World of Warcraft

who cares. Do I care that the Sims sells a whole load of units, does it impact my enjoyment on the game I like playing? No.

I agree WoW is on top in terms of popularity, hardware requirement, and how much money is invested.

Howvever, if you mean on top in terms of gameplay quality.  LOL I have nothing to say to you.

Why aren't you guys playing WoW instead of posting here?  Is this forum WoW in disguise?  OMG, I have been playing WoW without knowing!!  Go play your "top" game in the MMORPG industry instead of wasting your time here.

EDIT:  The real reason WoW is on top is that WoW players don't really play WoW, they spend time on the forums saying WoW is on top.

There are a few of reasosn WoW is "on top" 

1) good marketing

2) it'll run on anything

3) it's easy

4) money invested as you say maybe after it started having success and they spent money to add content

Money has nothing to do with WoW's success...

As I had mentioned in a previous post:

World of Warcraft is a market leader and has benefited from the Law of Mind. Very simple actually, MMORPG = WOW. Blizzard own's this word now in consumer's minds, and WOW is now interchangeable with MMORPG. If someone says WoW, you think of MMORPG.  While other game developers can be successful, they will not surpass WoW in MMORPG market share.  At this point, WOW is the only thing that can stop WOW/

The company who can develope an entirely new gaming category will be the next big thing.  Luckily, there is product life cycle. However, I know Blizzard will create another game as soon as WOW enters its' decline stage.

WoW has the best combat even though it's 4 years old.

Little lag and the interface is very responsive, it's almost like you're in the game fighting.

The reason World of Warcraft is on top is Timeing!

Let's take a step back in time all the MMO's were established and out already, and the game engines were greatly outdated. Asheron's Call was coming to an end after 5 years and Asheron's Call 2 was a major disapointment to the mass's. So with no other major competition to contend with (LoTR, AoC, DAoC, Vanguard were all later releases) on the horizon Warcraft was set to release a new game engine on a hunger starved graghics community.

We can all argue AC, EQ, Ultima, or whatever you were playing did this or that better, or was more developed in secondary skills etc. because upon initial WoW release there wasnt much to diferintiate one toon from another really, and still after a few years some can argue that point still.

I played WoW since day 1 retail release, and have called it quits now because of WoW's lack of development. To myself I dont see but maybe 1 or 2 more years of WoW's reign when leveling is too easy, and they continuousely make you grind rep/money for gear, simply to keep you doing something while they work on another expansion just to make you rinse/repeat same again.

now Awaiting the next big thing.............

Originally posted by Swiftblade13

Money invested....

Imagine, you're running a successful game production company and you go to produce a new game. Do you a) Do a crap job and invest little money. b) do a good job and invest as much as you can afford.

Hating blizzard for being a successful company is scraping the barrel.

WoW has a ton of players due to its appeal to gamers that have never played MMOs before.

It also had a pre-installed playerbase that came over from Diablo and WC rts.

Originally posted by grimboj

Originally posted by Swiftblade13

Money invested....

Imagine, you're running a successful game production company and you go to produce a new game. Do you a) Do a crap job and invest little money. b) do a good job and invest as much as you can afford.

Hating blizzard for being a successful company is scraping the barrel.

You mean a wooden barrel or a gun barrel?

WoW embraced pop culture, and pop culture returned the favor.  I think it took the edge off of saying "I'm a gamer", and it invited people to try out the genre.  I'm not trying to take away from the polish or style that the game has, but those are staying powers.  Pop culture really catalyzed WoW, and boosted its selling power to a public that was skeptical about the EQ type gamer.

I often wonder if they were to release unit sales, and the number of trials that didn't amount to a new subscriber.. would people still have opinion?  Lets say that have 25 million accounts in NA and EU, but only 20% are current subscribers.   If 80% of the people who played the game ended up rejecting it, would gamers still think it a success, or maybe it just has better marketing?  Completely hypothetical, lol I've just often wondered the other side to the subscriber numbers that have never been released.