World Of Warcraft Article

World of Warcraft's Golden Future

A sensation its first year of release, World of Warcraft is a truly a landmark game in the genre of MMORPGs. With so many appealing features, it’s bound to be a success for quite some time to come. The game world of Azeroth has great potential for growth, and new game expansions will keep challenges on the table for those who are ready for them.

Growth in 2005 has been steady, as Blizzard won new players from other games, and new players fresh to the genre altogether. In 2006, the challenge is to maintain that growth and success. When it first launched at the end of 2004, it was not clear how well the franchise of the Warcraft games would translate to the persistent worlds of MMORPGs, but as you can see it has been a raving success.

So far, the game appears to be very sustainable. With the release of their latest expansion, the popularity of World of Warcraft has skyrocketed. Growth has exceeded 5.5 million subscribers worldwide, and it is still climbing. Momentum like this will carry the game well into 2007 even if Blizzard does nothing more to improve the game. But we have seen Blizzard’s history, and there is no chance they will stop.

Blizzard is also expanding regularly into new markets around the world, bringing the World of Warcraft to millions more.

But it is not just new markets that keep hungry Blizzard fans going. New expansions provide new challenges and more content to keep fans adventuring. World of Warcraft has been expanded to include The Burning Crusade, which brought back villains from Warcraft 3, the Burning Legion. Now, veteran players, especially those who have played Warcraft 3 already, get to battle new foes and join in new quests all related to this familiar bad guys.

The Burning Legion also ads a new playable race to both the Alliance and Horde, giving veteran players a reason to “start over again” and experience the amazing world of Azeroth in a whole new way. The level cap for the game has also been raised to Level 70, giving players who capped at Level 60 greater challenges to face and work toward to progress another 10 levels. A new area to explore has also been added, the Otlands, and new adventures await the daring.

Blizzard has also thrown down the gauntlet with World of Warcraft. Other game companies now have a bar raised for them to overcome. Competition in this industry is incredible, and the advances in game play that World of Warcraft offers will force others to go the next step into gaming. Innovation is key here, but also more viral marketing techniques will no doubt be employed to gain more players as well. The success of World of Warcraft in this avenue will likely be repeated or surpassed in the future.

One such company, Red Mushroom, is producing a title the hope will compete with World of Warcraft called “Borderlands.” They hope to one-up Blizzard with refinements and new game innovations. It will be interesting to see how well they do.

There is a bright, golden future for World of Warcraft, but because of that, the whole industry will benefit as well.