Will There Ever Be a WoW Killer?

[Deleted]

Considering everquest and Ultima Online are still alive and kicking WoW will always be around but it will succom to it's own success sooner or later and the player base will drop dramatically.

[jschulth]

There will never be one.
Not because WoW is such a great game but because gamers attention spans are dwindling.
With the invention of the flash based games and cheap 1-5 dollar games that is the way game companies are creating games now. Faster production = faster money.
Eventually no company will invest the time/money to create a "wow killer" because that will not be what the population wants anymore.
I believe we have already crested over that top.
Look at all the FPS games now. 60 dollars for a 4 hour campaign. Yes, yes it is multiplayer - but so were all of the quakes and they had hours of "campaign play."
It just isn't what people want anymore.

[Zephre]

I think GC is the closest thing to a wowkiller right now.

So totally this tbh.

[freedrom]

There won't be a WoW killer for years to come. I've said it before, no company can put enough money into a starting MMO like blizzard has already put into WoW. If they do, it'll take em so many years to bring it out, that by the time they do, it'll be old tech. Sooooo.... I believe the only WoW killer out that is Blizzard themselves. And when they are ready to kill it they will. Titan anyone.

[Ishimada]

Let's wait The Walking Dead -like apocalypse.....

[Raidboss]

I don't think WoW will ever die until Blizzard actually pulls the plug on the servers. As long as the subscription fees coming in are higher than the costs of keeping people interested it will never go away.

As far as a game taking WoW out I don't think any company has the resources to develop a game that is going to suck people in more than a game thats been sucking people in for as many years as WoW.

[Fenixdown]

The only thing that will ever kill WoW is when Blizzard decides to shut off the servers. Fat chance of that happening anytime soon.

[Azrile]

When Titan comes out, it would, but my guess is that they're going to do the SOE approach and make a single $15 sub give access to both games. In which case, no, not even Titan will kill WoW.

I really think Titan is going to be Call of Duty in space but in MMO format. I think it will be so different than WOW that there will not be a lot of cross-over appeal.

Think back to when Titan was started.. it was when WOW was growing like crazy (around the 5M mark). I am sure the business people at Blizzard were saying ´man, if only we could get all our CoD players to pay $15 a month too´. That is what Titan is about. Gaming company stocks suck because they are so ´hit or miss´ with titles. $15/month is where it is at, and I am sure what the Execs want to move all their games towards rather than $60 every year.

---------- Post added 2012-10-27 at 03:40 PM ----------

There will never be one.
Not because WoW is such a great game but because gamers attention spans are dwindling.
With the invention of the flash based games and cheap 1-5 dollar games that is the way game companies are creating games now. Faster production = faster money.
Eventually no company will invest the time/money to create a "wow killer" because that will not be what the population wants anymore.
I believe we have already crested over that top.
Look at all the FPS games now. 60 dollars for a 4 hour campaign. Yes, yes it is multiplayer - but so were all of the quakes and they had hours of "campaign play."
It just isn't what people want anymore.

Yep, I think SWTOR was it. Too many games that cost 25M or more in the last 5 years and will never even earn their money back.

[melodramocracy]

Seeing that the number of MMO's out there that have actually closed their doors and shut the lights off is rather small, I'd say no.

[tobiashunter]

Considering everquest and Ultima Online are still alive and kicking WoW will always be around but it will succom to it's own success sooner or later and the player base will drop dramatically.

Was just going to post this exact same thing. Unless both of these close their doors, then no. It'll have a more popular successor eventually... but it won't be killed.

[Deleted]

World of league of legends.

[Deleted]

My guess is that people will simply lose interest in WoW over time as they get burnt out, and that the MMO crowd will sort of scatter to all sorts of smaller MMO's, whilst none become all that big. I highly doubt there will ever come an MMO that rises up as "the" MMO, as WoW is and has been for years.

[Deleted]

It'll take another entire genre of online game to be invented to captivate enough gamers in the same way WoW did with the MMORPG. No idea what that is, or who will make it, but I think that we can be relatively sure after the dozen or so big ''competitors'' and hundred or more lesser ones that WoW isn't going to be dethroned until the genre simply becomes unpopular in general.

[Pancha]

No. World of Warcraft will kill itself in the end. Whether that being changes within the game or just the age of the game, we'll just have to wait and see. It is still one of the best options out there, and I don't think there will ever be a game that can rival World of Warcraft, mostly due to the fact that WoW have gotten as strong as it is. Upcoming games might be better, but you won't feel attached. When you have character you've played for years, even up towards 8 years like myself, you're bound to feel attached to that game. It's not like a random singplayer game where you won't be using years to progress and time consumed would make you feel the need to play that game purely based on nostalgia and how it has grown on you. I were 15 when I started, 23 now. I've grown, and World of Warcraft has been a major part during that process. Other games won't be like that. The main reason might be due to how the current gaming generation is used to being catered.

[Zethras]

For a new MMO to become a WoW killer would be equivalent to beating someone at a marathon race who is already half-way through it.

Likely? Not the slightest bit.

Possible? Absolutely.

Although that being said, I believe that SWToR had the best chance of it, star wars having one of the most massive fan-bases in the world, and they mucked it up royally.

It's basically a Mass Effect "ripoff" that has multiplayer campaign and instanced pvp.

[Serpenth]

WoW is like the CS 1.6 of games, it'll always be around until its time to shut itself down

Winner. This is the best comparison I've ever heard and people need to understand this.

While 1.6 wasn't the first, it skyrocketed in popularity. When Source came out, and now GO, 1.6 STILL has the most players. It is horrible, buggy, and the graphics are impossible to look at. Yet it is still most popular because it is 1.6.

World of Warcraft is the 1.6 of MMO's. It doesn't matter if games come out that are better, it doesn't matter how bad X developer's changes are. World of Warcraft is way too popular for even Blizzard themselves to kill it. Even when it was 4.5m subs left it will still be the most played. The MMO market isn't exactly growing.

Look how bad Cata was. 3million subs lost over a year and half. It looked like doomsday for many. Yet MoP instantly brings back 1 million. And my friends list is slowly repopulating. My guild that was dead 2 months ago is slowly repopulating. People are coming back.

TL;DR - WoW isn't going anywhere, until Blizzard turns off the server. And that seriously could be 30 years from year now. Just accept it.

[TaurenNinja]

WoW is way too good, as well as ripe and featureful. Not even Blizzard will have an easy time trumping it.
And, considering that subscription numbers have actually gone UP with the release of MoP, the natural decline of WoW due to age and loss of interest is moving even farther into the future.
This is not your average game.

[Deleted]

WoW is way too good, as well as ripe and featureful. Not even Blizzard will have an easy time trumping it.
And, considering that subscription numbers have actually gone UP with the release of MoP, the natural decline of WoW due to age and loss of interest is moving even farther into the future.
This is not your average game.

Indeed. I agree with with most people here to be honest, I posed the question just to get a discussion going btw, before people assume that I think WoW is on the decline. I'm not taking sides and am really impressed by the level of coherent discussion going on

[Faroth]

No game will ever kill WoW, but WoW will eventually be dethroned as the most popular MMO

[Moinaldo]

The ONLY possible WoW Killer, is Blizzard, if they ever decide to close their servers.