MMORPG.com's Jaime Skelton writes this week's column about the elephant in the room known as World of Warcraft.
It takes a great deal of self-constraint to not mention the elephant in the room, especially when it comes to World of Warcraft and the house of MMOs. It's doubly worse when that elephant is performing tricks: creating starry ponies, previewing new areas of its upcoming expansion, and trumpeting how it will be changing the face of Warcraft forever. In the past couple of weeks, we have been saturated with press about the elephant: up, down, and sideways, it has come at us as each outlet tries to feel out a part of the elephant like the proverbial blind men. Meanwhile, writers figure since the elephant is doing tricks for everyone, they might as well take their time to talk about it, blog about it, make conjectures about it, and prophecy how it's going to change the world.
I mean, who doesn't want to talk about it? It's an elephant. Look at it. Isn't it amazing?
Back when I started out writing these columns for MMORPG.com, I talked about how World of Warcraft offered a stale comparison for evaluating other MMORPGs. Ironically, it's almost impossible to talk to someone outside the industry without using World of Warcraft as an example. Throughout the months, I have danced carefully around the room, talking about the elephant only when I felt it necessary or relevant.
Read Avoiding the Elephant.
