Stop Looking for a WoW Killer
Ever since World of Warcraft started showing signs of cancer-like growth - ravenously consuming massively multiplayer online game subscribers - video game industry entrepreneurs and investors have hunted for a WoW killer, the next big game capable of toppling the 11.5 million subscribers developer Blizzard has amassed worldwide.
Stop looking. The only company capable of building a WoW rival is Blizzard itself, says gaming industry analyst Michael Cai. He arrived at his conclusion while researching an online games study entitled "Networked Gaming: Driving the Future II" that will be released this month by research firm Parks Associates. (Cai has since left Parks to pursue an opportunity elsewhere.)
Instead of squaring off against another juggernaut, according to Cai, WoW’s biggest competition will be a swarm of Lilliputian-sized MMOs that will whittle away its user base with the promise of free play. By his estimation, WoW accounted for half of the $860 million in revenues that MMOs generated in the U.S. in 2008. He expects all online games to generate $1.6 billion by 2013.
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