Themeparks only threaten other Themeparks....

Fadedbomb

WoW only threatens the longevity of games such as SWTOR, GW2, Aion, RIFT, and vice versa with GW2.

 

Why investors, publishers, and developers seem to think that WoW somehow has a "man handle" over the market despite the fact that it has been speculated by market Analysts that there are roughly 50million MMORPG players out there. Yet, only roughly 9million are playing WoW. That means there are "roughly" over 41million other players spread across many other MMORPGs ranging from F2P, P2P, B2P.

 

There will never be a Themepark that threatens a Sandbox, and the same goes for Sandboxes affecting Themepark MMOs. There are quite a few players out there who have only known WoW's gameplay, and won't be too quick if at all to jump ship even if a half-decently funded AAA Sandbox or Sandpark MMO is developed in the next 5years.

 

It may not be a shock to anyone, but Sandbox players (or fans of "Emergent gameplay") have never considered WoW to be anything special since it's not relevant to our piece of the market.

 

Now, the REAL question comes down to just how many "Sandboxers" and "Multi-Form" players actually exist in the market, or if more than 80% of the leftover market of consumers are merely facebook browser based F2P game players being included in that market analysis.

 

Link for Reference

 

 

ps: It should be noted that the F2P arguement in that article is vague at best. They don't go into how many of those individuals paying for F2P content still play P2P titles. I've been known to dabble in some F2P titles, but I still have a couple memberships to P2P titles.

 

Also, there is no differentiation between "Unique" players & players whom "Multibox". It has been speculated that there might only be 5.1 million unique players playing WoW. Roughly 600,000 of those being speculated as "Gold Farmers".

Kyleran

I think the real question is how many people play (or would play) only theme parks vs how many would play only sand box vs how many people would play either regardless.

Hard to judge that I would think, I know myself I'm a cross over player and to be honest, the line between a theme park and sandbox style game isn't nearly as clear as you seem to think.

 

VengeSunsoar

I don't necessarily agree, I think the majority of gamers just want to play a fun gme and don't care whether it's sandbox or themepark.  These people if they jump ship can and will hurt the sandbox.

There really is no dividing line between the two groups of players.

It could be argured that WoW hurt SWG, accelerated the bleeding of subs andwas one reason why LA wanted them to change it.

edit - that article has allready been discussed and while we have questions regarding how they gathered there date they state they seperate MMO games from facebook like games.

http://www.newzoo.com/methodology-consumer-research/

http://www.newzoo.com/infographics/infographic-2012-netherlands/

discussed here http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/5291789#5291789

 

 

GrumpyMel2

I agree with Kyleran, I think alot of people may have preferences...even strong ones......but those preferences aren't neccesarly a "deal breaker" if the other factors that way into the decision are sufficient enough.

Although I have a strong preference for "sandboxes",  I've played both WoW and LOTRO both titles firmly in the Themepark category, because there were enough factors in other areas to outweigh that particular preference. I think alot of players are like that in thier decisions about gaming.

It's all a question of how many cheques on your personal "This is good" list a game gets...and how many "I really don't want to deal with this ones" detract from that.