Could a current MMO be overtaking WoW soon?

[Ranualf]

Hmm its a very interesting question.

The fact that WoW has maintained its vice like grip at the top of the charts for so long is an amazing feat, all by itself. Could this down to that consumers(that's us, the gamers) have been playing Products(games) made by a company for a long time now, and we have certain levels of expectation and implanted ideas about "what a game should have", when made by this company.
Is this positive bias? Your game needs to have X,Y,Z to make it a successful game. Some would say yes, others would say no. As each and every customer has different expectations of what they would like to see, need to have and want to have. Also different level of expectations.
Now we know Blizzard have tried to "balance out dps", and we have all sat there and laughed. Asking the question "who got hit hardest with the nerf bat?".. Cue players ranting, raving and cheering that they got this that and didn't get nerfed.. Again this show us that Blizzard are doing "stuff", and forming player perceptions.

Fast forwards a few years and along comes company X and its "NEW MMORPG" that claims it can do this, do that and be a "Wow Killer". Now we know that several companies have tried to knock blizzard off the top shelf for several years, and some even went so far and made bold clams of WoW killer proportions.... So far none have even come close to it.
The biggest scare they got was when SWTOR was released, 3-4 month down the line people realised that there was very little to do and their subs crashed fast, players returned to WoW (well some did, as i`m in that stat)
The fact that SWTOR is still alive and doing rather well is a nice surprise (Given the EA cockups), and i hope that players enjoy it.

Now way back in 1999 Blizzard came up with an idea for a game.. it was to be something completely different form what their historic and current games portfolio was, and it was to be a MMORPG. Other companies laughed at then, said that "it would be the biggest failure in games history"... That game was WoW.
Yes Blizzard took a huge risk, but they believed in themselves, and that they loved it (as gamers) then others should love it too... 4 years it took them fours years of development to produce, and it was unlike any other game on the market.
They had a very modest market target (some would say naive) of 500,000 players within the first year. If they hit this target, then they would deem the game a success...Now we all know that this game sold out faster than any other in history, and that gamers were like rabid dogs who hadn't been fed for a week, and offered a juicy steak for lunch- we lept forward shouting OM NOM NOM!
Those of us in Europe had to wait 6 months for Blizzard to produce sufficient copies and get more servers online.. which made the situation even worse, players REALLY wanted this game, and imported hundred of US copies just in order to play it!

Now after over 10 years of being online, the damn game is still alive! Pundits predicted a 1-2 year lifespan, possibly 3 if Blizz did something amazing... after the 4th year pundits became quite, wondering what they did wrong and what did Blizzard do to keep people playing their "kids game".

Now the current stats for wow subs is about 7 million ish (i`m not into exact stats) which is a great number of players. More so when you factor in the "gearing" for the game.
Gearing is a financial term, which in basic terms means that you will charge x for the cost of your product, over the course of x years, to cover the cost of the product, manufacturing and retail, with a profit margin.

So what? Well Blizzard expected the game to sell 500k-800k within the first year, with projections of 2.4 million player over three years. so they set the subscription charge at $9, thinking that this would cover their costs, and make them a modest profit"... Oh how wrong they were!

So the short term answer is that they expected to made between $162 million - $770 million over three years. Not a bad investment when you consider it cost them about $5 million to made (excluding hardware). Where in fact they actually made about $18.5 Billion dollars off it (that's $18,436,000,000), and seeing as they increased their prices, these figures are not even accurate, excluding any microtransactions (in game shop stuff).
So yes Blizzard has made a large amount of cash off us players (and still is).

With all this information in mind, do you think Blizzard will really give a fig is their subs drop to 6 million, 5 million or even 4 or less? Probably not, even at 4 million subs they are still nearly double their initial projection figures ... from 10 year ago!

Now to answer the OP question.

Short answer is yes (well maybe), consider that the top weapon of the time (very long time ago) was the club, then the spiked club, etc etc time ticks on...then some some smart ass invented the crossbow..
Now fast forward several decades and the GUN became the top killing instrument.. then we had semi automatic, and full automatic rifles, weapons of mass destruction BOOM city gone...at the push of a button.

What does it teach us, we like to kill each other, with more creative, inventive and elaborate means.... or that that the best thing on the market will eventually become obsolete.

WoW is the top weapon of destruction and has been for a VERY long time. As 3 years in gaming is equal to 10 real life year (apparently) which means its been out there killing its competitors for a long time now.

Isn't it time one of the competitors made a better gun?

If someone asked me 10 years ago "will you still be playing the same game in 10 years time?".. i`d have stated no, certainly not.. I played diablo 2 for a long time, but i never, ever envisioned that i`d still be playing the same game - WoW 10 years down the line.. Which is a testament to Blizzard, yes they have done stuff i hated:

Hunters no mana now- WTF
Disc priest cata- SOO BROKE, then totally OP at the end WTF?
Warriors- LOL that your best dps, reroll rogue mate
Shamans- LOL soo many issues- just go reroll mage if you want your raid slot
The list goes on and on and on.

And yet i`m still playing, yes i`m not as fanatical about it.
Yes i still hate stuff they have done to "my class"
Yes they put us all in our own little cells, called them garrisons and expected us to love them for it...

But

I`m still playing.. WTF?

So until someone makes a "better Wow, than Wow" i`ll keep playing World of Warcraft. *expect a rise in subs when the Warcraft film is released- just a hunch, but "BE PREPARED!" for a fresh influx of noobs. We all know how the lunch of WoD went, with fresh lvl 90`s utterly clueless about how to heal as a warlock (but they wear a dress- i kid thee not!), really? yes really, your not a healer, you are a D P S class..oh, dang i though that because of the dress they heal......"didnt the demons give it away?".. we have demons?.....HALP! save me!

As for FFXXXXXX or whatever
I loved 7, 8 was ok, 9 was meh, 10 was- ah stuff it.
And now they are planing to remake FFXII- will i buy it... hmm probs, Wow may lose a fair amount of subs until people complete it...

So, i`ll probably keep playing wow until some one invents a "better wow experience".... And if i`m honest, i think that the only company that could kill wow off with another mmorpg is.. Blizzard (if they ever decide to make another one).

Sorry for the long post, i`ll crawl back under my garden rock now..

[Varabently]

If WoW keeps it's rate of decline, and FFXIV keeps its rate of growth, in a few years FFXIV would over take WoW.

Assuming WoW wouldn't push out contents that suddenly takes all the player back in the next few years.

Assuming FFXIV can constantly have new ideas that keep drawing in new players in the next few years.

Unlikely.

Those are a couple of BIG ifs. #1, WoW won't lose another 2.9 million subscribers in Q2. It will lose some subscribers for sure, but it won't keep up with that loss. I know nothing about FFXIV's growth, but I would guess them squeezing their expansion in Q2 will probably help their numbers substantially. The real test will be how each one does in Q3. If FFXIV continues to grow in Q3, and WoW continues to decline substantially, then you might have a horse race.

But again, those are big IFs.

[CaptainV]

no one cares.

youve been saying this since BC

no one cared back then, no one cares now

i do find it funny that you admit in your own post that games are already more popular than WoW, but they dont count, because you say so.

This is clickbaiting, but ill bite.

I didnt mention anything of BC so I dont know where you've got your facts from there. I also dont know where your coming from sorry about the "no one cares" argument.

Also, regarding what I admit, the reason I stated that is because if we included MOBA's then we already know that a game "has" surpassed wow in accounts, but thats not subscribers nor is it an MMO, its a DOTA clone that did what DOTA in WC3 did alot better, and has since become a vastly successful business in its own.

But again, different "genre" of MMO entirley, MMO MOBA is not MMO RPG.

What I suppose I should clarify is not could another MMO be taking over (since League already has on accounts) but could another MMO RPG be taking over.

Which is more relevent to WoW's future, and again, regardless of weather it does or doesnt, this does not mean wow is dead or that its bad, it simply means that maybe its time has passed.

[huth]

But again, different "genre" of MMO entirley, MMO MOBA is not MMO RPG.

I'd go as far and say that MOBAs aren't MMOs at all. Most limit the players to what, 10 per match? That's not exactly massive. Sure, you could say they have a huge community, but by that token, WarCraft 3, Diablo 2 and the likes would have been MMOs.