Activision: Farmers Could Kill WoW?

[Adam-Savage]

From Activision: Farmers Could Kill WoW?:

No, not those kind of farmers, but rather the 82 million+ users currently growing the garden of their virtual dreams on Facebook's wildly popular Farmville sim.

Activision-Blizzard's annual 10k report, filed on March 1 and analyzed by Robert Purchese over at Eurogamer.net, is chock full of worrisome anecdotes about the future of their massively multiplayer behemoth as well as some interesting tidbits regarding payment models.

While the report stops short of painting a completely dire picture, Acti-Blizz clearly considers the growing social gaming scene a major threat to its stranglehold on the massive genre.

"A substantial portion of our revenue and profitability will depend on the subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game category," proclaims the report. "If we do not maintain our leadership position in this category, our financial results could suffer."

Sound like common sense? Maybe, but it should be interesting to watch the current market leader adapt to the rapidly expanding online gaming space.

[Chrizesu]

I wouldn't worry about farmville. It's more in competition with peggle then any downloaded 3D MMO.

If Perfect World Entertainment however gets more popular, the quality of their games is pretty high and may threaten other fantasy mmos.

Bllizzard needs to get their butt in gear sometime and improve their customer relations as well.

[Karathyriel]

You people are aware of the fact that Blizzard is hiring people for their "next generation MMO team"?!?

C'mon, WoW is 5 years old now. It's only natural that it won't grow and grow and grow...
I think Cataclysm will suck in old players again as the world changes completely. There will be no WoW 2.0. There will be patch 4.0!

I tried a lot of other MMOs, like LotRO, AOC, WAR, D&DO, Runes of Magic or Fallen Earth. Guess what? They just try to cut themselves a slice of the cake by copying the one that still rules: World of Warcraft! They may have some little details that are better than in WoW but then look at the development of WoW! They scan they players and implement what is used or asked for by most of them. Achievements? That's been in WAR first. Questhelper, Voicechat? Just copying the questhelper addon and teamspeak into the game!
I only wish they would implement the slots for equipment shown, like in LotRO. Yeah, you can have one equipment you are using the stats from and one that makes your appearance! That would be so awesome! Wearing eye patches or monocles even when raiding! And then the possibility to color your equipment and I'd be so happy! Finally, you'll be able to not only be cool but to look cool too!

[Saturo]

I only wish they would implement the slots for equipment shown, like in LotRO. Yeah, you can have one equipment you are using the stats from and one that makes your appearance! That would be so awesome! Wearing eye patches or monocles even when raiding! And then the possibility to color your equipment and I'd be so happy! Finally, you'll be able to not only be cool but to look cool too!

That sounds eerily much like Aion...

[Kamalia]

Farmville? A threat to World of Warcraft?
I... honestly don't really understand this. I've played both, and WoW has many more options and things to do. It's also got a massive environment. And Farmville... is.. well... a farm. Farmville is certainly addicting, but I personally find being able to adventure, battle, collect gear/mounts/pets, and eventually help save Azeroth, kingdoms, villages, ect. much more entertaining then milking cows and planting crops. Of course, that's just my view as a customer. I have absolutely no idea when it comes to business and sales.

Of course, competition is always interesting as it could always influence Blizzard to work harder/give their games even better quality.

[Karathyriel]

That sounds eerily much like Aion...

See? They are copying and copying...

[Chrizesu]

That sounds eerily much like Aion...

See? They are copying and copying...

It's in all of the Perfect World Entertainment games as well.

[VelkynKarma]

I think they're honestly targeting COMPLETELY different audiences, too.

I mean, me personally, I don't have facebook. Nor do I constantly play any of the casual online games that are apparently so addicting. It's just not my cup of tea. But I do love WoW and all its options.

When I think casual online gaming, I think older people (like my mother) or really actively social "popular" kids who troll Facebook 24/7. This is probably not totally accurate, but in my experience it's my mum who is addicted to Bookworm and Bejweled, and all the giggling valley-girl chatty types who haunt Facebook and treat it as THE thing to judge life by. At least, around here.

World of Warcraft, meanwhile, targets a TOTALLY different type of person, and only in rare cases do I think they would overlap. I think WoW is pretty safe, unless it's trying to get cheerleaders to start playing, in which case they very well may be in trouble.

~VelkynKarma