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

[LilSaihah]

I don't think trying to branch out of the game space is a really good idea for Blizzard. They would be far better served by delivering a quality Warcraft or Starcraft game outside of the MMO space.

I think a Warcraft Adventures/Lord of the Clans style game would probably go gangbusters as a God of War styled action RPG.
I think Starcraft is a franchise that has a lot of potential for a new game and they could probably make a very fun Starcraft: Ghost which borrows a lot of aspects from Mass Effect.

Maybe if they spent a bit of time cultivating their IPs instead of soiling them all with their monetization they would be far better off.

[stigz]

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".

Video games are the books and movies of our generation. We know how amazing they are. Just because our parents and grandparents don't understand their impact doesn't mean that we should forever regard them as unworthy of entertainment status.

Warcraft should definitely have been as big as those IP's. And still could be if they dumped the amount of money into that. But they decided to go with OW instead.

[Ihavewaffles]

the human dialogue was cringe...even between the characters..

[Val the Moofia Boss]

There will never be a franchise that will reach mainstream popularity like Star Wars or Harry Potter again. Their explosion in popularity was facilitated by the old media. They came out in a time before everyone was using the internet and could find anything that appealed specifically to them. Star Wars and Harry Potter came out in a time when the old media infrastructure could direct everyone's attention to those properties. Now those infrastructures are irrelevant, and since the internet allows everyone to seek out and satiate their desires, they cannot all be directed to a single property. Not even the MCU or Game of Thrones managed to achieve that level of all encompassing popularity.

[Motso]

I think many people here and confusing 'household name' with 'as popular as the others'. A household name is a person or thing that is well known by the public. WoW is most certainly that. Even people with no real knowledge or interest in gaming have at least heard of World of Warcraft. It has been around forever.
It is indeed a household name, by definition.

[DarkBlade6]

I hope they try to make another movie but 100% CGI this time, that's what It should have been in the first place.

[Beloren]

I think many people here and confusing 'household name' with 'as popular as the others'. A household name is a person or thing that is well known by the public. WoW is most certainly that. Even people with no real knowledge or interest in gaming have at least heard of World of Warcraft. It has been around forever.
It is indeed a household name, by definition.

Nobody outside video game circlesknowws about warcraft - if your family's son was hooked to it (which is what happened with me), your family knows about it, outside that, it's nowhere near widely known like Star Wars or Harry Potter - at least that's what I think

[Tiwack]

They're rolling in it and scared of jeopardizing that.

[MrLachyG]

I hope they try to make another movie but 100% CGI this time, that's what It should have been in the first place.

I disagree; I think should be a tv show instead. You can actually stick to the story that way and not have to cut stuff out due to time constraints

[Motso]

Nobody outside video game circlesknowws about warcraft - if your family's son was hooked to it (which is what happened with me), your family knows about it, outside that, it's nowhere near widely known like Star Wars or Harry Potter - at least that's what I think

I dunno man I disagree. Maybe its just really popular where I am at? But honestly most everyone I have come across has heard of it. Maybe it was the movie? Or that south park episode?
But I think people are underestimating just how well known it really is.
Lets remember there were TV ads with Shatner at one point.

[Pohut]

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??

Considering that it was always just an inferior rip-off of Warhammer, I highly doubt it ever really had a chance to be that massive.

[arkanon]

The main factor is target demographic. The things you listed either were directly targeted at children, or were easily adapted to be more child friendly. One of the very clever decisions with Harry Potter was to progress the story to fit the readers - eg they get a lot grittier and darker as the series goes on, as the readers are now tweens / teens, not children.

Ultimately, i believe to be competitive, they need to have major toy lines almost immediately, lego sets, cartoons on TV every week, a lego warcraft game etc etc and i think they just tried that stuff far too late.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

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??

... Lol no.

And it's not on the detriment of WoW or the Warcraft IP, but you are comparing it to Narratives that are actually stories with one -or a few- creators, with a clear arc and a rather limited PoV.

Warcraft has far more in common with comic book universes, and we all know how hard is to successfully franchise one of those. One of the most influential comic book arcs, the Phoenix Saga, is yet to be successfully translated to live action twice.

And again, all of those successful IP's? they really do only follow a small set of characters, be either a fellowship, a family saga or a group of friends. WoW's scope is far larger now, and when they had the chance to do a movie about it, they crammed a whole war into a 2 hour movie.

[Kokolums]

I talked about the Warcraft film before. The film should have been a horror film, and the primary enemy should have been the Dark Portal. That's how the original setup was. You had the kingdoms of Azeroth and suddenly this mysterious portal appears and monsters pour out of it. Don't reveal what's on the other side. Keep it mysterious. They jammed way too much info into the film.

There was a horror film a few years ago called Oculus starring Karen Gillan. I'd aim for a film that feels like that, the enemy is the portal and Azeroth is struggling to stop it.

[wraysbury]

Don't reveal what's on the other side. Keep it mysterious.

blizzard is way too hamfisted to possibly do that

heck they can't even do a proper lovecraftian abomination, they have to give it a dumb angry human voice taunting the player with stupid threats

[ihate2beapessimist]

South Park episode was the peak and it was all downhill from there.

[wushootaki]

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".

Mario, Sonic, and Final Fantasy say Hello.

[Pohut]

Mario, Sonic, and Final Fantasy say Hello.

Nobody knows about any of these outside of niche gaming circles.

[THEORACLE64]

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??

Piss poor director and a terrible movie company. They literally went with two of the worst things directing that movie that they possibly could. It was a dud from the start.

[wraysbury]

Piss poor director and a terrible movie company. They literally went with two of the worst things directing that movie that they possibly could. It was a dud from the start.

also piss poor universe and story. i sometimes wonder what weird bubble wow players are living in, wow's story telling is absolute trash tier

besides, name one single video game franchise that managed to spawn a good movie adaptation