Blizzard created the perfect storm

[Agent Smith]

and other game developers are taking advantage of it.

It just dawned on me while I was sat here, there doesn't have to be a singular WoW killer, with companies like Amazon, Riot, and Singularity 6 (and more) coming out with their own MMO's. All that has to happen is these developers individually absorb a chunk of the current WoW base. Blizzard essentially will compete with several major viable companies, instead of just 1 at a time when they are failing miserably. its just a matter of time.

Does competition breed excellence?

[Lorgar Aurelian]

First time seeing multiple mmos coming out? It was the same thing with rift,swtor,dcu, terra,gw2, ect all coming out around the same time.

[Acidbaron]

The market continue to produce new MMOs as it always has, there's no storm going on. MMOs also are nowhere near the height of their popularity.

WoW wont vanish from the stage but it is shrinking, yet to be seen as the new and upcoming MMOs will be good products on their own.

[Lynarii]

Just being another MMO doesn't even mean it's designed to compete with WoW. There are dozens upon dozens of free to play MMOs that appear every year that are in it for a quick buck, the market for that is a different one than the one that the MMOs who hope to keep a player for a decade target. Can companies like Amazon and Riot make a long term MMO? Absolutely they COULD, but we don't know that's what they will do. Investors do love their fast cash after all.

Also, good doesn't always translate to successful, especially in the long term MMO market. Players need to be willing to invest their care in not only the game but in the people making, maintaining, and updating it. One of the big complaints I hear about WoW is that the Blizzard devs have lost their souls... but does anyone at all really believe Amazon of all companies is a step up for ethics and putting people ahead of money? People complain about how bad the community in WoW is, but Riot's LoL is downright famous for how toxic its' community is. Does Singularity 6 have the stability as a company to even exist in a decade? Even if the games that these companies make are good, actually catching the hearts of a massive player base is lightning in a bottle. The people who have done it probably couldn't truly tell you how they pulled it off with any degree of certainty.

[PACOX]

Its a fallacy to think an MMO, or any game must 'kill' games it shares a genre with to be successful. It's also a topic of discussion where see games as popularity contests or full of people with FOMO instead of people want to play fun games. There's plenty of MMO players who play MMOs other than WoW who never even think about WoW or how their game measures up to it. Thats not out of positive or negative opinions, they are simply fine playing the game they play for whatever reason. Doesn't matter if their game has the most concurrent players or the least. Hell there are execs with similar opinions, chasing WoW numbers is reckless and ruined an entire generation of MMOs around TBC/Wotlk days.

[Bakis]

Given history none of them will come close to compete.
If one does, Im all for it.
But lets not portray BLZ for not having a clue, the longest living and massive MMO ever.

Its the benchmark. Hopefully some studios will copy the good bits of it and launch something fresh, but I have not read anything even remotely close to that.
The mmo players are arguably the most picky and detail oriented players of any genre, lore and shit like that.

Amazon, Riot whatever pumping in funding doesn't mean anything. Nothing.
Once some studio release a competing title it will still take a few years to get the WoW players and that is asuming BLZ released crappy expanions during that time.

[PACOX]

Given history none of them will come close to compete.
If one does, Im all for it.
But lets not portray BLZ for not having a clue, the longest living and massive MMO ever.

Its the benchmark. Hopefully some studios will copy the good bits of it and launch something fresh, but I have not read anything even remotely close to that.
The mmo players are arguably the most picky and detail oriented players of any genre, lore and shit like that.

Amazon, Riot whatever pumping in funding doesn't mean anything. Nothing.
Once some studio release a competing title it will still take a few years to get the WoW players and that is asuming BLZ released crappy expanions during that time.

Not taking a dig at Blizzard but their history is adapting what others do and not the other way around. They are really good at taking interesting ideas from other games and having the resources to refine them. And when people complain about Blizzard taking WoW in a particular direction, that direction comes directly from player feedback and what players respond to. WoW is a certain way because that's what its community wants, which may be contrary to the loudest voices.

With that said the biggest MMORPGs outside of WoW in the west right now are FF14, ESO, and GW2. 4 games not really worried about emulating WoW.

[uuuhname]

if any of these games end up being successful Blizzard will simply take the systems or mechanics that make those games stand out and add them to WoW. so yes? also not really? eh?????

[Bakis]

Not taking a dig at Blizzard but their history is adapting what others do and not the other way around. They are really good at taking interesting ideas from other games and having the resources to refine them. And when people complain about Blizzard taking WoW in a particular direction, that direction comes directly from player feedback and what players respond to. WoW is a certain way because that's what its community wants, which may be contrary to the loudest voices.

With that said the biggest MMORPGs outside of WoW in the west right now are FF14, ESO, and GW2. 4 games not really worried about emulating WoW.

Yea but being the benchmark equals alot of whining. And the amount of that whining (just teasing ppl with choice of word, some are valid) has to be put in context with the fact that WoW has been going on since 2004 and since then and still is the top dog.

Personally I think the evolution of a competing title has to go via a smaller studio, getting the interest of the top publishers and go from there.
Problem with the big publishers is they, as we have seen with Activision, bring alot of non-gaming stuff to the table. There is a real risk creativity gets lost which would undoubtfully end up in a fizz at most.

BLZ didnt belive in classic at start, they did everything they could to stop it and its kinda ironic it would turn out to be the best marketing decision ever to go for classic.
They got their regular WoW as well as gathering up the nostalgic, hardcore, tired of current WoW playerbare.
That meant its even less consumers for a competitor.

I still hope some studio will do it eventually though, just dont think it will be pumping in money that equals it.

[Draco-Onis]

Yea but being the benchmark equals alot of whining. And the amount of that whining (just teasing ppl with choice of word, some are valid) has to be put in context with the fact that WoW has been going on since 2004 and since then and still is the top dog.

Personally I think the evolution of a competing title has to go via a smaller studio, getting the interest of the top publishers and go from there.
Problem with the big publishers is they, as we have seen with Activision, bring alot of non-gaming stuff to the table. There is a real risk creativity gets lost which would undoubtfully end up in a fizz at most.

BLZ didnt belive in classic at start, they did everything they could to stop it and its kinda ironic it would turn out to be the best marketing decision ever to go for classic.
They got their regular WoW as well as gathering up the nostalgic, hardcore, tired of current WoW playerbare.
That meant its even less consumers for a competitor.

I still hope some studio will do it eventually though, just dont think it will be pumping in money that equals it.

Blizzard has done an very good job destroying wow, the saying is correct only WOW can kill WOW the leadership at blizzard doesn't care about games just the bottom line so they keep abusing the player base. The fact that nostalgia is keeping it relevant and alive is a pretty damming rebuke to the current game's direction and design, WOW won't die it will be around but continuing to be a shadow of what it once was.

[Bakis]

Blizzard has done an very good job destroying wow, the saying is correct only WOW can kill WOW the leadership at blizzard doesn't care about games just the bottom line so they keep abusing the player base. The fact that nostalgia is keeping it relevant and alive is a pretty damming rebuke to the current game's direction and design, WOW won't die it will be around but continuing to be a shadow of what it once was.

Since I've played since 2007 I agree from a personal view. But dont you agree they filled both the casual as well as nostalgic "hardcore" playerbase with WoW and Classic WoW?

[Draco-Onis]

Since I've played since 2007 I agree from a personal view. But dont you agree they filled both the casual as well as nostalgic "hardcore" playerbase with WoW and Classic WoW?

No because what people really want is modern wow simplified with how classic was, the simplicity of the old days with the good improvements, new adventures and stories. Blizzard seems to be ignoring all of that look at 9.1 they are adding even more freaking systems on top of systems. Eventually the nostalgia wears off and people slowly leave the game not to mention they are trying to monetize the nostalgia which is souring the player base.

[kaminaris]

Given history none of them will come close to compete.
If one does, Im all for it.
But lets not portray BLZ for not having a clue, the longest living and massive MMO ever.

Its the benchmark. Hopefully some studios will copy the good bits of it and launch something fresh, but I have not read anything even remotely close to that.
The mmo players are arguably the most picky and detail oriented players of any genre, lore and shit like that.

Amazon, Riot whatever pumping in funding doesn't mean anything. Nothing.
Once some studio release a competing title it will still take a few years to get the WoW players and that is asuming BLZ released crappy expanions during that time.

Well you missed it then because FFXIV has been real serious competitor for quite some time now.

Its exactly as first post states, death by thousand cuts. Also lets not forget about AoC. It doesn't have to be WoW clone, it just literally have to be more fun which is not really hard to do (altho New World failed in that regard).

[Mysterymask]

I swear to god like 90% of wow players LITERALLY live under a rock

[justandulas]

First time seeing multiple mmos coming out? It was the same thing with rift,swtor,dcu, terra,gw2, ect all coming out around the same time.

Unlike those titles, they aren't coming out with WoW at it's peak... more like WoW at it's lowest moments. Without Classic, we'd be talking both ESO and FF14 having more players instead of just FF14.

they don't have to compete with 2008-2012 WOW. They are competing with WoW in the 2020's and... well, the results speak for themselves

[Ashleyxoxo]

WoW's concurrent players may drop to the competition's level, but no other MMO brings in the release day numbers that WoW does still.

[Souflikar]

Yeah, doesn't look like you need multiple mmo's since FFXIV seems to be making a huge dent. But I get your point.
At least there will be more options for mmo fans and other games to try during - RIDICUOUSLY LONG CONTENT DROUGHTS.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

First time seeing multiple mmos coming out? It was the same thing with rift,swtor,dcu, terra,gw2, ect all coming out around the same time.

This. The only difference is that now WoW is so bad that people are likely to jump ship and never look back (whereas when Warhammer AoR and LotRO and STO and SWTOR came out, WoW was still good enough that people switched back).

- - - Updated - - -

The market continue to produce new MMOs as it always has, there's no storm going on. MMOs also are nowhere near the height of their popularity.

WoW wont vanish from the stage but it is shrinking, yet to be seen as the new and upcoming MMOs will be good products on their own.

Anything important thing to note: most WoW players don't play other MMOs. They only play WoW. Sure, some people jump ship to another MMO, but when WoW started going downhill and people lost interest in WoW and dropped it, they didn't go to another MMO. They just dropped out of the genre entirely. It's hard to gauge how truly big the MMO market is in the West, but going by the relatively small populations of GW2, Black Desert, STO, LotRO, and SWTOR (with ESO and FFXIV having the only notably large populations in the West), the MMO market seems to be very small compared to the WoW fandom.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Unlike those titles, they aren't coming out with WoW at it's peak... more like WoW at it's lowest moments. Without Classic, we'd be talking both ESO and FF14 having more players instead of just FF14.

they don't have to compete with 2008-2012 WOW. They are competing with WoW in the 2020's and... well, the results speak for themselves

You have a tendency to lie so got any sources for said results? Ie ff14 having more players.

[Egomaniac]

This. The only difference is that now WoW is so bad that people are likely to jump ship and never look back (whereas when Warhammer AoR and LotRO and STO and SWTOR came out, WoW was still good enough that people switched back).

People have been saying "WoW is so bad now" for over a decade...it hasn't helped anyone take the top spot yet.