World of Warcraft Shatters Sales Records 526
Mightydos writes " An interesting article was posted on Blizzard.com today... They say World of Warcraft® has sold through more than 600,000* units to customers in North America, Australia, and New Zealand. The fastest-growing massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) has also shattered all previous concurrency records in North America, achieving over 200,000 simultaneous players during the holiday period. "
Why is this news? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why is this news? (Score:2, Insightful)
Mac and PC (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why is this news? (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, the data is obscure because I do not know as compares to what: Games in general, in a certain amount ot time, etc.
Oh well, congrats to Blizzard.
WoW is brilliant (Score:5, Insightful)
that works out to be a lot of cash over a year, brilliant!
Shattered lives (Score:3, Insightful)
Impressive! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A friendly reminder. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Thank the mac users (Score:5, Insightful)
As a Mac user, I am a member of a vocal minority, and I felt like it's my duty to reward companies who take this kind of a proactive stance for my platform of choice.
Pissed off users (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A friendly reminder. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Anyone know (Score:4, Insightful)
Doom3:
+ Finished the singleplayer in ~1 week
+ Neat graphics (I create 3D graphics hardware..'neat' is only barely a compliment)
+ The only game of the 3 that was scary. Really scary. In a paranoid kind of way.
+ 20 hours of gameplay for $49.95
- Can't imaging ever touching this game again now that I am done.
- No interesting multiplayer.
- Unbelievable resource hog.
HL2:
+ Finished the single player in ~3 weeks
+ Awesome graphics 'abilities'
+ Really neat physics
+ Decent AI
+ 60 hours gameplay for $49.95
- Hardly any interesting multiplayer yet.
- Gameplay wasn't refreshing enough to keep me promoting it beyond 'technologically advanced engine'.
WoW:
+ Started playing from day 1. Have not stopped.
++ Though technologically not as advanced, the graphics in WoW are by far the best of the 3 games. 3 words: content, content, content. After two months I still find new areas where I just stop and look around for a while with my mouth hanging open. That good.
+++ 200+ hours gameplay for $49.95 + ~$14/month.
- Real Life (tm) takes a hit. Seriously, if you can't afford getting addicted, you should just not get this game yet.
Re:WoW is brilliant (Score:2, Insightful)
200,000 simultaneous players sounds like a lot, until you remember that it's split up over 88 servers. 2,500 players per server is not a record. Wake me up when you have a game that manages to have all 200,000 concurrent players participating in the same exact instance of the same exact universe.
Also, remember that most of those 600,000 people will not stick with the game. For many, it will be frustrating or they'll get bored after leveling one or two characters up. I say 300,000 subscribers by the end of 2005.
Um asterisk? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Did it shatter (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good, but couldn't they do better? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Thank the mac users (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Call me jaded, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, there are a lot of people who would buy any game from Blizzard without even having heard anything about it before (including me), because they know they will get an almost perfect gaming experience.
I bet there are a lot of people among the 600.000 that have never before payed a monthly fee for any game (including me, as soon as it's released in Germany).
WoW shatters several MMO myths, too (Score:5, Insightful)
Myth #1 - an MMORPG must include numerous "time sinks"; long periods of unrewarding time spent with little or no character progression.
In the series of interviews recently posted where Raph Koster conspicuously omits any mention of WoW, you can almost hear his exasperated sighs as he laments the lack of opportunity to socialize in newer games because the action is so fast. If you want to chat, log into a chat system. Most of the rest of us would like to spend our limited gaming hours killing things and having fun, not waiting for shuttles or running around endlessly looking for things to fight.
Myth #2 - character death in an MMORPG must be a harsh, demoralizing experience.
Go read some of the discussions on this in SOE's forums. It's pretty amazing to think that a software company can entertain a serious discussion regarding intentionally "punishing" their users/players.
Myth #3 - MMOG design must be driven by a philosophy that is inherently different than conventional games [insert lots of grandiose game theory and virtual world talk here].
Bullshit. I'm sure Raph Koster is a brilliant guy and he has a lot of interesting ideas, but at some point you need to pull your head out of the clouds and remember that above all else, a game has to be fun to play.
Myth #4 - any new MMORPG must feature a complex, impossible-to-balance skill-based (non) "class" system.
Again, bullshit. WoW's simple, single-track class system is easy to understand and is well-balanced for both PVE and PVP (the usual nerf-calling notwithstanding).
Myth #5 - the fantasy MMORPG market is "saturated".
This seems to be the industry's favorite crutch - the notion that everyone who will ever play an MMOG is already playing one and that the "long, hard grind" model (EQ, DAoC, SWG, etc.) is the only kind of game those players want. Again, bullshit. WoW is cracking the market wide open and bringing a flood of new players who have never before touched an MMOG. To be fair here though, I think this one is at least partially true, the market *is* saturated when it comes to EQ-style treadmills.
Where other MMOs have seen subscription numbers flat-line after release (SWG, DAoC) or decline (AC), expect to see WoW break new records in the future. This isn't just because of the legions of D2 players migrating over or the Warcraft name - those things help, but they're not the whole story. With WoW, their first and only entry into the market, Blizzards "gets' what the others don't: a successful game is not about lofty "game theory" or grand visions, it's simply about having fun.
The writing is on the wall: fun is in, the grind is out.
Re:Shattered records (Score:2, Insightful)
In other words, WoW is expanding the market in a major way.
--Jeremy
Re:Shattered lives (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:WoW is brilliant (Score:2, Insightful)
My guess is that when the next 'big thing' mmorpg comes along over half of these subscribers will cancel their accounts. Something ive observed is that most people who play these games jump from game to game. EQ1 had such a large user base because when it came out it was almost the only game in town. I remember when city of heroes came out, the servers were bogged down, now theyre pretty sparcely populated. Most people quit after a couple of months. I remember when EQ1 had exact numbers of people on each server, funny when i started to notice fewer people playing, this feature was taken away...
personally ive played many of these games and they are almost all the same, simplistic and boring after a couple of months.