Here is the reason behind WoW's success:

They made it with a K.I.S.S.

Keep

It

Short

(&) Simple. (Interchangeable with Simple Stupid).

Lets break it down:

Graphics: Not great, but their simplicity means almost anyone's computer can run them attracting a larger playerbase (my computer practically blew up trying to run AoC even with recommended requirements)

Gameplay: (Originally) Nine classes with a rock-paper-scissors formula with good structure and progression

Lore: Had a solid backbone that came from the franchise attracting fans of the strategy game as well as traditional MMO gamers,

PvP: You could get involved very early on, although the fact that Blizzard allow twinks kind of ruins it for newbs.

PvE: As far as I'm concerned, raiding is shit, but Blizzard have left no conclusion means you simply repeat what you've done. This isn't an original idea, but it works.

I haven't gone into great depth, but the sheer simplicity of WoW has made it a commercial success, you might disagree on whether these things are good or bad, personally I think ez-mode MMOs are crap, but then I'm not everyone and Blizzard's success speaks for itself.

Other companies see this and think "well lets use an already existing, successful model and replicate the success". Lack of ingenuity is to blame, but when there is not a lot left to invent, it makes development difficult.

Why must another game compete with WoW?

Personally I feel Wow is just a freak of nature after playing a ton of MMOs I dont see how a game of WoWs quality (thats basically inline with the others) has that many subs.

Lets take wow out of the picture for a second Whats the average Sub base in all other MMos? 100k-300k?

personally those are the numbers I care about, If a new game releases and has a steady 100-300k sub base its great and can live on for years. that's all I need and that's all you guys should need as well.

To the OP no game will ever have a world wide sub number as big as wow ever again, not even Blizzards next MMO.

Hell I'll go on record as saying Even Bioware's monster Offering TOR wont get much larger than a million subs worldwide at its peak.

Originally posted by nyxium

 Blizzard have excellent advertising schemes as well, the Mr T Night Elf Mohawk, a class that doesn't exist but so should, caught viewers attentions, and Ozzy sold Wrath to the masses. But then, as others here have stated, Blizz can afford to do stuff like that whereas other less fortunate companies can just about afford word of mouth and web banners. :S

In the world of competition, reputation and mass advertising rule together.

And yet, WoW was already popular when they started running the Mr T and Ozzy commercials. Advertising wasn't what made WoW big.

Its pretty simple imo..

WoW is a great game for the avrange gamer it has lots to offer and its really well known (mainstream) if you look around everyone and their mother knows or has at least heard of WoW And this right here is part of the probleem.

Because of WoW`s fame and succes developers / investors dont have the balls to try something new and unique they all look up to WoW and want to copy its succes which always fails i mean why play the half assed clone when you can have the original for the same / less?  (price wise)

Unfortunately for us players the developers / investors just dont seem to understand this and keep trying to make WoW 0.2.

Originally posted by DX860424

Its pretty simple imo..

WoW is a great game for the avrange gamer it has lots to offer and its really well known (mainstream) if you look around everyone and their mother knows or has at least heard of WoW And this right here is part of the probleem.

 

Because of WoW`s fame and succes developers / investors dont have the balls to try something new and unique they all look up to WoW and want to copy its succes which always fails i mean why play the half assed clone when you can have the original for the same / less?  (price wise)

 

Unfortunately for us players the developers / investors just dont seem to understand this and keep trying to make WoW 0.2.

Exactly right. Personally, I try most new MMO's but in the end go back to WoW anyway. Because most new MMO's are "half assed WoW clones". This will never work and i'm surprised the big companies don't recognize it.

I applaud companies that at least try to be different, like Aventurine and DF for instance. Even though sandbox MMOs is not the thing for me.

Originally posted by Nadia

Originally posted by Broomy

In answer to the OP: "Why has no game managed to compete with WOW as of yet".  First we have to consider what WOW has brought to the table:

1. Accessibility: the games low system requirements allowed EVERYONE with a computer to play the game.

2. Existing Battlenet fanbase;

3. Catering to all of the three gamer types: Casual, CORE and Hardcore.  WOW stayed away from the iffy "niche" genre.

4. Added PVP that lacked punch but still was solid enough to draw in the pvp oriented gamer;

5. Excellent quality development and gameplay.

Thus far NO other game has managed to bring all of the above 5 points into a new game.  When one does, WOW will finally have a competitor.

#2 is huge

 

Ive heard people say that LOTR could have had millions, but seriously, how many of those LOTR fans play computer games ?

 

Battlenet had *millions* of fans

Starcraft alone sold 11 million copies -- and theres also Diablo and Warcraft

 

Lotro didn't get bigger than it is, because it really doesn't offer any reason to leave wow and play it.  It is a fine game with many nice features, but it plays almost identical to wow, but with far smaller feature set.  If someone is bored with wow, they are going to get bored with lotro in a very short time.

The sims has more fans than any other game on the market, yet that game died a horrible death, so it has to be more than just existing fanbase.  There are plenty of games that had pre existing fanbases to draw from and they failed to capture those, regardless of how big that base was in comparison to blizzards.  EQ2 for example:  it has access to the most popular mmo franchise to date, yet it hovers around 20-40% of what the original did. 

Getting people to try a game is easy.  Getting people to resubscribe and invite their friends to join is another situation that people gloss over far to often.

Originally posted by Kilmar

Its simple marketing. In Germany eg. the only MMO ever had TV ads was wow. The simple man doesnt read MMO sites to inform himself. The simple man only knows wow. This is the main point, marketing makes the difference.

Wow already had millions of subscribers before it had an advertising campaign that was different than most other mmos.  Word of mouth advertising was far bigger than anything blizzard is trying.

Simply advertising a game will only get people to TRY it.  It will not get people to continue to play it, let alone word of mouth advertise it.

The notion that marketing is the key to massive amounts of people is so rediculous on so many levels.  For example:  swg was perhaps the first mmo with television commercials and a massive media blitz.... see how that game is doing. 

If marketing was the key to massive success then why are there not more bigger games?  It isn't like other companies are incapable of running an advertising campaign.

Originally posted by Daffid011

The sims has more fans than any other game on the market, yet that game died a horrible death, so it has to be more than just existing fanbase.

I agree - altho I never tried Sims Online to experience how it fared as a mmo

also there are many gamers do not like paying a monthly fee -- regardless of the game

Accessability.  You could probably play the game on medium detail on an Amiga.  It's got partnerships with so many big box retailers.  Hell, when I was in Virginia once on business, I saw WotLK for sale at a 7-11.

Ease of use.  You might stand in awe of all those big time raid guilds who get all the world firsts, but let's face it.  This is a game comprised of running around in a pre-decided pattern, pressing the 1-8 keys over and over again. 

Originally posted by Abrahmm

Developers simply need to develop a game that is worthy of a large playerbase. It has nothing to do with the playerbase being patient as the company shouldn't release a buggy mess.

Unfortunately no game is trying to be unique, they are all trying to be like WoW. You can't out WoW WoW itself.

Wow out EQ EQ.Which was currently the biggest game at time,You don't need to be different you need to be better and no game is out right better than Wow they keep change unnessary stuff just to be like only slight different from wow.They don't improve they just take a side step.Wow took all the bad stuff about EQ and improve on it.To beat wow you are going take all stuff people hate in wow and fix them.

Being unique is not goal being better is.AoC unique,Tcos unique,TR was unique,Darkfall is unique.People don't want unique that why in everygame they play ask for the classes to be just like the one in the former game the played.The game more than like the game competes with wow will more than like be very close to what you get in wow.

Originally posted by Abrahmm

Developers simply need to develop a game that is worthy of a large playerbase. It has nothing to do with the playerbase being patient as the company shouldn't release a buggy mess.

Unfortunately no game is trying to be unique, they are all trying to be like WoW. You can't out WoW WoW itself.

QFT,

However... an MMO used to be considered successful at breaking 100k subs.  It was a significant milestone, 150k subs was a big deal.   Now we have games we consider failures that have 400k subs and we, as gamers, and the media covering these games, are tainted by WoW's unprecedented success.  You do not have to be the top game to have a successful MMO, but you DO have to be prepared NOT to be the top game and plan accordingly so that the inevitable 50% loss in initial subs can be handled with minimal effect.

Well maybe you should go back and read again since what I saw was additionaly "wow here and wow there" talking additionaly like how nobody could compete in features and other stuff.

As unfortunately only a few aknowledged the truth while others still keep saying "it wasn't the commercials or advertisements" I can only say that prior to its release Blizzard spend alone in the first two weeks 200000$ on promotion.

After its release they bought tons of space on many magazines around the world (like here in germany) for advertisement and they even made some have additional only wow based content.

So everyone that got any of these gaming magazines in their hands had like in every second page a advertisement of wow.

You think this didn't work? Well it did and you can see it on the numbers we are all talking about here.

However, after they lost many subscribers due to their in game bugs, waiting lines in between, crappy servers that never worked well in raids(maybe they should had put some of their money on hardware instead of advertisement?) they kept up with the advertisement.

You tell me if you get almost daily (not too many anymore but in the past and still in between), notification emails that a new update alert has been posted on this site without being blizzards.

Wanna talk about their announced "we have THAT many millions subscribers"?

Easy statistic basics: You count ALL the Subscribers you EVER had no matter if they are still active or have left the game like for ages.

Originally posted by Raekon

Wanna talk about their announced "we have THAT many millions subscribers"?

Easy statistic basics: You count ALL the Subscribers you EVER had no matter if they are still active or have left the game like for ages.

Blizzard spells out - what they do not count  - in their PR announcements

have a look for self, how Blizzard defines subs

eu.blizzard.com/en/press/080122.html

excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards

Originally posted by Zoulz

Originally posted by nyxium

 Blizzard have excellent advertising schemes as well, the Mr T Night Elf Mohawk, a class that doesn't exist but so should, caught viewers attentions, and Ozzy sold Wrath to the masses. But then, as others here have stated, Blizz can afford to do stuff like that whereas other less fortunate companies can just about afford word of mouth and web banners. :S

In the world of competition, reputation and mass advertising rule together.

 

And yet, WoW was already popular when they started running the Mr T and Ozzy commercials. Advertising wasn't what made WoW big.

Agreed, those gimmicky, celebrity filled commercials for WOW came out years later AFTER WOW was a huge success. 

I see alot of people also saying that money made WOW a success.  This I don't beleive.  All the money in the world doesnt make a game successful, innovation and mass appeal does.  Now if you say Blizzard took all that money and bought the best developers in the industry and thus became a success I would partly agree, but other games that have failed horribly also had the best developers.  Look at Tabula Rasa!  Year in the making and led up by an icon in the industry, Garriott.  Also had loads of capital poured into it.  It ended up as an abyssmal failure.  Why? Simple it didnt have enough innovation or appeal to more people.  Again, the WOW formula for success:

Accessability

Fanbase

Mass appeal to all the gamer types (Casual, CORE & Hardcore)

PVP for the PVP crowd

Innovation

Every MMO that has failed recently (or at least lost tons of subs) has been missing one or more of the elements above.  They are either:

graphically challenged, with only the best machines able to run them properly;

too niche;

too unknown;

Too casual OR too Hardcore not allowing the various gamer types to engage in the game simutaneuosly.

Well you can be sure that any good PR department and by that I don't mean only Blizzards but any company will tell you things about "unicorns and rainbows" so take such announcements always with a good grain of  salt portion. :/

Anyway.... for me was, still is and if they don't mess up in the future always be the best developer on MMOs and one of the first ones ever NCsoft.

I can't wait for AION and Soul&Blade to go into the beta status or be released! :)

Even Gems like City of Heroes/Villains, Guild Wars and many other games they brought were much better than WoW will ever be. Not to mention what Blizzard ripped from games like that and sold them as "new ideas" which wasn't the case.

Heck even free mmos are out there that are more fun than wow.

I remember the days where the first C&C came out from a VERY small company that couldn't afford large advertisement and stuff and then all of sudden Warcraft that "surprisingly" were using the exact same system popped out of nothing with the Blizzard name on it, lots of advertisement and money to push things to success which we all know took place.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the Warcraft series (except wow of course) till the frozen throne and I still have them.

Fact is though that money rules the world in many occassions (sad but unfortunately true) and blizzard is the best example on this.

Originally posted by Nadia

Originally posted by Raekon

Wanna talk about their announced "we have THAT many millions subscribers"?

Easy statistic basics: You count ALL the Subscribers you EVER had no matter if they are still active or have left the game like for ages.

Blizzard spells out - what they do not count  - in their PR announcements

 

have a look for self, how Blizzard defines subs

eu.blizzard.com/en/press/080122.html

excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards

World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees' territories are defined along the same rules.

Yes, excludes free promotional subscriptions, but does not exclude initial free month players.

30 days is a long time.  Do you know how many people quit or sign up for an MMO in 30 days?

They take one day, then bombard the TV and Internet with banners, Ozzy commercials, whatever other crap they lure people in with.  On day 29, they compile all those numbers, 95% of which have not played since the day after seeing the commercials, combine that number with all the gold farmers, multi-boxers and angry teenagers' subscriptions... and you end up having a pretty impressive, albeit completely unrealistic, number.

No amount of advertising can sell a game people don't like especially when its a subscription based model.   How many times do people need to repeat this or has the WOW hate completely engulfed what little rationality some of you have left=)   Also, WOW had millions of subscribers before any sort of massive ad campaign even started.  Word of mouth sold WOW. 

Plenty of MMOs would be selling in the millions now if fanbase, name or marketing had anything major to do with it.  The Sims and Starwars esspecially have the largest fanbases and names in entertainment/videogames, yet both MMOs did poorly. 

Originally posted by Broomy

Originally posted by Zoulz

Originally posted by nyxium

 Blizzard have excellent advertising schemes as well, the Mr T Night Elf Mohawk, a class that doesn't exist but so should, caught viewers attentions, and Ozzy sold Wrath to the masses. But then, as others here have stated, Blizz can afford to do stuff like that whereas other less fortunate companies can just about afford word of mouth and web banners. :S

In the world of competition, reputation and mass advertising rule together.

 

And yet, WoW was already popular when they started running the Mr T and Ozzy commercials. Advertising wasn't what made WoW big.

 

Agreed, those gimmicky, celebrity filled commercials for WOW came out years later AFTER WOW was a huge success. 

I see alot of people also saying that money made WOW a success.  This I don't beleive.  All the money in the world doesnt make a game successful, innovation and mass appeal does.  Now if you say Blizzard took all that money and bought the best developers in the industry and thus became a success I would partly agree, but other games that have failed horribly also had the best developers.  Look at Tabula Rasa!  Year in the making and led up by an icon in the industry, Garriott.  Also had loads of capital poured into it.  It ended up as an abyssmal failure.  Why? Simple it didnt have enough innovation or appeal to more people.  Again, the WOW formula for success:

Accessability

Fanbase

Mass appeal to all the gamer types (Casual, CORE & Hardcore)

PVP for the PVP crowd

Innovation

Every MMO that has failed recently (or at least lost tons of subs) has been missing one or more of the elements above.  They are either:

graphically challenged, with only the best machines able to run them properly;

too niche;

too unknown;

Too casual OR too Hardcore not allowing the various gamer types to engage in the game simutaneuosly.

 

 

 

 

- Accessability sucked a lot in many cases

- Fanbase was partially there through the warcraft series (I'm a fan of these too) and others came mostly through the advertisements.

- Mass Appeal only when it comes to newbies and people that had no idea what a mmo is previously, experienced players mostly touch the game once and let it be afterwards.

- pvp in the game was a joke in the beginning so they looked further and see there? After they checked out the heroes ascent from Guild Wars they all of sudden announced the battlegrounds. The same goes with the fame stuff they added later. :P

- the too unknown point is the major point and the lack of advertisement the next one when it comes to the most of these new mmos you are talking about. It doesn't mean that all are failing but that most of them are running in a lower scale.

Tabula Rasa would had been a much larger success if they had sticked on the original plan they had in my opinion.

The characters, the graphics, the world and everything else we had saw and read so far were very appealing and then they all of sudden dropped everything and remade everything to the sci fi game they delivered at the end. <_<

I guess that was what caused mainly the doom of this game which is very sad since it had lots of potential.

Most of all and I think we agree all to that, the majority of the players rather like fantasy then sci fi.

Originally posted by Josher

 Word of mouth sold WOW. 

Word of mouth did not sell WOW

many stores were SOLD OUT by the 1st weekend of release

pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft/569888p1.html

you call that "word of mouth" ?

Originally posted by Raekon

Well you can be sure that any good PR department and by that I don't mean only Blizzards but any company will tell you things about "unicorns and rainbows" so take such announcements always with a good grain of  salt portion. :/

Anyway.... for me was, still is and if they don't mess up in the future always be the best developer on MMOs and one of the first ones ever NCsoft.

I can't wait for AION and Soul&Blade to go into the beta status or be released! :)

Even Gems like City of Heroes/Villains, Guild Wars and many other games they brought were much better than WoW will ever be. Not to mention what Blizzard ripped from games like that and sold them as "new ideas" which wasn't the case.

Heck even free mmos are out there that are more fun than wow.

I remember the days where the first C&C came out from a VERY small company that couldn't afford large advertisement and stuff and then all of sudden Warcraft that "surprisingly" were using the exact same system popped out of nothing with the Blizzard name on it, lots of advertisement and money to push things to success which we all know took place.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the Warcraft series (except wow of course) till the frozen throne and I still have them.

Fact is though that money rules the world in many occassions (sad but unfortunately true) and blizzard is the best example on this.

You have obviously already made up your mind about wow, so I see little point in trying to prove you wrong. Fact is, money has nothing to do with Blizzard's massive success. All your arguments are based on speculation and your own biased opinions. Your only aim here seems to be to bad mouth WoW, for some reason. I don't like DF that much, but I don't go around pushing peoples buttons to start flamewars about it.

Anyway, that is all I have to say about that.