“WoW” Factor

Since it is no secret to anyone of just how big of a video game geek I am, the one question I get asked most is, “You play World of Warcraft, don’t you?” And the answer to that question is, no, I do not play “WoW.” But it isn’t because I have some sort of nerdy, irrational dislike for the game because in all honesty, I’d probably be playing “WoW” right now if I had a gaming quality PC. Considering how popular the game has become, it wouldn’t be outrageous to think a gamer like me would play “WoW.”

In fact, the game has become so popular since its release that Blizzard, the games developer, stated that “WoW” recently hit the 8 million subscriber mark. This colossal figure, as reported by Gamespot.com, translates to closely .1% of the world’s population. China leads the pack with 3.5 million subscribers, followed by North America with 2 million players. Since “WoW” charges players a monthly fee to play online, Blizzard is pulling down a huge sum of money from this game.

Blizzard not only cashes in huge with monthly fees, but they recently released an expansion pack for “WoW” called “The Burning Crusade.” Though this expansion pack costs almost as much as a stand-alone game, about $40, it has sold a record amount of copies. According to the website Digitalbattle.com, “The Burning Crusade” sold 2.4 million copies of the game in North American and Europe within the first 24 hours of its release. This staggering number makes this game the fastest selling PC game of all time. Plus, a video game selling this kind of units in such a short amount of time is almost unheard of and rivals the opening weekend sales of any major motion picture.

But rest assured, Blizzard is giving fans of the game more than their money’s worth with “The Burning Crusade”. First off, Blizzard has introduced an entirely new continent for gamers to explore and conquer. They have also introduced two new races for players to pick from. The Horde now has access to a race known as the Blood Elves, while the Alliance will now have access to the Draenei race. These two races also level the playing field in “WoW” somewhat, because until now the Horde and the Alliance only had access to certain character classes. But with the introduction of these two new races, each side now has the ability to choose whichever class they wish. Another new feature included in “The Burning Crusade” was the level cap being raised from level 60 to level 70.

In fact, one fan of the game was so fanatical about the release of “The Burning Crusade” that he reached the new level 70 cap much sooner than anyone could have anticipated. According to the website www.pro-g.co.uk, a French player named Gullerbone reached level 70 an astonishing mere 28 hours after the game was released on January 16^th. But Gullerbone didn’t accomplish this feat on his own. Actually, he had help from close to 40 of his guildmates and he also utilized a tactic called “tagging” which allowed Gullerbone to receive experience points from his teammate’s kills. Blizzard, who had hoped this new expansion pack would keep fans happy for some time, could be the only ones not impressed by the speed with which Gullerbone reached level 70. Though, given how obsessed some fans are with “WoW”, it was almost expected that someone would attempt something like this.

While “WoW” is not the only MMORPG on the market, it is by far the most popular. “WoW” has also become such a force in mainstream America that its game engine was used to animate an episode of “South Park,” “Make Love, Not Warcraft.” I really do believe that console video game developers will want to take a page from Blizzard’s book and start to cash in on the MMORPG craze that has taken the PC gaming world by storm. With powerful next-gen consoles already on the market and the ever growing popularity of video games and MMORPGs, it’s only a matter of time before a company, like Microsoft who has a strong online community already in place, releases an MMORPG for their console. While I do realize that Sony already tried, and failed, at this idea with the “Everquest” series for the PS2, Sega has already proven with the “Phantasy Star” series on the Dreamcast that creating a successful MMORPG for a home console is absolutely possible.