Is It Possible to Surpass World of Warcraft?

Gamasutra has published an article entitled “Is It Possible to Surpass World of Warcraft?”, in which business analyst David Cole sums up why it will be very difficult for another MMORPG to have the same success as WoW.

Finally of course there is Blizzard’s reputation and the brand strength of Warcraft. Blizzard’s franchises like Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo were among the most popular PC games of all time. Blizzard is definitely a company well-known for quality of product not quantity. They are a company with a reputation for taking the time to get things right. For example, it took over six years between the release of Warcraft II and Warcraft III. Furthermore, Blizzard, at the time of WoW’s release, was probably the most respected online gaming company in the world. Through years of supporting online games at Battle.net with a high level of service, the company was known as responsive to player desires and just plain good at running online games. Unlike many game company brands, Blizzard had proven its international appeal with massive popularity of StarCraft in Asia, particularly outside Japan. Blizzard even had some indirect benefit from piracy. Warcraft games were some of the most popular pirated games in China and other parts of Asia and this lead to strong brand recognition.