The sport {industry} isn’t any stranger to boom-and-bust cycles, through which scores of opportunistic builders fall over themselves to launch copycat opponents to the newest large hit, and most, if not all, fail. Maybe the most important occasion — and definitely essentially the most embarrassing for nearly everybody involved — was the race to launch the legendary “WoW killer”: a massively multiplayer on-line role-playing sport that might unseat Blizzard’s international megahit, World of Warcraft, and earn its makers tens of millions of {dollars} in month-to-month subscription income till the tip of time.
It turned out to be an industry-wide epic fail — and I had a ringside seat to this unlucky spectacle. My profession in video games journalism started in 2004, only a few months earlier than WoW was launched. My obsessive love of the sport threatened to tank that profession earlier than it had actually begun, however as a substitute I turned it to my benefit, specializing in masking a style of sport that was too arcane and time-consuming for many workers writers and editors to get their heads round. I traveled to scores of preview occasions for MMO hopefuls that public relations reps would optimistically tout as “World of Warcraft, however for soccer,” or “World of Warcraft, however for vehicular fight.” In 2008, I used to be employed by Eurogamer because the editor of its short-lived MMO part — let’s not faux that we within the press have been proof against the identical wrongheaded gold-rush considering — and found firsthand precisely why the entire enterprise was doomed to fail.
One purpose is that World of Warcraft — particularly throughout its 2004-to-2010 heyday — was just too good to beat. However one other is that hit-chasing, not an excellent technique at the very best of instances, is nearly inconceivable to tug off on this planet of social, on-line video games. The hits garner intensely loyal, invested audiences who play them month in, month out, and who aren’t actually in search of one thing else to maneuver on to.
These audiences are hermetically sealed inside their very own fandoms and care a lot much less about shiny graphics or different technical developments, whereas the continuously up to date video games have loads of room to innovate and evolve the style inside themselves. The time-honored tactic of “simply slap an enormous license (like Star Wars) on it” is much less efficient on this sphere, too, as a result of the enchantment of well-known characters and storylines doesn’t essentially apply — the gamers are extra invested of their communities.
But the {industry} continues to make this crucial error with on-line video games. Simply have a look at the spectacular crash and burn of Harmony earlier this yr, itself simply the newest of numerous makes an attempt to elbow Overwatch off its hero-shooter throne. Within the spirit of constructive studying, and solely a bit little bit of schadenfreude, let’s look again at a few of the video games that didn’t put a dent in World of Warcraft’s hegemony… and the few that did.
The Lord of the Rings On-line (2007): This entry is maybe a bit unfair, since numerous folks had been attempting to make a Center-earth MMO primarily based on Tolkien’s works lengthy earlier than Blizzard had even considered WoW. The unique developer, an MMO specialist referred to as Turbine, in all probability thought it was simply making one other area of interest on-line sport earlier than writer WB Video games obtained unduly enthusiastic about its potential. The sport was wonderful, however clearly a era behind WoW by way of its design. Individuals nonetheless play it, although!
Age of Conan (2008): Oh pricey. The primary and most instructive case of post-WoW hubris got here from Funcom, a Norwegian specialist that obtained method out of its depth attempting to push cutting-edge graphics, gore, intercourse, and dynamic real-time swordfighting into an MMO primarily based on Robert E. Howard’s lusty fantasy world. Writer Eidos put all its chips down; I bear in mind attending an absurd press occasion staged in Oslo’s 1952 Winter Olympic park, which had been remodeled right into a medieval setting with horse-riding barbarians and hearth feasting. (A PR rep I used to be with obtained very drunk and stole a sheepskin rug, roaring incoherently into the Scandinavian evening whereas sporting it round his shoulders.) The sport was a multitude at launch, and tanked onerous.
Warhammer On-line: Age of Reckoning (2008): EA’s massive play made sense on paper; the Warhammer license might be as shut as you’ll be able to legally get to the Warcraft setting, and developer Mythic’s Darkish Age of Camelot was beloved by the MMO hardcore. The sport was lavish and costly however restricted in design, too targeted on large player-versus-player fight whereas WoW excelled at embracing virtually each doable play fashion. Warhammer On-line was shut down in 2013.
APB: All Factors Bulletin (2010): A Grand Theft Auto-style massively multiplayer sport boasting intense ranges of participant customization, and masterminded by GTA’s creator himself, David Jones? What may go fallacious? Every little thing! APB was stacked with bold options however notably lacked, you realize, gameplay. Additionally, Jones’ firm Realtime Worlds, which had beforehand made the wonderful Crackdown for Xbox, was in far too deep. A disastrous launch was adopted inside a few months by the developer going bankrupt and APB getting shut down. One other firm purchased and relaunched it, however didn’t reach placing an precise sport in there.
Rift (2011): The MMO gold rush wasn’t nearly video games; whole firms sprang up, drawing enormous funding on the promise of some revolutionary know-how or different. Trion Worlds was one instance that boasted fancy server-side tech that was speculated to take MMOs nearer to the totally simulated cloud-gaming dream. Sadly, its flagship fantasy MMO Rift was very boring.
Star Wars: The Previous Republic (2011): Smarting from the failure of Warhammer On-line, EA was however up for one more crack at smashing WoW, armed with the Star Wars license, its star in-house developer BioWare, and an apparently limitless funds. The hype was off the charts, however BioWare’s experience was in single-player video games. Everyone purchased it, performed the story by means of, and moved on, which is… not the thought. BioWare didn’t hand over, although, and steadily constructed out a correct massively multiplayer sport across the story campaigns. After a profitable free-to-play relaunch, The Previous Republic nonetheless has an viewers.
Guild Wars 2 (2012): Guild Wars 2 is definitely a implausible sport, simply the very best on this checklist — I really feel dangerous together with it. It has refined fight and employed a number of genre-defining concepts that have been later copied by WoW, Future, and others. However the scope of this comparatively streamlined sport was not equal to the hopes writer NCSoft loaded on it — and the ever-expanding WoW introduced a transferring goal that would by no means be caught.
WildStar (2014): NCSoft, an enormous participant in Korea, made its most decided try and crack the West with WildStar, a sport by former Blizzard devs with a really Warcraft-y coloration palette and artwork fashion. It was cute, costly, action-forward, and had some enjoyable concepts, however it was additionally very clearly a trend-chasing mishmash with no purpose to exist past attempting to prime WoW. NCSoft shut it down and closed developer Carbine in 2018.
The sport virtually did kill WoW
Last Fantasy 14 (2013): The prize for perseverance goes to Sq. Enix, which merely didn’t hand over — and which, importantly, had causes aside from competing with Blizzard to be making an MMO. Last Fantasy 11 had been a pre-WoW hit in 2002; the primary try and comply with it up with FF14 in 2010 was a catastrophe, however Sq. Enix bravely scrapped it and requested producer Naoki Yoshida for an entire do-over. It was a query of honor, if something. Yoshida’s reboot dominated, and Sq. Enix didn’t falter when it didn’t instantly do WoW numbers, however continued to take a position. FF14 steadily obtained greater and higher, and it was prepared and ready when Blizzard stumbled by means of a succession of PR disasters and lackluster WoW expansions within the late 2010s and early 2020s. WoW streamers and gamers beginning leaving for FF14 in droves, and Sq. Enix’s sport is, ultimately, the competitor that WoW has all the time deserved.
