Spend A Mountain Load Of Cash To Compete With World of Warcraft, And It Just Might Drop On Your Head

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Last week during an Activision Investors call, Bobby Kotick, CEO said that even if a company spent 500-1B USD to develop a WoW killer, it still isn’t a sure thing. The question is, are comments like this how a lot of companies out there are actually thinking? Back in the heyday of Everquest 500k subscribers was a huge number, and was bringing in a large chunk of change for SOE, and a lot of companies took notice, wanting a piece of that pie for themselves, and MMOs starting popping up all over.

Then WoW hit, and ever since the genre has been totally different. Kotick’s comment may really be the truth though, as we have seen quite a few MMOs be announced and canned, due to things not turning out the way the publisher wanted. Microsoft in the passed 4 years have canceled and sold a fair number of MMOs; Mythica, True Fantasy Online, and Marvel Universe Online, citing that they just didnt expect the titles to meet their original goals. And don’t forget Vanguard!

Is it possible that publishers are just setting the bar to high? Maybe it’s a little over exagerated to say your title is going to compete with the 500lb gorilla that is WoW. There are plenty of smaller companies not spending millions and millions, that don’t have their heads in the clouds, putting out quality, smaller scale MMOs and making themselves money. It used to be that having 100k subscribers and you were considered a success, but even at that number LOTRO is the only title released since WoW to break that bar.