Comments on: How Important Is Intellectual Property To The Success Of A MMORPG?

By: bed and break fast

bed and break fast — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 04:31:02 +0000

Hey there! This is kind of off topic but I need some advice from an established blog. Is it very hard to set up your own blog? I’m not very techincal but I can figure things out pretty fast. I’m thinking about creating my own but I’m not sure where to begin. Do you have any points or suggestions? Cheers

By: /AFK – June 7 « Bio Break

/AFK – June 7 « Bio Break — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 03:46:03 +0000

[...] Gordon makes a bold claim: IP doesn’t impact the success of a MMO one bit. [...]

By: Gordon

Gordon — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:23:49 +0000

I agree completely, Pangoria. I started playing EQ when it first came out, not because of it’s IP, but because of the game. The whole concept of some massive online world utterly blew me away.

I think however that players are now jaded and accustomed to the whole MMO genre and need carrots to get them going, hence the increasing popularity of developers to pick well known IPs. They know that Star Trek will have a large fan base and will attract a certain amount of players. Whether it will sustain them or not is a different question.

By: Pangoria Fallstar

Pangoria Fallstar — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 10:46:24 +0000

I just realized I never touched one of the main points of your post.

To the long term success of the MMO the IP is not important.

For the initial sale and buzz, the IP AND the Company making it, is the most important.

By: Pangoria Fallstar

Pangoria Fallstar — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 10:45:02 +0000

Why would someone choose to play an MMO?
Why did I choose to play WoW as my first MMO?

I saw Everquest, and it didn’t interest me. To me it was just a generic fantasy world. Then I heard all the horrible rumors of addictions and babies in cars on hot days, for hours.

So those rumors made me not want to play MMOs, even Warcraft. But then my friend showed me the game, and the idea and appeal of an MMO made sense to me (still looked like just some fantasy setting, but with an artstyle I recognized).

Then I got into the storyline and everything that was happening, and that’s why I stayed.

Those who like MMOs already, knowing it’s a Warcraft game would bring them in.

The difference between WoW and Warhammer, AoC or SW:G, is that Warcraft is THEIR lore. So they have the flexibility to make it be whatever they want (just like EQ), and still have a recognizable IP (and Warcraft was very recognizable, it was very very popular).

Warhammer got mostly the geek crowd that liked warhammer (which I neverplayed, and think the humor is weak). AoC, got the people who wanted something different from WoW, and who like Arnold in the old movies (I never read the books, who would?).

The IP is important to bring someone who is not an MMO player in. For example, who would go into most MMOs without knowing the IP, or without it being free to play without first already liking MMOs?

By: Gordon

Gordon — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:50:36 +0000

@Ogrebears I’d definitely say that compared to Star Wars, Star Trek or Warhammer, Warcraft was certainly less well known and well recognised. You’re right, it wasn’t totally new and had Blizzard had a good reputation so that undoubtedly worked in their favor but there huge subscription numbers didn’t happen just because it was a Warcraft universe based game.

By: How Important Is Intellectual Property To The Success Of A MMORPG … | 2Dinternational.com

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 03:09:13 +0000

[...] more here: How Important Is Intellectual Property To The Success Of A MMORPG … This entry is filed under Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 [...]

By: Ogrebears

Ogrebears — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:58:23 +0000

The evidence for this is pretty strong. Not only is World of Warcraft by far the most successful MMORPG and yet not based on a particularly strong IP (or at least it wasn’t when it launched)

WTF???? WoW had a really really strong IP prior to launch. Warcraft,Warcraft 2, Warcraft 2 Beyond the Dark Portal, Warcraft 3, Warcraft 3 The Frozen Throne, A board game, 1/2 a dozen books before WoW was even relived to the public.

The entire world is based off the event that happened in those games. So Wow has a really strong IP prior to launch.

By: Piper

Piper — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:34:28 +0000

I would say that Star Wars: The Old Republic is receiving a lot of attention because of the best seller status of the single player Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic game developed by Bioware. Otherwise, if it was being developed by the same group that did Star Wars Galaxies I doubt you would see even a fraction of the same level of interest.