Will Competition Be Good For WoW?
With the release of Warhammer Online just around the corner, many players are making wild speculations about the potential ramifications, if any, for Warcraft and the industry as a whole. Some players believe that the increased competition will be the death of Warcraft. Others think it’ll pull away all the idiots. Still others believe that it will put Blizzard on it’s toes and force it to find new and innovative game play. Whatever the case, I do have some news for you.
Warhammer will not “kill” Warcraft.
Like many MMOs, there’s a certain base of players that love the game and would not be willing to leave it until the last server is shut down. Given the fact that Warcraft has such a large playerbase, they have a much more loyal fan base. Also Warcraft has made a significant impact on the industry, pulling in many players who honestly never even considered gaming before. All of this is good from a macro point of view and causes the MMO niche to thrive, but it also means that taking away players in significant amounts will be increasingly difficult.
Think about it. If you play video games with any sort of consistency, you’ve probably figured out how most of them generally work. You can sit down to almost any game type and have the controls figured out in about 10 minutes. Players who are not used to this sort of thing though, take more time and energy to learn the game’s mechanics and nuances. They’ll be even less likely to want to leave the game for a new one.
I’ll be playing Warhammer because I’m a PvP advocate and Warcraft’s pvp, for me, is getting a little stale. I’ll likely still be keeping my Warcraft subscription around for awhile afterwards. I have some good friends who play and the game is still enjoyable, but that doesn’t mean I’m not open to something new. I think if Warhammer does prove to be a true competitor to Warcraft, it’ll be good for both games in the end.
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