The Golden 1M: World of Warcraft

In November, we asked whether World of Warcraft would be the first North American million-subscriber world. Today, it is.

Comments

[Jonas Antonsson]

Wahey! That's an amazing figure. 1.000.000 subscribers should be enough to form a substantial income base. Cudos to Blizzard.

J#

[Jonas Antonsson]

Not to mention the other 3.000.000 people from other countries that pay their monthly WoW bill as well.

J#

[Consumer]

I can almost hear those SOE/Lucasarts execs crying themselves to sleep...

"You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am."

Hopefully you lot are taking note...

[Mark Wallace]

WoWzers

[Dmitri Williams]

I think an issue is whether the mainstream press picks up on this. What level of penetration does a phenomenon have to reach before it is A) accepted and B) mainstream? If Xbox live has 2m subscribers, is that a significant social moment? Given the social connections occuring in virtual spaces, I think this is evidence of a fundamentaly different kind of social interaction. I also think it speaks directly to the need for connections and community that Putnam argues Americans have been steadily losing over the last four decades. IMO, the popularity of these games is a direct response to those trends.

I've been saying this to reporters over the last month while they've interviewed me about violence and aggression. A few even listened.

[Edward Castronova]

I think the connection to Putnam is dead on. Look, people are paying money to be in an environment where working together is expected.

[Consumer]

Surely Putnam references are a Red Herring?

What are the differences between WoW and UO/EQ/AC/SWG et al?

Why has WoW completely and utterly destroyed UO/EQ/AC/SWG et al in terms of subscriber numbers?

[Darniaq]

Why has WoW completely and utterly destroyed UO/EQ/AC/SWG et al in terms of subscriber numbers?

I speculate the current dominance of WoW is based on a few factors:

• Vivendi/Universal. This is no small-potatoes operation, and Blizzard is just a part of them. Of course, the comedy there is calling Blizzard "just" anything, considering their very succussful approach of entering established genres with faster and more intense iterations of the established base. Blizzard makes 'em, VU may have that necessary global reach.
• China. Anyone who can work a good partnership in this market stands to benefit. Notice I say "partnership". Blizzard can't just walk into Imperial Palace and demand a presence. Ya gotta know the system. Blizzard or VU or both did.
• Progressive launches. Every time the game launched in a new market, this effectively was secondary advertising. I imagine there's a corrolation between a spike in player activity around the time a new market launch happens that's outside of that market.
• It's not a hard game to cancel, and therefore not a hard game to re-up. Players "beat" most of this game far faster than any other MMO, and therefore arguably don't fall as deeply in love with it. At the same time, this lack of love makes it more casual, so much so that careening in and out is something easier to do than, say, EQ or SWG.

There's probably a large number of other reasons, but these are my top four hypotheses.

Dmitri wrote: I think an issue is whether the mainstream press picks up on this.

I agree. They haven't really yet, but I think it's partly because even 1mil U.S. isn't that much considering, say, the number of GTA:SA titles sold before the AO rating (about 35mil) or the number of XBox's on the market (22mil in Februrary). Those are the sorts of "serious" numbers that bely a mainstream. MMOs are still somewhat niche, nevermind the tens of millions of dollars collected in monthly fees worldwide. 1mil people doing something at any given time I guess is less interesting that 35mil of them :)

[Nick Yee]

I'm intrigued by the 3rd places argument but I also want to echo Consumer's skepticism. Not only is it unable to differentiate WoW from the other MMOs, but WoW is one of the most soloable games out there. If anything, WoW encourages people to not have to work together.

Also, it sidelines the other functions that "other players" do serve - e.g., as an audience for social prestige and social ranking rather than actual people to socialize with. It's this non-relational, and almost non-social, function of other players that could just as likely explain MMO success in general.

Sure, some players do play for the social connections, but how many players prefer to and are actually playing alone?

[Grax]

WoW is smooth. Tradeskills, combat, quests, maps, auction house, graphics, etc. All the WoW features/mechanisms are smooth.

One can also look at the other MMOGs on the market to gain insight into why WoW is successful: 95% or more of the other MMOGs on the market are trash. WoW is smoother trash, and everyone can appreciate the difference.

[gordon.calleja]

Nick, if playing alone is a big attractor to WoW, why wouldnt those soloers play the far more interesting and immersive standalone RPGs?
In every single aspect I can think of, soloing WoW is an inferior gaming experience to that provided by the best solo RPGs out there.

You don't have to work with others directly in a party to make up a social world, simply seeing other avatars do stuff around you and knowing they're humans is 'social'. Actually I think that one major attractor for WoW is that this is a place which is shared with so many others. I know I m going to find someone online, no matter what time I log on. I remember playing Neocron and not meeting a single human in hours. No matter how much I might have liked the game, I just stopped cause there s noone around.

I had never seen anyone in any netcafe I visited in NZ play an MMORPG before WoW was launched. Now half these places are filled with people shouting across the room ("hey, check this out...quick come help me there...I NEEDED that dagger...etc")

I personally find WoW incredibly tedious, but still play cause its the only MMORPG I can play with others I know. The widely shared knowledge of a fantasy world is what makes WoW so appealing. Equating soloable game elements in a world to a non-sociable world does not seem to make much sense IMO.

[darniaq]

What WoW highlights, to me, are these two perennial questions:

1. How much socializing is "required" for the viability of a persistent world?
   
2. How much does the average (read: casual) player want?

What about WoW separates it's solo/groupability from EQ, even the EQ from, say, three years ago? Yet, it's been argued EQ is more of a "social" game. We've all discussed aspects of why previously, be it the forced downtime, the number of players one needs to coordinate with, the average length of play session, and the type of players playing then (versus those playing now). But really, the foundation of the experience is the same. Players are basically simply able to achieve more in less time.

And let's look at that soloability.

What's soloable about any of the instances above, say, Scarlet Monastery (popular farming instance, almost level 40 appropriate), or any of the Battlegrounds? Yet, somewhere around 25% of the players have level 60 characters [1]. With 4mil subscriptions, even if we're really conservative and say that's really only 1mil actual people. 250,000 of them have been to the endgame. With the U.S. having just hit 1mil subscriptions in its ninth month, obviously the game isn't in freefall, so these people are doing something. One of the few "somethings" doable after 60 is the endgame activities, all of which require some form of grouping.

So people may not be chatting like they used to, and there's probably less wedding planning these days. There may not be as many fashion shows and social gatherings (though they do happen) either. But to me, this requires we ask different types of questions, like:

1. Are the traditional examples of a socially interactive persistent world something the mass market ever wanted?
   
2. Does the mass market even really want truly escapist immersion?
   
3. Is focusing on immersion through graphics and audio quality holding some games back from mass appeal?
   
4. Is mass appeal even a goal considering the sort of experiences consider appropriate for them?

[gordon.calleja]

darniaq, you raise interesting questions. What do you mean exactly by "truly escapist immersion"?

More specifically, what does the term "escapist" imply?

[Dmitri Williams]

"So people may not be chatting like they used to, and there's probably less wedding planning these days."

Ironically, I'm reading TN after finishing my evening WoW play, during which I talked for a long time with a guildmate about her RL wedding planning.

Anyway . . . I suppose we can postulate that WoW's big (for the US) success must either come from taking players away from other MMOs or from attracting new ones, or both. Maybe Woodcock's data can shed some light on option A. As to option B, there's got to be some word-of-mouth snowballing going on. As in: Hey, I know you never played one of these thingies before but this one's fun. Then the newbie tries it and finds that it's all visually lighthearted and immediately accessible, which leads to longer-term hooks.

Nick, do you have any data on the solo/group thing? I've always assumed that solo players would go for a stand-alone RPG, too. Better graphics and stories, no lag, etc. My experience is anecdotal, so I don't want to generalize. It is very social, I think due to extensive use of voice chat in a large guild of fairly mature gamers clearly looking for community (see Putnam, Oldenburg, etc.).

[Keith M Ellis]

"why wouldnt those soloers play the far more interesting and immersive standalone RPGs?"

I would think the answer to that question would be obvious to this crowd. The milieu is more compelling simply by virtue of the other human players existing. The world is more real. When I play a solo RPG these days, I am always struck by how vacant, and thus static and unreal, the game world feels as compared to MMORPGs.

[Brent Parker]

Being able to so solo in a RPG is important to folks that want to have a powerful character, but don't like to beg for groups. If you've played a ranger on orginal EQ you know what I am talking about.

They want be powerful among peers, and self made wo/men at the time.

[bruce boston]

Congrats Blizzard! 1M US Mark is now to the industry what the 4 minute mile was to Olympic athletes after it was broken.

I think the connection to Putnam is dead on.

I prefer Aristotle to Putnam. "Humans are social animals" The desire for humans to socialize is much older than America, its older than the Colosseum or even Rome itself. To predict that humans will continue to form communities is like predicting that insects will continue to swarm, or birds will continue to flock, or fish will continue to school.

It's been argued that this drive is what builds cities, states, and nations, and what demands technologies like radio, television, and the internet. It's also what fuels the communities of tomorrow.

Once the 4 minute mile was broken, there was little argument that it couldn't be done by many to come.

-bruce

There is a universe of difference between soloing in WoW and playing an offline single player RPG. WoW is successful for some very simple reasons, IMO.

It's not afraid to be a game.

It doesn't punish the player.

It respects casual gamers.

It is up to basic production value and interface polish specifications of offline games.

It understands that socialization need not be forced in order to flourish.

These all seem pretty basic when you put them like that, but none of the competition follows those same mantras. I don't think WoW is the 900 lbs gorilla. I think it's the primitive caveman who has just learned to use fire. That makes it an incredible step forward from the other cavemen, but hardly the end of the journey of progress. :)

Unfortunately for them, many of the other MMOs still seem to be complaining about how dangerous this "fire" thing is, how it must be evil witchcraft, and really weren't we all better off before?

[Rob "Xemu" Fermier]

Whoops, that was me. Gotta get used to this whole "computer" thing.

[Grax]

"These all seem pretty basic when you put them like that, but none of the competition follows those same mantras. I don't think WoW is the 900 lbs gorilla. I think it's the primitive caveman who has just learned to use fire. That makes it an incredible step forward from the other cavemen, but hardly the end of the journey of progress. :)" - Rob "Xemu" Fermier

What you call "progress" some call "smooth newbie bullshit". I'm sure many people called McDonalds "progress" in the realm of food preparation when that company was starting out.

Taste, taste, taste. So underrated.

[JLIU]

Just some self observation & looking back across my MUD/MMOs and comparing them with solo-RPGS.

On SOLO RPG.
I grew up with Final Fantasy, hooked on SNES and played every one of them. Aside from FFXI, FF is what I considered to be a SOLO experience.
(Please don't side track into how FF is not the greatest RPG there is, that's probably true, I think I just like the 'value' in believing that I've got here a game that a player can throw 200 hours of playing time at and still find something new to do). Prince of Persia was fun and exciting, but you can finish it in 10 hrs and think about what to do next... may be go back to that driving game.
FF becomes somewhat different when you have a friend playing next to you, or you hand the controller over and watch him play instead. Somehow it became a 'multiplayer' SOLO-RPG. And there's joy in being with friends and just play a game together.

ON MUDs.
I was never a player for very long - became a creator instead and watched players. There are players that would RP with anyone who wants to put in an effort. There are also players that just stick with their real life friends, and avoid strangers. Whatever they need they can produce within the few RL friends they know. So it is seems they still enjoy the game with just buddies.

ON MMOs.
I have never really seen the Massive aspect of a MMO. I never feel that you really are interacting with more than a dozen at the same time.
Sure, there are 600 players online at once, but I only talk to the 5 that are in my party.

[Brent Parker]

JLIU: Have you ever ran a raid?

[Bart Simon]

Just to weigh in on this 3rd places argument... so much more needs to be said about the nature of connections and interactions that are occuring in these spaces (and I know Dimitri is on this already).

I tend to agree with Nick Yee - other MMOGs are more sociable and arguably they generate more meaningful communities amongst their smaller subsciber base.

WoW is more soloable but then why not play solo games instead. One thing Putnam never got straight (IMO)is the human social propensity to be alone together... this is truly bowling alone... to simply hang out doing your own thing while others do the same. Maybe have the ocassion conversation, maybe work together for mutual benefit, maybe pick on someone else for fun.

Actually in this sense - Benedict Anderson's Imaginary Communities is a better resource than Putnam's 3rd places perhaps.

Anyway, I think this is the niche Blizzard has mastered without necessarily knowing it... and its a fair reproduction of Putnam's modern civic society.

Very crucial however is the demographic data here -- how much of this subscriber base is playing the high end game with its very sociably militaristic raid organizations and how much is stuck in the mid-range (like me :-) basically doing my own thing and hooking up with guildmates or whoever when my fancy or intrumental reason dictates? Nick, do you have any data on that?

[Mike Sellers]

One thing Putnam never got straight (IMO)is the human social propensity to be alone together

Good comment, Bart. Consider the popularity of going to a movie, where we sit in the dark not speaking, and yet still sharing an experience. Or amusement parks, of which Disney's are the summit. I believe it was Disney who said that "shared experiences are compelling experiences." And yet there too, the level at which the experiences are 'shared' vary widely.

I think one crucial aspect of being 'alone together' is that people like the feeling that they could get together with others if they wanted to. Being in a WoW-like space without being able to communicate to others there would, I suspect, be much less attractive than the present setup, even if you rarely do communicate with others whom you see there.

how much of this subscriber base is playing the high end game with its very sociably militaristic raid organizations and how much is stuck in the mid-range?

Graphics showing zone population for the time of day can be found on PlayOn. I may be mis-reading this data, but, while IronForge and Molten Core stick out, it doesn't look as lopsided as I would have suspected.

[Brian Miller]

From my limited knowledge of the 100 or so people I play with very few cancel and re-up. Many take a break now and then but let their subscription continue. Others cancel and don't come back at all (or at least have not so far).

Although the game is very soloable early on it is still superior to a single player rpg in that if you get into an area where you need help there are plenty of people around to lend a hand.

Soloable at the start but by the time you reach the 50's playing solo is not an option if you wish to advance. Both PvP and PvE play require a group of anywhere from 5 to 40 players to accomplish the available tasks.

At this point nearly every player has at last one max level character and rather than quit due to lack of content has started an 'alt'. The ease of levelling combined with the community relationships that are built over time keep people in the game longer than they would have stayed in others where progress were more tedious or difficult.

[Bart Simon]

Mike Sellars wrote:

"Graphics showing zone population for the time of day can be found on PlayOn. I may be mis-reading this data, but, while IronForge and Molten Core stick out, it doesn't look as lopsided as I would have suspected"

Thanks for reminding us to check this Mike... the data helps and provides an indication of where to look for the character/quality of social interaction.

I think one of the main problems (forgive my bias) is an undertheorized notion of what "being social" means. Players of solo rpgs are already social (as members of a culture, or more directly as participants in the metagame). That MMOG players interact (by trading stuff, grouping or even having wedddings) tells us nothing about the meaning of those interactions for the players. Yes they socialize but that does not mean they are more or less "social" than anyone else.

In comparing MMOGs its these multiple meanings of socialness we need to figure out and crucially we need to not take designers or players words for it either.

One hypothesis following Putnam in fact is that WoW allows social actors as players to keep on keeping on with their instrumentally driven alienated existences under the guise of living at "Cheers" (the malaise of modernity - yadayadayada). This would contradict Dimitri's (and Constance's) WoW as heavenly 3rd place argument (er.. my bias again). But i'm game... are Lineage or EQ more 3rd place-ish in Putnamian terms than WoW? Here the quants and the quals (or the structuralists and post-structuralists) can surely get together as long as we agree that social capital is not the only measure of the social bond.

[LEKO]

From a casual player perspective, WoW is nearly perfect.

- Soloable and enjoyable in solo.
- Fun
- Possibility of very different gameplay depending on class/profession/talents selection.
- Fun
- No grinding required unless you want to do it.
- Fun
- Questing, questing, questing... Quest log always full!
- Fun

I could go on and on, but Blizzard always made nearly-perfect games for the masse. And this translates in HIGH-SELLS for every title they make.

Blizzard = Fun games
It's simple! :)

[Nick Yee]

I want to emphasize that I didn't say "playing alone" to mean "being alone". I meant "playing alone" in the sense that Bart Simon and Mike Sellers elaborated on - the "alone together" - using other players as an audience rather than as social connections. After all, just because singing on stage involves an audience doesn't mean any socializing is going on. And to argue that performers should then prefer to sing alone misses the role the audience was playing.

The reason why achievement driven soloers may prefer MMOs is because this audience provides comparison and ranking. Being level 50 in a single-player game is not very meaningful. Being level 50 in an MMO means you're better than all those players below you. I'm not saying this is the sole function of other players, but it's clear that other players can function as non-relational motivators.

Some PlayOn data on grouping and soloing:
- http://blogs.parc.com/playon/archives/2005/06/grouping_and_so.html
- http://blogs.parc.com/playon/archives/2005/06/grouping_ratio.html

What the data does show is that over a 5-day period, among players who played more than 5 hours, 16% never grouped. (Given we have no base rates, it's not clear though what we should compare that % to.)

And that soloing is the far more prevalent than grouping especially in the lower levels. One could argue that WoW is social in the high-end game, but it would be harder to make that case for the low to mid-range play.

[hikaru]

gordon: "...if playing alone is a big attractor to WoW, why wouldnt those soloers play the far more interesting and immersive standalone RPGs? In every single aspect I can think of, soloing WoW is an inferior gaming experience to that provided by the best solo RPGs out there."

1. Interesting is subjective. WoW has more stories, backgrounds, enviroments, and mechanics than, say, Final Fantasy I and X.
2. Immersion is not a major deciding factor in the success of RPG's. Immersion also needs to be better defined. More worldy vs. gamey? FFI is worldy, but only wading-pool deep, and sold very well. Disgaea is gamey (like most any strategy RPG) and sold very well. Neither games were immersive. Bandai's .hack series was very immersive, and sold terribly.
3. Soloing in WoW vs. soloing in FFX or KOTOR or Jade Empire etc. In WoW, after 200 hours, you are still soloing. You can't put 200 hours into a stand-alone game. 90% of the time, there's no content left, even after 60 hours.
4. The WoW market is dynamic. There are social variables which affect your solo game, e.g. price of market goods, PvP threats which may prevent you from safely doing X/Y/Z.
5. There is the added challenge of soloing in WoW. You can do X/Y/Z in a group -- Easy Difficulty -- or you can do X/Y/Z solo -- Hard Difficulty. Single player, offline RPG's are designed for only one player. WoW content can be designed for 5, but could possibly be done by one.
6. WoW gives players the option to solo Or group, with both having enough content to fulfill either side's expectations. Want pie? Sure. Want ice cream? Sure. Simple idea, yet it is one most designers refuse to embrace, dictating, "you MUST group to play this game, etc..." Blizzard says, "do whatever you want. We'll develop the content accordingly."

I can go on and on, and your personal gaming needs may differ, but I can guarantee you that one of the prime factors in WoW's success is that unlike the gross majority of MMORPG's on the market today, in WoW, you can enjoy the majority of the content casually and at your own pace -- which can mean solo.

If you think that analysis is wrong, maybe check out some of SOE's latest ads...

[darniaq]

I think many have said it before, or at least, I can't believe I'm the only one who's ever said it :)

Players like the opportunity to play together. Many don't like being forced to do so though.

This is where "Massive" is relevant: To me, it's about the easy opportunity to play a self-directed experience, meet some new people, meet up with existing friends, or doing a bit of all three during a play session. The opportunities to do this are based on the thousands of concurrently active avatars within the compartmentalized game space. There may be only 50 people in a zone, but you're not restricted to that zone nor those 50 people. This is a marked difference from every other genre in which a game experience involves the set number of participants who all started together.

Gordon Calleja asked: What do you mean exactly by "truly escapist immersion"?
More specifically, what does the term "escapist" imply?

To me, it's a question of motivation. Do players want to get in and play a game that involves overcoming a series of challenges until they win? Or do they want to feel like they're part of an ever changing virtual society in which they can grow both socially and competently alongside others doing so through all forms of activity from direct action to indirect socializing to abstract economics and politics? The latter I consider "escapist" in a way. All of what an escapee feels interested in doing in a virtual world can be done in real life. They just choose to do it in a virtual setting. Therefore, why they choose one game over another is different than why a "gamer" chooses one game over another.

It's why I can't really accept anymore that "MMOG" covers every game from Second Life to Guild Wars. I consider that somewhat comedic really, given both the nature of those games and the type of player attracted to them. Is someone who loved GW going to love SL? Maybe. But I have my doubts there's an appreciable number of them.

[Dmitri Williams]

Nick: "What the data does show is that over a 5-day period, among players who played more than 5 hours, 16% never grouped. (Given we have no base rates, it's not clear though what we should compare that % to.)

And that soloing is the far more prevalent than grouping especially in the lower levels. One could argue that WoW is social in the high-end game, but it would be harder to make that case for the low to mid-range play."

Thanks for the data! So 16% never group, which means that they stayed solo either by preference, necessity or for some other reason (uncomfortable reaching out?). Thus 84% did. The quality of those interactions escapes our analysis, so I'm thinking we really don't know much about the degree of sociability taking place. Some portion will be active and some pretty fly-by-night. I'm with Bart on the multiple types of socialness.

My way of thinking about it and measuring it is to parse interactions into bridging--meeting people and forming casual bonds, e.g. p-up groups, and bonding--making stronger connections that yield emotional or practical support, e.g. guildmates offering each other advice on RL issues. I have little clue about the extent to which these things occur systematically.

Bart: "One hypothesis following Putnam in fact is that WoW allows social actors as players to keep on keeping on with their instrumentally driven alienated existences under the guise of living at "Cheers" (the malaise of modernity - yadayadayada). This would contradict Dimitri's (and Constance's) WoW as heavenly 3rd place argument (er.. my bias again). But i'm game... are Lineage or EQ more 3rd place-ish in Putnamian terms than WoW? Here the quants and the quals (or the structuralists and post-structuralists) can surely get together as long as we agree that social capital is not the only measure of the social bond."

Actually, what we say (maybe this thing will get published and I can link it!) is that for the casual player the 3rd Place element is a pretty good place for the bridging function. This can lead to bonding, but that takes time, interdependence and personalities that work. For the more hard core players, we suspect there is more bonding. The bottom line is us suggesting that someone who has a lack of bridging might benefit from starting MMO play while someone who needs bonding is less likely to benefit. As time goes on and more substantial connections are forged, that prescription would flip.

As to comparing the leves of things game to game, I'd suspect that the key variables would be the necessity of grouping with others, the benefits of longer-term groups for success and the overall culture of sociability. For example, L2 has a lot of adena-farming and tension and trash talking and the PvP orientation makes strangers enemies. When I played AC2 on a PvE server, people were substantially more friendly and open to connections. And I bet the XP bonus given for grouping makes a difference. L2's is pretty low, or was last year when I threw my copy away in disgust. So I suspect it's one part game mechanics and one part cultural atmosphere. Maybe someone else here can pin this down better.

Last, I really like the alone together concept. Does anyone think that this would vary by personality? It seems like the "lone wolf" of an MMO must be different than the "lone wolf" of Baldur's Gate.

[Bart Simon]

last thought for a while on this excellent thread... and just to reinforce my point. Nick's data is great but evidence of grouping or not is simply an indicator that people are in groups not that they have any kind of relation (bridging or bonding included).

I've been in groups where no one said a thing and i've been soloing and spending all my time in whispers and general chat forming bonds up the wazoo. I would argue that the "group" (the game mechanical group not the sociological group) is barely a sufficient condition for social interaction let alone 3rd placeness.

...but I suppose if one wanted to start somewhere groups wouldn't be bad - its just "socialness" (whatever that is) is more likely than not to be an unintended consequence of group play and I wouldn't say non-grouped play is any less social than grouped play in WoW (high end game excluded :-)

[gordon.calleja]

Bart's point above is spot on. I've had very similiar experiences. On top of that some of the richest social experiences I've had where while soloing. Bumping into someone who needs help and then bumping into them again in a few weeks or months and then chatting for hours on end. Something that has happened at every level.

I agree that soloing in WoW can take you quite far into the levels but you also tend to meet a lot of others that are soloing similiar areas with whom you exchange stuff, notes and so on which tends to land people in the friends list, whether you've grouped with them or not.

So I'd say it would be misleading to draw conclusions about the "socialness" of various stages of an mmo from the frequency of grouping thereof.

[magicback (Frank)]

I also agree that grouping does not equal to socializing. Grouping is probably a better indicator of cooperating than socializing.

Perhaps there is a way to identify measurable social lubricating activiting for different games and then measure them, an social activity that does not result in objective results. For example, the amount of dancing in WoW but not the amount of dancing in SWG. For example, the amount of time spent shopping at the EQ bazaars but the not the amount of time spend in WoW AH (I personally love "window" shopping at exotic RL bazaars and viewed as a social activity.)

Frank

[Darniaq]

I vaguely recall some long distant thread in which someone talked about ingame downtime being required for social lubrication. Caused an interesting stir :)

However, I think it's measurable, and useful.

I also agree measuring other such activities would provide interesting insights. However, I think this sort of measurement would be fairly complex.

• First, we'd need to use percentages, given the wide number of account quantities across the various games (ie, there could be statistically more people dancing in WoW at any given time than in SWG simply by virtue of the number of subscribers).
  
• Second, we'd need to determine which games feature Dancing in what ways. WoW dancing is an Emote. SWG Dancing is (like Music) a method of providing game-required regeneration and not-so-required-but-enjoyed buffs.
  
• Second, I would be concerned about a local server conditions. In my experience, some game servers are more conducive to none-combat-all-the-time activities than others.
  
• Third, in both games (as in many), dancing is a somewhat AFK-able activity. Meanwhile, if someone isn't AFKing it, they're pressing keys they would otherwise be using to talk, so aren't really being socially lubricated ;)

I consider this an interesting contradiction. Players are given the ability to conduct roleplay-like activities, but because the interface for those is built around the same interface for crafting and hunting (for the most part), players can't really converse. It's a double-edged sword maybe. How does a developer make an activity as compelling for a roleplayer as they have for a combatant or crafter? The direct answer is, I guess, to immerse that player into the activity through attending keypresses and getting results.

I personally find it works fairly well. I'm not much of a crafter or roleplaying but I loved the way EQ2's crafting system was designed. And I hit Master Musician twice in SWG because the /flourish system, particularly with special effects droids and a full band of other instruments and interested musicianships, was somewhat more compelling than most combat I'd experienced in the earlier games. Truly felt there like I did as a song-twisting EQ Bard :)

*breaks into Memories*

[Jessica Mulligan]

Interesting, excellent discussion. Just a few quick responses/comments:

Darniaq>"I speculate the current dominance of WoW is based on a few factors:" (snip)

You left out the most important factor: Reputation. Blizzard had an incredible (and well-deserved) reputation world-wide for quality game play prior to the WoW launch, based on the popularity of Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft in various markets. This has been especially important in China and Korea.

Darniaq>"China. Anyone who can work a good partnership in this market stands to benefit. Notice I say "partnership". Blizzard can't just walk into Imperial Palace and demand a presence. Ya gotta know the system. Blizzard or VU or both did."

This is somewhat misleading, depending on how you define 'benefit.' There have been good partnerships in China for other popular games from the West and Korea, ones that were marketed as well as WoW, that have failed miserably in the market. Just ask SOE and Ubisoft.

Blizzard chose The9 because they won the bidding war, pure and simple. Any number of companies could have provided the proper or even better partnership values (such as Shanda, TOM or Netease, for example), but The9 brought over $50 million to the table.

The9 also has experience running a popular MMO in the Chinese market, so they aren't tyros. However, on a purely partnership issues basis on paper, Shanda or Netease have (or had) better credentials. Note that one of Netease's inhouse MMOs, which launched about the same time with less marketing, is beating WoW's peak concurrencies by about 50%.

For all that, I'm glad The9 is succeeding well; I know those guys and like them a lot.

The Soloability Debate: I think we're missing the point, which is choice. It isn't just about the quality of the solo experience versus the better experience of stand-alone RPGs. It is the connection between soloability AND having other people available at a moment's notice to either join in or admire your buff avatar. It is cool to be able to solo around, yet know that the land is populated. It is like shooting hoop on an empty court, while you decide whether to join the nearby pick-up game.

Blizzard did their research and tapped into this. I don't know if "alone together" describes it, but I can't think of any other term or phrase that does.

Agreed on that last important point, Jess.

As I said earlier in response to Bart: "I think one crucial aspect of being 'alone together' is that people like the feeling that they could get together with others if they wanted to. Being in a WoW-like space without being able to communicate to others there would, I suspect, be much less attractive than the present setup, even if you rarely do communicate with others whom you see there."

And it's not just that others are present: players are present in a way that makes them seem at least nominally open to social contact (another reason why taverns in various guises are so important -- 3rd places within a 3rd place!); they have persistent identity, so there's benefit to familiarity; and there are often immediate tangible benefits for social contact that can act as a catalyst to being more sociable. Remove any one of these and you're suddenly a lot more "alone in a crowd" than you are "alone together."

[espie]

Ah, wonderful how you hit my experiences with MMOGs in general spot on in how Soloing and Aloneness are experienced in these VWs.

My first experience ever with a MMOG was UO. I decided that I wanted to do some anonymous exploring alone. I went far and wide, until I came across some caves I thought to be deserted when I spot another player that mined minerals deep inside. This captures the very essence of what I find so fascinating with these worlds; Being alone with others.

When I play offline single player MMOGs it actually feels like a waste (for me) since it doesn't mean anything to have a high-level character. I can't compare to others, I can't have a (direct/indirect) impact on others, no matter how small. At least they noticed my cool headgear as I ran by.

I think Blizzard did a very smart thing by lowering the difficulty by allowing people to solo all the way to the top and make grouping optional. To organize and maintain a random group to take an instance can incur large overhead in means of time. And to more casual players, I think this can feel like a time sink sometimes.

Ok, I didn't add much new thought here, but I it was just delightful to see how others feel it regarding to being alone together :-)

[Darniaq]

Jessica Mulligan: You left out the most important factor: Reputation. Blizzard had an incredible (and well-deserved) reputation world-wide for quality game play prior to the WoW launch, based on the popularity of Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft in various markets. This has been especially important in China and Korea.

Good point! I forgot just how popular particularly Starcraft is over in Korea. Wasn't that the number one online game over there for awhile?

I also figured it a foregone conclusion that "Blizzard" has become something of a brand name on its own. They make fun games, and that's that. Not flawless, not perfect, and not universally beloved, but their reach as a game provider is broad, particularly because they have multinational cross-cultural appeal.

You make an interesting point about the partnership vs the game viability too. I always considered it odd that EQ and SB didn't take off in an environment that played (then) games like Lineage. I figured SB's problems were rooted in the quality of the programming and that EQ didn't have the huge appeal because it focused specifically on PvE.

...and mentioned Netease

Once again my western-bias is exposed :) Are you talking about Westward Journey Online II or Fly for Fun or another title? I particularly liked the style of the former, but hadn't realized until now just how popular it had become. I just assumed Mu dominated everything...

[Thabor]

The Soloability Debate: I think we're missing the point, which is choice. It isn't just about the quality of the solo experience versus the better experience of stand-alone RPGs. It is the connection between soloability AND having other people available at a moment's notice to either join in or admire your buff avatar. It is cool to be able to solo around, yet know that the land is populated. It is like shooting hoop on an empty court, while you decide whether to join the nearby pick-up game.

In every single aspect I can think of, soloing WoW is an inferior gaming experience to that provided by the best solo RPGs out there.

I'm amazed. What are standalone RPGs assumed to be so superior? And why in the world it assumed the non-grouping is non-social?? I have yet to play standalone RPG that gives a true sense of place the way an MMO can. Standalones are always missing that bit of white noise, chaos, or randomness that comes from having other people around. Even if I don't choose to interact with them seeing other people moving around with purpose, knowing that things don't just idle as soon as they are out of my perception makes a huge difference.

Getting back to the question of subscriber numbers, I personally think the huge success of WoW (relative to the other MMOG big guns) is down to the strong solo play and real attempt to incorporate narrative. From levels 1-59, it really is like a traditional single-player RPG and thus very casual friendly.

UO and SWG were very solo friendly but lacked this narrative element. If SWG was designed as 'WoW with Star Wars setting', they would be sitting on 4 million subscribers, not less than 10% of that figure as they are now. Of course, with a game like this the narrative will eventually come to an end, but WoW has shown that you can string this narrative out into a huge amount of real-world time.

[Rich Thurman]

Okay...so now they broke a million in the US, but whcih MMOG will be the frist to boast a gross income of one billion in revenue a year? I think WoW is pretty close depending on how you scale it.

I hope that money goes to more improvments and better innovation.

[Bob Moore]

Is WoW's wild commercial success primarily due to its superior game design or has Sony simply been "betamaxed" again?

Game play in WoW and EQII are similar in many respects: you spend most of your time running around, alone or in a group, killing mobs and delivering items to NPCs in order to complete a multitude of quests and level up. (Unfortunately, if you want to hang out and socialize at, say, a virtual rave with real music and a variety of avatar dances in a player-crafted/created environment, you have to play a different game like SWG circa 2004 or Second Life.) In both WoW and EQII, you can also use zone-wide chat to help you put together a group more easily (although I miss the bustling coach stables of EQOA); ask a guard for directions so you don't waste hours searching for quest-givers; and take a cool ride on griff.

Now WoW certainly has some great features that EQII does not, such as "quest sharing," "one-click crafting," a language barrier between factions, ubiquitous humor, and stylized cartoonish graphics. But EQII also has some great features that WoW lacks, such as "mentoring," "spell/ability queuing," an anti-kill-stealing mechanism, easy "assisting," and rich realistic graphics. Which design is better?

The difference could be that WoW offers dueling and PvP along with PvE while EQII does not. But Sony already tried this with SWG, and it never came close to even one million worldwide subscribers.

So even after reading this insightful thread, I'm still puzzled as to exactly which features of WoW account for its domination over other U.S. MMORPGs. I'm beginning to wonder if the explanation of WoW's success is not to be found in any particular features but in other factors, just as the triumph of VHS over Beta or of the PC over the Macintosh was not due to superior technology.

[magicback (Frank)]

Hey Jessica,

Can't wait to see the response to D&D Online and LoTR Online in China and in the US.

D&D has a "cult" following in China. Even Magic: the Gathering, or derivatives of it, have a strong following. But, you probably got the details from your contacts in China.

The marketing and operational capabilities of Shanda, should help much to make the launch very successful.

Frank

[magicback (Frank)]

Bob,

WoW success in the US market is a combination of many different factors. Strong brand and IP is one factor. Strong and fun gameplay is another.

Can't presume at the moment to pinpoint all the major factors, but I do think that the structuring of the gameplay to make it easy and familiar to console gamers yet have the top-end gameplay for the hardcore gamers have something to do with it.

All the other MMORPGs were too “old school” (my opinion). It’s like the current fans of rap and hip hop viewing 80’s rap as so “old school.” WoW is easy and friendly enough for new players to learn about online RPG gaming.

I think WoW as done much to educate prospective customers to the joys of online RPG gaming. It would be good to see what % of WoW customers are new to MMORPGs.

Frank

[Jessica Mulligan]

Having Shanda as a partner certainly does give DDO a leg up in China, especially if Shanda pulls out the stops in marketing and promotion.

We're just going to have to wait and see, I guess. The last version of DDO I looked at before I left Turbine was pretty fun to play, but the only way to know for sure if it will be popular there is to launch it, :D.

[Darniaq]

Bob Moore wrote: Is WoW's wild commercial success primarily due to its superior game design or has Sony simply been "betamaxed" again?

Game play in WoW and EQII are similar in many respects

While WoW and EQ2 (and every Diku iteration) all share commonality of raw concept, it's the motivation and pacing that widely separate them all. However, beyond the textual feature lists, the games play very different. EQ2 seemed to target burned out hardcore veterans with a more casual version of the game they remembered. WoW is a fundamentally casual experience with an optional hardcore component.

The reason I don't agree with your "betamax" comment is because the media format has long been said to have superior quality while VHS managed to align more studios through relationships, thus ensuring consumers accepted a "lesser" quality. As such, I can't agree that there are more people playing a "lesser" game in WoW when they could be player a higher quality one in EQ2. This is because I don't believe where EQ2 is superior actually matters to the average (read: casual) gamer.

Every game does something better than another. EQ2's graphics are superior, but the game play of WoW has more universal appeal (in my opinion). Further, the history of both brands have traditionally targeted different types of players. I applaud SOE's efforts to broaden the awareness of EQ, but that's a relatively recent effort. Meanwhile, having been around for over ten years (since 1994), Warcraft is one of the granddaddy brands of computer gaming (at least to those playing games the most these days... and again, in my opinion).

So I don't think there's a single answer really, but rather, a convergence of factors, many of which are covered here.

[Dmitri Williams]

I agree with many of the explanations here for WoW's success, but want to add one possibility: some cultural products are popular because they are popular. That is, we've all seen a nightclub that's popular because people are inside, not because it's that great a nightclub. The virtuous circle of success leading to success can outwiegh the quality of the original thing.

Also related is what some folks call the "network effect." Things are valuable because others are in the network of users. e.g. a phone system adds value as more people join it. This often makes the quality of the system secondary to the sheer fact that it's used by many. (see also MS Office, etc.)

[Luca Girardo]

I was just reading one of the several articles about WoW business success over at CNN

"...Nine months later, "World of Warcraft" has more than 4 million paying subscribers (meaning players who paid $50 or more for the game in stores, then roughly $15 per month to continue playing). ..."

I would expect from CNN a bit more in deep analysis. Of the 4 million customers, only a fraction are full paying customers. For China for example The9 has already paid the royalties for the whole year in advance (meaning that the large Chinese customer numbers (over 2 million) does not have any influence on the revenues for Blizzard/Vivendi for the first year).

[Adam Hough]

(Warning: long post and all that)

Prior to WoW, my only experience with online multiplayer games was the original text MUD in its various incarnations which I played for years. I tried a few other text adventures (such as the DikuMUD ported over to the Amiga that ran on the AMUC IceBBS system) but never really got involved in them. Inbetween I tried a few other multiplayer games but while they were fun, they weren't persistant worlds nor massively multiplayer (Neverwinter Nights or any of the various games with an online component like Need For Speed for example) but mostly focused on single player games. I never was involved in EverQuest (or "EverCrack" as some wags referred to it,) Ultima Online or Lineage. Why? I guess I was put off by the subscription price and that I didn't know anyone who played them.

When WoW came around, I wasn't paying attention either. While I loved Starcraft, Diablo and Warcraft II, I never got into Warcraft III and Diablo II so yet another Blizzard game just didn't rate high on my radar. It did on my brother-in-law's though: being a Mac fanatic, Blizzard's support for the Macintosh meant he tended to buy into pretty much everything the company did, including WoW. As he was sucked in to it during the beta period, he introduced it to my sister who got quite involved with it too. As a point of reference, my sister was just as fascinated as I was with the original text MUD so it probably wasn't a hard sell. Come Christmas 2004, they came over to Calgary for the holiday and brought the game with them. One of the extremely clever things Blizzard did -- given the lack of a demo version -- was to include a 10 day subscription in the deluxe package for players to give to someone else. It didn't give a full version of the game to them in the sense that when the trial was up, a full boxed version of the game needed to be purchased in order to continue playing, but it's enough to give a good sense of the game's style and feel. So WoW went onto my PC during a time when I was relaxed and had a lot of spare time, and it didn't cost me anything.

Well, it sure cost me a lot of time. A seriously huge amount of time. By the time the ten days were up, I wanted to buy a copy. Unfortunately this also coincided with the initial holiday release period and there wasn't a copy available in North America for love or money (unless you wanted to pay $500+ to an eBay scalper.) Now this is quite a strong reaction to a game, indeed any game. The question is why did I react to it so positively? I think there are a number of reasons, in no particular order:

1) I wanted a fantasy equivalent of a first person shooter with multiplayer capabilities. Friends have been into Quake, Doom, Unreal and Counterstrike for years. I don't like the games as I don't like the SF trappings, and, just as importantly, the graphics engines tend to make me queasy. The WoW engine never has, even after excessive hours spend playing. Prior to WoW, Bioware's "Neverwinter Nights" was about as close as anything had got, although "Thief" in many respects had a more appropriate graphics engine.

2) I wanted something that I could play at my convenience. The problem with Neverwinter Nights was trying to get together a group for playing. I had no real interest in trying to play a sequential adventure with a pickup group where the game would move along when I wasn't present. I dislike missing carefully crafted narrative. With WoW I could start at any time and play with anyone as they came available.

3) WoW is a structured free-form game. Some games I've played permit any action to be done in any order. The problem here is that as there's really no focus, it's quite frustrating to "play the game". On the other hand being shoe-horned into a specific narrative framework can be just as annoying. With the WoW quest system there're guidelines to focus within but enough variation that if one quest stumps or lacks interest there are many others that can be pursued. There's variety in the quests offered. Some are training quests teaching you how the game works, others are FedEx style (i.e. pick up item A and deliver it to person B somewhere in the world;) while others involve either slaughtering computer mobiles or collecting goods. To give variety to these quests, there's usually a narrative structure supporting them which may well mix in a number of different quest styles as one quest leads into another. The result is quite satisfying.

4) Easy support of secondary characters. With a built-in mail/fedex system, equipment and money can be transferred between characters on the same side on the same server. With the distinct differences between classes and skillsets, and the interconnection between them in terms of what one needs but only another can do, it makes sense to maintain several different characters and trade between them. As each class and race have their own quests variety is indeed the spice of life. This enhances the earlier point: if you get fed up (whether temporarily or permanently) of a character and its quests, there are still many more options, and while you're doing that, you can still benefit the original character and perhaps give them something to get them over the hump.

5) Easy grouping with others. Some games require that teams always work together. Others won't let it happen at all. In WoW some quests can be done on one's own, and some cannot. Some are simply easier with a group and others merely take a lot longer if everyone wants the same stuff. The ability to join groups of two to five on the fly and leave just as easily is excellent. Quite often if I'm doing a similar quest to someone else nearby, we'll create a group for the duration of the quest and then go our own way.

6) Casual communication. Even when I'm playing alone, I normally have a channel open with friends or family in the game. In many respects, my sister and I now use the game as an alternative to instance messaging, email or the telephone. Sure, it's not roleplaying in any way, shape or form, but it certainly makes the game feel friendlier. A while ago I joined a guild and tend to have ongoing chats with the guild members present which may or may not be game related at all. This informality also has game-side advantages: as there's a sense of friendship and community, sharing of information and items is common and help in the form of support while doing quests is quite forthcoming. Even in the general chat channel most people are pretty good -- the casual profanity or idiocy common in Battlefield 1942 or similar games that I find highly irritating just isn't there. For those players who still irritate, the /ignore command is a nice character specific twit filter. Blizzard decided to police the game such that ridiculous names are made unavailable so as to reduce total suspension of believe; that's not to say that some don't escape into the wild, but they're rather less common than in other games.

7) The game encourages exploring. There are quest givers and merchants scattered throughout the very large maps. Some are in obvious locations, and some are not. Each area in the game has its own distinct look and usually a different set of inhabitants. The quests mentioned above frequently send you all over the world to collect things or talk to someone specific to an area and so make a good working knowledge important.

8) Built in support for PvE, RP and PvP. PvP is player versus player, PvE is player versus environment and RP is roleplaying. Each server has a specific play style associated with it. On PvP servers, any character on one side can attack any other player on the other at any time. It tends to be bloody and (for me at least) frustrating. PvE doesn't disable PvP-style playing, but it does reduce it significantly by adding "flagging", or the ability to enable PvP status on demand or in specific locations or by assisting PvP-flagged players. This means that unless you go into certain locations or perform an action that would turn on your PVP status, you're invulnerable from the opposing players meaning you can concentrate on playing the game and not being ultra-cautious to avoid being slaughtered. This suits me just fine. RP is for people who really want to immerse themselves in the game and OOC (out of character) chitchat or behaviour is strictly off-limits. By having all these different styles for different players, Blizzard has very cannily accomodated a much wider range of players than other games have, including me. One of the most frustrating points of the original MUD was the constant PvP; towards the end the developer did add "protected classes" to try to deal with that but it never felt quite right.

9) Time elastic. One can do useful stuff in the game in half an hour, but it can easily swallow up hours if let. Some instance runs do require a significant dedicated period of time but outside of that you can come and go.

10) Location independent. So long as the computer hardware is capable and there's an internet connection, I can play from anywhere whether it's my home PC, my work PC, my sister's Mac G5, a friend's laptop, or whatever. It's always the same characters and account on the remote end. Once the game is installed, there's no further need for a key CD or anything else of that nature. As I use a vanilla installation the lack of add-ons for customising the interface bothers me not at all.

11) No impossible puzzles. While I adored the original MUD, there were puzzles in it that drove me batty as I couldn't figure out how to solve them. The infamous Mausoleum would be the best example, especially as you were then penalized for getting the answers wrong by the immobilizing skeleton. Having grown up with MUD and the Infocom adventures, I was really quite used to sophisticated and intelligent parsers so I'm sad to lose them. Sometimes WoW is a little too simple here, but with no real text interface the GUI is limited as to what it can be used for and it does prevent the designers from really going to town..

12) Lack of rarity. Economically this shouldn't work, but one of the things I like of the game is that there's lots of everything. It may take time to locate it, but you will. This makes quests to find things possible. Sure, there are rare drops for very specific items but by and large anything needed for quests or manufacturing can be found within a reasonable amount of time, or something similar will drop (e.g. Lightforge armour for paladins versus Valor amour for warriors.)

13) Appealing graphics. Sure, they're a little cartoony and not realistically rendered, but they're close enough and this is a fantasy game after all. Plus they seem to look good and move well even on lower end graphics chipsets.

14) Continuous development. As WoW is always being worked on, new features, items and quests appear on a regular basis. This gives the world a fun feeling as every month or so, there'll be something new to explore or do. That Blizzard has done so without charging for expansion packs is to their credit. While I've heard that they are planning one, I truly hope that's just a rumour or temporary decision on their part. The WoW map is littered with empty caves, inaccessible locations and portals that go nowhere; the implication here as that these are holding points for future development and they've deliberately left themselves room to move.

15) Quirky humour. From the occasional silly names of NPCs, to visual jokes (like the goblin version of the Corcorado in Booty Bay, the through-the-mountain car wreck in Tanaris), the entertaing descriptions of some of the items, the post-quest discussions of some of the NPCs (after the escort mission for the turtle in Tanaris where his wife reads him the riot act) and so on, I find WoW highly entertaining. The developers have managed to mix serious with silly in such a way that neither causes the same kind of atmospheric killer that "Very Special Episodes" of any North American TV sitcom tend to do. That it's all done with a straight face and in character rather than a self-conscious smirk seems to make the difference. Even theoretically anachronistic items like the goblin racecars or gnomish teleporters fit the feel of the world: I love the whole jokey engineering substructure of the game (who amongst you can resist the Gnomish World Enlarger?) I like some of the other items that cut against stereotype too such as the laid-back Carribean talk of the trolls or the MC Hammer dance routine of the orcs. Even the infamous /train "choo choo" all the characters have brings a smile to my face.

16) Cost is reasonable. WoW isn't cheap, but given that the 6 month subscription is in the same ballpark as a full priced game, I'm not spending any more than I would usually. I'm certainly well above the 20-60 hours of gaming that any normal adventure game would give me.

17) It's a game. Seriously, this is one of the most important features. Persistant modelled worlds may be theoretically nifty but because I find this one fun, I play it. And play it. And play it. And...

This list is one that's developed since late last year, and other games may well encompass some or all of the features, but they're ones I find draw me back repeatedly. As mentioned earlier, I don't have anywhere near the breadth and depth of experience of some people but this is my anecdotal evidence. There are some frustrating elements to WoW, but not enough to detract from my overall enjoyment of it.

Adam