WoW Relevancy Question

[wakasm]

How long do you guys think that WoW will be relevant and/or king of MMO's? Let's pretend, for arguments sake, that the next best thing launches next year (<insert new MMO>) - how long do you think it would take for WoW to really suffer in population numbers, etc?

I ask here since I think the multiboxing community is by far one of the more intelligent communities, and a lot of people on here I know have been playing MMO's since forever...

I am one of the slower boxers on here (I generally play in spurts of 2 months at a time, usually right after an expansion, etc). However, due to work, etc - I can never fully commit as much as I would love to. I envision in 10 more years, once mortgage is paid off, etc... I'll be able to truly play to my hearts content - but wonder if that will be WoW or some other MMO.

Thoughts? Anyone else think about this long-term stuff?

[Kalros]

Well, considering the original King, EverQuest, is STILL alive and kicking, 12 years later (though granted not at nearly the population levels as at it's peak), I have no doubt that WoW will survive at least another 10 years from now. When will its population start to drop? I would estimate soon, because quite frankly, it is the same old thing, expansion after expansion, and people will just eventually tire of the formula, and I think we're seeing a very small sign of that with Cataclysm. They just recently announced that they had their first overall drop in subscription numbers (granted, again it was very small). I'd say starting about a year from now, with the release of The Old Republic and some other MMOs, that you'll start seeing a noticable population drop, but WoW will remain the "King" for at least another 2-3 years, minimum.

Thats just my opinion based on playing MMOs for 1/3 of my 35 years on this earth!

[Tonuss]

I think it will remain relevant for a bit longer. They lost some 600k subscribers over the past few months, and perhaps that is the start of a shrinking of the player base. It's hard to judge because their numbers are so large and have held up for a pretty long time. Many other MMORPGs have survived just fine on 50,000 to a few hundred thousand subscribers. WOW might settle into "old age" and still manage 500,000 to more than a million subs.

So the next 'relevant' MMORPG may need to hit the 2-3 million mark and stay there for a while, otherwise they'd just be in the shadow of a 'dying' game. Or maybe the next relevant MMO won't even be an MMO? WOW's fast expansion to such large subscriber numbers seems to have changed gaming. I wonder if they're actually signalling the end of the "massive persistent world" type of games. Or maybe it's just sword-and-sorcery games that are the problem, and players might be looking for something different (no idea what that might be, though).

To answer your specific question: if a new MMO launched and become the Next Big Thing, then I imagine WOW would fade away quickly to its 'maintenance levels.' I believe that if a game had the same impact as WOW, it would have the same effect. WOW pretty much trampled any existing MMOs within a year, and has trampled the ones that launched afterwards. To be the next WOW, I assume a game would have to trample WOW in a similar fashion.

[Kalros]

And to piggyback on what Tonuss was saying, I don't think another subscription-based MMO will ever surpass the 12 million that WoW had at it's peak. If any game were to ever overtake it, it would be more because of WoW's dwindling population and not some other game just getting that high number of subs.

I think Rift was the first REAL contender, but will eventually go the way of a game like Aion. I think the next real challenger will be The Old Republic, but it probably won't ever have more than a million subs or so.

[Ualaa]

If you had asked this question prior to the Wow beta, I would have been inclined to say nothing would pull EQ down.
But take a look at Warcraft subscriptions vs Everquest subscriptions...

Nothing is forever, but even if its not a top game down the road, it will likely remain around for a long time.
It could be another game by another publisher, or even another MMO by Blizzard.

Take a look at AoC, Aion, DAoC, EQ1, EQ2, LotRO, Rift, Warhammer, etc... how many are still active in some form and how many are gone?
Aside from EQ1, none of the others were ever the "top" game.

[Duane]

Unless the KOTOR MMO knocks it out of the park I think WoW is on top until Blizz releases their next MMO.

[Cookiebo]

I do hope, multiboxing will be a bigger part of the mmo world..
The next big thing for me, will be star wars, i never realy played any star wars game.. im more of a Daoc gamer, i like the Knight game style look.

[Bollwerk]

More competition for WoW will be a good thing. It will force them to be at the top of their game.
I keep hoping some company will make an MMORPG as good as WoW, but so far.... nothing comes close. (for me at least)

[Sam DeathWalker]

You have to look at the simple economics of the situation. WoW has the most money coming in and thus can hire more artists, programers, etc. There is no reason to suspect that Activision will not reinvest in WoW.

Aion spends X bucks on its new game. WoW spends 10X bucks on its new expansion ..... duh.

Why don't do you ask "How long will Google be the top search engine".

The only possible way it will die is if the graphics engine cannot match new competition. But you saw with Cata they revamped the old part of the world to update that engine. They may have enough money to port over to a new engine or they made their engine modular enough so that they can update it as time goes on, something EQ1 did not do (maybe because at the time they could not).

Ya its the same old same old but so what why would change a formula that has clearly worked. Does Coke change? You will see real change if the subscriber base drops by a ton.

No MMO is going to beat wow for the forseeable future. It will take a new platform (i.e. 3D) or something we don't know about right now to take it away. It won't die by a "similar" competitor, it will take something like people going to farmville or just some entierly different thing to hurt it. Like the WWF. Had its time in the sun, it didn't die by another wrestling federation coming along, it just slowly lost viewers as time went on. So it will be with WoW.

[zenga]

Only sam can compare wow with wrestling ....