Can The Success of WoW Be Matched?

[Shawn Andrich]

Can The Success of WoW Be Matched?

DFC Intelligence president David Cole talks about the success of World of Warcraft and wonders if it can be matched.

David Cole is the President of DFC Intelligence [http://www.dfcint.com/], a market research firm that specializes in games. In an article posted on Next-Gen [http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3715&Itemid=2] and GameDaily [http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=13653&page=1], he elaborates on the success of World of Warcraft and what it means for the market.

The article begins by clarifying the "six million subscribers" number we often associate with the game. "We know, from the game's Chinese operator the9, that Warcraft has 5 million Chinese players," he said. "However, these Chinese users are not subscribers in the Western sense of the word: they do not pay a recurring monthly fee. In fact, they generate about 0.36 yuan per hour of gameplay; that's about 4 cents an hour. Of course, Chinese users log a lot of hours. In the second quarter of 2006, World of Warcraft generated $32 million."

While $32 million is a good deal of money, it's not nearly as much as the revenue generated by the Western market. "What we know for sure is that World of Warcraft has had one million North American subscribers and one million European subscribers for a total of over two million Western subscribers." In the Western market, players pay $14.99 US a month to play.

With the record subscriber numbers put up by Blizzard, investors are obviously keen to get into the MMO genre. Cole suggests that they be careful; the cost of developing new games may not balance with the income.

"In the new DFC Intelligence Online Game Market report we forecast revenue in the MMOG market to grow over 150% from 2006 to 2011. However, this doesn't account for all the investment money that is likely to be lost chasing after that revenue growth. After EverQuest's success over five years ago, millions of dollars flowed into the MMOG industry, far beyond what it could support," he warns.

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[Demiurge [deprecated]]

So what we're saying here is that WoW isn't quite the giant success we believe it to be? Or are we saying that the Chinese outnumber us 4:1 and someday those gold farmers will have their vengance?

 

[Lex Darko]

WoW's success can be duplicated. But a company would have to be smart about it. If you just try to jump out with a new MMO you aren't going to get the attention the game would need.

To get WoW level success you have to do what Blizzard did, make a franchise, a franchise that gamers can get behind, that make the name of a developer company a household name. For example the KotOR series two great games with the Star Wars ip. I would say make a third KotOR to cement the franchise for the Star Wars fans, the gamers and draw more attention then try a MMO with the KotOR license.

I think what alot of people forget about videogames and marketing is that word of mouth is still very important and having a successful series of games is better than any ad campaign some marketing wiz could ever come up with.

 

[Goofonian]

It's important to note here that WOW is actually a very good game. "hardcore" players can whinge and moan about how its a cookie cutter MMO with the warcraft licence, but the truth of the matter is that WOW can keep people interested who would normally never even consider playing an MMO.

I have quite a few friends that really aren't big gamers at all, let alone MMO junkies, and they happily fork out each month because it has LOADS of content and is actually just really good fun to play.