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What would happen if the WoW population bubble were to burst?
ignore_me
Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 1,987
About 2005 The customer base of the MMORPG market began to grow into a large population.
Are all of those people now permanent additions to the community?
Where did they come from?
Did they go anywhere? What percentage are still in the market?
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
Comments
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
The world MMO population is well over 20 million.
Just TRY to remember that before WoW, the top WESTERN MMOs were EQ, SWG and UO. None topping over 500k yet Lineage was topping 1 million in Asia. Two very different markets with their own playerbases.
By the time Wow came out in 2005 there were several other MMOs in Asia topping 1 million each and Guild Wars came out in the same year as WoW and topped 6 million players. Either way, who cares if WoW implodes, it wont effect the entire market. If anything maybe massive corporations will stop trashing games and let the small companies get back to business.
1) No, some will be but it will depend on the individuals.
2) Increasing access to high speed internet. Increasing wages in relation to a static subscription fee. Changes in attitudes towards gaming and online MMO payment models. Curious people looking for a new game or one recommended to them.
3) Some will stay in the MMO market, some won't. Anyone offering figurs is guessing, probably wildly.
If the bubble were to burst, people would look for a new game, be it singleplayer, multiplayer or online. The world would continue to spin and life would go on.
If I were to venture a guess, I'd say that the people pulled into the genre by WoW did one of a few things. The people that enjoyed the game but came to it fresh without ever playing another MMO are probably still there enjoying the game and the people they play with. The could very well think that they're quite content and don't see a reason to go elsewhere for their entertainment.
For the people that did play other MMO games and decided to give WoW a try, I'd say they probably moved on to other games or went back to things they used to enjoy prior. They played for a while, got whatever fun they found out of it and moved on.
I wouldn't say that all the people who flooded the market were a permanent addition to the genre but rather to WoW in itself. I say this mostly because I do believe that a large % of WoW's population doesn't have much interest in the genre as they do in WoW itself. I would not at all be surprised if one day when WoW kicks the bucket the people will go just as quick as they came. If they do stick around they will probably not find the same feeling they had with WoW and then they will leave, going back to whatever they played prior to WoW or finding another hobby.
As to where they came from? I have no idea. I'd guess the accessibility of WoW pulled people from consoles and even brought in those people that felt gaming on the PC was expensive and their low budget setup was not capable of running games that were a bit more popular or required more oomph.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
This is what I was wondering about. I see a lot of reference to a constant, or growing MMO population. If there is nothing in the trough, the pigs may go elsewhere. Return. Recede. Etc.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
I should be clear, I called it the WoW population bubble because I thought that accurately described the rise in the western MMO market. I wasn't inferring anything about WoW dying.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
I agree. I know people who played WoW after never having touched a computer game. They bought the box, played for 3-9 months, and then went back to what they did before.
When you join guilds in other games, you meet WoW players.
When you play console games, you talk to people who "used to play WoW," but went back to console games.
I just wonder what the rate of retention is.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
So your last two sentences are to express indifference? Kind of made it hard to lend weight to your thoughts. I don't care about this question I just answered.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
most people who play MMOs doesnt want to play a pre WoW MMO, the bubble, so either all games become online worlds with optional everything, or the WoW bubble will be gone from MMO´s, and return to a good MMO will get about 250k active players.
the bubble doesnt have to burst it depends which category game developers decide to put their game in ; ) when I see the young kids in my family and friends families I certainly am not worried that the game population over all will decrease...
If the bubble was to burst (which we know almost certainly won't for the forseeable future) nothing would change. Nothing.
People are too varied individually so you could look at the MMO market, it has been steadily increasing (more titles, more people playing the varied titles - did they go anywhere implies people are leaving) regardless of WoWs trend, you could from this decide that they would be subsumed into the general MMO market. But ultimatly what would happen would be dependant on people's likes / dislikes and upcoming / released games at the time of such an event. As I suggested life would carry on as before, people would look for something else, depending on their prefered styles. That also would answer your permenance section as nobody is a permenant, guaranteed customer in any market as tastes etc can change or apathy can occur with a given product (s).
Any answer differing from that would be influenced largely by bias. If that is the aim of the question you posed, to track bias on MMORPG.com then I'm sorry, go for it, if you wanted a realistic answer there it is, as underwhelming as it is.
I could have said that without WoW the MMO market would collapse, but that would be fallacy. It wouldn't.
(By the way the most interesting aspect of the question for me would be where they came from rather than what would happen, and what caused shifts in public perception to view gamers in general in a more favourable light than previously...but that would be off topic).
Edited (spelling grammar, bit at end, answer re. permenance).
Well I appreciate the realistic answer, as underwhelming as it was. I don't care about the biases here, nor WoW. Th thought occurred to me that the market may contract and those customers might have migrated to other activities (More job time, outdoor recreation, military service, console games, chess, etc.).
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
I can't see the market contracting, even if WoW was to fold.
Gaming for many is still very much a casual affair and is done as well as other activities. As gaming becomes more popular it stands to reason the MMO genre will become more popular.
Most people still only play casually even in the MMO genre and continue the activities mentioned. Those who would leave gaming behind would have done so regardless of the genre of the game in question, it happens, though from personal experience (may not be accurate overall) most gamers now treat gaming in the same way they treat watching TV or reading a book, so quitting entirely may be pretty rare indeed. I even know a few people that work ungodly hours yet still play for an hour or 2 a week (while raising kids!).