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General: Closing the Gap on WoW
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
There is one game in China that is swiftly closing the "WoW Gap" and approaching the billion dollars in revenue mark. Which game that is might surprise you. Check out The Free Zone and then leave your thoughts in the comments.
There’s no denying that World of Warcraft is a huge global success, so much so that the large majority of gamers here in North America probably take it for granted that Blizzard’s landmark game completely dwarfs everything else in the online category, both in number of players and revenue. However, while this was certainly true for a number of years, as we enter 2012, its lead does appear to have eroded considerably.
Read more of Richard Aihoshi's The Free Zone: Closing the Gap on WoW.
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Comments
Well China dwarfs USA in population size.
Internet is starting to get relatively common there and they have already more people using internet than USA + their GDP growth is very fast all the time.
No wonder that you can get alot of money there.
Will be interesting to see how business models change in China as their society is starting to get more wealthy.
I wonder if P2P or some of it's variants will have it's place in China one day?
Did Counter-Strike never make it to China or something?
Wooow, thats a lot of money mmo-s are earning.
Yea, Crossfire is really popular here in China. In the small villages I've been to, if the kids didn't have internet, they would go to the local internet bar just to play that game (well that and chat with their friends on QQ).
Eleanor Rigby.
I was under the impression that China uses a pay by the hour subscription model, not a per month subscription model. Plus, didn't they say the biggest losses in subscribers (for WoW) was from Asia? Newest market, largest decline in subs.... hence all the speculation that Pandas were added to bring them back.
and then when blizzard decides to make WoW FTP it will destroy everything in its path :P
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas
I very much doubt it. Would get alot of initial players ,but this game is just naturally declining.
Nothing will save WoW in long-run.
Oh no, it did. It used be all that people played here before WoW and Starcraft caught on.
that's why blizzard is making a rip off kung fu panda expansion. to please all the chinese subs
I dont think this game will take over the WoW spot for that matter any Eastern MMO not trying to sound sterotype but Weastern MMO's have a clear advantage but I guess to each thier own.
You're correct that WoW China uses a pay by the hour model.
You're wrong however, that the biggest losses in "subscribers" were from WoW China. Shortly after Blizzard announced the total subscribers at 10.3 mil, WoW china announced that they had grown in subscribers over the past year.
WoW NA/EU is bleeding subscribers.
Must be nice makeing games in china and not paying any money to the developers of the 15 peices of software you used to clone someone elses game.Dont support chinese games.
We all know WoW can't be king forever.
That being said.. are you looking at just subs or everything WoW from bought pets to mounts to server transfers to tshirt to mouses etc...?
Not quite. You can only say that about games people haven't been exposed enough to, but WoW has been the media giant; everyone that is a gamer at this point either knows full well what it is or has tried it. Chances are if you don't already like it, you probably never will. I think the only benefit WoW would have from going f2p is that some of the people who left it entirely would go back to it, as least casually, but I don't see it gaining any new blood.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
Probably also worth looking at total revenue, not just last year. WoW has been going for a number of years.
I don't think anyone believes that Wow always will be the game that rakes in most money.
But Wow do have many faithful players still while most MMO players often jump a lot between games, this goes for both P2P and F2P players.
F2P games have indeed increased in revenues the last 2 years, a lot. P2P games have generally gone down in the same time.
Add the 2 huge B2P games that will enter the market the next few years, Guildwars 2 from Arenanet and Class 4 from Undead labs (and their publisher Microsoft).
Anything can happen in the future, the only sure thing is that it will be interesting.
You can't actually predict the future just by using present trends, P2P could make a comeback or dissapear altogether, B2P can be the next thing or it can continue like the last 2 years. Impossible to say.
I think WoW is going to remain the biggest subscription MMO until Blizzard do something to change that, no one else is going to over take them.
However, as far as online gaming goes, their position as number one for revenue has always been known to be temporary, but many believe the only one that will surpass it is Blizzard's next MMO.
These numbers from China indicate we may get a temporary new number one this year or even next year.
That would be true if Blizzard was the only company making MMOs but there are actually other competent developers that have gotten into the race now.
You do know of Bioware and Arenanet, I don't think either of them by themselves can take over the throne, but they surely can lower Wows subs.
Zenimax (Bethesda) have already worked 4 years on their first MMO and they have millions of fans. They have so far denied it will be an Elder scrolls game but I do remember Bioware denying working on a Star wars game before they presented it as well. Skyrim sold a lot and this is no small inexperienced company. They can take a bite of the Wow cake as well.
Then you have Undead labs Class 4. The company is driven by Blizzards old top programmer Jeff Strain (lead designer of Diablo, Warcraft 3 and first lead designer of Wow). They are funded by Microsft and have a impressive list of employees.
And there are plenty of other interesting games that could nip some players from Wow as well.
As I see it will Wow bleed some players while it ages to other games and sooner or later will someone else be larger. The only thing Blizzard can do to be on top is making a new MMO and guess what? They are doing that.
If Titan will be a success or not is anybodys guess right now, but it have nothing to do with Wow anyways even if it also might take a chunk of Wows players.
The actual number of people who quit Wow this year is somewhere between 1 1/2 million players and 2. 1 1/2 is Blizzards own numbers for the first 9 months.
So... what other competitors are there?
SWTOR isn't going to do it, that leaves TERA, ArcheAge... okay, now I'm running out of AAA subscription MMOs that could compete with WoW.
I could of course be wrong on this, but until someone provides the facts to prove otherwise... you can only work with the data and so far it all points to WoW staying on top for subscription MMOs for the forseeable future.
Here's what I think. Crossfire is a P2P FPS game. The model for these games generally exists as Pay to Win, where you pay real money to unlock weapons. A trend has emerged in these sorts of FPS games to only unlock equipment for a limited time. You can unlock stuff for ingame currency, but since these also have a time limit, if you don't pay for a long time you can actually tie your account down by not having any weapons other then the weakest ones unlocked. The primary method these cash shops make money is 1. Force people who want to pay to win to constantly pay more then $15 a month making sure their weapons are unlocked and 2. Force people who havn't played for more then a month to pay to unlock weapons so they can start playing again. Combine the fact that these cash shops tend to be hillariously unfair and can produce massive amounts of money for each person with China's large gamer population, and it should be no suprise that even a braindead Counter Strike clone can be the best.
Doesn't the government pretty much stifle the competition from western games in China?
It makes sense that a title could topple WoW in a massive market where there is a choice of only 7 government approved games. F2P has nothing to do with it, it's called lack of decent competition.
"And by a free to play game, albeit not a conventional MMOG. Hmmm… interesting."
I found this last line to be the funniest part of all, people still refer to these money pits as free to play. Nobody truely enjoys playing these games for free (unless your half ret**** ) then air is entertaining, but thats what they are called. The more appropriate name is Pay to Win, because thats what it takes to compete at the highest end of these games and its ridiculous amounts of money. But clearly the fools are shelling it out and the under achievers are preaching its merits. Enjoy your diminished free experience or your over priced end game and all the people teetering somewher in the middle.
I hear Casinos make pretty good money too.
Well, for one example you have CCP and White wolfs world of darkness online, it is based on the second most famous P&P RPG ever and have a petty good team.
Blizzards own Titan should not be forgotten. You have Salvatore (Drizzt) and McFairlaines (Spawn) "Copernicus"..
Wow did lost a lot 2011, we are talking 15% of the subs and that is a fact. That it will stay on top for many years to come is far from factual, do you actually think Blizzard would have moved Kaplan and their other best guys to Titan if they thought otherwise?
Computer games does not last forever no matter what.
Do you really think any of them, other than Titan, can do a billion dollars in revenue in a single year like WoW has?
I don't doubt for a second that all of these AAA subscription MMOs are going to chip away at WoW, but I can't see any of them over taking it.