EDIT: I apparently found out Lineage has 14 million accounts. Mind you three of them are mind and I haven't played them in two years, so if that's any indication...but I will retract what I said earlier. Somewhat. Blizzard is still a larger success.
O ok, but blizzard still wins some how .
How many of those accounts are active? And how much do they really make? For the US it's 15/mo for an account..but what are the Koreans, who are the majority of that playerbase, paying?
Ive seen people have brought vangard into this debate about WoW.
Now you may say that WoW has set the bar high? but which company do you think have the most assets?
blizzard or SOE? Both companies are big, SOE is probably bigger.
So I can't see an excuse for saying WoW sets the bar so high, SOE have been making MMO's or buying them off others for a long time now, yet they still release rushed flawed MMO's and somehow its Blizzards fault?
Are you taking the pish?!
Starwars galaxies i played that on and off for 2 years, SOE tried to fix the game, but bugs 4 years still live in the code, such as items going missing into the void of binary .
You think vangard will get better? dream on, they will add content for a while, then when they realise they've made another poor effort of a MMO they will start merging servers, sacking developers and moving onto there next poor excuse of a game (matrix online, need i say more)...
I'll never play another SOE mmo again, no matter how good it is, once the trust in a company is gone, its over!!
EDIT: I apparently found out Lineage has 14 million accounts. Mind you three of them are mind and I haven't played them in two years, so if that's any indication...but I will retract what I said earlier. Somewhat. Blizzard is still a larger success.
O ok, but blizzard still wins some how .
How many of those accounts are active? And how much do they really make? For the US it's 15/mo for an account..but what are the Koreans, who are the majority of that playerbase, paying?
3/5 of the WoW player base is Chinese ? How much do the Chinese Pay ? What is your point, Blizzard can't compare to Ncsoft library of games which have a multitude of players with Guild Wars being the best selling game .... How many WoW player triple box and quad box, you make it sound like WoW is the only mmo that has 9million distinct users, if you believe that I got a bridge for sale
Games that are polished make good impressions. Games that are not, do not. This isn't new. Or surprising. It makes sense. Games that launched poorly, from everything I've seen, do not grow.
Some grow more slowly are often atypical, such as EvE and RuneScape. Both those games appeal to a different markets than the Everquests and WoWs of the genre. Those games are unusual for different reasons but still not typical. RuneScape also launched with no fanfare and no box price. Substantially lower expectations.
Vanguard made the classical Anarchy Online error. Too much world, too little QA. Everyone should've learned from Funcom already. Which far predates WoW. As far as I can tell, AO launched riddled with bugs and never fully recovered. They were still fixing some bugs (like the graphical problem with Opifex shoulder pads) years later. Vanguard was not as extreme but it was in the same vein.
And really, it'd been in financially troubled waters since Microsoft dropped it, from what I read. That it didn't work out ultimately is hardly surprising given that.
The only thing that WoW may have done is made polish somewhat more important. Which is hardly the end of the world.
Also, I'd say a lot of games had the same endgame structure. Raiding and endgame PVP have always been with us. The whole point of Shadowbane was getting to the max level and PVPing. A lot of Eastern-style games work/worked like that (except getting to the max level took longer). Raids are not exactly a new concept either.
Name an NcSoft has a fairly clean polish record. Even Auto Assualt though it ididn't have great success , was polished game .This polish arguement is like the bottom of the barrel . Come up with somethig else please , or is the bar as high as you can get it ?
your playing wow?...which basically means you ARE playing EQ,daoc, and any other mmorpg before it.
Wow is just previous games streamlined....thats all. the same ole same ole..over and over and over and over..again and again.
as far as successful...well. lets not go back to the britney spears analogy hehe. if you distribute on a vast scale..you will receive back the same....and i do NOT beleive the 1% return rule applies to videogames as opposed to mailing lists and mass media advertising such as newspaper and catalogue.
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"....Blizzard took an old WC3 engine modded itm, and took references of each company to make a dollar. in the process "raising the bar" to people who really werent involved in moo's and making a frabricated attempt to claim the genre , theirs,......"
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exactly ^.... every morpg prior to wow was the first of its kind. Wow is not. Wow is a copy of everything else , streamlined..thats all. who the *uck wants to fight thru eq/daoc/etc A-l-l-l- over again doing the same ole same ole.../shrug ...oh ya, i forgot...and add a couple battlegrounds from daoc to break the monotony , mehh. hey..if someone finds it fun...cool. my kids liked it for about a year. but they realized they were only playing eq and daoc all over again with less to do. over and over. no matter how nice it seemed to work, Eq/uo and daoc work fine in regards to the gameplay wow has. which is basically a small portion of most other games.
WoW is indeed nice for first time mmorpg'ers.
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"....Except they created a game that has sold as well or better then all of the producers you list above combined.
Obviously they're doing something right......."
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yes..they are doing something right....it was called, Mass Distribution. you can only have one outcome. I dont care if you are selling toothpicks, mass advertising and distribution works..period. especially if you control everything from the ground up - production,advertising and manufacturing and of course subsequent billing.
looking at todays numbers...if blizzard would have had a initial release of only 250k cd's, and didnt do any , i mean 0 advertising...and seeing how many players it has now as opposed to launch... well it is has actually done worse than A-L-L the other mmorpgs. well the big boys at least.
Eq,daoc and most of the others had their subscription numbers going up at the 3rd year. Hasnt wow been going down lower and lower since day1?
just because the numbers are larger doesnt mean too much. actually it means nothing at all.
what is WoW's retention rate on their player base from the first year?....I surmize it is closer to 30-40% tops. (someone mentioned it is more like 25% in another post...i dont believe that)
funny too....EQ/Daoc/UO and a few others...were at over 300% playerbase retention with the sub-rate going higher each week and this was in year 3!
how many cd's were released and distributed for WoW? 30?,40?,50 million - to date? or more? worldwide? and it ONLY has a few million left in subscription base after ONLY 2-3 years!....wow<---pun intended.
thats pretty horrid. the very worst i have heard of....regarding big boy companies and mmorpgs. it is the single worst statistic ever.
that basically means, eq would have had their release ,way back, of 250k+ cd's and only had 100 players left 2-3 years later.
ya...that is indeed successful..i can see where all the WoW comments make sense.
lol
Im not saying wow is good or bad....it is indeed a great easy starter game for new mmorpg'ers , i'll give it that. after all..you need something shallow enough to play quick and put down sometimes. something not involved( and i dont mean involved in a way of waiting for a raid to start for 1 hour on a timer)
but all this hype over success-this and success-that.
WoW is a success..b/c of distribution. if it had distributed on a scale the other earlier mmorpgs had.....the numbers would be somewhere around 60k after 3 years - if that.( now we all know the numbers may be a little higher b/c of the franchise name) but still..not worth mentioning too much.
percentage-wise on player retention: Wow in its 3rd year is seeing the same success rate Eq1 had in its 5th.
nothing to really boast about huh
especially for gameplay that is the same ole same ole from eq,daoc and others.
math is a good thing
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your playing wow?...which basically means you ARE playing EQ,daoc, and any other mmorpg before it.
Wow is just previous games streamlined....thats all. the same ole same ole..over and over and over and over..again and again.
as far as successful...well. lets not go back to the britney spears analogy hehe. if you distribute on a vast scale..you will receive back the same....and i do NOT beleive the 1% return rule applies to videogames as opposed to mailing lists and mass media advertising such as newspaper and catalogue. --------------------------------------- "....Blizzard took an old WC3 engine modded itm, and took references of each company to make a dollar. in the process "raising the bar" to people who really werent involved in moo's and making a frabricated attempt to claim the genre , theirs,......" ---------------------------------------- exactly ^.... every morpg prior to wow was the first of its kind. Wow is not. Wow is a copy of everything else , streamlined..thats all. who the *uck wants to fight thru eq/daoc/etc A-l-l-l- over again doing the same ole same ole.../shrug ...oh ya, i forgot...and add a couple battlegrounds from daoc to break the monotony , mehh. hey..if someone finds it fun...cool. my kids liked it for about a year. but they realized they were only playing eq and daoc all over again with less to do. over and over. no matter how nice it seemed to work, Eq/uo and daoc work fine in regards to the gameplay wow has. which is basically a small portion of most other games. WoW is indeed nice for first time mmorpg'ers. ----------------------------------- "....Except they created a game that has sold as well or better then all of the producers you list above combined.
Obviously they're doing something right......."
------------------------------------- yes..they are doing something right....it was called, Mass Distribution. you can only have one outcome. I dont care if you are selling toothpicks, mass advertising and distribution works..period. especially if you control everything from the ground up - production,advertising and manufacturing and of course subsequent billing. looking at todays numbers...if blizzard would have had a initial release of only 250k cd's, and didnt do any , i mean 0 advertising...and seeing how many players it has now as opposed to launch... well it is has actually done worse than A-L-L the other mmorpgs. well the big boys at least. Eq,daoc and most of the others had their subscription numbers going up at the 3rd year. Hasnt wow been going down lower and lower since day1?
just because the numbers are larger doesnt mean too much. actually it means nothing at all.
what is WoW's retention rate on their player base from the first year?....I surmize it is closer to 30-40% tops. (someone mentioned it is more like 25% in another post...i dont believe that)
funny too....EQ/Daoc/UO and a few others...were at over 300% playerbase retention with the sub-rate going higher each week and this was in year 3! how many cd's were released and distributed for WoW? 30?,40?,50 million - to date? or more? worldwide? and it ONLY has a few million left in subscription base after ONLY 2-3 years!....wow<---pun intended. thats pretty horrid. the very worst i have heard of....regarding big boy companies and mmorpgs. it is the single worst statistic ever. that basically means, eq would have had their release ,way back, of 250k+ cd's and only had 100 players left 2-3 years later. ya...that is indeed successful..i can see where all the WoW comments make sense.
lol Im not saying wow is good or bad....it is indeed a great easy starter game for new mmorpg'ers , i'll give it that. after all..you need something shallow enough to play quick and put down sometimes. something not involved( and i dont mean involved in a way of waiting for a raid to start for 1 hour on a timer) but all this hype over success-this and success-that. WoW is a success..b/c of distribution. if it had distributed on a scale the other earlier mmorpgs had.....the numbers would be somewhere around 60k after 3 years - if that.( now we all know the numbers may be a little higher b/c of the franchise name) but still..not worth mentioning too much.
percentage-wise on player retention: Wow in its 3rd year is seeing the same success rate Eq1 had in its 5th.
nothing to really boast about huh especially for gameplay that is the same ole same ole from eq,daoc and others.
Originally posted by CognetoJoe Name an NcSoft has a fairly clean polish record. Even Auto Assualt though it ididn't have great success , was polished game .This polish arguement is like the bottom of the barrel . Come up with somethig else please , or is the bar as high as you can get it ?
Its also got all sorts of other weird things going on. It just obviously isn't a classic/mainstream MMO. Which WoW is practically the byword of. Saga of Ryzom had all sorts of stuff people on MMORPG.com clamor for on a depressingly regular basis and was apparently technically adequate. And yet, Chapter 11.
The point is less how polished a game is. Rather, its how polished the game isn't. QA and a tight scope don't make automatic success but it does remove a reason for failure. Bugs have implied failure. Failure does not necessarily imply there were bugs.
You don't normally buy a product and then pay the salesman a subscription so he can fix all the problems he left in because he didn't have time/money to make sure it worked on a regular basis do you? That seems to be what the OP expects people to do for MMORPGs. Which is an outlandishly hopeful business model on which to base your success.
The fact my 4 year old can play WoW says a lot about the 'standard' WoW has set.
If the day ever comes that WoW account numbers are actually shown broken down into regions I think we'll see where a large portion of WoW accts are held. And I for one do not believe it's US, Oz or Europe.
Darkwind, Sword of the New World and Vendetta Online are the games I go to when I'm sick of what I'm currently playing. ie WoW. personally I'm just glad I got a few betas to mess about with.
I believe everything that the OP said is right and true. If you are a "Old School" gamer you would know what to expect when a mmorpg comes out, But it does seem that now day's people look at a game and if its not flawless to a 10 then it sucks to them.
People back in the mmo days would live with bugs and whatever went on with the games, But now society has higher standards for game launches and expect more out of a game because some games have been more successful then other(s) and a lot more player base crowd and young crowd can see mostly only the high end in games but never experienced the lower downfall of mmorpg(s) out their. And that is why you have a lot of people fighting now days then you did lets say 10 years ago. That's merely my opinion though so don't flame me for wanting to express my self, Thanks.
mmorpg's flop faster then mcdonalds cheese burgers these days.
I'm just getting sick of this arguement that "polish" is why WoW was a success, it wasn't/ The fanebase for the Warcraft franchise was already built and the domination of the mass market was done through an ad campagne much like the way SOE did for the playstation 1 which pretty much made sega's more superior console nonexistent. Nothing great was achieved through the release of WoW except the phatting of a developers pockets which where already lined with gold from4 previous titles.
The game offered nothing new, and the graphics are mediocre, regardless of art direction. I will go as far as they really didn't create anything new from the art direction because it is obvious from the screen shots I posted on of WC3 it is almost Identical to WoW.
What Blizzard does with marketing wise is unparrell to anything NcSoft has ever done, and yet NcSoft is still the largest MMO producer in the world.
I'm just getting sick of this arguement that "polish" is why WoW was a success, it wasn't/ The fanebase for the Warcraft franchise was already built and the domination of the mass market was done through an ad campagne much like the way SOE did for the playstation 1 which pretty much made sega's more superior console nonexistent. Nothing great was achieved through the release of WoW except the phatting of a developers pockets which where already lined with gold from4 previous titles. The game offered nothing new, and the graphics are mediocre, regardless of art direction. I will go as far as they really didn't create anything new from the art direction because it is obvious from the screen shots I posted on of WC3 it is almost Identical to WoW. What Blizzard does with marketing wise is unparrell to anything NcSoft has ever done, and yet NcSoft is still the largest MMO producer in the world.
Have you even actually played WoW? You'd understand the MEANING of polish, if you had. It's lore, at the least, is in-depth.
NCSoft's games are, to be perfectly honest, poor. They only have a large consumer base because they have so many different games. They each have a tiny niche market, which opens up to a larger company. Like Aion? That game just looks to be scraping the bottom of the barrel.
wow is basically riding on a downhill slope from the base numbers it started out with...huge base distribution numbers......and it has worked out decently..not great, just decent.
numbers have been going down since day1. but they had such a huge distribution...it allows one to sit back on their laurels and watch the money roll in for 3-5 years...didnt the population continue to go down even with the first Xpak?..hmmm? it did.
but all in all, wow should be able to make it 5 years with the initial distribution numbers they have had....first 3 years being the most paramount that paid for it all.
All wow did was distribute on a vast scale. I know im am probably wrong on this...but i think the total distribution , to date, is somewhere around 50 million copies. worldwide. and they are claiming they have 7 million accounts...active,dead,inactive,deleted,trial and all..lumped into one number.
well...isnt that about 12% retention rate of players.....thats horrible!...LMAO..to say the least.
wonder what the numbers would be NOW..if blizzard had only distributed around 250,000 cd's instead. would it even have 20k players now? well..going with the public<ahem> numbers above, using the 12% rate above also,no..they would only have about 3k.
funny huh?
if daoc and eq had only 3,000 players in their 3rd year after release they would be considered a failure. no?
well....those are WoW's stats....12%. daoc,eq and others have had 300%+ retention at year 3 for daoc and year 5 for eq1.
as far as graphics and engines,interfaces,etc....i think Joe was just saying its nothing new.
basically.
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wow is basically riding on a downhill slope from the base numbers it started out with...huge base distribution numbers......and it has worked out decently..not great, just decent. numbers have been going down since day1. but they had such a huge distribution...it allows one to sit back on their laurels and watch the money roll in for 3-5 years...didnt the population continue to go down even with the first Xpak?..hmmm? it did. but all in all, wow should be able to make it 5 years with the initial distribution numbers they have had....first 3 years being the most paramount that paid for it all.
All wow did was distribute on a vast scale. I know im am probably wrong on this...but i think the total distribution , to date, is somewhere around 50 million copies. worldwide. and they are claiming they have 7 million accounts...active,dead,inactive,deleted,trial and all..lumped into one number.
well...isnt that about 12% retention rate of players.....thats horrible!...LMAO..to say the least.
wonder what the numbers would be NOW..if blizzard had only distributed around 250,000 cd's instead. would it even have 20k players now? well..going with the public<ahem> numbers above, using the 12% rate above also,no..they would only have about 3k. funny huh? if daoc and eq had only 3,000 players in their 3rd year after release they would be considered a failure. no? well....those are WoW's stats....12%. daoc,eq and others have had 300%+ retention at year 3 for daoc and year 5 for eq1. as far as graphics and engines,interfaces,etc....i think Joe was just saying its nothing new.
basically.
1. They claim 9 million ACTIVE accounts.
2. Those games didn't have the huge starting amount of players that WoW did.
3. WoW is still the largest money maker in MMO history.
its all distribution....blizzard is still riding on the luarel of one release that has been dwindling horribly ever since release.
even at 9mill...that is HORRID!
lol..absolutely horrible numbers.
you distribute THAT many copies and only have a dwindling base of less than 12%!? and even after you release your first xpak..the numbers of people leaving is increasing day by day!?
(ps mind you..we are talkiing initial distribution..i am SURE blizzard cd's are still being mass produced...with 0 results.)
worst numbers i have ever seen in large game release...retention is not on blizzards mind at all....seems to never have been
pure and simple.
math is fun
(btw....i have posted on this subject hundreds of times and recieved a fell comments back to me....so everything is clear...MY ENTIRE FAMILY PLAYS wow.)
so you all understand...im not a wow fanboi or wow hater...i Loathe, MISINFORMATION and redundancy in understanding simple math
1st and 2nd grade math to boot.
Example..If johnny sells 50 million newspaper subscriptions and 2-3 years later only has 9 million left, and customers leaving day by day...he can almost depict and project when it will all end. and quickly at that. he has a customer retention rate( which is what really determines success)...of about 12%? no?
if johnny's sister sells 250,000 newspaper subscriptions and 2-3 years later only has 50,000 customers left. she too, can also see when her demise will transpire also...but what is her customer retention rate? more like 20%
but taking all things aside and looking at who was more successful..not monetarily speaking mind you...we are talking about retaining customers and they will not leave, they are glued to their 'seller'. Who then has the more successful rate? success is not just making the big quick buck.
of course it would be silly to even suggest anything other than johnny's sister. johnny's sister will probably have customers for 10 years. johnny simply can't.
anyway...20% retention is what games like eq1,daoc and UO,etc,etc..have enjoyed in the past. WoW enjoyed, less than 12%...thats all..pure and simple math.
thats all i am saying. the number are high for WoW's distribution..but look beyond the numbers.
it is horrid, regarding the retenion of customers.
for all the polish in the world.......its not something to boast about.
12% is closer to the success rate of Shadowbane or SWG ( after all those game ruining patches)
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its all distribution....blizzard is still riding on the luarel of one release that has been dwindling horribly ever since release.
even at 9mill...that is HORRID!
lol..absolutely horrible numbers.
you distribute THAT many copies and only have a dwindling base of less than 12%!? and even after you release your first xpak..the numbers of people leaving is increasing day by day!? (ps mind you..we are talkiing initial distribution..i am SURE blizzard cd's are still being mass produced...with 0 results.) worst numbers i have ever seen in large game release...retention is not on blizzards mind at all....seems to never have been
pure and simple.
math is fun (btw....i have posted on this subject hundreds of times and recieved a fell comments back to me....so everything is clear...MY ENTIRE FAMILY PLAYS wow.) so you all understand...im not a wow fanboi or wow hater...i Loathe, MISINFORMATION and redundancy in understanding simple math
1st and 2nd grade math to boot.
Example..If johnny sells 50 million newspaper subscriptions and 2-3 years later only has 9 million left, and customers leaving day by day...he can almost depict and project when it will all end. and quickly at that. he has a customer retention rate( which is what really determines success)...of about 12%? no? if johnny's sister sells 250,000 newspaper subscriptions and 2-3 years later only has 50,000 customers left. she too, can also see when her demise will transpire also...but what is her customer retention rate? more like 20% but taking all things aside and looking at who was more successful..not monetarily speaking mind you...we are talking about retaining customers and they will not leave, they are glued to their 'seller'. Who then has the more successful rate? success is not just making the big quick buck. of course it would be silly to even suggest anything other than johnny's sister. johnny's sister will probably have customers for 10 years. johnny simply can't. anyway...20% retention is what games like eq1,daoc and UO,etc,etc..have enjoyed in the past. WoW enjoyed, less than 12%...thats all..pure and simple math. thats all i am saying. the number are high for WoW's distribution..but look beyond the numbers. it is horrid, regarding the retenion of customers. for all the polish in the world.......its not something to boast about. 12% is closer to the success rate of Shadowbane or SWG ( after all those game ruining patches)
...What?
9/50*100=18%
Never mind the fact that a lot of those were "just trying out the game", and that the playerbase has spread around to other games. Also, SWG STILL has a playerbase of about 20k people. I mean, that might just mean that WoW will level out at 9 million players.
You don't even show sources, again. Anything without sources is a lie.
um./..lol.....exactly sources......i DONT think its 9million at all. I also Do NOT think ONLY a mere 50-65million copies of wow are out the gates...i think it is MUCH MUCH higher and cd's are STILL hitting the shelves at local stores- but not selling.
so many numbers were being passes around,.....i took the averages , i kept hearing 7 and 9 million and also took into consideration the cd's(that i did not include in the number) that may have been distributed , to date. heck..i dont even know the numbers for NorthAmerican retention or initial distribution and sales figures.
but i never get a straight answer here...and cant really beleive anything i see on the web as far as their distribution.....I took the lowest number i could find...50 mill and bumped it up also....so some of my math is really around 7/65(which i neglected to show in the little johnny scenario)
its prolly ALOT higher. but i only bumped it up a little bit. took ,basically 7/65 and bumped it up to 12% out of charity
still and all....what everyone likes to say here isnt the case.
wow still falls beneath the success rate of eq,daoc and uo, and several others...
but the big point is: retention not just initial sales (which at 18% is still under all the big boys anyway, point kind of moot..lol)....blizzard has been loosing people since release, which is kind of strange.....the other games mentioned simply have not had that kind of loss in the first,second and third year. ever.
the way alot of people talk about wow here...it seems as if the numbers should be 99.9% retention rate and sales goin up every quarter with cd sales, and subscriptions are surpassing initial release qoutes, and then they points fingers at eq,daoc and such as sday they werent as successful...lol?
they werent...they were more successful......pure and simple once again..
even if we go with 18% on initial sales in 3rd year.....eq1 had much better than that in the 5th year!, never mind eq's 3rd year.
I just dont understand what goes thru some peoples heads
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Blizzard are the best games developers in the world imo (Black Isle come in a close second)
WoW may not appeal to some, it may be the the worst game you have ever played. But in all honesty I think it is a work of art. I hop on and play every now and again throughout my MMO cycle but even when it bores me to death and I am well into another game, I still acknowledge the fact that WoW is one of the best developed games of all time.
I'm not just talking about it's popularity here either, I'm talking about what is put into a game by design that makes it so appealing. Blizzard truly know what they are doing when it comes to making games.
I think a better example would be Diablo. That game was simple, straight forward and marvellously uncomplicated, but oh my was it ADDICTIVE... Everyone I know who played Diablo got hooked to unhealthy levels. Why though? All you did was just click, click, click.... I'll tell you why. Blizzard see what other game developers fail to see. They know what REALLY matters in games.
WoW to some is just a cartoony child like game full of annoying kids.... Diablo to some is nothing but mindless click, click, click.... But these people are in the minority.
Blizzard games have that 'something' about them that no other developer has managed to find. The millions who still play Starcraft and Diablo explains it perfectly.
What Blizzard did the best of any game company is marketing. They pushed thier product upon all of their fans by blasting them with advertising for the game. Blizzard had a built in fan base of around 50 Million purchasers of their games. That is an extremely large group to appeal to for a new game. Especially when combined with a "we will release it when it is complete" attitude that they have. Their customers expect a certain type of finished product and as long as Blizzard continues to provide that "polish" feel then they will retain their loyal customers. Add into that all of the 1.99 trial disks that Blizzard flooded the market with and the free mailings of disks and I wouldn't be surprised if they had put 100 Million disks on the market.
Currently playing: LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too: Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
Blizzard are the best games developers in the world imo (Black Isle come in a close second) WoW may not appeal to some, it may be the the worst game you have ever played. But in all honesty I think it is a work of art. I hop on and play every now and again throughout my MMO cycle but even when it bores me to death and I am well into another game, I still acknowledge the fact that WoW is one of the best developed games of all time. I'm not just talking about it's popularity here either, I'm talking about what is put into a game by design that makes it so appealing. Blizzard truly know what they are doing when it comes to making games. I think a better example would be Diablo. That game was simple, straight forward and marvellously uncomplicated, but oh my was it ADDICTIVE... Everyone I know who played Diablo got hooked to unhealthy levels. Why though? All you did was just click, click, click.... I'll tell you why. Blizzard see what other game developers fail to see. They know what REALLY matters in games. WoW to some is just a cartoony child like game full of annoying kids.... Diablo to some is nothing but mindless click, click, click.... But these people are in the minority. Blizzard games have that 'something' about them that no other developer has managed to find. The millions who still play Starcraft and Diablo explains it perfectly.
A would say that a better statement would be that Blizzard was one of the best game developers in the world. Most of their key staff have left the company to start their own companies. IE Flagship Studios (most of the key Diablo Devs), Arenanet (more key devs). They have since replaced a lot of their staff with old EQ1 people.
Currently playing: LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too: Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
It let people into mmo genre who sjhouldn't be here.
Your attitude is disgusting.
Thank you very much.
If WoW would have never come out, You wouldn't even be browsing this forum. As then we would have a little better discussions about point systems and ect , questing and ect , other then Wow suck , WoW rules threads filling up 3/4 of this servers database. Really feel WoW is 2 srtep backward of anything innovative.
15% of which you make.
Originally posted by terrant
EDIT: I apparently found out Lineage has 14 million accounts. Mind you three of them are mind and I haven't played them in two years, so if that's any indication...but I will retract what I said earlier. Somewhat. Blizzard is still a larger success.
14 million accounts. WoW has 9 million active subscribers.
Originally posted by Tolwynn
um./..lol.....exactly sources......i DONT think its 9million at all. I also Do NOT think ONLY a mere 50-65million copies of wow are out the gates...i think it is MUCH MUCH higher and cd's are STILL hitting the shelves at local stores- but not selling. so many numbers were being passes around,.....i took the averages , i kept hearing 7 and 9 million and also took into consideration the cd's(that i did not include in the number) that may have been distributed , to date. heck..i dont even know the numbers for NorthAmerican retention or initial distribution and sales figures. but i never get a straight answer here...and cant really beleive anything i see on the web as far as their distribution.....I took the lowest number i could find...50 mill and bumped it up also....so some of my math is really around 7/65(which i neglected to show in the little johnny scenario) its prolly ALOT higher. but i only bumped it up a little bit. took ,basically 7/65 and bumped it up to 12% out of charity still and all....what everyone likes to say here isnt the case. wow still falls beneath the success rate of eq,daoc and uo, and several others... but the big point is: retention not just initial sales (which at 18% is still under all the big boys anyway, point kind of moot..lol)....blizzard has been loosing people since release, which is kind of strange.....the other games mentioned simply have not had that kind of loss in the first,second and third year. ever. the way alot of people talk about wow here...it seems as if the numbers should be 99.9% retention rate and sales goin up every quarter with cd sales, and subscriptions are surpassing initial release qoutes, and then they points fingers at eq,daoc and such as sday they werent as successful...lol? they werent...they were more successful......pure and simple once again..
even if we go with 18% on initial sales in 3rd year.....eq1 had much better than that in the 5th year!, never mind eq's 3rd year. I just dont understand what goes thru some peoples heads
There were about three other MMOs out when EQ was made. At least, decent MMOs. Never mind the fact that the general gaming population who bought EQ had an idea of what they were gonna start playing, and played it through. ALSO, it was going to hold people on, because of the "newness" factor.
You appear to constantly point fingers at "sources", when you don't apply reasonable discussion over what effecting circumstances there could have been at that time.
Rereading your post, I've noticed that you also just make up figures. 50-65 million? THAT'S 15 MILLION COPIES. That's a bloody huge amount.
Blizzard are the best games developers in the world imo (Black Isle come in a close second) WoW may not appeal to some, it may be the the worst game you have ever played. But in all honesty I think it is a work of art. I hop on and play every now and again throughout my MMO cycle but even when it bores me to death and I am well into another game, I still acknowledge the fact that WoW is one of the best developed games of all time. I'm not just talking about it's popularity here either, I'm talking about what is put into a game by design that makes it so appealing. Blizzard truly know what they are doing when it comes to making games. I think a better example would be Diablo. That game was simple, straight forward and marvellously uncomplicated, but oh my was it ADDICTIVE... Everyone I know who played Diablo got hooked to unhealthy levels. Why though? All you did was just click, click, click.... I'll tell you why. Blizzard see what other game developers fail to see. They know what REALLY matters in games. WoW to some is just a cartoony child like game full of annoying kids.... Diablo to some is nothing but mindless click, click, click.... But these people are in the minority. Blizzard games have that 'something' about them that no other developer has managed to find. The millions who still play Starcraft and Diablo explains it perfectly.
A would say that a better statement would be that Blizzard was one of the best game developers in the world. Most of their key staff have left the company to start their own companies. IE Flagship Studios (most of the key Diablo Devs), Arenanet (more key devs). They have since replaced a lot of their staff with old EQ1 people.
Ah yes, Flagship Studios. I can't wait for Hell Gate
um./..lol.....exactly sources......i DONT think its 9million at all. I also Do NOT think ONLY a mere 50-65million copies of wow are out the gates...i think it is MUCH MUCH higher and cd's are STILL hitting the shelves at local stores- but not selling. so many numbers were being passes around,.....i took the averages , i kept hearing 7 and 9 million and also took into consideration the cd's(that i did not include in the number) that may have been distributed , to date. heck..i dont even know the numbers for NorthAmerican retention or initial distribution and sales figures. but i never get a straight answer here...and cant really beleive anything i see on the web as far as their distribution.....I took the lowest number i could find...50 mill and bumped it up also....so some of my math is really around 7/65(which i neglected to show in the little johnny scenario) its prolly ALOT higher. but i only bumped it up a little bit. took ,basically 7/65 and bumped it up to 12% out of charity still and all....what everyone likes to say here isnt the case. wow still falls beneath the success rate of eq,daoc and uo, and several others... but the big point is: retention not just initial sales (which at 18% is still under all the big boys anyway, point kind of moot..lol)....blizzard has been loosing people since release, which is kind of strange.....the other games mentioned simply have not had that kind of loss in the first,second and third year. ever. the way alot of people talk about wow here...it seems as if the numbers should be 99.9% retention rate and sales goin up every quarter with cd sales, and subscriptions are surpassing initial release qoutes, and then they points fingers at eq,daoc and such as sday they werent as successful...lol? they werent...they were more successful......pure and simple once again..
even if we go with 18% on initial sales in 3rd year.....eq1 had much better than that in the 5th year!, never mind eq's 3rd year. I just dont understand what goes thru some peoples heads
Nice attempt to rubbish WoW, but you fail due to having no sources for your information and some of the info you do quote does have sources that you choose to ignore or amend to suit your argument. Back under your bridge Mr.Troll1892839.
(note the use of sources)
Before Wow launched in china WoW's subscriber base was 1.5 million (May 2005) www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php In the last press release that blizzard mentioned NA/EU numbers (March 2007) www.blizzard.com/press/070307.shtml there were 3.5 million subs in NA/EU... that shoots your comment about WoW losing players from day to the ground, as to your retention statment I cannot comment and neither can you because you have ZERO info about that.
Now can you still say WoW is not as succesful as EQ, OU and DAoC?
spoiled is to light of word. It ruined the community. It let people into *any* genre who shouldn't be here.
Same thing happened when graphical rpg's took over text based ones. Same thing happened when C64 users entered PC's. Same thing happens to every niche genre that moves to mainstream.
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O ok, but blizzard still wins some how .
How many of those accounts are active? And how much do they really make? For the US it's 15/mo for an account..but what are the Koreans, who are the majority of that playerbase, paying?
Ive seen people have brought vangard into this debate about WoW.
Now you may say that WoW has set the bar high? but which company do you think have the most assets?
blizzard or SOE? Both companies are big, SOE is probably bigger.
So I can't see an excuse for saying WoW sets the bar so high, SOE have been making MMO's or buying them off others for a long time now, yet they still release rushed flawed MMO's and somehow its Blizzards fault?
Are you taking the pish?!
Starwars galaxies i played that on and off for 2 years, SOE tried to fix the game, but bugs 4 years still live in the code, such as items going missing into the void of binary
.
You think vangard will get better? dream on, they will add content for a while, then when they realise they've made another poor effort of a MMO they will start merging servers, sacking developers and moving onto there next poor excuse of a game (matrix online, need i say more)...
I'll never play another SOE mmo again, no matter how good it is, once the trust in a company is gone, its over!!
O ok, but blizzard still wins some how .
How many of those accounts are active? And how much do they really make? For the US it's 15/mo for an account..but what are the Koreans, who are the majority of that playerbase, paying?
3/5 of the WoW player base is Chinese ? How much do the Chinese Pay ? What is your point, Blizzard can't compare to Ncsoft library of games which have a multitude of players with Guild Wars being the best selling game .... How many WoW player triple box and quad box, you make it sound like WoW is the only mmo that has 9million distinct users, if you believe that I got a bridge for sale
Sony Online Entertainment Steals Customers Money
No.
Games that are polished make good impressions. Games that are not, do not. This isn't new. Or surprising. It makes sense. Games that launched poorly, from everything I've seen, do not grow.
Some grow more slowly are often atypical, such as EvE and RuneScape. Both those games appeal to a different markets than the Everquests and WoWs of the genre. Those games are unusual for different reasons but still not typical. RuneScape also launched with no fanfare and no box price. Substantially lower expectations.
Vanguard made the classical Anarchy Online error. Too much world, too little QA. Everyone should've learned from Funcom already. Which far predates WoW. As far as I can tell, AO launched riddled with bugs and never fully recovered. They were still fixing some bugs (like the graphical problem with Opifex shoulder pads) years later. Vanguard was not as extreme but it was in the same vein.
And really, it'd been in financially troubled waters since Microsoft dropped it, from what I read. That it didn't work out ultimately is hardly surprising given that.
The only thing that WoW may have done is made polish somewhat more important. Which is hardly the end of the world.
Also, I'd say a lot of games had the same endgame structure. Raiding and endgame PVP have always been with us. The whole point of Shadowbane was getting to the max level and PVPing. A lot of Eastern-style games work/worked like that (except getting to the max level took longer). Raids are not exactly a new concept either.
Name an NcSoft has a fairly clean polish record. Even Auto Assualt though it ididn't have great success , was polished game .This polish arguement is like the bottom of the barrel . Come up with somethig else please , or is the bar as high as you can get it ?
Sony Online Entertainment Steals Customers Money
your playing wow?...which basically means you ARE playing EQ,daoc, and any other mmorpg before it.
Wow is just previous games streamlined....thats all. the same ole same ole..over and over and over and over..again and again.
as far as successful...well. lets not go back to the britney spears analogy hehe. if you distribute on a vast scale..you will receive back the same....and i do NOT beleive the 1% return rule applies to videogames as opposed to mailing lists and mass media advertising such as newspaper and catalogue.
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"....Blizzard took an old WC3 engine modded itm, and took references of each company to make a dollar. in the process "raising the bar" to people who really werent involved in moo's and making a frabricated attempt to claim the genre , theirs,......"
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exactly ^.... every morpg prior to wow was the first of its kind. Wow is not. Wow is a copy of everything else , streamlined..thats all. who the *uck wants to fight thru eq/daoc/etc A-l-l-l- over again doing the same ole same ole.../shrug ...oh ya, i forgot...and add a couple battlegrounds from daoc to break the monotony , mehh. hey..if someone finds it fun...cool. my kids liked it for about a year. but they realized they were only playing eq and daoc all over again with less to do. over and over. no matter how nice it seemed to work, Eq/uo and daoc work fine in regards to the gameplay wow has. which is basically a small portion of most other games.
WoW is indeed nice for first time mmorpg'ers.
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"....Except they created a game that has sold as well or better then all of the producers you list above combined.
Obviously they're doing something right......."
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yes..they are doing something right....it was called, Mass Distribution. you can only have one outcome. I dont care if you are selling toothpicks, mass advertising and distribution works..period. especially if you control everything from the ground up - production,advertising and manufacturing and of course subsequent billing.
looking at todays numbers...if blizzard would have had a initial release of only 250k cd's, and didnt do any , i mean 0 advertising...and seeing how many players it has now as opposed to launch... well it is has actually done worse than A-L-L the other mmorpgs. well the big boys at least.
Eq,daoc and most of the others had their subscription numbers going up at the 3rd year. Hasnt wow been going down lower and lower since day1?
just because the numbers are larger doesnt mean too much. actually it means nothing at all.
what is WoW's retention rate on their player base from the first year?....I surmize it is closer to 30-40% tops. (someone mentioned it is more like 25% in another post...i dont believe that)
funny too....EQ/Daoc/UO and a few others...were at over 300% playerbase retention with the sub-rate going higher each week and this was in year 3!
how many cd's were released and distributed for WoW? 30?,40?,50 million - to date? or more? worldwide? and it ONLY has a few million left in subscription base after ONLY 2-3 years!....wow<---pun intended.
thats pretty horrid. the very worst i have heard of....regarding big boy companies and mmorpgs. it is the single worst statistic ever.
that basically means, eq would have had their release ,way back, of 250k+ cd's and only had 100 players left 2-3 years later.
ya...that is indeed successful..i can see where all the WoW comments make sense.
lol
Im not saying wow is good or bad....it is indeed a great easy starter game for new mmorpg'ers , i'll give it that. after all..you need something shallow enough to play quick and put down sometimes. something not involved( and i dont mean involved in a way of waiting for a raid to start for 1 hour on a timer)
but all this hype over success-this and success-that.
WoW is a success..b/c of distribution. if it had distributed on a scale the other earlier mmorpgs had.....the numbers would be somewhere around 60k after 3 years - if that.( now we all know the numbers may be a little higher b/c of the franchise name) but still..not worth mentioning too much.
percentage-wise on player retention: Wow in its 3rd year is seeing the same success rate Eq1 had in its 5th.
nothing to really boast about huh
especially for gameplay that is the same ole same ole from eq,daoc and others.
math is a good thing
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/signed , Britney spears analogy is dead on.
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Its also got all sorts of other weird things going on. It just obviously isn't a classic/mainstream MMO. Which WoW is practically the byword of. Saga of Ryzom had all sorts of stuff people on MMORPG.com clamor for on a depressingly regular basis and was apparently technically adequate. And yet, Chapter 11.
The point is less how polished a game is. Rather, its how polished the game isn't. QA and a tight scope don't make automatic success but it does remove a reason for failure. Bugs have implied failure. Failure does not necessarily imply there were bugs.
You don't normally buy a product and then pay the salesman a subscription so he can fix all the problems he left in because he didn't have time/money to make sure it worked on a regular basis do you? That seems to be what the OP expects people to do for MMORPGs. Which is an outlandishly hopeful business model on which to base your success.
The fact my 4 year old can play WoW says a lot about the 'standard' WoW has set.
If the day ever comes that WoW account numbers are actually shown broken down into regions I think we'll see where a large portion of WoW accts are held. And I for one do not believe it's US, Oz or Europe.
Darkwind, Sword of the New World and Vendetta Online are the games I go to when I'm sick of what I'm currently playing. ie WoW. personally I'm just glad I got a few betas to mess about with.
I believe everything that the OP said is right and true. If you are a "Old School" gamer you would know what to expect when a mmorpg comes out, But it does seem that now day's people look at a game and if its not flawless to a 10 then it sucks to them.
People back in the mmo days would live with bugs and whatever went on with the games, But now society has higher standards for game launches and expect more out of a game because some games have been more successful then other(s) and a lot more player base crowd and young crowd can see mostly only the high end in games but never experienced the lower downfall of mmorpg(s) out their. And that is why you have a lot of people fighting now days then you did lets say 10 years ago. That's merely my opinion though so don't flame me for wanting to express my self, Thanks.
mmorpg's flop faster then mcdonalds cheese burgers these days.
I'm just getting sick of this arguement that "polish" is why WoW was a success, it wasn't/ The fanebase for the Warcraft franchise was already built and the domination of the mass market was done through an ad campagne much like the way SOE did for the playstation 1 which pretty much made sega's more superior console nonexistent. Nothing great was achieved through the release of WoW except the phatting of a developers pockets which where already lined with gold from4 previous titles.
The game offered nothing new, and the graphics are mediocre, regardless of art direction. I will go as far as they really didn't create anything new from the art direction because it is obvious from the screen shots I posted on of WC3 it is almost Identical to WoW.
What Blizzard does with marketing wise is unparrell to anything NcSoft has ever done, and yet NcSoft is still the largest MMO producer in the world.
Sony Online Entertainment Steals Customers Money
NCSoft's games are, to be perfectly honest, poor. They only have a large consumer base because they have so many different games. They each have a tiny niche market, which opens up to a larger company. Like Aion? That game just looks to be scraping the bottom of the barrel.
And, nothing is evident. WATCH THIS!
http://www.fileshack.com/images/finclude/images/100605_warhammer.jpg
http://www.gameogre.com/reviewdirectory/upload/Guild%20Wars.jpg
They clearly use the same engine! I mean, ever heard of a thing called scaling?
Without sources, all your posts are bull. Give me a source, and I'll concede.
joe is correect to a certain degree.
wow is basically riding on a downhill slope from the base numbers it started out with...huge base distribution numbers......and it has worked out decently..not great, just decent.
numbers have been going down since day1. but they had such a huge distribution...it allows one to sit back on their laurels and watch the money roll in for 3-5 years...didnt the population continue to go down even with the first Xpak?..hmmm? it did.
but all in all, wow should be able to make it 5 years with the initial distribution numbers they have had....first 3 years being the most paramount that paid for it all.
All wow did was distribute on a vast scale. I know im am probably wrong on this...but i think the total distribution , to date, is somewhere around 50 million copies. worldwide. and they are claiming they have 7 million accounts...active,dead,inactive,deleted,trial and all..lumped into one number.
well...isnt that about 12% retention rate of players.....thats horrible!...LMAO..to say the least.
wonder what the numbers would be NOW..if blizzard had only distributed around 250,000 cd's instead. would it even have 20k players now? well..going with the public<ahem> numbers above, using the 12% rate above also,no..they would only have about 3k.
funny huh?
if daoc and eq had only 3,000 players in their 3rd year after release they would be considered a failure. no?
well....those are WoW's stats....12%. daoc,eq and others have had 300%+ retention at year 3 for daoc and year 5 for eq1.
as far as graphics and engines,interfaces,etc....i think Joe was just saying its nothing new.
basically.
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2. Those games didn't have the huge starting amount of players that WoW did.
3. WoW is still the largest money maker in MMO history.
4)and britney spears is the highest album seller?
lol
its all distribution....blizzard is still riding on the luarel of one release that has been dwindling horribly ever since release.
even at 9mill...that is HORRID!
lol..absolutely horrible numbers.
you distribute THAT many copies and only have a dwindling base of less than 12%!? and even after you release your first xpak..the numbers of people leaving is increasing day by day!?
(ps mind you..we are talkiing initial distribution..i am SURE blizzard cd's are still being mass produced...with 0 results.)
worst numbers i have ever seen in large game release...retention is not on blizzards mind at all....seems to never have been
pure and simple.
math is fun
(btw....i have posted on this subject hundreds of times and recieved a fell comments back to me....so everything is clear...MY ENTIRE FAMILY PLAYS wow.)
so you all understand...im not a wow fanboi or wow hater...i Loathe, MISINFORMATION and redundancy in understanding simple math
1st and 2nd grade math to boot.
Example..If johnny sells 50 million newspaper subscriptions and 2-3 years later only has 9 million left, and customers leaving day by day...he can almost depict and project when it will all end. and quickly at that. he has a customer retention rate( which is what really determines success)...of about 12%? no?
if johnny's sister sells 250,000 newspaper subscriptions and 2-3 years later only has 50,000 customers left. she too, can also see when her demise will transpire also...but what is her customer retention rate? more like 20%
but taking all things aside and looking at who was more successful..not monetarily speaking mind you...we are talking about retaining customers and they will not leave, they are glued to their 'seller'. Who then has the more successful rate? success is not just making the big quick buck.
of course it would be silly to even suggest anything other than johnny's sister. johnny's sister will probably have customers for 10 years. johnny simply can't.
anyway...20% retention is what games like eq1,daoc and UO,etc,etc..have enjoyed in the past. WoW enjoyed, less than 12%...thats all..pure and simple math.
thats all i am saying. the number are high for WoW's distribution..but look beyond the numbers.
it is horrid, regarding the retenion of customers.
for all the polish in the world.......its not something to boast about.
12% is closer to the success rate of Shadowbane or SWG ( after all those game ruining patches)
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9/50*100=18%
Never mind the fact that a lot of those were "just trying out the game", and that the playerbase has spread around to other games. Also, SWG STILL has a playerbase of about 20k people. I mean, that might just mean that WoW will level out at 9 million players.
You don't even show sources, again. Anything without sources is a lie.
um./..lol.....exactly sources......i DONT think its 9million at all. I also Do NOT think ONLY a mere 50-65million copies of wow are out the gates...i think it is MUCH MUCH higher and cd's are STILL hitting the shelves at local stores- but not selling.
so many numbers were being passes around,.....i took the averages , i kept hearing 7 and 9 million and also took into consideration the cd's(that i did not include in the number) that may have been distributed , to date. heck..i dont even know the numbers for NorthAmerican retention or initial distribution and sales figures.
but i never get a straight answer here...and cant really beleive anything i see on the web as far as their distribution.....I took the lowest number i could find...50 mill and bumped it up also....so some of my math is really around 7/65(which i neglected to show in the little johnny scenario)
its prolly ALOT higher. but i only bumped it up a little bit. took ,basically 7/65 and bumped it up to 12% out of charity
still and all....what everyone likes to say here isnt the case.
wow still falls beneath the success rate of eq,daoc and uo, and several others...
but the big point is: retention not just initial sales (which at 18% is still under all the big boys anyway, point kind of moot..lol)....blizzard has been loosing people since release, which is kind of strange.....the other games mentioned simply have not had that kind of loss in the first,second and third year. ever.
the way alot of people talk about wow here...it seems as if the numbers should be 99.9% retention rate and sales goin up every quarter with cd sales, and subscriptions are surpassing initial release qoutes, and then they points fingers at eq,daoc and such as sday they werent as successful...lol?
they werent...they were more successful......pure and simple once again..
even if we go with 18% on initial sales in 3rd year.....eq1 had much better than that in the 5th year!, never mind eq's 3rd year.
I just dont understand what goes thru some peoples heads
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Blizzard are the best games developers in the world imo (Black Isle come in a close second)
WoW may not appeal to some, it may be the the worst game you have ever played. But in all honesty I think it is a work of art. I hop on and play every now and again throughout my MMO cycle but even when it bores me to death and I am well into another game, I still acknowledge the fact that WoW is one of the best developed games of all time.
I'm not just talking about it's popularity here either, I'm talking about what is put into a game by design that makes it so appealing. Blizzard truly know what they are doing when it comes to making games.
I think a better example would be Diablo. That game was simple, straight forward and marvellously uncomplicated, but oh my was it ADDICTIVE... Everyone I know who played Diablo got hooked to unhealthy levels. Why though? All you did was just click, click, click.... I'll tell you why. Blizzard see what other game developers fail to see. They know what REALLY matters in games.
WoW to some is just a cartoony child like game full of annoying kids.... Diablo to some is nothing but mindless click, click, click.... But these people are in the minority.
Blizzard games have that 'something' about them that no other developer has managed to find. The millions who still play Starcraft and Diablo explains it perfectly.
What Blizzard did the best of any game company is marketing. They pushed thier product upon all of their fans by blasting them with advertising for the game. Blizzard had a built in fan base of around 50 Million purchasers of their games. That is an extremely large group to appeal to for a new game. Especially when combined with a "we will release it when it is complete" attitude that they have. Their customers expect a certain type of finished product and as long as Blizzard continues to provide that "polish" feel then they will retain their loyal customers. Add into that all of the 1.99 trial disks that Blizzard flooded the market with and the free mailings of disks and I wouldn't be surprised if they had put 100 Million disks on the market.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
A would say that a better statement would be that Blizzard was one of the best game developers in the world. Most of their key staff have left the company to start their own companies. IE Flagship Studios (most of the key Diablo Devs), Arenanet (more key devs). They have since replaced a lot of their staff with old EQ1 people.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
Your attitude is disgusting.
Thank you very much.If WoW would have never come out, You wouldn't even be browsing this forum. As then we would have a little better discussions about point systems and ect , questing and ect , other then Wow suck , WoW rules threads filling up 3/4 of this servers database. Really feel WoW is 2 srtep backward of anything innovative.
15% of which you make.
14 million accounts. WoW has 9 million active subscribers.
http://play.tm/wire/click/1452394
There were about three other MMOs out when EQ was made. At least, decent MMOs. Never mind the fact that the general gaming population who bought EQ had an idea of what they were gonna start playing, and played it through. ALSO, it was going to hold people on, because of the "newness" factor.
You appear to constantly point fingers at "sources", when you don't apply reasonable discussion over what effecting circumstances there could have been at that time.
Rereading your post, I've noticed that you also just make up figures. 50-65 million? THAT'S 15 MILLION COPIES. That's a bloody huge amount.
A would say that a better statement would be that Blizzard was one of the best game developers in the world. Most of their key staff have left the company to start their own companies. IE Flagship Studios (most of the key Diablo Devs), Arenanet (more key devs). They have since replaced a lot of their staff with old EQ1 people.
Ah yes, Flagship Studios. I can't wait for Hell Gate
EDIT: Double Post.
(note the use of sources)
Before Wow launched in china WoW's subscriber base was 1.5 million (May 2005) www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php In the last press release that blizzard mentioned NA/EU numbers (March 2007) www.blizzard.com/press/070307.shtml there were 3.5 million subs in NA/EU... that shoots your comment about WoW losing players from day to the ground, as to your retention statment I cannot comment and neither can you because you have ZERO info about that.
Now can you still say WoW is not as succesful as EQ, OU and DAoC?
Same thing happened when graphical rpg's took over text based ones. Same thing happened when C64 users entered PC's. Same thing happens to every niche genre that moves to mainstream.