A panel discussion on Warcry speaks to a group of developers working in the MMO space including SOE President John Smedley, ZeniMax Online Studios General Manager Matt Firor, Themis Group CEO Alexander Macris, EVE Online Game Designer Chantel Zuurmond and the former Executive Producer of Star Trek Online Daron Stinnett. The discussion talks about the current MMO market and all are agreed that WoW has the market sewn up right now.
It was a sentiment shared by most of those we spoke to. It’s obvious that World of Warcraft has the market by the throat and have become perhaps the only truly global game in the MMO-space. That means some tough realities for the games in the next tier.
“[MMOs are in a] state of unrest, right now,” said Matt Firor, General Manager of ZeniMax Online Studios, a sister company of Bethesda. “World of Warcraft is ruling the subscription game market, and no one wants to compete with them directly, so they go off for niche markets.”
Chantel Zuurmond, Game Designer for CCP Game’s EVE Online, agreed: “I think any game that wants to coexist with WoW and do well should try to cater to a niche.”
This leaves developers and investors with a choice. They either run at the colossus that is WoW head-on, or they do as Zuurmond suggests and try and carve out a unique - but smaller - niche
So what is going to be the next big thing, can anyone topple wow and if so who is going to be?
Certainly no one in the current group coming out. The only one that has a chance is WAR, and for them to succeed they MUST work on having as broad appeal as possible. They have done that somewhat, but I still doubt they will hurt WoW to any appreciable amount. Enspecially since they seem more and more likely to be released around the same time as WotLK. If that happens, they will have even less of a chance.