DapperBlondie
Verified Member
- 17
- 2022
- 1
A thought occurred to me the other day regarding World of Warcraft and the way that it deformed the MMO industry: People who are claiming that it’s the reason that the industry has changed so dramatically are right, but they’re not right about why or how.
If you’ve followed MMOs for long enough, you know that WoW was not, in many ways, the first of its kind in many places. It was not the first game with a soloable level experience, it wasn’t the first game to focus leveling around questing, it wasn’t the first game with instanced dungeons or the equivalent, and so forth. What it did was put all of that together into a bespoke package and experience that for many people was a heady and heretofore unseen blend of experiences that all worked together wonderfully, all at exactly the right time for it to explode around the world.
This led to a rush of new MMOs that were meant, in one way or another, to piggyback on WoW’s success. Yes, it took a little time to get there, just as it did with the rush of MOBA titles or the rush of battle royale titles or survival sandboxes or… well, you get the idea. The point was that big companies realized this could be profitable, and they rushed to blood in the water. None of this is new information.
If you’ve followed MMOs for long enough, you know that WoW was not, in many ways, the first of its kind in many places. It was not the first game with a soloable level experience, it wasn’t the first game to focus leveling around questing, it wasn’t the first game with instanced dungeons or the equivalent, and so forth. What it did was put all of that together into a bespoke package and experience that for many people was a heady and heretofore unseen blend of experiences that all worked together wonderfully, all at exactly the right time for it to explode around the world.
This led to a rush of new MMOs that were meant, in one way or another, to piggyback on WoW’s success. Yes, it took a little time to get there, just as it did with the rush of MOBA titles or the rush of battle royale titles or survival sandboxes or… well, you get the idea. The point was that big companies realized this could be profitable, and they rushed to blood in the water. None of this is new information.
