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G4 Fails In An Epic Fashion
As seen on Massively, G4 decides every MMO released since WoW doesn’t exist in their world.
A quick look at 2004 and 2005′s E3 rundown reveals dozens of MMOs either in development or planned. WoW killed or crippled all of them. The reasons are many, but a huge contributing factor is simply how good World of Warcraft is as a game.
But what makes this an epic fail: G4 apparently forgot that their two examples for post-WoW MMOs, SWG and TSO, launched before WoW. Clearly, WoW transcends time and space.
Arguably, you could say that they were simply saying the MMO market itself was destroyed by WoW’s launch, and launch dates are irrelevant. Of course, then you have to ignore Eve, and City of Heroes, and Lord of the Rings, and Everquest 2, and… OK, I’ll stop, since almost literally every MMO launched in the past decade has been profitable, and continues to be in the post World of Warcraft world.
What G4 fails to realize, since WoW’s numbers are sooooo huge, is that you don’t actually have to be #1 in the market to deliver a good return on investment. MMOs traditionally have fantastic ROI, even with budgets the size of World of Warcraft’s, simply because players keep paying to play on a regular basis. The longer an MMO runs, the better that return. Assuming Ultima Online still has ~ 100,000 subscribers, that means that EA is collecting $1 million a month on a game which completed its original development ten years ago.
But that’s boring. Better to mock everything not WoW, preferably with pictures of lolcats. That’s most assuredly the way to get some innovation!
G4: Home of awesome MMO commentary.
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about 2 years ago
“But when it came out for the PC and Xbox, it got mixed reviews and gamers were like “meh.”
– that is what serious journalism looks like, folks.
When I read the G4 article, I, too was like “meh”.
I hate myself for what I am about to say, because it is in defense of one of the worst “media portals” in the short history of such things… but they’re almost right. SWG, The Sims Online and Everquest 2 are failures in the sense that they never reached their full potential. If you want to define success as “it made a few nickels” then I suppose they all were astonishingly fantastic, but all of them fell short of expectations. They all should have had just as much of a chance as WoW to capture a gigantic share of the market but instead managed to break even (in some cases). I don’t see how you could term games like LOTRO, DDO, or Vanguard as a success unless your only criteria was that no one who worked on them was living out of a cardboard box the month after release.
TLDR Version: G4′s fact checking is nonexistent, their writing is fifth-rate, but their point stands, and I am now disappointed in myself and you for making me defend them.
about 2 years ago
Perhaps G4 should develop a “Cops” themed MMO. That network is total garbage.
about 2 years ago
Ironically, Eve, City of Heroes, Lord of the Rings, and Everquest 2 are not only doing well, but have a larger audience than… G4:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117960877.html?categoryid=14&cs=1
The ratings may be soaring, but G4 still averaged only 125,000 primetime viewers last month, according to Nielsen.
about 2 years ago
G4 president Neal Tiles says, “We want to establish G4 as the network for the iPod/YouTube/Xbox generation.”
Huh. That’s quite an interesting (and seemingly very unrelated) hodgepodge of techno-terms! I wonder if he thinks Internet is plural. G4 has been total junk since it started. TechTV was actually semi decent. At least most of those guys have moved on to Rev3 or other IPTV offerings.
Anyway, WoW’s reign is coming to an end I think. More and more of the same. I’ve been playing (and raiding in it) since patch level 1.4 I believe. Basically right when people got through mastering MC. (I was actually in the same guild as Lum on Uther for quite a while). The raid content is getting so monotonous, you can draw parallels to old world encounters in almost all the new Burning Crusade encounters (“Oh, so this fight is sorta like xxxx from MC|BWL|AQ40|Naxx…”). PvP is getting stagnant too, people won’t be amused by Arenas forever since arena gear, for most classes, just helps you do.. more arenas. I also don’t see the.. point, or rather the attraction of turning WoW PvP into a pro e-Sport, where team composition supercedes skill for the most part — hard to compare to accomplishments of a WoW Arena team to the precision aim, reflexes and situational awareness of a top-notch FPS player or the reaction time, micromanagement and strategic thinking of a RTS player.
Something will come along to give WoW a run for it’s money, it’s just going to take a studio with the budget and the foresight to really spend the time to polish it. Most of the MMO’s I’ve played post-WoW just lacked the polish and cohesiveness that WoW has.
about 2 years ago
G4 had its opportunity to not gut all the TechTV programming when they merged. “Attack of the Show” is now their flagship product, and I think the hosts are already sick of each other’s antics.
about 2 years ago
“I don’t see how you could term games like LOTRO, DDO, or Vanguard as a success unless your only criteria was that no one who worked on them was living out of a cardboard box the month after release.”
I guess it depends on what you mean. If ‘success’ is defined as being the most popular game then I guess the NFL should pack it in, being surpassed in viewership by futbol fans world-wide.
Toyota sells more cars than Honda, but Honda is a successful car company also. Also, if the S2000 fails to beat the Civic’s sales figures, that doesn’t mean the S2000 is a failure.
The MMOG press has become singularly obsessed with the idea of biggest game, as if the market will eventually resolve itself to the point where everyone plays only one game.
My opinion is that if the staff love the game they make, the company’s profitable, and the subscribers are satisfied, there’s success. Success is EVE; City of Heroes; and Aces High. Each of these is tiny (especially AH, with a few thousand players) compared to WoW but each has people developing and players playing the game they want.
Failure is easy to see: the designer’s ideas fail to come to fruition, sales projections are horribly undersold, and initial subscriptions drop like a rock as players desert as quickly as possible (often followed by the addition of the title into the Station Access pass).
People should make the games that they want to play, and let success follow. The spectacular failures have many causes but a surefire way to bomb seems to be trying to make the game that someone’s been told the masses want. Trying to “beat WoW” is a good way to end up in the bargain bin.
about 2 years ago
“I guess it depends on what you mean. If ’success’ is defined as being the most popular game then I guess the NFL should pack it in, being surpassed in viewership by futbol fans world-wide.”
That’s taking it to the other extreme, I suppose. Perhaps it’s tempting to define success as whatever you want it to be; on the other hand, as you mentioned, failure is easier to suss out.
Failure is taking The Sims, one of the best selling game franchises of all time, eternally loved by demographics that even WoW would drool over, and make an MMO from it that didn’t even make 1/10th of WoW’s base, much less 1/1000th of your installed base for your previous titles.
Failure is taking The Lord of The Rings and Dungeons and Dragons intellectual properties rights, two of the hottest IP’s out there, and not being able to keep players past a couple of months.
Games like these aren’t failures due to not “beating WoW”, it’s because their potential was never fully realized.
G4′s sweeping generalization of “all MMOs after WoW are failures” is, like most sweeping generalizations, occasionally inaccurate, but it is right more often than it is wrong. The generalization, not G4. G4 is wrong 99.9999% of the time, but you know what they say about stopped clocks.
about 2 years ago
G4 is worthless imo. You can’t cover all games and expect it to be good. It’s like the venn diagram of quality/time/cost or whatever (I wouldn’t quote me), they can’t try and act like every POS game that comes out is good or worth mentioning. Every time I ever watched G4 I wondered if they even actually played games, because you really can’t tell. Plus all the guys on the shows are usually the equivalent of a door knob, and the girls, well, let’s just say they really seem out of place.
about 2 years ago
I miss The Screen Savers. That’s when the network (the old TechTV network) had substance. G4 can best be described as “meretricious.”
about 2 years ago
Back before WoW occurred, many analysts thought that the MMO market was saturated. Games were essentially competing with one another for the existing under-a-million interested MMO’ers out there. Games were planned, built, and marketed assuming that any subscriber base that exceeded 100,000 was successful and anything over 300,000 was a phenomenal success.
There’s a little amusement park near my home called Idlewild. It’s the third oldest existing amusement park in the country, and a nice visit for a Summer day for the family. It isn’t Disneyworld, and comparing it to the Disney machine as a metric for its success is just idiotic. It’ll never be the “roller coaster capitol of the world” either, but it makes for an enjoyable visit- enjoyable enough that many go there several times in one summer- and it keeps itself in the black.
You can say that EQ2′s investors failed to see the potential market for subscription-based games so they set their target sights too low, but they made a game that continues to return profits well beyond costs…
about 2 years ago
There’s still one thing I saw recently that gives me a tiny glimmer of hope about G4. It was a rant by one of the presenters about Second Life, and how the big media keep buying the hype that SL is somehow a successful venture.
about 2 years ago
G4 does have one redeeming show. Sasuke, aka “Ninja Warrior”, and its counterpart Kunoichi, are fun shows that are a blast to watch.
about 2 years ago
G4 is, and has always been, a joke. One of the many failures of Comcast in their pressure-penetration of the content market.
The only noteworthy thing G4 has ever done is swallow the superior network, TechTV.
about 2 years ago
I can only think of “Gods and Heroes” and possibly “Asheron’s Call 2″ as two western MMOGs canceled/killed in the wake of WoW (debatable?). AC2 was already sounding the death rattle when WoW showed up – so the causal effect is debatable.
To “Live up to it’s potential” is a moving goalpost, every game has a “potential” to be a million seller. A better criteria would be, “can this game make enough money so that the dev’s sub-prime mortgaged home won’t be repossessed by Citibank?”
about 2 years ago
It’s a damn shame, but the only reason I watch G4 is for “Ninja Warrior”, and with my buttclowns that provide our cable link moving G4 into their Digital Premium tier, I’m much better off without them…
about 2 years ago
It still won’t convince them. This was brought up on the some boards, and someone mentioned those profitable games, and another moron said “that’s YOUR definition of success. If I were CEO, anything less than a blockbuster would be unacceptable” … yeah I get it… huh?
And look at Anydiem above, success to him is what his anecdotes tell him. LOTRO is not a success because he’s heard anecdotes that they can’t keep players past a few months. Well golly I guess I’m hallucinating when I see so many people from beta playing! Sure people have quit, others have started playing and like it. there are no numbers available that tell us how long people have played. But you know, our prejudices tell us how to interpret what we hear, and whose anecdotes we give more weight to.
about 2 years ago
“And look at Anydiem above, success to him is what his anecdotes tell him. LOTRO is not a success because he’s heard anecdotes that they can’t keep players past a few months. ”
I think your agenda as a fan is pretty clear here, so my logic isn’t going to sway you. Nevertheless, for someone who harps on about “anecdotes” you don’t seem to have many facts yourself. Don’t let it keep you from making assumptions about how I form my opinions, though, because attacking me personally will make what you love successful, somehow.
about 2 years ago
The only thing I learned when I stumbled over the article was not to listen to anything G4 says.
Of course, I knew that.
about 2 years ago
Judging success by the simple ability to have revenues exceed costs is quite flawed.
There’s a small drive-up diner in Norfolk, VA. The owner was the inventor of the ice cream cone. Sure, he is the owner of a successful restaurant, but would you call his business life a success? He had the keys to the kingdom but only managed to come away with a dinky version of Sonic in a small city few have even heard of.
Same thing with LotRO. It had so damn much potential but it was turned into a clunky, uninteresting snoozer. Is it profitable? Probably not yet, but most likely will be assuming they can keep their cash flows up in the long term. Even if it is profitable, it’s not nearly as profitable as it should have been.
I swear to god these MMO companies need to hire me for game design consultation. You pay me a small fee, and I tell you what parts of your game are stupid. My main method of communication would be through physical abuse.
LotRO:
Designer- I know guys, lets have it so that when you jump, you lose all forward momentum!
Me- *slap*
WoW:
Designer- Let’s implement a DoT caster class
Me- How do you plan to make up for the inherent gimpiness of DoT casters in MMOs?
Designer- I’ll give them a 15-second, no-cooldown stun and call it ‘fear’!
Me- *slap*
Designer- Would it be OK if they ran around a little instead of just standing there like normal stun?
Me- *slap* *slap*
SWG:
Designer Dragon- Let’s remove the ability for players to jump and then surround all major cities with insurmountable, ankle-high walls.
Me- *SLAP*
Designer Dragon- I believe world systems are important. Also, let’s reduce combat to running away and firing over your shoulder.
Me- *Pulls out a pair of pliers and a blowtorch*
about 2 years ago
Re: LOTRO … I’m currently subscribed (full disclosure) and I don’t see the crowds diminishing a bit.
This is anecdotal and therefore not helpful in ascertaining the true success of the game, but neither are the tales of not keeping subscribers.
Turbine has engaged in a successful vigorous campaign against gold-sellers which resulted in many ‘trial’ accounts being discontinued (with compliments to the user community who was quick to report spam tells and game-emails!) Without filtering those out LOTRO may look like it has an unduly high churn rate.
(By comparison, another title I’ve played recently, EQ2, doesn’t chase after its goldsellers but does inhibit tells to regular players from them so that they come out “(Spam) Tell from [Read].”)
So, for what it’s worth I’d discount the notion of LOTRO not keeping its subscribers. The only way that title makes the ‘failure’ list is that an expectation was raised by the gaming press that it might ‘topple’ WoW.
Final note on this: any game which is popular enough that [H] starts using it as a benchmark did not fail.
I would put DDO in the ‘fail’ column as it simultaneously disappointed the Drizzt-fans, who were presented with Eberron as a source world; traditional MUD-MMORPGers, who got an action game where social chat on the side isn’t very feasible; and D&D purists, who squawked about every rules variation (of which there are many). I personally enjoyed it but I’m not currently subscribed, either.
about 2 years ago
Anydiem I didn’t make any claim regarding LOTRO. re-read it, where did I say it was successful or not?
You only proved my point. Without facts, we are swayed by our prejudices
about 2 years ago
Yunk-
You said: “Well golly I guess I’m hallucinating when I see so many people from beta playing! Sure people have quit, others have started playing and like it. there are no numbers available that tell us how long people have played.”
Looks pretty plain to me that you were defending LotRO’s relatively meager subscription base. You attempted to invalidate his anecdotal evidence by presenting anecdotal evidence of your own.
about 2 years ago
I was being silly. I should have said “that is anecdotal please give evidence” and not said one work more, but you know I like to crack jokes.
about 2 years ago
Plus that actually does refute his claim that it “can’t keep people more than a few months” because that one is easy to refute, find only one person whose still in the game and it refutes the proposition.
about 2 years ago
sorry for the triple post
i didn’t make a positive claim at all, read it again. where did I claim anything besides I still saw people there more than a few months? that’s all I claimed. how many are still there as a percentage of total users? I don’t know, but I didn’t claim to, unlike he did.
You can argue against something without making a positive argument for something else. I’m just challenging people who make these claims to come up with some evidence.
For what it’s worth I play WoW and CoX as well as LOTRO. just as a disclaimer. So I don’t think biased towards one or the other, I defend WoW all the time when I talk to friends who play LOTRO.
about 2 years ago
Here’s something nonanecdotal for you then, ’cause I know how much we all hate telling stories.
http://www.cuppycake.org/?p=225
To save you some reading, LOTRO doesn’t release subscriber numbers. Usually MMOs that are successful *DO* release subscriber stats since they have something to be proud of. In this case, LOTRO will only give us a nebulous count of “characters created” which doesn’t really mean much and then trumpets themselves as the “second biggest MMO” which means they have more than 0 customers but less than 9.3 million, I suppose.
I put it to you that if they had any amount of subscribers that would actually put them on the map, they would say so instead of producing puff piece press releases. The fact that they won’t give any numbers that anyone would actually care about or be able to relate to their competition indicates that they have something to hide.
I think I’ve given this particular topic all that I care to give it, so can we all go back to hating G4 again?
about 2 years ago
LoTRO was a ghost town the last time I logged in to try it. I tried talking in General quite a few times, but nobody replied no matter the area I was in. I also, through multiple searches, was able to determine that there was only like ~200 max level characters online (I had to search for each character class individually since it would limit the search results returned if you searched for all). This was prime time on a Saturday night. I don’t think they’re doing that well. The game’s interface feels like DAoC with a WoW skin, and the graphics are probably more laggy than they should be on a system with 8800′s — I wasn’t very impressed.
about 2 years ago
OK, Any, so for you the lack of data is enough data. :shrug: That’s an interesting methodology.
Chad, what did you do in the graphics options? My ancient AGP system (XP2500+, X800XL) pushes smooth frame rates with 2xAA and 16xAF.
Sorry to go on about LOTRO but everyone agrees about G4 so there’s not much to discuss there.
about 2 years ago
“OK, Any, so for you the lack of data is enough data. :shrug: That’s an interesting methodology.”
Sometimes when you don’t have all of the facts you have to predict based upon the facts you do have and previous experience. We call that a theory. You seem to be smart enough to know this already though, so I don’t get why you’d make such an obviously wrong assesment of the situation except to provoke further discussion… so I will oblige
This lack of data doesn’t seem to be keeping you from sharing your opposing opinions on the same topic, so I don’t see why I can’t do the same. Although, one compelling difference is that I’m basing mine on past experience and you are basing yours off of how it all feels to one player.
about 2 years ago
For clarity: my opinion is that my own experience is subjective, and shouldn’t be used to infer the volume of the subscriber base.
Trying to infer data from marketing releases and one’s own subjective opinion of a company’s track record is equally unreliable. Now if someone had compiled a list of Turbine press releases about AC and compared them to, say, SirBruce data from AC, and shown that whenever Turbine claimed a subscriber base of X it was likely closer to 0.6X, then we’d have some basis to make judgements. Otherwise it’s all guesses in the dark.
Someone could claim that WoW’s subscriber base must be declining because they are resorting to using aged ’80s TV stars, but that’s silly. The only thing a statement like that would reveal is that the speaker disliked WoW. Or, in an example that will resonate with more readers, one could claim that any SOE numbers should be treated as unreliable because of the events that have transpired in SWG. As with the above, all that’s really been illuminated is that the speaker was a former SWG player who harbors resentment over the NGE mess.
The whole subject needs more light. I haven’t found a current equivalent to the old SirBruce data; if someone has one, great. All we have are occasional marketing releases from different companies … about as useful as taking politicians at their word.
about 2 years ago
“This lack of data doesn’t seem to be keeping you from sharing your opposing opinions on the same topic”
See that again is where you keep failing. You keep assuming people who are challenging your presumptions are 1. “attacking” you and 2. believe LOTRO has wonderful subscriber numbers and is wildly successful.
None of us here has done either. Only challenged you to PROVE that LOTRO and EQ2 are failures, which was your assertion in post 1. And so far you have not, merely offered anecdotes, or an absence of evidence, which as we know does not mean evidence of absence. For instance, we all agree the press releases are odd and I have criticized Turbine for their fuzzy metrics. That does not mean we *know* what the subscriber base is, or how far down from #1 it is in regards to US/Europe numbers. I’d hazard to guess it’s at least in the top 5 in those regions (if we don’t include free to play games like maplestory or habbo hotel
)
Saying “I don’t believe you prove it” is not the same as saying “I believe the opposite” the burden of proof falls on the person making the positive assertion.
about 2 years ago
When I log in to LotRO, I see a good amount of people running around in every area I currently have access to. It is, for example, a lot more people than I see in a lot of old-world WoW and FAR more than I ever saw in low level areas at the height of DAOC’s popularity. I’m not seeing a failure there. Also I think it is a mistake to characterize Middle Earth as a top notch gaming property, given the relatively small number of games it has produced compared to others (D&D and Star Wars, would seem to be the two crown jewels of gaming licenses) and their relative lack of success. By any stretch of the imagination other than “WE WILL TOPPLE WoW” LotRO appears to be a significant success.
Compare this to an actual failure of an MMO, Auto Assault (which I actually enjoyed rather a lot
) where you could drive, literally, for an hour, without seeing another player.
about 2 years ago
For what it’s worth, in the entirely anecdotal category: I have current subscriptions to EQ2, LotRO, and WoW. And that’s the order in which I prefer them. I also started in beta with both EQ2 and LotRO, and shortly after launch with WoW. I tend to play for months at a time, then burn out and not log in for months at a time. A trend that I’ve seen played out with my friends, gaming partners, and guildmates as well. My personal opinion is that they are all successes, in that they are profitable, with a loyal core base. But only WoW was a breakout, bring in new players, hit.
about 2 years ago
“Someone could claim that WoW’s subscriber base must be declining because they are resorting to using aged ’80s TV stars, but that’s silly.”
What! How dare you call William Shatner an aged “80s TV star.
He’s An aged ’60s TV star.
Oh yeah, T.J. Hooker. nevermind.
about 2 years ago
Whats G4?
Is that like a new Golden Girls or something?
about 2 years ago
LOTR started out strong but if you go around the blogging block you’ll see most people did quit after 2-3 months. If you compare the amount people and shards its pretty easy to see that EQ2 has more people playing then LOTR at the moment. I’d guess it lost about half its initial subscribers and is now around 150,000.
Dungeons and Dragons had an even shorter peak time with most people publishing mediocre to bad reviews for the game right away. While LOTR most likely broke the 300k mark at one time I doubt DDO broke 100k subscribers.
City of Heroes has probably been the most successful and was between 150,000-200,000 subscribers for the first two years of its creation. Unfortunately despite that earlier link I doubt they have much more then 120,000 people playing right now.
about 2 years ago
“…if you go around the blogging block…
…I’d guess it lost…
… most likely … I doubt …
… has probably been the most successful… I doubt they have much more …”
The idea of hard data and your post appear to have a tenuous relationship. I maintain that it is absolutely pointless to make wild speculation based on a blog, your friends, or the local equivalent of a /who command.
All such guesses (including mine) amount to: I like Game X, therefore I interpret observed data as supporting my preferences.
This is the MMOG equivalent of Pauline Kael’s celebrated remark: “How could Nixon have won? Nobody I know voted for him.” (try not to have an emotional reaction if you happen to be of the liberal persuasion, it’s a statement about how we tend to surround ourselves with like-thinkers and what that does to our perceptions).
about 2 years ago
“The idea of hard data and your post appear to have a tenuous relationship. I maintain that it is absolutely pointless to make wild speculation based on a blog, your friends, or the local equivalent of a /who command.”
I would agree with you if you were looking at each piece of ‘evidence’ individually. Taken as a whole, though it’s convincing enough for me to believe that LOTRO isn’t doing as well as the as it should be.
The servers play like an older, lower population WoW or DAoC server. Lower end zones have very few people in them and broadcast channels are surprisingly quiet.
Nearly every extended review or game journal/blog I’ve read about LOTRO mirrors my sentiments about it turning into a dud.
Nearly every person I’ve spoken to in real life about the game expressed disappointment with the finished, live game.
Mediocre blogosphere reviews/experiences + personal experience + friends’ experience + low population servers + catatonic broadcast chat channels = game that’s dying out
about 2 years ago
People tend to use whatever data they can find (or make up) to support their positions. The fact that some game isn’t providing subscription figures does not mean that they aren’t successful. In reality, that company is just following the lead of other companies and not giving away any verifiable competitive data. (Of course, this doesn’t mean that there can’t be problems someone’s trying to cover up.)
But, it’s all pretty silly, I think. As pointed out in the original post, you don’t have to have the biggest and the best to be rather successful. Speaking of Turbine, take a look at what they did. Just by running one of the smaller games back in the day, Asheron’s Call, they were able to turn around and obtain the license for two major properties, even after a failure with AC2. The fact that AC had less than 50% of EQ’s peak subscribers means that you can still have a huge success with modest numbers that don’t dominate over everyone else. That’s G4′s problem here: games that come afterwards can still be huge successes, even if they don’t have 5-6+ million Chinese “subscribers” to add to their press release figures.
I think that we’ll see a lot of smaller games come out and be huge successes even if they don’t get much more than “only” 100,000 subscribers. Bigger doesn’t always equal better, even in business.
about 2 years ago
The MMORPG Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC) was released by Mythic Entertainment in 2001. Even in the present day when populations are beginning to dwindle it is still easily 100x times better of a game than WoW.
Everytime a MMO has planned to released, talk was that it would kill DAoC. It never did.
The same was true with WoW. Most came back to DAoC in just a few months.
No game has yet to match DAoC’s intense and dedicated PvP system. Unfortunately Mythic Entertainment, recently ‘bought’ by EA, has never, in it’s almost 7 years lifetime, ever publicized this game. Thus frankly, very few have ever heard of it.
DAoC remains the greatest MMO of all times. NO question.
about 2 years ago
Detrimental on December 2, 2007 said:
“Whats G4?
Is that like a new Golden Girls or something?”
Golden Girls Gone Grandma
about 2 years ago
Scott on December 5, 2007 said:
“Everytime a MMO has planned to released, talk was that it would kill DAoC. It never did.
The same was true with WoW. Most came back to DAoC in just a few months.”
WoW didn’t kill DAOC. ToA killed DAOC.
True story.
about 2 years ago
My opinion on it is WoW is a massive success because it’s a “My Space/McDonalds” MMO. It was built with the lowest common denominator in mind (both player and machine spec) which means _anyone_ can pick it up and understand how to interact in it.
A lot of people try it, because they know at _least_ one person that plays it, heck I know a few families that play together in it, and it’s not uncommon to here managers chatting about their characters, so in a way the old “You can’t go wrong buying Big Blue” rule is in effect, people can get that “feel good” feeling of not making a “wrong” purchase going with WoW.
The “arguments” start from what a person/organisations definition of “success” is, size is only one metric (and not the metric I personally use to judge whether I want to play a game). Accountants, G4 and other “size conscious” folks obviously use “size” as the yard stick, which isn’t a surprise, a lot of people _do_ use those metrics to measure “success” (Hollywood, the music industry, etc).
Take restaurants as an example. There are two metrics to look at with food, one is the quality and the other is quantity/value. You won’t get a good quality steak or roast cutlets of Castricum lamb with braised neck, creamed potato and piperade sauce at McDonalds, but they are one of the largest, most successful food outlets in the world. You’ll get a good value meal and you’ll know you can get that same standard of meal from any of their stores. Should all other restaurants shut down because McDonalds is the biggest?
My own humble opinion is that WoW is a run-a-way success in the quantity/value department, but isn’t so hot in the quality side of things (I am NOT referring to build quality here, Blizzard seem to have a high standard there, I’m referring to design quality and the “lowest common denominator”/no innovation/sameol,sameol thing).
I found it boring as bat shit after only 3 months, having capped one character in short order and had several on the way to the cap (I’m a 45 yo IT professional, I only play nights, I have a full time job and family so I class myself as a “heavy casual”). It’s far and away it’s the easiest MMO I’ve ever played, and while I had fun early on, it isn’t what _I’m_ looking for in entertainment…
I fully recognise that there are at least 9 million other people out there who don’t agree with my opinion in that regard though, 9 million burgers a day can’t be wrong, right ;o)