Academics Speak On 'Life After World Of Warcraft'

simoniker writes "Are MMO populations 'tribal', and if so, what's the next tribal shift after World of Warcraft? At Gamasutra, academics including MIT's Henry Jenkins and Ludium's Edward Castronova discuss what's next for the MMO market, based on their research and play patterns. Jenkins states that WoW is getting _too_ much analysis from researchers right now: 'WoW deserves attention because it has so captured the imagination of gamers over the past few years. That said, I don't think it is healthy for the field of games studies, which is still emerging, to be so fixated on a single game franchise — no matter what the franchise. A few years ago, it might have been The Sims or GTA, now it's WoW.'" For more on this topic MMOG industry veteran Gordon Walton spoke on this topic last week at GDC Austin, and notes from that event are also available at Gamasutra.

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"Games Studies"? Are you kidding me?

...I don't think it is healthy for the field of games studies, which is still emerging, to be so fixated on a single game franchise -- no matter what the franchise. A few years ago, it might have been The Sims or GTA, now it's WoW.'"

"Games Studies"? Are you kidding me?

Are they studying at the University of We'll-Take-Your-Money-And-Give-You-A-More-Useless-Than-English-Degree?

(BTW, the franchise or brand should probably be "Warcraft" - Vivendi, Inc. is probably pretty keen on making sure its "Warcraft" brand extends beyond its MMORPG product.)

For a $1.5B annual gross, damn right!

Actually, given the $120 million dollars WoW is pulling in each month, and the number of competitors out there trying to create the next great game, hiring a person who has made it their goal of understanding the psychological, social, and economic drives inside the game, and the same factors outside the game, should be a very high priority.

I was following a game a few months ago. Solid looking graphics and network engine, decent sounding game engine. It looked like it had some great potential and they had a multi-million dollar budget. But they had absolutely no knowledge about handling their community or managing a MMO, and the whole thing crashed and burned a horrible death. They hired a fan from the forums to become their community rep. Nothing like taking a kid with nothing more than a high school degree and put him in charge of distributing knowledge to packs of rabid fans.

Had they brought in people with experience in managing MMOs, and people with an understanding of the underlying factors, they would have likely done much better.

-Rick

Re:"Games Studies"? Are you kidding me?

Your 2-line complaint is based on such a deep confusion, that I need to answer at length.

First, game studies is not the same thing as a major program in videogame studies. Most of the academics involved in game studies have other home disciplines, whether anthropology, film studies, communications, computer science, sociology, comparative literature, economics, or what have you. Talking about the over-focus on one game or another is a top-level discussion among researchers across disciplines, not a question of what to be teaching undergraduates. Research fields are not the same as undergrad programs.

Second, I can imagine at some point there actually being an undergrad program in game studies. I know that there are minor programs. Like English or other degrees that don't seem to have immediate relevance, they are usually made far more relevant when mixed with a different graduate degree. An undergrad in game studies who then goes to law school might work on game-related policy, censorship issues, game-dev labor disputes, etc. Another one who then goes to business school might work on game-dev management issues, etc. Another might get an MFA or a CS MS and working on design or programming issues at a high level.

Games are significant. We're now seeing in adulthood people who grew up with them as their primary entertainment activity. Digital games structure thought, attention and activity differently than any other media before them. They merit study.

Hmm...

Maybe envisioning a "Life after WoW" is hard because their game studies department is now based exclusively in WoW itself...

World of WarCraft 2: The Attack of the RPG Clones

Maybe I'm just being cynical, but at this point I suspect WoW will continue to dominate until Blizzard creates WoW2. It's so far ahead of all the other MMORPGs on the market that I don't see anyone being able to displace it.

I wouldn't be that sure

Well, I certainly see your point, but the cynic in me says that we've thought this before... and we were wrong.

When Origin invented the genre, they were literally the only player in town. They were so far ahead the other MMOs, that the others were just getting started trying to copy it. Even if you consider MUDs to be essentially the same genre, the difference between UO and your average text-based MUD, if nothing else in terms of number of players, was larger than between WoW and Anarchy Online nowadays.

Other people who arguably invented a genre, or made it mainstream, are still the Gods of Gaming in that genre. E.g., Id and FPS. You'd expect Origin to share that fate, wouldn't you?

You'd think nothing could possibly dethrone UO at that point, until Origin creates UO2, right? Well, we already know how that went.

Then came Everquest, and it was so popular it became synonim with MMOs. You didn't talk, say, about people losing their job and wife to MMOs, you instinctively spoke of them losing that to Everquest. It's also the game which caused the deluge of me-too MMOs. It was such a money-printing license, everyone wanted a piece of that market.

Worse yet, along came a long period of stagnation, and most new MMOs just managed to steal some of someone else's players, only to have them stolen by someone else in 6 months. It looked like there were a total of about 1 million MMO players total... and EQ owned slightly more than half of them.

Once you factored in their other games too, Sony _owned_ the MMO market.

Surely one would have thought nothing will challenge that until their own EQ2 came out, right? Well, wrong, actually. EQ2 peaked a lot lower than what EQ still had, never mind its former peak. It _still_ has less players than the old Everquest. (Not saying it's necessarily a bad game, as that's something highly subjective, just that subscription-wise it failed to be the block-buster everyone expected.)

Instead there came this WoW noone really expected that much of. What people wanted from Blizzard was Starcraft 2 or maybe Diablo 3, not a MMO. They hadn't proved that they know their elbow from their arse in the MMO arena yet. They had the Warcraft franchise and name recognition, but an unrelated franchise name only carries you so far: see TSO which flopped in spite of the The Sims franchise which had outsold all 3 Warcraft games _combined_.

Not only it handed Sony its arse at its own game, it managed something that noone else had managed in years: it actually enlarged the western MMO market. About 10 times.

So now we think the same all over again. "Man, nothing's going to displace WoW until they launch WoW2." I dunno, we've been wrong about that at least twice before. (Or more than twice if we're talking about sequel surpassing their original. AC2 bombed so badly that it was shut down, for example. Essentially that sequel moved the AC franchise from being the second most successful MMO to being nobody.)

Before anyone accuses me of wishing that WoW fails or anything, note that I'm not against any of the games I've mentioned here. I actually liked WoW, though nowadays I'm playing COH yet again. I can see why WoW was successful. In this highly subjective taste matter, they sure managed to give the larger market segment, the casual gamers and off-line Oblivion-type gamers, more of what they wanted in a game. They "deserve" their current position. I'm just saying that noone, Blizzard included, has a certificate of ownership of the market. They all "rent" the #1 spot for a while. They can fall like everyone else, eventually.

In fact, I'm sorta surprised that WoW hasn't fallen back yet. Again, I don't wish it or anything, but it's not like they have a patent on what made WoW successful. Everyone else is free to copy the elements that made it sell well. It's just that everyone else seems to be surprisingly slow to understand it. Oh, they've tried to copy bits and pieces of WoW, but they just can't seem to understand _what_ they copy. It's... a

Re:I wouldn't be that sure

In fact, I'm sorta surprised that WoW hasn't fallen back yet. Again, I don't wish it or anything, but it's not like they have a patent on what made WoW successful. Everyone else is free to copy the elements that made it sell well. It's just that everyone else seems to be surprisingly slow to understand it. Oh, they've tried to copy bits and pieces of WoW, but they just can't seem to understand _what_ they copy. It's... a bit like watching a clock maker try to copy random individual cogs from a competitor's clock, without understanding what they copy or the larger scheme of the mechanism in which it must fit in.

But eventually it's bound to happen.


The problem is that it's not just one thing that makes WoW successful. It's alot of things that Blizzard is doing right all at once. The key though, is that Blizzard, despite what you read on forums, does listen to it's players. The game as it stands now is vastly, vastly different from when even I signed up in 2005 -- and they're laregly positive changes.

• World PvP sucks? They added instanced PvP.
  
• You miss World PvP? They created world PvP "minigames".
  
• Honour system is a joke? Scrapped, in exchange for a token system.
  
• Unorganized instanced PvP too much of a hassle? Have short (on the order of minutes, seconds if you're up against a 'lock) 1v1 - 5v5 arena matches.
  
• Farming for the 1% elemental drops sucks? We'll split them up into more common drops (motes), so your farming doesn't suck as much.
  
• Crafting seems useless as a moneymaker? Epic crafted items now require a BoP drop, so you can now actually make money from your profession.
  
• Hybrid classes and off-specs getting the shaft? There are different versions of the new class armor sets for different specs.
  
• Instance runs taking too long? All the new 5-mans are split up into wings a'la SM, so that you can run one in less than an hour.
  
• Want epics in 5-mans? Okay, we'll add a heroic mode, but it'll be harder, and you can't expect to go in green quest rewards.
  
• Having trouble getting a group? We'll tie entry into heroics to specific reputation grinds which can only be done in instances, so people have incentives to run them.
  
• Still having trouble? We'll create an actually useful LFG system, and tie entry into the LFG channel to registering with it (to avoid it looking like Trade - City)
  
• Don't have a warlock in your group, or he's out of shards? The summoning stones can summon raid members with only 2 people present.
  
• Reputation grinds suck ass? Okay, instead of having one or two factions with everything, and a miserable rep grind (I'm looking at you TB), we'll create lots more factions and make each grind easier.
  
• Need an easy source of money? We'll make daily quests you can repeat each day, which give cash (and rep) rewards.
  
• You want to fly? Sure.
  

Ontop off all of that listening, the technical quality of the software from Blizzard is continually top notch. They've folded in popular mods (Scrolling Combat Text, etc), and there were mentions about built-in VOIP, so voice chat won't be limited to guild runs.

Really, it's Blizzard as an organization that someone would have to copy to unseat WoW from the fantasy MMO genre, not any specific attribute of the game.

MMORPGing other franchises...

It's pretty clear to me that the MMORPG has not finished running its course as the leading game genre.

If were to guess I would say that whatever Blizzard's next MMORPG is will probably be the next leader in the industry because they currently hold a growing pool of 9 million customers in their grasp and have a had an extremely long time to perfect the genre. They also have the popular Starcraft and Diablo universes left to MMORPGify.

With that said, there are many alternatives releasing in the next six monthes that also have the potential to become the next big thing in the gaming world, such as Warhammer Online and Age of Conan.

Henry Jenkins?

"At Gamasutra, academics including MIT's Henry Jenkins and Ludium's Edward Castronova"
Hennnnry JEEEEENKINS!

Tribal? Hell yes!

Are MMO populations 'tribal'[?]

Try complaining about an MMORPG. Any MMORPG. Even an MMORPG where the players frequently complain about it (say, Star Wars Galaxy). Watch the responses come in, saying that you don't understand it or defending it as having once been great.

Try saying that World of Warcraft is the best MMORPG ever created, and watch people defend "their" MMORPG.

Read through the recent Protecting Final Fantasy XI From the Gil-Sellers [slashdot.org] Slashdot article and you can watch this happen. Just peruse this thread [slashdot.org] to watch people slam the game and tribe members springing up to defend it.

Yes, MMORPG players are intensely tribal and defensive over their choice of MMORPG. As for the rest of the question:

what's the next tribal shift after World of Warcraft?

Who knows? But I can guarantee it won't come from Sony or Blizzard or any other established MMORPG publisher. People will get tired of WoW eventually and want something new just for the sake of playing something new. What will it be? I have no idea.

But it won't be revolutionary. It'll be a glorified WoW clone, with different graphics and some slight gameplay improvements. It'll be new enough to intrigue people, but familiar enough that they won't run from it.

Games with Endings

If I see one more franchise going "MMO" to try to get a bite of the WoW pie, I think I'm going to puke. After playing WoW for five months, grinding to 60 and grinding on "end game" content, I've come to the conclusion that offline games (i.e. games with ENDINGS) are actually a much more rewarding expenditure of time.

Practically every MMO out there is either a glorified chat room, or a grindfest-turned-second-career because it want's to be WoW without being WoW and all it succeeds in doing is becoming one more WoW or EQ clone and even the most ardent fanboys would have a hard time saying otherwise. The guys doing Warhammer Online claim that even WoW was largely a ripoff of DAoC, and popular though it was, DAoC was not a super smash hit like WoW.

There's nothing earth shattering about WoW except being in the right place at the right time. It's moronic to speculate on what the next big thing is because it's as likely to be random dumb luck as anything else.

There Is A Reason....

No other MMORPG has captured the audience that WoW has. This alone is a reason to study this MMORPG over all others.

As for upcoming MMORPG's, none of them will command the attention that WoW has. If Lord of the Rings Online couldn't make a dent in WoW, especially given the long, great history of the Tolkien Universe, what chance does any other MMORPG have?

Warhammer might have a chance to top some of the other MMORPG's like EQ, Eve, AO, etc... But that is only because they copied a lot of the aspects of WoW and present a very similar style of game and universe. Don't believe me, look at the goblins in both games. It's like looking at cousins.....

So yes, WoW deserves to be studied to understand how they could capture and maintain an audience many times over any of the previous MMORPG's.

 

Florence Chee had the best viewpoint

The introduction of the Wii morphs the gamespace possibilities, as do all platform consoles.

I foresee a day when WoW is replaced by games where you yourself perform the actions of your character, using Wii-mote and nunchuck, to hack slash and parry your way through the world, or use the Wii-mote as a wand.

When? Probably next gen. So, I would say look for 2009, when the successor to the Wii comes out.

[caveat - I went to SFU at one point so I'm biased ...]

Kind of seems like a stupid statement

I dunno, it seems like a rather circular statement about the "emerging" field of games studies: "I don't think it is healthy for the field of games studies, which is still emerging, to be so fixated on a single game franchise -- no matter what the franchise. A few years ago, it might have been The Sims or GTA, now it's WoW"

Doesn't 'emerging' seem to suggest that there is going to be a rather narrow sample size, to begin with? And I don't really fault researchers focusing on WoW; I mean yes, they could grab whatever game is on the shelf, but you have no idea if it's going to be another WoW or if it's going to be Vangers (look it up). I would imagine that anyone in this 'emerging' field would want their results to be reasonably relevant, interesting, and applicable to as broad a field as possible.
Right now, there's really only one game that hits that mark, and that's WoW.

For those researchers who are looking for other interesting fields of study in this area, I would make some other suggestions.
Look at http://www.mmogchart.com/ [mmogchart.com]:
  - The Matrix Online, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online all have very interesting player number curves. Why?
  - WW2OL has fewer subscribers than most of the 'big name' games and quite a few of the middling ones, yet it seems to be surviving where others are shutting down. Why?
  - Runescape - real MMOG or webgame? Is the distinction important?
  - These various games have a host of pay/play models, what's working, what isn't?
  - MMOGs are in a way the descendants of online mass flight sims - Warbirds, etc. How do flight sim pay/play models compare? User numbers and retention?

What comes after WoW

WoW: Afterlife

for just the briefest second...

...my eyes saw "MIT's Henry Jenkins", but my mind read "MIT's Leroy Jenkins".

"Game Studies"

I don't mean to be a dick or anything, but, don't these people have better things to do with their 8-12 years of schooling? I mean, WoW and MMORPGs are a popular form of entertainment, but they're still just that - entertainment. There are so many more pressing matters in the world than whether or not WoW players are acting tribally.

That being said, is it really that much of a surprise that people on the internet, protected by the shield of semi-anonymity, become more impulsive and return to more primal forms of society?

self-defined ending

I quit WoW after getting all the gladiator gear and being ranked in the top 10% of the first arena season. Basically, once you get to a certain point there is nothing left to accomplish. The only gear upgrades you can get after a certain point are marginal at best, and require a totally disproportionate amount of time to achieve.

The next big game will come up with a way to reduce the effect of gradual leveling, then very difficult end-game, then nothing left to accomplish. WoW will be easy to dethrone because the game itself isn't any fun. All the enjoyment comes from the sense of accomplishment.

PvP battlegrounds were a step in the right direction, but with three tiny maps it gets extremely tedious. If they made up 10-20 more maps with different themes and corresponding objectives, WoW would be an ideal game.

"Chunky Change"??

What do you mean by chunky change?

EC: Rapid chaotic change, it'll be going smooth for awhile, with periods of stability, and then suddenly you'll see periods of bulky but large changes.

You mean: punctuated equilibria [cotch.net]? Why invent a clunky neonym when you can just use a scientific term that already exists?

Why WOW succeeds

The reason WOW succeeded where DAoC failed is because WoW has cartoon like graphics that make it widely accessible. You don't have to take -anything- seriously in WoW unless you want to. It has a good story, with good characters, and it's a cartoon.

WoW wins for the same reason that the Wii wins, it has mass appeal (ie, it's not for Ren Faire tards.)

Next tribal shift in 2009

The next big tribal shift will happen in 2009.

WoW began in 2004, and millions of players will hit a wall where WoW won't be fun anymore around 5 years after they began. Yes, I'm proclaiming a 5 year rule on MMOs, and current WoW players won't believe it to be possible, that they'll want to play it forever. A few of the diehards will make it to 7 or more years, refusing to believe that everyone left for that other game.

One big reason for this is graduation. Either high school or college, take your pick. An MMO is a habit, and your habits change drastically when you graduate.

wow

once warhammer comes out i see a shift coming.

I'm confused....

...academics play WoW?

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Re:I wouldn't say...

That's until some lonely single guy sees a female night elf and begins imagining things.

Re:life after...

Night Elves cant be mages.

Failure.

Re:I wouldn't say...

That it captured the imagination of anyone. It has certainly attracted the interest of bunch of players, but the game is not imagination-grabbing by any stretch of the... oh you know.

I think it's safe to say that it's captured the imaginations of players in the sense that it has become one of the most popular Tolkienesque settings in the world. I'm sure that a hefty fraction of the player base were exposed to either WoW or the LoTR movies as their first dose of high fantasy. Now, no one's going to say that the entire game is innovative. It's very much like EverQuest. It's very much like Warcraft. Warcraft was very much like all of the rest of the genre. There's certainly some originality (as a game and as a story), but originality and imagination-capturing aren't always the same thing, especially when something is so popular that it's the first exposure to a genre for so many.

Re:life after...

Hi my name is Bob and I'm a WoW addict. I used to be 3rd in my guild as a level 60 night elf mage. I played so much that I grew these b*tch t*ts...

When I saw, "Hi my name is Bob," I immediately thought of posting a "Bob has bitch-tits" reply. I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers that line.

Oh, and what the **** is with the penguin!?

Re:Blizzard software ans WoW

Just pointing out that Blizzard software has been around for some time - the Diablo (I and II), and the original "Warcraft" games (I, II, and III) illustrate the fact that "content" has always been "king"

Its a shame I already posted, so I can't mod this up. Blizzard's success is at least as much of an anomoly in the gaming industry as WoW's. Every game Blizz has released after their first has been a huge hit. Nobody else in the industry has a track record like that. Heck, nobody in the entertainment industry has a record like that. A couple of hits in a row could be luck, but not six! Why not look at what they are doing differently than everybody else?

Re:life after...

What are you bitching about? A lot of men pay good money to have tits. You got them for a measly $15/month!