3 ms·

If you aren't blizzard, the subscription, big budget, PC MMO is a very difficult business to succeed in. It's basically impossible - there's such a huge time in

by far33d 18y ago

If you aren't blizzard, the subscription, big budget, PC MMO is a very difficult business to succeed in. It's basically impossible - there's such a huge time investment that most players are unlikely to play more than one game at a time. Plus, to compete with WoW head on you have to spend their kind of budgets, which is an arms race you would be very likely to lose. Like competing with google, it's best to take an indirect approach.

marketer 18y ago
I like the comparison between Blizzard and Google, because they both have tremendous momentum in their favor. It would be an incredible feat for a company to make a better game than Blizzard. I've watched some QA sessions with Blizzard project leads, and they rarely seem to make assumptions about what works and what doesn't -- they rely on hard data, and the goal is always to maximize playability. Same with Google, their search has been incrementally improved over many years. They know what works and what doesn't. That might be why smaller game companies seem to be succeeding (social gaming, flash games), and domain-specific search engines are also doing well (video search, job search, travel search, etc..)
- Tichy 18y ago
  WoW is a very boring game. I wish somebody would create a more interesting MMORPG.
  - nazgulnarsil 18y ago
    it's not even that it is boring. it's that it is not really a game. MMO's tap into the same compulsion that cults often do, put a little number next to someone's name and they will kill themselves trying to make it higher (or lower as the case may be). In the case of WoW, this has been perfected to an art. You're always just a little bit of playtime away from making some number related to your character go higher. It's basically a drug.
    - 13ren 18y ago
      You mean WoW is beyond a game? The wish to improve one's "self" with respect to some numeric metric, and especially in comparison to others, has broader application than cults: academic performance. work performance. sports performance. money. also karma.
    - rms 18y ago
      I wonder which particular pleasure pathways WoW stimulates.

by far33d 18y ago

marketer 18y ago

I like the comparison between Blizzard and Google, because they both have tremendous momentum in their favor. It would be an incredible feat for a company to make a better game than Blizzard. I've watched some QA sessions with Blizzard project leads, and they rarely seem to make assumptions about what works and what doesn't -- they rely on hard data, and the goal is always to maximize playability. Same with Google, their search has been incrementally improved over many years. They know what works and what doesn't. That might be why smaller game companies seem to be succeeding (social gaming, flash games), and domain-specific search engines are also doing well (video search, job search, travel search, etc..)

Tichy 18y ago
WoW is a very boring game. I wish somebody would create a more interesting MMORPG.
- nazgulnarsil 18y ago
  it's not even that it is boring. it's that it is not really a game. MMO's tap into the same compulsion that cults often do, put a little number next to someone's name and they will kill themselves trying to make it higher (or lower as the case may be). In the case of WoW, this has been perfected to an art. You're always just a little bit of playtime away from making some number related to your character go higher. It's basically a drug.
  - 13ren 18y ago
    You mean WoW is beyond a game? The wish to improve one's "self" with respect to some numeric metric, and especially in comparison to others, has broader application than cults: academic performance. work performance. sports performance. money. also karma.
  - rms 18y ago
    I wonder which particular pleasure pathways WoW stimulates.