A few weeks back, MOP’s Andy mused that it would have been a very different industry without World of Warcraft. As luck would have it, that’s a topic we explored once ourselves, but it’s been more than six years, so I thought it would be interesting to revisit it, particularly in light of current events. After all, six years ago, WoW was still king of the mountain. I’m not quite sure what it is now, but after Blizzard’s lost many, many millions of players from its titles, well, it’s not that.
At the time, I argued that WoW sent us into a “sharp left turn into themepark-ville” – and away from the creativity-rich MMOs of our 2003-2005 golden age. I don’t necessarily think another game in that same time and place would’ve blown up the same way, and it’s possible our genre might have had a “much slower — and more sustainable — growth period without the spike and the crashes and burns that followed in WoW’s wake.” But who knows? Maybe something really dumb would’ve won out and none of us would still be playing at all.
What might the MMO genre have become without World of Warcraft?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
