Warcraft could have been a household name alongside Star Wars, LotR, Harry Potter

[Beloren]

Srsly, how did blizzard fail to capitalise on this? It was so addictive, captivating - it's stories, use of pop fiction pushed all the right buttons, it could have been the world of worlds - not because it was original, but because it was the only place so many of the most popular strands in modern day fiction could exist together in one universe - whether classic fantasy elves/orcs/dwarves, or the zombie apoacalypse world, the supernatural one of demons, and twilight werewolf/worgen world, it even had aliens - complete with a unique charm.

It's obvious it had a world that could go far beyond a video game. llike far.

Who knows the real scope of htis, - but they could have spanned blockbuster hits, 3-4 tv shows,, and shoudl have been ambitiously planning on a far bigger WoW2 sequel and upgrade to the first VR world.

They had what it took, their world was interesting, their stories, their races were also quite unique, and they had the momentum going - why didn't they? Or how did they fail so hard to make the leap??

[crakerjack]

Doubt WoW could ever be as big as those series. I mean, just because it wasn't as popular as the examples you gave doesn't mean it wasn't successful. In the world of video games, specifically mmo-rpg's, WoW has remained the king and most prominent game for almost 16 years.

I think blizzard tried expanding the warcraft universe as we saw with the movie, but because it performed so poorly in the states, blizzard had no reason to push it anymore. IMO they shouldn't have done a movie, they should have done an HBO quality series, but unfortunately GoT was already a thing and warcraft would be too similar.

[Nynax]

I think the Warcraft movie was the first attempt into doing just that...

Too bad they ballsed it up. First and only attempt, now.

[Dread Pirate Phayde]

I mean they got Mr T and William Shatner to do a commercial, it doesn't get more successful than that.

That being said there are a lot if franchises that could have gone "big" but failed to do so. Dragonlance for example, I had high hopes for the animated film, and they dropped the ball and let a gully dwarf run off with it.

[Nevcairiel]

Games rarely achieve such status. All your examples are books or movies, since those appeal to a far broader audience without the stigma of "video game".

[Zylos]

I mean I think it is. You can't compare it to movie culture though. Compare it to other big pop culture game titles where the biggest names are things like Mario, Pokemon, Call of Duty etc.(which are all much closer to household names than WoW ever was btw). Most people into gaming know what WoW is and plenty of people who aren't know it in name at least. At it's peak in WotLK most people even those outside of gaming culture had probably heard of it and so many more at least tried it.

Diablo III was the biggest selling game of all time in it's prime when it hit 10 million copies sold. It sold 20 Million copies total and still ranks at #3. Avenger's Endgame sold over 60 million tickets and Harry Potter Deathly Hollows 2 sold 40 million tickets. These don't even account for how many people waited until it was out of theaters to see it. Obviously we can't see copies sold figure for FtP games like Fortnite and LoL but I think the point stands that PC/Console Games just can't be compared to the film industry in terms of total consumers.

[cuafpr]

To many director changes, and then they had 3 stories competing to the told, the studios, the directors, and blizzard's.. this, in my opinion, doomed the movie (though i like it for what it is). I think sticking to the story of Orcs and Humans RTS game, with a heavy human focus leaving the orcs to be brutish beast would have made the best movie. Add in the finale scene being the burning of SW with the humans fleeing to the sea for effect and sequel set up. Do that and yes it would have been a household name. They might have better look partnering with Netflix or amazon to maintain more control of the IP and go direct to streaming as well. I hope they try again later on.

[Kyphael]

It is and it isn't. It kind of is. It kind of is because everyone that knows at least video games has heard of WoW. Super Bowl ads will give it that kind of exposure. With that said, MMO's aren't normally household IP's, especially something like WoW. It's a very niche market. Most kids can't afford it. Most parents won't pay $15 a month for a game that'll turn their kid into a zombie. Most kids don't have the kind of patience needed for WoW. It's not a game most adults will play, especially adults who are into brain-dead shooters or want to consume all content quickly and move on, and not play a game that really ever has any kind of finale. Not to mention the story is really in a nutshell, Lord of the Rings meets Dungeons & Dragons with endless pop culture references to the genre thrown in.

Lord of the Rings and now Game of Thrones are a household name. World of Warcraft is viewed as their ripoffs for not being distinct, interesting enough or too time-consuming and aged out graphics-wise.

[guisadop]

I wish they had expanded their RPG material and tried to stay a little bit more consistent on the lore.

[Beloren]

Doubt WoW could ever be as big as those series. I mean, just because it wasn't as popular as the examples you gave doesn't mean it wasn't successful. In the world of video games, specifically mmo-rpg's, WoW has remained the king and most prominent game for almost 16 years.

I think blizzard tried expanding the warcraft universe as we saw with the movie, but because it performed so poorly in the states, blizzard had no reason to push it anymore. IMO they shouldn't have done a movie, they should have done an HBO quality series, but unfortunately GoT was already a thing and warcraft would be too similar.

Why do you think that happened?

Imo, they waited too long to expand to the big screen/small screen and didn't do it correctly either.

They either lacked ambition, foresight or desire to take it further after wow exploded. But that was an executive decision, MM could have gone for more. I would have taken warcraft at that point and started doing TV series - that would have brought many more people into the online sensation

Then the movies would have come around 2009/10 , and could have had the budget to be the next LoTR fantasy epic.

Meanwhile the game greatly expanded, probably in a way no one else had done it before, synchronizing the MMORPG, with single player games, tv series and movies.

The MMO would be the live in world, here you get to be a character of anyone of your favourite races, exploring the famous world full of local stories, and details no where else. It's the best form of fantasy living out - and it would already have the base.

The single rpgs/RTs would be games that told key stories or massive events in the storyline. Cataclysm would be a single player RPG, BFA would be an RTS.

Meanwhile wow would be the sandbox having the new continents and areas the other projects would introduce, and sometimes iself driving key events. Like MoP could have been an MMO release

The TV series would be adventures in the world, like the Dragon Prince and Waifu - here you would have lovable characters having cool adventurers, would probably start with animated series, but higher quality

Movies would be the history for the first few, so it would introduce the world, like WC1-3 , the War of the Ancients 1-3 , once it covers the basics, then it can take the lead of driving the main narrative.. but by that time

WoW 2 - which would be like all modern tech, 5 times the size of the original, truly massive scale, with wow 3 the VR already in planning stages.


You would have Orcs, night elves, blood elves, Draenei, Worgen, Trolls, Tauren etc all household names, with models and toys on front line shops like any other.

- - - Updated - - -

To many director changes, and then they had 3 stories competing to the told, the studios, the directors, and blizzard's.. this, in my opinion, doomed the movie (though i like it for what it is). I think sticking to the story of Orcs and Humans RTS game, with a heavy human focus leaving the orcs to be brutish beast would have made the best movie. Add in the finale scene being the burning of SW with the humans fleeing to the sea for effect and sequel set up. Do that and yes it would have been a household name. They might have better look partnering with Netflix or amazon to maintain more control of the IP and go direct to streaming as well. I hope they try again later on.

Agreed full on. Part of what made Wc3 stunning was the revelation the orcs weren't monster evil to the core, but actually an honourable race corrupted.

They tried to humanise the monsters too much, and completely ignored the humans as secondary, but then, tbh, this happens because in-game humans are secondary, most of the focus has gone into expanding and portraying the horde properly, it shifted the weight. The director being a horde player too did not help, as he carried that development focus to the films which required a far more human centric approach.

New peeps aren't going to be able to relate to monstrous orcs. not with those appearance, on the first movie, WC1-2 are thrilling because it's humanity undersiege and quite possibly on the brink of being wiped out from fluorishing states in this massive tide. Orcs in fantasy have never been so overwhelmingly powerful and dangerous, with all the keys to success - humanity seems doomed to fail despite throwing everything, only to be saved more by the orcs gaining and consience and infighting with a level of intrigue because it's not evil idiots squabbling, in WC2 you get to see hints that not all orcs are evil and bad.

They spent way too much time on Durotan and his family, which should have been glimpses with more time spent on setting up what the Kingdom of stormwind was and the known world at the time

[Cosmic Janitor]

The answer (you probably don't even really want) to this question is most likely founded in their reach, their core medium, their respective medium's accessibility and the overall quality of the work.

i personally consider LotR a literary masterpiece of the fantasy genre. It has captured the imagination of the generations that read it and when that failed it was expertly adapted to a more temporally relevant medium. Maybe I should add another viewpoint in that it was always accessible to everyone by just being books and movies. Condensed experiences. The games were just extensions of that.

Star wars is similar in that it has captured the imagination of a generation by bringing fantasy successfully into scifi . All while keeping it alive in the zeitgeist through its fans, adapting it through a new trilogy for each new generation (roughly 10-15 years between each trilogy). Star wars was also accessible and has been kept that way throught the franchise's lifetime.

Harry Potter as well captured the minds and imaginations of kids around the globe and even proved that reading is still en vogue at a time when everyone was ringing the deathknells of the medium. Furthermore it was also accessible and perfectly adapted to the silver screen, only increasing it's popularity. It even allowed people to grow with their characters, which was pretty rare or even unique at the time. If it will stay relevant remains to be seen, so far we have wittnessed that JKR hasn't been able to capture lightning twice and that she shouldn't have positioned herself as a screenwriter; seriously she clearly hasn't the skills for it. Anyway..

Compared to that Warcraft lacks in many regards. We got to experience the world (or a decent theme-park version of it), but has it truly captured our imagination? Most people were busy chasing loot or drowing in mediocre quest storylines - if people even read them. Many people probably remember the social interactions they had in game more than any of the set dressing the game has provided them. The experience has never been accessible as well. For just the starter price of WoW I can find large parts if not the whole core canon of the other 3. I can access them everywhere, without the need of a extra hardware besides a light source and my eyes. As much as I enjoy games and would classify myself as a "gamer", gaming still struggles with the quality that oder media can offer. A book can represent even the singular vision of one individual, where warcraft has been shaped and changed ad nauseum since it's inception. Even if a movie or book is made to generate revenue, the way it compromises it's artistic vision to achieve that is completely different. And lastly even if the genre had already figured itself out, that would still leave the actual quality of warcraft as a story open for debate. Saying that it is highly derivative is an understatement in terms of fantasy. It's biggest most memorable moments are still in the past when the games were RTS, the story today we see in the game is still shackled down by the restrictions of it's (MM) online nature.

Does that mean Warcraft couldn't be a bigger? Of course not, but I doubt anyway is capable of pulling it off, as it would require creative oversight and a unified vision that will never happen, as the creative part is still second to the gameplay by Blizzard's own admission.

TL;DR: Games are limited, even more so if they are online. WoW's story would need to be actually good as well first.

[Azerate]

WoW's main 'thing' is the game. No matter how popular, it cannot ever have as high of a reach as a movie franchise. That's really all there is to it.

[Soulwind]

They've tried, but the closest thing we have to a game that has permeated popular culture would be, what, Mario? Tetris? And there's a lot of people that don't even know about those.

Had Metzen focused on making it a comic book, instead of a videogame, and had it somehow been as popoular as the MMO was, it would have had a bigger chance of having movies, TV shows and then videogames expanding its popularity. As it is, it pretty much peaked a decade ago, and it's almost impossible for it to ever be more relevant than back then.

Even if the next trend after superheroes is to make videogame movies, Warcraft isn't a particularly approachable one, as it has this massive interconnected universe, with tons of races and factions that will confuse the hell out of anyone not already familiar with it. And at the same time, most of the individual storylines are very basic good vs evil ones that on their own aren't that interesting to begin with. It only kind of works as a whole, and it's best presented as a videogame.

[s_bushido]

Srsly, how did blizzard fail to capitalise on this?

The obvious answer is that it's much much harder to make good movies than people think.

And even if you do end up making a good movie, there's no guarantee that people will care to see it. Like Dredd.

It took decades for LoTR and Marvel to find the right people to translate their properties into movies that could match up with the quality of (the best of) the source material. Not everything can be a Star Wars or Harry Potter, where they're ground-breaking and basically set the standard for an entire genre, and/or are fortunate enough to come out at just the right time to capitalize on a niche that hasn't yet been filled.

[bagina]

Lmao, no way. It's a cheap colorful entertainment, the fiction equivalent of McDonald's.

[VinceVega]

Wow always was waaaaaaay to nerdy for most of the population.
Even Star Wars was quite nerdy but nto nearly on the same level as wow.

Most people still don't aknowledge that they play WoW in RL as it is seen as something rather unatractive.

No one expected the movie to make as much as it did. They should make an animated series ala their cinematics. THAT would get billions of view.

[s_bushido]

They should make an animated series ala their cinematics. THAT would get billions of view.

As cool as that idea is, it would probably just run into a lot of the same problems the movie had. Making 5 minute shorts that look amazing and hit you in the feels is one thing...expanding that into 20-45 minute episodes that need a compelling story is another thing entirely. The absolute best case scenario is that you'd probably end up with something like the Mandalorian (shallow/non-existent plot that's just there for eye candy) without the draw of it being "STAR WARS with an adorable baby Yoda" to justify the expense...which I would assume would be enormous for the quality of the CGI in those cinematics.

[ParanoiD84]

Had they focused on better writers and more novels then perhaps, wow have what 30 novels or so? Warhammer for comparison have over a thousand. They probably make 30 novels in a couple months.

If you want to build your universe that's the way to do it unless you can make awesome movies or series.

Only wow novel I enjoyed and read a couple was illidan and that was written by William king a black library author, probably the only time someone made the legion a threat.

Instead you have writers like golden.

Star wars and LOTR have their movies and well established universes that pretty much everyone knows of.

[Astalnar]

They were too busy playing with pronouns.

Warcraft universe really did have lots of things going for it, but instead of trying to capitalise on it, Blizzard with the changing of the old guard decided the old had to go, so that Warcraft would be more in tune with the times. Instead of building upon the glories of the past, they tried to pervert them.

What happened with that decision is that majority of people fell away, as they slowly but surely did not recognise the warcraft they used to love.

[lagiacrux]

Why do you think that happened?

Imo, they waited too long to expand to the big screen/small screen and didn't do it correctly either.

They either lacked ambition, foresight or desire to take it further after wow exploded. But that was an executive decision, MM could have gone for more. I would have taken warcraft at that point and started doing TV series - that would have brought many more people into the online sensation

Then the movies would have come around 2009/10 , and could have had the budget to be the next LoTR fantasy epic.

Meanwhile the game greatly expanded, probably in a way no one else had done it before, synchronizing the MMORPG, with single player games, tv series and movies.

The MMO would be the live in world, here you get to be a character of anyone of your favourite races, exploring the famous world full of local stories, and details no where else. It's the best form of fantasy living out - and it would already have the base.

The single rpgs/RTs would be games that told key stories or massive events in the storyline. Cataclysm would be a single player RPG, BFA would be an RTS.

Meanwhile wow would be the sandbox having the new continents and areas the other projects would introduce, and sometimes iself driving key events. Like MoP could have been an MMO release

The TV series would be adventures in the world, like the Dragon Prince and Waifu - here you would have lovable characters having cool adventurers, would probably start with animated series, but higher quality

Movies would be the history for the first few, so it would introduce the world, like WC1-3 , the War of the Ancients 1-3 , once it covers the basics, then it can take the lead of driving the main narrative.. but by that time

WoW 2 - which would be like all modern tech, 5 times the size of the original, truly massive scale, with wow 3 the VR already in planning stages.


You would have Orcs, night elves, blood elves, Draenei, Worgen, Trolls, Tauren etc all household names, with models and toys on front line shops like any other.

do you really think they didnt consider EVERYTHING you listed here?

2 (probable) options on why they didnt go this way
- they did the calculations and decided they didnt have the money/talent/whatever to realise these ambitions
- they thought about it, but they decided to focus on the game instead

i think wow is staple in pop culture. not so much in recent years (not surprising after 16 years). if you ask people if they know wow, chances are very high that they do (unless they are either very young or very old).
there was a whole southpark episode about wow!

imho the wow franchise is up there with the likes of mario, tetris and pokemon.