What would MMORPGs look like if WoW had never existed? Let’s fantasize a bit!
Hardly any computer game of the last decades has influenced the video game market as much as World of Warcraft. Other MMORPGs, in particular, have suffered greatly as a result.
It is mistakenly assumed that newer MMORPGs would have an easier time competing against WoW. A more powerful engine, better graphics, and a modern combat system should surely win players over. However, most games failed to deliver the wealth of content and polish. With each passing year, WoW not only grew older but also – based on objectively measurable criteria – better. The bar was raised.
Without this hurdle, the market for MMORPGs might have developed quite differently.
Today, we are fantasizing a bit and imagining three scenarios of how things could look like if World of Warcraft had never been released.
Scenario 1: Another Dominant Player
Perhaps the first “Guild Wars” would still be a very successful MMORPG today. Back then, the game was considered the first “WoW killer” because it was released just months after Blizzard’s MMO and placed a stronger focus on PvP – which WoW hardly had in its early days.
Which game would have established itself as a dominant player is, of course, impossible to say. There were many contenders.
Great hopes were also placed on “Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning,” which launched in 2008 and was shut down after just under 5 years – the game simply could not establish itself.
But other MMORPGs like The Lord of the Rings Online, TERA, Aion, or even Neverwinter Nights (which even came out before WoW) might have been able to leap forward much stronger if they had not all been overshadowed by Blizzard’s giant.
Perhaps in such an alternative world, it would even have been possible for WildStar to function successfully for a long time.
Scenario 2: All Other MMORPGs Are Better Off
The utopian scenario is often mentioned. If there were no World of Warcraft, then all other MMORPGs would automatically fare better, as players would be spread out across these games.
That is certainly conceivable. Although Blizzard does not publish any official player numbers for WoW, there are likely still several million.
You can be a bit happy that it hasn’t turned out that way: Otherwise, you would now also have experts in your game’s trade channel, crying every day about how “dead” the game is, for which they continue to pay a subscription.
However, it must also be noted that this scenario is probably the most unlikely. Recent years have simply shown that player masses often cluster in one game and then move on collectively. It’s no coincidence that we now often refer to the “swarm of locusts” among players.
Scenario 3: The MMORPG Genre Would Be “Dead”
Again and again, one hears in various forums and also in our comments, “If there were no World of Warcraft, then game XYZ would have become really good.” This is, of course, a valid opinion – but is it likely?
One must not forget that WoW has shaped the MMORPG genre. Before, MMORPGs languished in niche obscurity and were, as the media liked to exaggerate, something for basement dwellers and nerds.
Only thanks to WoW did the genre receive a significant influx of players, and other developers recognized the profitability of the MMORPG genre. They wanted a piece of the pie, which provided us with a plethora of MMORPGs.
Without World of Warcraft, games like “The Lord of the Rings Online,” “Aion,” but also TERA or Star Wars: The Old Republic likely would never have come to be. The development effort for an MMORPG is many times higher than for “ordinary” games. Only WoW showed how this effort can pay off in the long run.
Ultimately, these are all just fantasies and little thought experiments – a reliable “what if” cannot really be produced.
What do you think, what would the video game market look like without World of Warcraft? Would there have been another major player? Has World of Warcraft brought more positive or negative to the market? Fantasize a bit and let us know in the comments!
What the MMORPG world looked like before WoW is not speculation. We know:
