It is 2003, and after several years of development and hype, Blizzard Entertainment sizes up its World of Warcraft project. The studio decides that this MMO is getting too pricey to make and is concerned about quality levels, and so shelves it alongside of Warcraft Adventures and Starcraft Ghost.
World of Warcraft… never happens. At least, it never launches. The year 2004 comes and goes without the debut of a massively multiplayer Azeroth.
With that setup, what would change? How would the MMO industry have developed without WoW? Would another game have become a smash hit? Would other studios have actually released their MMOs without the competition of WoW? What would you have done as a gamer to fill your time? Would you have even been an MMO player?
What if World of Warcraft never launched?