neils clark

The BBC’s article “Beating Warcraft at its own game” featured game developers intent on snatching up a share of the alluring MMO market. But can two successful MMO games co-exist, or is it really all or nothing when it comes to attracting customers to MMO worlds?

In many ways, World of Warcraft (WoW) got to its point of dominance by something I’ve called the nomad effect, or gamer tribalism. Players migrate from game to game in packs. The bulk of the gamers out there have traditionally moved in packs, fused together by bonds made in and outside of these games. Social bonds are an overwhelming force behind one person’s choice to move from one game to another, or to pick it up in the first place. For core gamers, trust, responsibility and reputation, identified by Jakobsson and Taylor, fuse groups of players together. This is where Warcraft is going to have the high ground in the months to come. Many core players are working their fingers to the bone, often playing more hours in a day than they go to work or school. For their investment to pay off, they’ve got to be able to trust dozens of other like-minded players, and these bonds of online trust, responsibility and camaraderie create groups that are almost reminiscent of nomadic desert tribes. If the tribe, or even sometimes one leader, decides that the more fertile valley is over yonder, for instance in Age of Conan or Lord of the Rings Online, rather than WoW, then it’s highly likely that the bulk of the group will go.

One or two stragglers may have their own reasons to resist, as is evidenced by those still mulling away on such worlds as Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) and Everquest. The world still holds something for them.

When Warcraft hit the scene, it pulled together many tribes of wandering gamers. At that time, no one game really had a substantially larger audience. Through a recognized brand, great exposure, an attractive game, and beta testing which worked more like a viral marketing campaign, WoW’s team was able to excite key decision makers in the guilds and groups of a dozen other MMO games, from Dark Age of Camelot to Asheron’s Call. I was playing SWG at the time, and I can’t recall a single guild leader who hadn’t been a part of the closed, invitation-only beta. At the time, Sony Online had been making some devastating changes to SWG, which had disenchanted many players. This made it easier for a number of people to greatly anticipate WoW’s open beta, which many participated in. When it came time that WoW officially released, there reached a tipping point. Old friends as well as established guilds decided to meet in certain servers. As time went on, the popularity of the game very quickly prompted others to make it their first MMO. The thousand nations of the Persian Empire poured into the Warcraft.

So can something a little bit more Spartan persuade gamers? As WoW neared its Burning Crusade expansion, a great many people had been feeling burnt out on Warcraft. The endgame raiding had taken a serious toll on gamers, in no small part due to the negative features inherent to 40 man raiding. In my own research, such raids appeared to be the single largest cornerstone to an overwhelmingly negative addiction. In fact, I knew a great many gamers who were ready to switch, though just lacked a compelling game to switch to. They were heartbroken when Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO) failed to deliver, for them, a quality experience. And now that WoW’s expansion pack has arrived, been digested, and players have eaten their fill, WoW might just be vulnerable. The special equipment and “phat lewt” that core gamers worked 2 years for is now obsolete, Karazhan, Blizzard’s latest take on raiding, is becoming just as demanding as the old 40-man dungeons, and there are really only a few “fresh” elements left to WoW. There’s no doubt that each of the upcoming blockbuster MMO games will take at least a few “gamer tribes.”

But will it be enough? Lord of the Rings Online’s has reached a reported 1 million pre-orders, though not all of their reviews have been stellar. Contrast this with Blizzard, who, in early January, sold 2.4 million copies of their Burning Crusade expansion on its first 24 hours. Age of Conan promises to attract a mature crowd, which is a welcome notion for any MMO enthusiast over the age of, say 12. These games all have their fancy hooks and lures, but in order to beat out Warcraft, what these games really need is players. Creative marketing and luck wouldn’t hurt, but the name of the game is players. This is because everybody knows someone who plays Warcraft. Even if we’re all, as the PARC research center suggests, “alone together,” it’s nice to think that we might occasionally grind with our wife’s level 70 night elf (trust me, that’s completely non-dirty gamer lingo).

Unless Blizzard decides to do something completely rash, then Warcraft probably won’t join the ranks of the gamer ghost-towns any time soon. Games like DAoC, Everquest and SWG have holdouts, but that’s really what they are. They’re people who just aren’t leaving, whatever their reasons. Then there are games like Final Fantasy XI, Eve Online, and City of Villains. They’re popular because they give players a targeted and specific experience. Yeah, they’ve got people, but they won’t be contending with WoW any time soon. Warcraft isn’t ready to hemorrhage its players.

If and when the world does deflate, Blizzard has only to remember that they’ve made billions, and unlike many other gaming companies should now enjoy an unprecedented level of creative freedom. No pressure guys, but your upcoming Starcraft game had better be awesome. That said, even after the demise of Warcraft, the MMO wave will not have broken. In Korea, the most wired country in the world, gamers are overwhelmed with more MMO games than ever before. MMOs are seen by Korean developers as the savior of the genre, because unlike traditional games they’re much harder to pirate.

While these games are profitable, is the American market big enough for two of them? Conan and LOTR are definitely going to make money. Gamers are going to get their feet wet, and they’re going to go kill rats, or whatever you do for fun. Regardless of the efforts put into Star Wars Galaxies, too many core gamers and tribal decision makers have too many bad memories. Only a brand new Star Wars MMO will bring people back. What the games releasing in the next few months are likely to do is to pull off a few tribes, more or less 20% of WoW’s US subscriber base. What that’s going to do is to make it easier for a game released a little bit later, probably Christmas 2007, to siphon off enough Warcraft gas. Then again, it might be a little bit before Christmas. Watch the releases of Pirates of the Burning Sea and Warhammer. Also, in the longer term, keep an eye out for Bioware’s super secret MMORPG, currently under development at their new Austin studio.

Though the gamer tribes of the world are always in constant motion, the playing field favors one big MMO. This is an all or nothing game.

Neils Clark :: May.10.2007 :: Games ::

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