rather look back on the fun times I had with (eventual) children than fun times I had with avatars in a world that didn't exist.
Maybe it's just me.
Re:I doubt it. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm in my 40s and I've been a fantasy/sci-fi/gaming geek for as long as I can remember. Go back 10-15 years and I was a "paper and dice" roleplayer and, at it's peak, I was roleplaying for anything up to four times a week, occasionally in a club environment but mainly with a specific group of friends who took it in turn to GM games - in a single week, therefore, I might have been playing a D&D and Star Trek game and running a Call Of Cthulhu one, for example.
Step forward ten yea
Works for me (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not saying the game I like is better than the game in the article, but what I do observe is that a well-crafted MMOG can pull a player in for hours and weeks at a time. I know I don't bother considering buying games right now, because I know that I probably won't play them - hell, I'm not playing the ones I already have. So you have probably four big MMOGs dominating the landscape, which is great for Blizzard, CCP, etc., but the rest of the industry sees a decline.
So what's the problem? If you want to compete with the market leaders, produce something more compelling, exciting, shiny, and innovative than what's out there. Don't whine that better games are eating your lunch. From what I see, the big MMOGs are winning because they are that good. Now, if someone were to put out a spaceship-based MMOG where you could dock into a station, exit your ship, and engage in FPS combat to take over the station, land on the planets to do missions, PVE, PVP, world-building, etc., I'd be in line at midnight to give it a try. I bet if someone did a robe-and-wizard-hat MMOG where there were no shards or instances (a-la EVE's ginormous server cluster with anywhere between 15,000-25,000 players on at any given time), then you'd see guys in tunics camping outside Fry's.
In the games industry, if you can't beat 'em, go work for EA, where you can at least be sure of steady income for producing shit rerun knockoffs. Or you could do better, and actually beat 'em.
Re:Works for me (Score:3, Interesting)
WoW is honestly popular because it's the most common simple and pretty looking MMORPG there is. It's not original or even that note worthy, it just took everything and gave it a Blizzard spin (aka made it glossy) and that'
No shards in EVE? (Score:5, Informative)
And the main difference between EVE and WoW is that WoW is casual. I was a high end player in EVE and there was far to much work involved in keeping an effective PVP corporation going (logistics is what wins wars in real life and EVE). It was a second job to the people that did it. People whine about having to put in eight hours a week to do end game in WoW, the logistics people I knew put in eight hours a day, and high end PVP corps expected you to be on call whenever you where online (Band of Brothers). I got sick of a game being like a job (it took me three days to move my gear from one base to another) and now I play WoW. And the PVP is just as good, with none of the problems of having to go to extremes to find targets, or a 5:1 ratio of grinding to PVP, or every second PVPer being rigged to run away rather then fight.
Parent
Similar article (Score:4, Interesting)
I was heavily involved in WoW at the time and know that it affected my game-purchase habits; I can only imagine how much impact it's had on the PC and console game industries as a whole. When you have dozens of days (and I was on the low end compared to my peers) invested in several characters, it sure seems hard to do anything else but to continue to play just. that game. After all, isn't that part of the hook? That if you stop, you're "throwing it all away"...?
It's not about lack of money... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's about time. Between work, WoW, and the occasional outing into the real world, there is no time left for these other games.
In fact, WoW has actually SAVED me money. Now I spend $15 a month for my gaming needs, instead of the $200 I previous spent buying a new game every week.
Short answer: No (Score:3, Interesting)
1. The nasty, intrusive copy protection on Half-Life 2 where it took ten minutes saying "mother may I" to the servers every time I tried to start it up (and then the gameplay sucked.)
2. "Starforce" copy protection (which can wreck your CD/DVD drive) being used by game companies.
If the game companies aren't going to make it pleasant to use their product, they have only themselves to blame.
Felt guilty not playing WoW (Score:5, Interesting)
If that were true, wouldn't there be a surge ? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure there are a lot of others like me who didn't feel like raiding another dungeon yet again for that one piece of armor
Time + money = ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Along came WoW
Suddenly, in addition to $50 USD - usually my bi-monthly game budget for games - I spent on the copy of the game, I found myself spending ~$15/month (roughly my monthly budget) on WoW subscription. In addition, since woW is quite a time-intensive game (don't get me started on log in - spend 45 min forming a raid - start a raid - disband a raid 45 min later routine) I found myself spending 95% of my gaming time slots playing WoW. And so it went for, well, over a year.
Now, I'm happily 'off the WoW' for over half a year. Since then, I picked up a reasonable number of games that seemed interesting (Dawn of War, Sid meier's Pirates, Morrowind etc - 8 in total) - and I would've gotten more, if I didn't waste some time on auto Assault and D&D Online Betas. Thus, I have to definitely agree with TFA - WoW does seem to be harming other game markets, although I'd dare to expand / elaborate : MMOs are hurting the game market for less 'massively-teamplay' games. It's not solely WoW's fault - merely its popular content and quality (let's not start a Blizzard flamewar here, please) compared to other MMOs that's causing proportionately more market disturbance.
I can definately see this occuring. (Score:3, Insightful)
As translated by the underpants gnomes (Score:5, Funny)
2/ ?
3/ No profit
4/ Blame MMO by same company
WoW can be played casually (Score:5, Informative)
The solution? Find a group that's *organized* (i.e. has a webpage and a forum). Their raids have fixed schedules. You show up at 7:50 p.m., buff up, raid starts at 8:00 and at +/- 23:30 you can go to sleep. Since the big raid instances only reset once a week, you don't have to do more than two evenings (and if your group is getting really good, you can even clear MC in 4 hours), which you would have wasted with reading slashdot or watching TV anyways.
- Rhonac (60 Shaman on Thunderhorn EU).
Re:WoW can be played casually (Score:3, Insightful)
(assuming you mean 8pm?) 5.5 hrs twice a week = 11 hrs per week
I'm sorry, but that's not "casual gaming". 2hrs/week at a push is what I'd call casual gaming. The type of thing you can pick up and play when you feel like it, not when it's scheduled.
A couple of points (Score:3, Interesting)
a) The MMORPG space. This is a given, and there isn't really a whole lot other people in this space can do about it, IMHO. WoW is the single most mature implementation of the MMORPG genre that I've ever seen, and that possibly includes the offline RPG space as well. Blizzard have learned from the mistakes of UO in particular, and have created something which has taken the RPG out of the autistic/various other underground subcultures and genuinely into the mainstream. You don't need to be the stereotypical unemployed, socially/neurologically handicapped virgin (who have traditionally been the MMORPG's target audience) in order to appreciate WoW. This is finally an RPG which entirely normal people can find accessible.
b) The FPS space. This is a possibly even more difficult lock which Blizzard have established for the rest of the market to overcome. For probably a decade after Doom, PC gaming was almost exclusively about the first person shooter. The Sims was perhaps the first large scale title to reverse that trend somewhat, but it is still very prominent.
Having played capture the flag in the Warsong Gulch battleground, I find it virtually impossible to believe that Blizzard have not realised the historical importance of the FPS market, and intentionally tried (and very largely succeeded) to lure probably 80%-90% of the traditional FPS audience into a genre which, before WoW, said audience would not have dreamed of going anywhere near.
The real challenge that WoW presents to the rest of the industry IMHO is in its' versatility. WoW represents a large number of different types of games in one package. On the pure Diablo-like side, there is both an extremely flexible questing system, and instancing. For people more inclined to it, there is also an auction house which can actually provide a mini-game in itself, in that you can study trends and play the market in a similar way to real-world markets. Then there are the professions, as well as another mini-game associated with the fishing skill. On top of that, you have the roleplaying aspect, in which players can develop backstories and dramatic elements of their characters, and integrate that with the political situations which exist between the various nations in the overall backstory.
On the PvP side, you not only have Battlegrounds such as the aforementioned Warsong Gulch, but player-run scenarios where various settlements held by each faction will need to defend themselves against assaults by the opposing faction. The Battlegrounds are themselves another demonstration of Blizzard's brilliance in being able to avoid the kind of end-game boredom experienced in such games as Ultima Online, in the sense that they mark a point where the game transforms from a more traditional RPG into a limited, but large-scale clone of Unreal Tournament. This last element is what has allowed Blizzard to steal the FPS market.
So...what can the rest of the industry do? My own thoughts would be to move away from the elements Blizzard are already delivering...and as usual, it seems to be Will Wright who is leading the charge in that area. Spore promises to be about as different from anything within WoW as you can imagine, although in a lot of ways, is arguably going to be Wright's magnum opus, in that it will really incorporate all of the elements which up until now he has been putting into seperate games. (Sim Earth, Sim City, the Sims, etc)
I've said before what I believe the real problem with the gaming industry is...it's not WoW. It's the managerial staff of companies such as Electronic Arts, who quite aside from being open to innovation, are actually enormously averse to it. The one thing companies like EA want more than anything else are generic staple games which they can sell and rely on economically in the same manner as cereal boxes, year in and year out. We're talking about the sort of people I've described before as l
It's not WoW. (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't help that the cost of a high-end video card has become absurd - I used to get a nice midrange card for $250-$300, with prices in the $400-$500 range, I'd be better off to buy an Xbox and not go through the hassle of upgrading my mainboard, video card, RAM, and CPU just to be able to play games that are just going to give me deja vu.
If PC game developers want to woo back gamers, they need to start making games that are worth the costs. Right now I just don't think they're doing that.
What about those of who DON'T play? (Score:3, Interesting)
How about instead of chasing the 60% of the market, cater to the rest of us who do play games that don't neccessarily require Alienware or some juiced-up PC game station (although Dreamfall [wikipedia.org] did require some serious 3D hardware). It doesn't take much to please me; nice looking relatively static graphics (e.g., background paintings) and a good story. I know it can't be costing that much to make my favorite adventure games because they are typically half the cost of the average thumb-twitcher PC game, and with the smaller sales volume, it's gotta be cheaper than the multi-million dollar budgets of WoW or they couldn't keep putting out these games.
Nice spin... (Score:3, Interesting)
The way the articles been presented, and a good chunk of the posts here, makes it sound like hes some resentful whining failure. When actually he sounds fairly positive and eager to try claim back some of the market.
WoW is to PC Games what Magic was to P&P RPGs (Score:4, Insightful)
I have the feeling WoW is doing the same. It's the only game that's still selling well that runs well on my box. Guild Wars only means of success is being not like WoW and cheaper (free) to play.
So let me get this straight.... (Score:3, Interesting)
There is no story, TQ is yet another Diablo rip off, and from what I've read it's not even a particularly good one. None of these games ever do well because everything they do Blizzard already did, but better.
As to his general argument, I play WoW, and I buy a lot fewer games, but I buy a lot fewer games because they cost $100 here and a very large percentage of them are crap. For me, it's much more cost effective to pay $20/month to play a game I know I'm going to enjoy, and which I can play at pretty much any time for however long I want to play it, than to pay $100 every 3 months trying to find a game which isn't a crappy console rip off, unoriginal, poorly coded, or in some other way unsatisfactory. I get more value for money out of WoW than I would out of buying more regular games, so I play WoW.
15 years ago... (Score:4, Insightful)
What is popular is determined by what is available and what is available is determined by what is popular. It's a vicious cycle which ends up homogenizing the prime shelves of the stores. An addicting fun game can still sell, but unfortunately game companies (and more importantly investors) see a direct correlation between funds re-cooped in development cost and cost of development. It's the "Hollywood" effect happening to games. Big special effects, star power, etc are banked on to get BIG sales. Software retailers have become like grocery stores where they only make decent money if BIG volume sells.
As a result, the store has BIG name games, with BIG development costs, BIG advertising and what investors hope will be BIG returns.
I've often thought about how Richard Garriot sold Akalabeth at a Game store. That just couldn't happen today. Not because games arent good, but because there is no way for games like his to get the exposure they need.
Somebody needs to come up with a way to get the independent game market back into the minds of consumers. Get the best games (independant) packaged with Dell, or Apple. I don't know..but there needs to be some creativity in thinking about how to get the word out.
Re:Just wait it out (Score:5, Funny)
I'm impressed you were playing video games at 59. It gives me one more thing to look forward to when I get old.
-Charles
Parent
Re:Of course it does (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Of course it does (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Of course it does (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Of course it does (Score:5, Interesting)
If one game stifles a whole industry resulting in lowered sales of other games and this consequently results in:
1. A bunch of copycat games trying to steal market share from the leader
2. Game development being cancelled on games that don't fit the business leader's model
3. Less diversity of choice for gamers - a flood of me too MMOs and lack of games in other genres
Well that would be a bad thing.
I don't really feel this is the case. I think MMOs will have a permanent impact on PC gaming, just as online FPS games did. Although Doom may have ushered in the LAN party, games like Quake and Unreal Tournament pretty much made online multiplayer a required feature of any PC FPS (yes there are exceptions such as Max Payne). It didn't kill the market, it just changed it.
MMOs are taking players away from single player gaming experiences. Since I started playing MMOs I have played (and purchased) a lot fewer single player games BUT I still play some.
WoW isn't going to be the #1 game for all of eternity. The market will change again and who knows what the next big thing will be.
The Titan Quest developer's biggest problem may be simply that people aren't interested in another Diablo style clicky action RPG. I was kind of surprised that Dungeon Siege 2 did as well as it did. I literally fell asleep playing the first one. And I'm a gamer who spent hundreds of hours playing the Diablo series - I guess I just burnt out on that play style. At least until someone does something really innovative with it.
Parent
Re:Actually, not.. (Score:5, Informative)
There is also WAY too much loot that drops in that game. There is no real money sinks so you just keep getting more and more money with nothing to spend on it. I've started not picking up items that aren't green or blue because there is simply no point. Speaking of items, there is no "chest" or something equivalent to it to store your items. This means if you are trying to collect a set of something you have to keep it on your person all times. Not a real big deal but it just annoys me, especially early on in the game when space is still a commodity.
Lastly, you can bring your single player characters into multiplayer so there is going to be rampant hacking.
Other then that, yeah, it's a great game.
Parent