Other World Notes: World of Warcraft and Second Life Don’t Tell the Whole MMO Story

GigaOM: WoW and Second Life Don’t Tell the Whole MMO Story

This is my latest post for GigaOM, a prelude to a much more extensive virtual worlds analysis paper on the site's new subscription service. Basically, my argument is that World of Warcraft and Second Life are category killers in their designated sub-genres of virtual worlds. Among subscription-based fantasy MMORPGs, Warcraft is now too large to have meaningful competition.  And in its own, singular subgenre-- dynamically user-created, economically leveraged, immersive 3D virtual world -- Second Life is too unique to attract direct competition. But this also means the broader market trends are pointing away from either World of Warcraft and SL. Which begs the question: will they only remain successful in their respective niches, or evolve to attract the tens of millions now playing Maple Story, YoVille, Habbo, Gaia Online, and many more?

Comments

[Tateru Nino]

I can't imagine what niche SL can be said to have as its market. Houswives? Retirees? Oh wait, also educators, and geeks and businesses and musicians and artists and ... wait.

With so many heavy verticals, I think the niche label went elsewhere a long time ago. Unless it got redefined while my back was turned.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

If you want to pick up numbers from the freemium space, learn from the freemium titles:

* Micro-thin client is either entirely browser-based or downloads transparently.

* Game/world has an easy, intuitive interface; advanced options are held back until the player masters the basics.

* Game/world is seamless, low-latency and devoid of glaring bugs.

* Pay-to-play options are priced for a general audience; there are no thousand-dollar land auctions.

While WoW is the 900 lb gorilla in the fantasy subscription space, it's hardly alone; quite a few games are turning a comfortable profit in that genre (and WoW benefits these as a gateway game to the more sophisticated titles).

And SL may be effectively unchallenged in the VW arena, but with OpenSim-type worlds slowly getting their footing, Blue Mars on the horizon, and Metaplace engineered to scale to 3D when the time is ripe, that status won't last forever.

This game's not over.

[Second Life Update]

I would also mention the largest console MMORPG in Sony Playstation Home. This free-to-play micro-transaction virtual world is similar to Second Life but the players cannot create content. It has over 6.5 million accounts and a monopoly on the PS3 though.

[Hamlet Au]

Sony won't reveal how many of those 6.5 million accounts are recurring and regular users, though. I'd estimate 10-15%, optimistically.

[Tinsel Silvera]

I think SL is too diverse to be pegged with a singular niche label. Open Sim seems to be the closest competition at this time. Blue Mars is yet to be seen but am anxiously awaiting its arrival. As for Metaplace, I've been in there many times and still don't see the comparison.