It recently occurred to me that I have a great deal of pithy wisdom to pass out, but often cannot express such wisdom in a detailed format as would traditionally befit this site. As a result, this knowledge is lost, much like many of the Dead Sea Scrolls or the QA department of Firaxis. To staunch the hemorrhaging of this critical knowledge, I bring you my irregular Nuggets of Wisdom, where I will give quick shout-outs to games, concepts, society–whatever I feel like. You are to take these nuggets and to cling to them like the final acorn a squirrel devours in a harsh winter, not knowing when the next meal will come. You will get extra points for contradicting me, and even more points for worshiping my mighty e-peen.
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
A good friend of mine (actually several) have gotten back into WoW in preparation for the release of the next expansion. Blizzard has apparently created a variety of incentives for people to level up to the pre-expansion max and get ready for the joy ride that will be their newest expansion, merrily shitting upon their existing customer base by devaluing their hard work.
Fortunately for Blizzard, their customer base has the willpower of a morphine addict in an opium den. Despite my previous battles with heroin, I mean, WoW, I have no interest in playing ever again. WoW is like Disneyland: it’s a very well constructed experience where you can pass the time in a perfectly enjoyable way, but it’s a very controlled world and you will wait in line for your fun in a manner they have carefully calculated. Sure, 10 million people seem to think the game is the Bee’s Knees, but in 1941 the population of Germany was 110 million (counting annexed countries) and they had some interesting ideas as well.
Gaming in a Depressed Economy
You shouldn’t be scared about our recent economic downturn: things aren’t great, but this isn’t the depression and the world is still following the US lead, so we’re still relevant. That being said, it’s probably not the best time to buy a $3k TV you can’t afford on credit.
What it is a good time for is subscription games and games with multiplayer components to gain serious market share as people look for cost efficient ways to spend their time. I imagine Blizzard is positively orgasmic about the timing of their expansion launch and this downturn, but I’m curious to see if anyone else puts something out that gains good traction. Anything with a multiplayer component (FPS, etc) has potential, as people look to increase their value per game.
And if you are in the market for a big screen TV, holiday season/post holiday season this year will be a great time to buy, because retailers are going to be desperate in what is almost certain to be a brutal, if not catastrophic retail season. Just don’t buy anything on credit, for the love of god.
My roomie is still a big WoW fan, and he made a point I don’t often here. Most big MMO releases shoot themselves in the foot release wise. For instance, instead of releasing just now, he feels that Warhammer should have come out sometime in early 09. Basically, you can’t launch your game so close to the release of a new WoW expansion, since everyone will be getting ready for its release. However (and maybe this isn’t true), he claims that a few months after Burning Crusade was released, the servery got quieter and people got bored, and that the same will happen with Lich King. It sounds reasonable enough.
It makes sense, but Warhammer was already heavily delayed and they needed to ship a product, in my opinion. Also keep in mind that the “bored or burnt out” WoW population is already at X level. It may hit X+Y in 5 months, but having a live server with people having fun, a few patches and other people telling their friends “hey give warhammer a try” will have set in. Plus, keep in mind markets can grow. It’s not only WoW or nothing– and if Warhammer is a good game, you may see people paying subs to both games. You don’t need to beat WoW to make money– you only need to meet your own costing metrics. If Warhammer ships a million or two boxes and has half a million and growing subs, I imagine they’ll be pleased.