"World of Warcraft" overcame the mark of 50% of the market MMOG
Multiplayer online games have reached a new frontier in their development. This is due to the fact that the explicit monopolist World of Warcraft captured more than 50% of the market. Experts are trying to understand how this game was able to achieve such success.
Multiplayer role-playing games originate from the experimental development of the mid-80s. last century. For obvious reasons, then they could not become truly massive. But with the advent of the Internet, the popularity of MMOG began to increase rapidly. Interestingly, almost every year there was a new hit, which became a new leader in this rapidly developing market. In 1996, the Meridian 59 game was released by 3DO (50,000 subscribers), in 1997, the legendary Ultima Online appeared, which a few years later raised the bar to 250,000 players. But this achievement was increased at least twice with the release of the game EverQuest from Sony (1999).
The appearance of the game World of Warcraft from Blizzard in 2004 produced a real revolution in the MMOG market. The number of WoW participants grew exponentially and in February 2006 exceeded 6 million, and by June 2006 it had grown by another half million.
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In May 2006, according to statistics from the site MMOGCHART.com, the game overcame a new historical milestone of 50% of the market. Independent analyst estimates suggest that the WoW game holds 50.6% of the market. This is much more than the competition. The closest pursuers are Lineage (11.7%) and Lineage II (10.1%). In total, almost 13 million people have settled in the virtual worlds to date. Since 1998, this number has been increasing approximately twice each year.
In financial terms, the project World of Warcraft can be called super successful. Perhaps this is the most profitable game in the history of computer games. Blizzard is trying to further develop success. Constantly opening all new game servers. Recently it was decided to start shooting a movie for this game.
At the same time, experts are wondering : how did the creators of WoW manage to achieve such popularity? What innovations were implemented in this game that led to such superiority over competitors?
First, the idea of ​​"rest", through which the player gets the opportunity to quickly develop his character in the event that he was absent for several days in the game. This encourages those participants who might otherwise have abandoned their character to return to the game.
Secondly, very attentive attitude of developers to small details. For example, here the most beautiful among the games of this class are “mini-icons” (small pictures with weapons and other artifacts). At first glance, these are minor details, but they are very important for the players themselves, as well as the appearance of other objects in the game.
The phenomenal popularity of WoW is not everyone's liking. Servers are constantly overloaded, and some players have to wait for hours for permission to enter the virtual world. The game is increasingly marked by annoying delays and glitches. Another problem: what are the participants who have already reached the ceiling in the development of their character for many years? How to deal with the "lack of content"? If these problems are solved, then “World of Warcraft” is fully capable of maintaining its dominant position in the market. At least, until something fundamentally new appears here.
Multiplayer role-playing games originate from the experimental development of the mid-80s. last century. For obvious reasons, then they could not become truly massive. But with the advent of the Internet, the popularity of MMOG began to increase rapidly. Interestingly, almost every year there was a new hit, which became a new leader in this rapidly developing market. In 1996, the Meridian 59 game was released by 3DO (50,000 subscribers), in 1997, the legendary Ultima Online appeared, which a few years later raised the bar to 250,000 players. But this achievement was increased at least twice with the release of the game EverQuest from Sony (1999).
The appearance of the game World of Warcraft from Blizzard in 2004 produced a real revolution in the MMOG market. The number of WoW participants grew exponentially and in February 2006 exceeded 6 million, and by June 2006 it had grown by another half million.
')
In May 2006, according to statistics from the site MMOGCHART.com, the game overcame a new historical milestone of 50% of the market. Independent analyst estimates suggest that the WoW game holds 50.6% of the market. This is much more than the competition. The closest pursuers are Lineage (11.7%) and Lineage II (10.1%). In total, almost 13 million people have settled in the virtual worlds to date. Since 1998, this number has been increasing approximately twice each year.
In financial terms, the project World of Warcraft can be called super successful. Perhaps this is the most profitable game in the history of computer games. Blizzard is trying to further develop success. Constantly opening all new game servers. Recently it was decided to start shooting a movie for this game.
At the same time, experts are wondering : how did the creators of WoW manage to achieve such popularity? What innovations were implemented in this game that led to such superiority over competitors?
First, the idea of ​​"rest", through which the player gets the opportunity to quickly develop his character in the event that he was absent for several days in the game. This encourages those participants who might otherwise have abandoned their character to return to the game.
Secondly, very attentive attitude of developers to small details. For example, here the most beautiful among the games of this class are “mini-icons” (small pictures with weapons and other artifacts). At first glance, these are minor details, but they are very important for the players themselves, as well as the appearance of other objects in the game.
The phenomenal popularity of WoW is not everyone's liking. Servers are constantly overloaded, and some players have to wait for hours for permission to enter the virtual world. The game is increasingly marked by annoying delays and glitches. Another problem: what are the participants who have already reached the ceiling in the development of their character for many years? How to deal with the "lack of content"? If these problems are solved, then “World of Warcraft” is fully capable of maintaining its dominant position in the market. At least, until something fundamentally new appears here.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/4067/
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