Opinion: Why Competing with World of Warcraft is Foolish

Building on WoW's foundation can also be a nice way to find modest success. LotRO is basically WoW but with a Middle-Earth skin. That familiarity helps the game, I think. WoW players who stumble into a LotRO trial or otherwise get their hands on the game will feel right at home. If they DO end up enjoying the few major changes Turbine made to the formula, you then most likely have a new subscriber on your hands.

I think what Dave is saying though is that even in situations like that where familiarity helps initially, it's just a temporary thing, and after a few months the player tends to go right back to WoW.

btw the expression is "row to hoe," not "road to hoe" -- it's an agricultural saying. :)

All very compelling, and been true for many years. Lots of people in the MMO biz fool themselves.

Champions' character modding is its key distinctive appeal, it'll have the chance to gain a small but potentially loyal audience with that -- basically it'll cannibalize City of Heroes' subscription base.

Aion will look pretty but be very niche at best; its main success will be in the Asian market, where NCSoft can continue to thrive with its loyal Lineage base.

SW:TOR has the best chance of success due to its IP. As old and long in the tooth as the Star Wars IP is, it still has plenty of mass appeal, and that, combined with Bioware's reputation, a lot of veteran MMO dev experience on the team and with hopefully strong support from the publisher, will give it a very solid, high-visibility launch.

There are other small niches that have their appeal, and there are lots of varieties outside the subscription-based, content-heavy model Blizzard has deployed. But they require very lean investment at most, and an extremely strong understanding of how to rely upon systems-based gameplay rather than content- and advancement-based appeal (with Runescape being the useful model here, alongside EVE Online).

@realtrance, you're right it's "row to hoe." I fixed it, thanks.

While I agree that WoW is a very polished game and is ruling the roost right now, the fact that "EverQuest" and "Ultima Online" never appear once in this article prove how it is indeed possible to usurp an entrenched leader.

It wasn't so long ago that I tried and failed to pitch an MMO to a company who steadfastly refused based on the fact that EverQuest had the genre locked up and it was impossible to compete with them.

Justin: LotRO has found an audience (thanks in no small part to its license), but its mostly niche especially compared to WoW.

Brent: I'm glad you brought that up. UO esentially founded the MMO genre as we know it and EQ really took it into the 21st century with its 3D graphics. While they were leaders, it's worth putting their subscription numbers in context: UO peaked at about 250,000 users, while EQ had about 500,000 at its peak. Right now, WoW has over 11,500,000 subscribers, which is nearly double all the other subscription MMOs in the world combined – their reach is broad, really unprecedented and very hard to compete with.

Similar to what realtrance was saying, I think the best bet for MMO developers is to try and do something different, whether its with the theme or setting or a different business model not dependent on subscriptions. I think those are the best bets.