Three questions regarding WoW and the Asian MMO market in general

mutantmagnet

My first is is wow very popular in Asia or just China? The last I heard numbers US was sitting around 2 mil, EU was hovering around 1.5 and China had 5 mil.
If those numbers had been maintained that leaves the rest of the world with 1.5 million to be divided among themselves. So I'm thinking wow isn't all that popular outside of one country but I would like to hear otherwise.

If WoW isn't making headway into Asian countries no better than other Western developers are you familiar with what appeals to Chinese mmo gamers as opposed to the rest of the East Asians?

Lastly if you have played any of the games that are really popular in Asian countries what do you think makes them appealling to eastern gamers?

Ampallang

When one considers the last question, what makes games popular in eastern cultures, one should probably first consider differences between how eastern and western players view games and the methods in which they are played (cybercafe vs home pc).

 

A quick read on the subject http://pc.ign.com/articles/771/771403p1.html Quick synopsis is this: gamers to the east focus on end goals like an getting an item/advantage while western gamers are more concerned with the actual process of playing to get an item/edge.

mutantmagnet

Thanks that was a good start in examining these questions.

Illius

Well personally I've played WoW and and don't play it anymore. Speaking from personal experience, I prefer a game with broad goals rather the defined specific ones.  I guess that's why Dark Age of Camelot kept me subscribed for so long.  The end goal was to make your realm stronger by beating down the enemy realms.  It wasn't all that based on phat lewt.  Most of the items had more or less randomized stats and later on you could customize the colors to suite your preference.  WoW had too much grinding and the worst part is it was mostly done alone.  In the beginning DAoC had a grind as well but it was usually done with a full group and you could spend the time just cracking jokes and eventually if the people in the group shared your sense of humor you would eventually forget that you were grinding and just have a grand time of it. 

I think that  no matter how good your game is it will not get infinate subscriptions.  Eventually the original people will get disenchanted with it and begin to tell everybody about the things they found the game lacked.   Some might take it to heart and just forgo trying it and eventually all games are doomed to a dwindling population of hardcore fans who have grown very atatched to said game.  I think it's inevitable.

I can't say that that I've played any western made games that are big in eastern regions.  I've tried FF11 and Lineage 2 and they've not kept me long.  I think one of the posters above me had a decent answer to this.

 

Czzarre

I wonder if it is also based on internet infrastructure. While China, Taiwan and Japan have solid internet infrastructure many others countries do not. It may be that there is little market inside Asia to move into at this time. I wnoder what the policies are for Western MMORPGs in the China market are as well (Restrictions, etc...if any).

 

Torrential

Gameloading

WoW is very popular in China and is doing quite well in Korea and South East Asia, although its success isn't as large as in China. It's interesting to note that World of Warcraft has not been released in Japan, despite the growing MMO market in Japan.

Xiaoki

Warcraft 3 is still very popular in China so of course WoW was also going to be huge in China.

Warcraft is to China what Starcraft is to South Korea.