This is something I was thinking bout. Iam not a hater or anything, but what if for any strange reason, WoW was shut down (not that it would be or anything)

1) What would happen to the MMORPG genre?

2) What game would you WoW players flock to?

3) What MMORPG game you think will have the highest population? And why

4) Would other types of MMORPGs finally sprout?

Ugh, who cares. It's one game that happens to have good marketers behind it. It's the spawn of all evil on this forum and why new deserving mmo's die.

Dr. Peter Venkman
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

Massive flood of gameless people and the dev's wouldn't know what to do with them, nor how to please them.

Better MMO's would come out. All the money hungry developers want to cater to the casuals (most of the wow players) and rush out a wow copy 'Lolololol, i r make game gief money now plz'

1) What would happen to the MMORPG genre?

The masses would rush to the closest MMOs and try to find that nitch they are missing. Some would quite forever causing the MMORPG genre to decline.

2) What game would you WoW players flock to?

Hard to say at the moment, I want to say Aion, but hell I didn't go to it and I loved WoW.

3) What MMORPG game you think will have the highest population? And why

Well I wouldn't just say MMORPG, because I mean people could run off to an MMORTS, or a MMOFPS.  But again I would say Aion for now.

4) Would other types of MMORPGs finally sprout?

Yes definitely, all these companies that are trying so hard for their games not to fail would probably rush to throw something together to get those millions. But that could be majorly wrong in some way, but I still say companies/mmos would sprout.

Note: also the world would also ingulf itself and cause the universe to be quite yet another billion years.

 Nothing. The cat is already out of the bag. WoW set the example how to tap the MMO market. Every big gaming company yearns for it and will use the WoW as the standard. If WoW never launched, then everyone would love SoE.

Originally posted by tro44_1

This is something I was thinking bout. Iam not a hater or anything, but what if for any strange reason, WoW was shut down (not that it would be or anything)

1) What would happen to the MMORPG genre?

I think a lot of WoW players would simply quit the genre altogether. A lot less people would play MMORPGs, so developers would have less funds and the overall quality of games would decrease. But still, everyone would blame whichever game was the most popular for the downfall of the genre.

2) What game would you WoW players flock to?

They would probably look for other games similar to WoW like Aion/Runes of Magic, etc. Many of those gamers might try a few other MMOs, realize that they suck in comparison, and then quit the genre altogether. Plus, without the Blizzard name, you lose a large portion of the WoW player base that will only play Blizzard games.

3) What MMORPG game you think will have the highest population? And why

Aion - because it is the most like WoW of any other game on the market and its new and shiny. They still wouldn't have AS many players as WoW though because the game is PVP-oriented,  not up to par in terms of content, and is not made by Blizzard.

4) Would other types of MMORPGs finally sprout?

I think most developers would still try to follow the WoW model since it proved to be so successful in the past. Some developers would probably attempt different models again since they no longer have to compete with WoW. They would probably try more sandboxy games, but would not find all that much success since sandboxes do not have the mass market appeal of themepark games.

Now that i think about it, this could help other games drastically. Companies that don't have the revenue but the logic to put a great game together could once have its time, and end up causing an amazing game.

The answer seems rather simple; someone would just make another WoW.

Probably Blizzard.

Mass suicide all over the world, causing the U.N. to abolish MMO's and single player games do to hazardous effects on the human condition.

WoW is dead...to me.

Originally posted by tro44_1

This is something I was thinking bout. Iam not a hater or anything, but what if for any strange reason, WoW was shut down (not that it would be or anything)

1) What would happen to the MMORPG genre? Nothing much.

2) What game would you WoW players flock to? I think many might consider games like WAR/Aion/AoC, but I think plenty will just get to other games in other genre's or stop gaming all together.

3) What MMORPG game you think will have the highest population? And why. The game that is the most stable/polished and runs on lower end systems, I am sure plenty of WOW players have not upgraded their systems due to them enjoying the game already and felt no need to upgrade, obvious many players in general are somewhat abit more hardcore and will upgrade aswell as the regular gamer.

4) Would other types of MMORPGs finally sprout? This genre will evolve, but it just takes smaller steps then how lets say single/multiplayer games evolve, thought some will always swear by the old, I am ready for the new but it definitly needs to be evolved as I just can not go back to crappy graphics with great gameplay as I want both 50/50 to be a game and more then often it's like 20/80 or 80/20, hopefully with 3/5 years we might get at a point of 50/50, I have hope, but WoW dying will not change much short term.

 

People would start leaving their houses, I think.
And why the frick does everyone hate WoW? Just cuz it's popular?

It's a great game.  Not my favorite, but still a really great one.

Originally posted by kittyvonkita

People would start leaving their houses, I think.
And why the frick does everyone hate WoW? Just cuz it's popular?

It's a great game.  Not my favorite, but still a really great one.

The reason people seem to greatly dislike WoW is because of some of the posts above claim that the Genre would decline if it died.  I was not aware that one game alone makes up a genre.  I think it's a rather skewed view given that all the people playing WoW only make up a small percentage of the total gamer population of the MMORPG genre.

I would dance in the streets.

I would be able to go on a blog site, or watch tv, or talk to people without hearing them fawn over a mediocre game. I wouldn't have to hear any more "back in the day, WoW was hardcore" bull which just makes me laugh whenever I hear it. Sadly, the damage is already done though. The industry is changed for the worse, and I don't see it recovering until MMORPGs have some kind of collapse.  

It would start a big baby boom, in the coming year, all 12 million WOW geeks would start getting jobs and finding girlfriends. Then they would sprout a couple kids each uuhhmm ... end up with 24 million to 36 million kids the following year just because a game got shut down.  I say the world is already over populated so i rather WOW stay alive... Plus thoes would be some ugly kids.

World of warcraft is liks Goldman Sachs from wall street, or AIG International. If WOW collapse it would be the great depression of MMORPG GENRE everwhere. Panic ensues. This is assuming theres no bailout money from federal government.

Originally posted by Furor

World of warcraft is liks Goldman Sachs from wall street, or AIG International. If WOW collapse it would be the great depression of MMORPG GENRE everwhere. Panic ensues.

Considering WoW existing is what caused the current MMORPG depression we are just barely pulling out of, I think it dying would be more like a revolution...
 

Also, WoW does NOT have 12 million players. It's closer to 3 million. 

Wow collapse means mmorpg genre will be shaken to its very foundation, Hell freezes over, pigs WILL FLY. And the coming of the judgement day for the human kind. Oh did i also mention the fat lady will finally SING.

I wouldn't miss it, I dropped my sub as soon as Orgrimmar general chat started to get all about whine whine whine...You could tell within 2 days that Blizz has allowed faction changes lol

There are alot of MMORPGs to take it's place. They really are not that much different than one another. I don't think they ever have been. If WoW were to fall, there would soon be a new top game to hate. It's not that hard to paint a target on something as frivolous as a video game. The only thing that has really changed is the reasons that the (new) majority of people play them, and therefore the types of players they attract. Ultimately all companies will try to cater to them because that's where the money's at.

It would be business as usual for everyone who doesn't play WoW and isn't involved in Activision / Blizzard.

It's just a product.

The same would happen if Chevy suddenly stopped making cars for some random reason. More market for everyone else and less shitty cars on the streets.

So we're speculating what would happen if Microsoft decided to bring litigation against Blizzard for misuse of the infamous "Vista" raid boss name and sued them for 3 billion USD. Or... if a massive W32.Spiffy.A infection wiped out every WoW server and we came to find out they kept no backups or recovery funds. ^_~

(I mean, Everquest 1 still has subscribers! They're not -that- rare; I work with two! In reality, I think we will see WoW servers live at least as long as we have seen EQ1 servers live. Players will slowly trickle off as they get bored.)

But, to speculate... for fun's sake:

I think a lot of the players would have no interest in playing another MMORPG. They did not play one before WoW, and they're really not to into the genre. I see a large percentage moving back to the Gears of War and HL2s of the world.

Some would find new, similar games - I bet Aion would get large subscription numbers as it plays similarly and its high profile. Others would return to games they played previously, or filter off into other genres they prefer.

Well, the answer depends a lot on how WoW disapeared. If it was a financial failure, for instance, the effect would be catastrophic; Shares would go down on most companies working on MMOs and many projects could get canceled or delayed, while existing succesful MMOs could hope to get some extra subs they would do so on a very scrutinized and volatile environment in which average sub prices would be going up something like a 50% within six months.  A court order forcing Blizzard to shut down operations would have similar effects, although this would be compounded by the steep legal fees companies would spend protecting themselves from the same fate. Prohibition (by congress) in the US would very likely bring about enough uncertainty to very much kill the development of major MMOs in the western world. In all of this cases it's likely a culture of "resistance" through the internet would develop and warcraft servers would remain open to a minority (either pirate or private services overseas) i'm very much afraid a couple of teens could actually comit suicide, feeding a moral panic in the mainstream media and creating a very hostile environment towards electronic games in general. Finally, the amount of nerdraging and qqing over the internet would pretty much have much more lasting effects than Michael Jackson's death in crashing and disabling internet services, specially as hundreds of wannabe hacker scripties would rampage. No, western civilization would not end, but this would get more than a couple of books written. 

If WoW just magically disapeared a cult would be born to await it's return.

Edit; I may not have made my point clear. WoW failing would affect both consumer and investor confidence on the MMo market. It would not only be extremely visible but by itself would mean not only an end to it's own server infrastructure but that of many gaming sites, it may also by itself enormously reduce MMOs general share of the entertainment market, driving investors to anxiety attacks over an industry where the leader could disapear without any advance notice. Everyone would have to take a look at their own business model and very likely revamp it to avoid the same thing happening to them. And to make it clear, I loathe warcraft... this is just what i think would happen.