Today's New York Times examines the success of World of Warcraft from a global perspective, concluding that "World of Warcraft has become the first truly global video-game hit since Pac-Man in the early 1980's."
In addition to the new angle, this piece provides a nice benchmark for mainstream media coverage of MMOGs. Just a few years ago, media were wont to "report" on the gameplay habits of Everquest and Asheron's Call players with a sensational "watch these people ruin their lives playing games!" tone that just wasn't fair. Often, introversion, depression, and suicidal tendencies were ascribed to people who choose to play games for hours at a time. The Times's coverage is much more balanced, finally allowing an eloquent gamer (Jason Pinsky) the opportunity to defend his hobby:
"I play this game six nights a week from 8 p.m. to midnight.... most people watch TV at least that much, and television is a totally mindless experience."
Word.
[Update 1: fixed a clumsy headline and formatting in body of post.]
(Page 1) Reader Comments
Reply
I've got news for the Gray Lady: ask people of all ages who Mario is. Then do the same for, I dunno, WoW character classes.
Yeah.
Reply
Reply
Seriously, it's like the Mario Brothers of the MMORPG world. Great gameplay but no substance.
Reply
WoW is a PC game, and if it is not ported to consoles, they can kiss goodbye mainstream pop culture and keep being regarded as an underground hobby at best.
Reply
Reply
Two I have a huge horrible rant I am, holding myself back from, because I know it is not the time, or right post. Lets just say I feel it is easy to make money off of something like WOW rather than it is to keep it going as a success. All WOW really did was ignore the hardcore gamer when creating an MMO, it then added interesting characters and lore, beyond that I don't see wow doing that well when the expansion hits, because in the end when your product does this well, you start catoring to the all mighty dollar. Rather than making something, that lived up to the orginal creativity, innovation, and drive you first had when you put out the game, you continue something that you hope will just keep your install base happy rather than creating something interesting to keep them, intrigued. You forget about growing the gaming experience of wow and focus more on farming the people for their 15 bucks a month, and that is the future I see from blizz when that expansion drops.
Like I said, I am holding my rant back, but the WOW expansion just seems to make BLizz look like one hit wonders the more I look at it. WoW is begining to look like the same cookie cutter MMORPG like rest stealing slowly from EQ.
Reply
Benjamin, when SMB on the NES was released it wasn't nearly as popular in Europe as it was in Japan and America (I dont think) So it wasnt a truely global phenomenom. Also SMB was maninly popular with kids at the time, not kids and adults as WOW seems to be.
What they are saying is no game since Pac-man as appealed to such a broad spectrum of people across the globe.
Reply
Reply
I'm pretty sure your average joe had no idea what Street Fighter was :)
Just about everyone with a remote interest in games new what it was, but most people with no interest games what's so ever didn't.
Reply
8 minute games of Halo and Ghost Recon are just more appealing to me. Hop in, play, hop out. I don't know that you can get a great experience in an mmorpg without devoting hours- in a row- to it.
Reply
Makes it sound as though all other games have say done well in America and Europe but then failed in Japan. Thats just plain wrong and also ignoring things such as pokemon. Pokemon red and blue sold 31.3million copies worldwide. Selling around 10million in Japan, America and Europe. So apparently that isn't a global video game hit but WoW is. I had a look at vgcharts and it said WoW has
5.39million in America
1.17million in Europe
0 in Japan
How exactly is this a truly global video game hit?
WoW is 39th in terms of sales and im fairly sure all the games above it came out after pac-man.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
1.17million in Europe
0 in Japan
The japanese obivously don't play good games that were created outside of their country.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
And #13, it's in OVER 20 years but they still stated Pac-Man. :
Reply
Pokemon - 11 years old, and practically everyone has heard of it. It moves billions of merch a year, and everyone can name at least a couple of them.
Street Fighter II - 15 years old, broke Pac-Man's arcade records, created an entire genre of video games, resulted in a line of toys and was so successful that the game's received at least 5 major rereleases.
Mortal Kombat - 14 years old, became the first video game to introduce adult themes that was successful, drove up sales of the Genesis just because that version had blood, resulted in the creation of the ESRB.
Madden franchise - 17 years old, release date results in massive lost work as people skip work to pick it up/play, is practically a part of sports culture
Tetris - 21 years old (but not available outside of Soviet Russia until at earliest 20 years ago), possibly the most popular video game of all time, actually has a psychological condition (the Tetris effect, which talks about how an activity can come to dominate someone's thoughts) named after it.
I'm not saying WoW isn't big. It's just not nearly as huge as the ones I just mentioned.
Reply
Oddly, of all the articles on Joystiq, the one that consistently receives the least of amount of comments is the (formerly) weekly WOW articles (or so is seems). This one, I'm sure will receive more though.
I'm sure it's a movement, but a phenomenon? To me a phenomenon would be the DS
Reply
DK South Korea is a very big exception to the rule. I mean don't they still have starcraft tournments running on tv? I have certainly seen videos of it on youtube that look pretty recent.
Oh and s00pcan im fairly certain WoW hasn't even been released in Japan. Wikipedia doesn't have any mention of it or a release. Plus im pretty sure mmorpgs aren't very big in Japan. I may be wrong but im sure I remember reading an article about it.
Reply
!!WHAT!WHAT!WHAT!WHAT!WHAT!WHAT!WHAT!WHAT!WHAT!WHAT!!
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!now I have your attention!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I see where this guy can maybe slide by with the statement:
********************************************************
"the first truly global video-game hit since Pac-Man in the early 1980's"
********************************************************
Why is this? It is the first MMORPG that is not only available but is played around the world. Does this make the game "The FIRST truly Global Video-Game Hit"?
No, not exactly. This would mean to leave out some of the best selling highest proclaimed series;
Mario, Final Fantasy (pick one; 3, 7, 10, 11), Zelda and this is just naming Console games.
Lets step into the same territory as Pac-Man; Arcades. The next biggest thing since Pac-Man was, what?
2D Fighters - pick your flavor; Street Fighter II or Mortal Kombat. I think there was a bigger wave of fans with these Arcade classics that actually sprung a whole new genre of their own.
Sorry WoW - in true gamers hearts, you are not that "The FIRST truly Global Video-Game Hit". I think that should be decided by the gaming community, not some guy on WallStreet.
Reply
Vlad... look, I know you're the one in business school, but I've got to call you on that. How many millions of Mario games have been sold? How much Mario-related merch gets sold every year? Heck, I note that McDonald's Happy Meals are coming with Mario toys at the moment - how much is Mario bringing Nintendo because of that?
As for how much mindshare Mario has - during some years (1990, for example), Mario was more recognizeable than Mickey Mouse.
It might be in style to mock the plumber, but never underestimate how much Mario brings to the table.
Reply
TV isn't entirely mindless, unless you only watch mindless crap I suppose. I watch documentaries and learn new things from TV, granted I don't want much, about 4 hours a week. but that is just a very stupid thing to say.
I think Vlad has a point but has bludgeoned it with bad wording. This isn't the first global game etc as many above have pointed out. WoW is just the peak of MMORPGs, not the peak in gameplay, the peak in platformers, horror survival, arcade games etc.
Reply
If you do not play this game or ever plan on it, you will NEVER EVER understand what makes people enjoy playing or discover for yourself what's so "interesting" and addicting about this game.
So yes, if you or the ones you love do not play this game yet, DO NOT EVER let them! Get your kids a new hobby! Don't let your boyfriends, girlfriends, wives, husbands, or fiances goto best buy! Unless of course you play, then it's okay because you will want new in-game friends...
If you do play this game, God help you! Try to get a life. It might already be too late...
Reply
Nobody (and I do mean not a single soul) plays Mario 20 hours per week for months on end. That sort of behavior is TYPICAL for World of Warcraft. Mario games are shallower, less engaging experiences. That's not a quality assessment. They're just different types of games entirely.
Nintendo doesn't release enough public information for me to quickly assess the source and quality of their earnings. Intuitively, it seems unlikely that gross WoW revenues have exceeded gross Mario revenues.
But I'm feeling pretty confident that gross customer man-hours spent experiencing WoW far exceed hours spent experiencing Mario.
Reply
Reply
Also, in terms of gross customer man-hours, I actually think that Mario will still come out on top. Even if the 6.5 million active players (according to Wikipedia) are amassing that much time per week, I don't think that compares to the tens of millions that own at least one Mario game (Wikipedia puts the sales of Mario games at 275 million worldwide, and I don't know whether or not that includes games like Mario Kart or Smash Brothers). Maybe you don't have a single person playing that much Mario. But when you've got about a dozen Mario players per WoW player, I've got to assume that the Mario players are going to amass much more gross man-hours per week.
Neither of us have hard figures and we won't be able to adequately prove either one of us right or wrong. But on sheer quantity of titles and players alone, I think it has to be Mario.
Reply
Personally I find TV far too passive, so I play games rather than watch what I consider mundane crap aimed at the lowest common demonenator.
I feel games keep my mind active - regardless of the grind in WoW and other MMORPG's at least the player is making decisions, calculations, in other words it's an active past-time. The most brain activity your average TV addict exhibits is when they need to change the channel to watch their next sitcom/soap/reality show.
I'm not knocking people who watch TV, it's just my opinion they both have equal places in modern society and to berate one is to berate the other.
It kinda makes me laugh when I think back to when I was a kid and my parents bemaoned that I was 'always on the compauter', yet they were watching just as much TV'!
Reply
While no one plays Mario 20 hours a week over the past two years, saying World of Warcraft has amassed more playtime than all Mario games put together is a bit of a stretch.
Mario games have sold around 275 million copies.
Now, time for some math. Saying that all 8 million customers have average 20 hours a week over the past 2 years is a huge stretch. WoW didn't always have that many customers nor do all of them play even that much. By taking averages and such, lets assume when you stretch it all out, those 8 million people have averaged 8 hours a week in total playtime. Playing 20 hours a week over the past three months really cuts down the playtime when averaged with 101 weeks of 0 hours.
WoW probably has around 3.328 billion hours of total playtime, and this is probably being to generous on the high end.
Now, lets take Mario games. Given tons of Mario games are sports titles, RPG, educational, etc, on top of the traditional platform, lets use 20 hours per game average (conservative because I've personally played Super Mario RPG through 5 times at 25 hours a play). That comes to 5.5 billion hours. This is being a bit too conservative given there are a ton of countries out there that aren't exactly wealthy and probably STILL play the original SMB to this day and I'm assuming gamers only touched it once or twice.
What I can give World of Warcraft, however, is the title for single most profitable game. Without a doubt, no single game in existence has been able to pull in the kind of cash World of Warcraft is pulling now.
Reply
"Makes it sound as though all other games have say done well in America and Europe but then failed in Japan. Thats just plain wrong and also ignoring things such as pokemon. Pokemon red and blue sold 31.3million copies worldwide. Selling around 10million in Japan, America and Europe. So apparently that isn't a global video game hit but WoW is. I had a look at vgcharts and it said WoW has
5.39million in America
1.17million in Europe
0 in Japan
How exactly is this a truly global video game hit?"
Well, Tom, when you read the article, it says this:
"The game has more players in China, where it has engaged in co-promotions with major brands like Coca-Cola, than in the United States. (There are more than three million players in China, and slightly fewer than two million in the United States. And as with most video games, a clear majority of players worldwide are male.)
There is a rabid legion of fans here in South Korea, which has the world’s most fervent gaming culture, and more than a million people play in Europe. Most World of Warcraft players pay around $14 a month for access."
So I guess he was going by the China and South Korea thing. Just because the game doesn't sell in Japan doesn't mean it's not a global hit. Japan is one country, with, I should point out, way fewer people than China.
Reply
5 Million Subcribers @ $15/month= $75,000,000/month in subscription fees alone...and EA thinks Madden is a cash cow? HAHAHA
Blizzard has got to be so rich it's not even funny, and this doesn't even include the sale of the initial game. Assuming people paid on average $40 a piece for the game, that's another $200,000,000 dollars.
Reply
Granted, nobody makes money off of that. But while I haven't heard of anyone pirating WoW, emulation and piracy have gone after Mario games for years. The 275 million cited before is just how many people have paid for Mario. Many more people are playing it for free illegally.
Reply
Pick a game. A single game. Mario as a character is well merchandised, well represented, and very well exposed. But only SMB (the original) has any real chance at giving WoW any competition by the influence metric.
Reply
Golly gee, I sure do love anecdotal evidence. "If I do it then it must be the norm!" This guy can speak for himself. "Most people" probably have better things to do than sit around watching TV for hours on end every single night, like, I don't know... going outside and doing things with actual people.
Sure sign of a weak argument -- the classic "Well yeah but all these other people are doing (fill in somewhat similar activity X here) too!!" Who gives a rip what other people are doing (or more precisely, what you'd like to think they're doing so you don't look so lame in comparison)? That doesn't justify what YOU are doing one bit.
I don't think it's exactly honorable to be defending people like this who spend an ENTIRE DAY out of their week playing videogames (4 hours a day X 6 days a week = 24 hours). Can you seriously find nothing else to do with your evenings? Good grief...
I love games too but some people could really do with a lesson in moderation.
Reply
Now, if we're going to refine this to strictly be about the main platform games, I suppose we're restricting it to the following games (and the rereleases, to explain why I'm not listing, among others, Super Mario All-Stars):
Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. 2 Japanese
Super Mario Bros. 2 US
Super Mario Bros. 3
Super Mario World
Super Mario World 2
Super Mario 64
Super Mario Sunshine
Super Mario Land
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
New Super Mario Bros.
This is leaving out all rereleases and games where you could arguably call them classic Mario platformers (like Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 and Luigi's Mansion). This is also throwing out the various Mario RPGs, despite them having quite a few elements of the platformer classics. And by all rights, I probably should include Donkey Kong as well.
But since you're wanting to narrow it down to a single game now, I'll give that a go. I'll pick Super Mario Bros. 3.
First off, let's look at how huge that game was. Anyone else remember the huge lines and the fights breaking out at retailers during that game's first week of release? I was one of the lucky few that had it when it first came out. It was scarce for months. WoW never set off a craze like that.
We could look at popularity. Super Mario 3 is one of the top three most popular NES games (along with the first Zelda and the first Final Fantasy) ever made. It's had two different remakes (Super Mario All-Stars and Super Mario Advance 4) that were extremely successful. People still push themselves to do amazing speed runs of the game.
People still obsess over little things. I remember playing that game repeatedly just to do the Stone Hammer suit (which you can only do in World 7, pretty much requiring a stop-off in World 5 unless you're really lucky, so you can't just warp there immediately). The amount of play that resulted in the number of found secrets for the game is immense. People have obsessed over that game for over a decade.
Let's also look at what it did for publishing. We often forget this now, but one of the very first strategy guides for a video game was the Nintendo Power-branded guide for Super Mario 3. That game was complex enough to encourage a guide, which influenced both future game design as well as setting up a new market for book publishers.
And people still play it in all sorts of situations. You can always get people up for playing it. Everyone knows it. People might not play it obsessively, but someone, somewhere is always playing it, hands down.
But here's the thing - part of the reason Mario can blow WoW out of the water is because he's not defined by a single game. He's a franchise. He's a beloved cartoon. He's a merchandising icon on the level of Mickey and Bugs. He's influenced game design and the common person - Mario's theme is the defining song of my generation.
However, pretty much everything about WoW is contained in that one game. It just doesn't have the footprint one plumber's boots have made. Fair or not, it's simply the truth.
Reply
Reply
Reply
"I don't think it's exactly honorable to be defending people like this who spend an ENTIRE DAY out of their week playing videogames (4 hours a day X 6 days a week = 24 hours). Can you seriously find nothing else to do with your evenings? Good grief...
I love games too but some people could really do with a lesson in moderation."
Do you work? Or are your parents paying your way through life?
When you work 8-12 hours a day during the week with a family or girlfriend to support, coming home to relax is of paramount importance. Going to the bar or out on the town is something you might do once a week or on the weekends, but there's tons of time spent just relaxing. If you think for one minute that "most people" are not coming home to watch TV after work, then you have a serious problem with understanding the world around you. Look at TV ratings where you live. Those numbers don't get exaggerated like the American Idol or GameFAQ poll counts. Those are real people all watching TV.
Now for some people, myself included, video games is a more enjoyable relaxation tool. It is equivalent, at the very least, to watching TV. All the comments about the slim difference between the two activities and the hypocrisy of saying a gamer who plays WOW for 6 hours after work is worse than a couch potato are unfounded and just plain stupid.
Reply
VC is right - although a huge number of people have bought and played Mario games, Mario hasn't really been interesting from a gaming breakthrough standpoint since the mid-90s! Admit it: If you took Mario's face of any of the games he is in, and tried to market any of them on gameplay alone...they would not do well at all (if you took the Mario out of Mario Kart, that game would sell, what, 8 copies total?). Nostalgia does not new, global phenomenon make.
While Pac-Man served to introduce and familiarize the concepts of video games to everyone, World of Warcraft is the very first time that developers have gotten it right in terms of making gameplay an ongoing, immersive, social atmosphere. Those 6.5 million people are re-buying the same game EACH MONTH. (32_footsteps, your attempt to do number crunching is admirable, but do you really think you can compare someone pirating a game to someone who is making a long term financial commitment?). PC game sales have been devestated by its success, and WoW will do more than any other existing game to shape the boundaries and possibilities of how gaming and online worlds interact in the future. Of course Mario has had a bigger historical influence thus far - that franchise has had over 20 years to make its impact felt. Mario's at a dead end, though...only so far that Koopa stomping can take you.
Reply
obivously you dont play the pc games much because if you did you would know that Blizzard is not a one hit wonder company. In fact they are a genre defining company, one which other games try to measure up to. Diablo, Warcraft, Starcraft and now WoW are shining gems in their genres. They set the standards. Again please do your research before you open up your silly mouth. Its funny, in one hand we have the Sony fanboys vs the Microsoft bitches. Now we have Console vs PC as well.
To me i love both formats. PC for their shooters(which is why i dont find the 360 too appealing) and RTS' and MMORPG's and the consoles for the RPG's, the sports games, platformers, action/sdventure etc..
Should WoW be compared to SF and Mario?? I think not because they are on different formats. But WoW can be the SF and Mario equivalents on the PC end. Remember WoW has more than 6 million subscribers worldwide, of ALL ages, around the world, that in itself is an achievement. As for your "i dont think itll last past the expansion" again do your research. The expansion is gonna be the shit. Revised pvp, more pve events, new races, new professiona and more of Blizzard's great lore?? I cant wait..
Reply
Now, World of Warcraft is a different beast entirely from traditional games. Firstly, it's the largest social game at the current point in time. Players range from casual to hardcore. Public awareness to online gaming has been heightened since WoW came out. And most importantly, it is the most successful game created as a service, instead of a product. No other subscription-based game has even come close to the success that WoW is enjoying right now. Just as Mario influences many generations of games, WoW is poised to to exactly the same.
Reply
It was huge here. Everyone on my street gave up Commodore 64s for the NES and Mario. Graffiti appeared with Mario and reported in the paper with reporters talking about the "storming Nintendo game". The whole knew back then, the world knows more now. So yea, Europe is included. the world knew.
Reply
Moreover, maybe WoW will be that influential one day. But it hasn't gotten there yet. In 25 years, maybe you'll be able to make that claim, but you can't yet. Socrates, you're also guilty of automatically assuming that WoW will pull off that level of mindshare. 5 years ago, EQ or UO would have made the same claims, but those have fallen by the wayside comparatively. It might yet happen with WoW as well.
I think people are too eager to mistake the tremor for the earthquake. 6.5 million is nothing to sneeze at, but it's still dwarfed by what other games (not just Mario) that have been mentioned here. Mario isn't even what I'd call the most influential mentioned here (I'd probably say Tetris, with Pokemon following up close behind). It's just one of several that currently have WoW trumped.
Reply
and who are you to judge what someone does in their spare time? Like Franky said, many people come after a day at work and spend their evenings on the couch because all they want to do after work, cooking the evening meal and any other small household jobs is relax. If they work a hard or stressful job they may not have the energy to do anything else.
And if playing games is what he does to relex that fair enough, everyone is different.
Anyway when the guy said he plays 6 days a week that might have been a generalisation, just to sum it up, he may spend the odd evening or his days off doing other things.
@jay, I stand corrected. Although I still dont think Mario mania took off in the way it did in the US.
Reply
Reply