by Mike Smith
If World of Warcraft were a country, it would be the 75th largest in the world: bigger than Belgium, the Czech Republic, and a smidge below Greece. Released in 2004, it rapidly grew to dominate the PC gaming market en route to becoming the most popular subscription-based online game of all time. As it prepares to launch a second expansion pack, a new continent for players to explore, and a whole host of other content, it's poised to swallow even more of the world's free time.
Recently hitting the eleven million subscriber mark, Warcraft has already shrugged off challenges this year from well-received online role-playing games like Warhammer Online and Age of Conan, both of which received healthy sales but don't stand a chance of cracking the top spot. In fact, Mike Morhaime, president of Warcraft's maker Blizzard, said in a recent conference call that 68% of departing players who cited Age of Conan as their reason for quitting ended up returning. Normally gamers are fixated on The Next Big Thing, but this time they seem to be heading back to The Last Big Thing in droves.
Still, Warcraft's four-year death-grip on the online RPG arena marks the first time a Western-developed title has achieved worldwide success. Once upon a time, the online RPG arena was dominated by two titles most Western gamers had probably never played. Lineage, which topped three million subscribers, and its sequel Lineage II, ruled the market with a combined four million playerbase. Largely thanks to players from the Far East, it was a lead that looked unassailable.
Until World of Warcraft came along. Basing its reputation on a much-loved (but considerably hardcore) strategy game, the game was an immediate hit. After six months it was the largest online game on the market; after a year it was bigger than all the others combined. Its closest Western-developed equivalent, Everquest, barely squeaked past half a million players at its peak.
Looking back on it, it's easy to see why World of Warcraft captured the imagination of regular gamers in such a dramatic way. Unlike most other online RPGs, it doesn't have particularly realistic graphics. Instead, it sports a cartoony, approachable graphical style that still isn't outdated despite four years of graphical advances. It's simple to play, introducing players to its higher-level concepts one at a time, and encouraging them through complex, linked series of quests that can span months of gaming. Plus, it's not remotely demanding on PC hardware, meaning you can run it on machines that wouldn't have a hope of playing any other game released this year. It's even available on the Mac.
Warcraft is also one of a handful of games to have left their mark on popular culture. Witness the Emmy-award-winning South Park episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft," big chunks of which actually took part inside the game's world. Less positively, sob stories about Warcraft-addicted spouses have graced chat shows and mainstream media outlets; too much of anything is bad for you, and Warcraft is no exception.
So to put it mildly, the release of Wrath of the Lich King is of some interest to those eleven million players. Not only does it add a whole new continent, new mounts, and a new character class (the "Death Knight"), it raises the level cap to 80 to appease the hardcore users and adds a pile of new dungeons aimed at smaller group play. It's all but guaranteed to enter the PC sales charts at number one and should be considered pretty much a shoo-in for the best-selling computer game of the year.
How far will it make that eleven million figure rise? At this point, it's anyone's guess. Sales of Lich King probably won't directly impact the number of subscribers, but it's bound to tempt back yet more burnt-out players for another hit. Warcraft's bubble will surely burst at some point, but there's no sign of it happening now.
Lich King Image Gallery
Posted: 6 Nov 2008
