World of Warcraft passes 50 percent market share

[Requiem]

Multiplayer online role-playing games started back in the days of mainframes, text-based terminals, and Multi-User Dungeons, or MUDs. It was not until the rise of both the personal computer and the Internet that these adventures moved forward into a graphical world. Early experiments such as LucasArts' Habitat, released in 1985 on the Commodore 64, showed some of the difficulties involved in bringing a large number of players into the same online world. Issues such as player-versus-player killing, bug exploits, and the fact that players would blast through new content much faster than the developers could create it, became standard problems that each online game developer would have to solve.
With each new technological advance, the population of online worlds increased. 3DO's Meridian 59 (1996) passed the 50,000 subscriber mark, and Richard Garriott's Ultima Online (1997) reached the 250,000 subscriber threshold in six years. Sony's EverQuest (1999) would double those numbers.
The big surprise, however, was Blizzard's World of Warcraft, released in 2004. It quickly surpassed all its rivals in subscriptions, passing the six million mark in February of this year. Now, according to the web site MMOGCHART.com, it has hit a new milestone by moving past the 50 percent mark for market share of massively multiplayer online games.

Just thought this was interesting.. You can read more about it here:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060601-6964.html

[RookRJ]

Man... I wish I had some equity in Blizzard...

6,000,000 subscribers * 12.99 per month (6 month package) =

= $ 77,940,000.00 per month (worst case scenario)

That´s $935,280,000.00 per year!! Damn... nearly 1 billion dollars in profits!!!

*faints*

[a_random_hero]

Originally Posted by RookRJ

Man... I wish I had some equity in Blizzard...

6,000,000 subscribers * 12.99 per month (6 month package) =

= $ 77,940,000.00 per month (worst case scenario)

That´s $935,280,000.00 per year!! Damn... nearly 1 billion dollars in profits!!!

*faints*

well minus expenses they aren't making that much, but still.... wow

and for expenses keep in mind starcraft ghost, in development for what... 10 years now?

Just wait till they put out Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2, which I really think they are close to announcing at least one if not both. The rich keep getting richer.

[Argus]

Originally Posted by a_random_hero

well minus expenses they aren't making that much, but still.... wow

and for expenses keep in mind starcraft ghost, in development for what... 10 years now?

Just wait till they put out Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2, which I really think they are close to announcing at least one if not both. The rich keep getting richer.

Theyre still making games? I thought they were set

[Zhemri]

That bothers me, the worst thing for the mmo industry is for a bad game to be really successful, it's cool that it's brought more people into the genre, but why are peoples standards so low. Or it's just because there's nothing but crap to choose from right now.

[Tang Dynasty]

I think its because it is a game that really anyone can play. it is such a broad but shallow game that tons of people join but also had alot of end game that is designed to keep you playing. lots of people leave the game after a while but when you have 6 million people playing it doesn't matter. Also there really isn't any good new mmo out right now so that contributes alot to it i think.

[Melkorus]

I think their dominance will come to an end by 08. There are few decent games coming out this year, AoC being one of them, and there are a lot more lined up for 07 and 08 that will rip their subscribers in all directions. AoC FTW!

[DunWolf]

It's like South Park says, when it comes to voting your only choices are between a Turd Sandwich or a Giant Douche bag. Take your preference...I just hate to see so many games try to copy what WoW is to try and increase subscribers. *cough* SWG *cough*. Lighning doesn't always strike twice. Stop copying others and make something original *gasp*

[sj0ver]

wow had me addicted for 8 months or so, and my brother even longer. It appeals to new players, cos it's so easy to play. I don't mind WoW having success, cos it's fun to play (like it's fun to play with an electrical fence till u accidentally touch it), but then it stops, and u start thinking about why the hell u were playing with it.

[RookRJ]

Originally Posted by a_random_hero

well minus expenses they aren't making that much, but still.... wow

Oooops... I wrote profits, I meant income.

Originally Posted by a_random_hero

Just wait till they put out Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2, which I really think they are close to announcing at least one if not both. The rich keep getting richer.

I want to see "World of Diablo".... man that would rock my world...