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World of Warcraft surpasses nine million
subscribers - Blizzard Entertainment announced that its World
of Warcraft MMORPG has now reached a player base of more than
nine million subscribers worldwide. [GamesIndustry.biz news]

All hail the 9 million nation of WoW. That's... You know, the word for it sounds so totally anticlimactic but here it is: Remarkable!

And to prove it... I'm gonna remark on it a little...

Even if you only make $1US for each subscriber... you'd still pull in 9 million dollars, a month, in revenue.

If every subscriber paid $15US (which is not the case, to be clear)... you'd pull in $135 million a month.

Even at half that rate ($7.50US) you're pulling in $67.5 million a month - that's about twice what many mmos on the market today cost to make... They get that in revenue in a month, if every subscriber pays $7.50.

Of course, with their deals in other markets (the Asian markets specifically) they don't charge the same amount or even bill in the same way, so that's all really idle passing fancy, but none the less... Can you imagine the type of freedom having a 9 million strong user base could give a developer to make other games? That's a bona-fide, honest to god, cash cow right there...

...and its in the hands of a group of people who won't use it to do anything but "keep on keeping on." That makes baby snipey cry. I'm not knocking Blizzard at all, put the torches down. I *love* those guys. Their work is great, but I defy you to stand in front of me and claim they're a fountain of creative innovation with a straight face. Everyone knows it's not at all true. They make GREAT games. They make games better than damned near anyone else does, but those games don't bring you anything you haven't seen before. Instead what they focus on at the Big B is bringing you the stuff you've seen before, done better and more perfectly polished than anything that came before it.

Warcraft? - Dune2 (and you can argue even earlier than that, but I happen to actually know the source of their inspiration in this case)
Diablo? - Rogue
Starcraft? - Warcraft
Wow? - Everquest

Nothing original in the bunch, but that's neither bad nor wrong. It's just unfortunate that they're the ones holding in their hands the most massive core of creativity enabling revenue in the industry because I doubt we'll see it used in a way that revolutionizes gaming... and I sorta think we're in desperate need of one.

I make fun of the folks that say it to the press, but games are stale. They are getting boring. I'm getting older, too so I'm sure my perspective has a lot to do with how I feel about it. Still, I can't help but feel like we've been inbreeding for the last 10 or so years - rarefying all the lines of gaming goodness (all the myriad and remarkably different games we had before 'genre' became a marketability point) into a few pale skinned, but remarkably beautiful families (genres) and their scions (the flagship product of the genre)... who are nought but pale reflections of what they could have been, had the goal been to diversify rather than simplify the overall experience.

... wow this was rambly. Anyway, err... congrats to Blizzard for the wow numbers, that's awesome for you guys! Now do something awesome with the money, OK? I would really like nothing better than to see your brand of awesome stamped all over some totally creative, innovative and new gaming experience, so prove me wrong!

...or at least make a starcraft MMO... That'd hold me over for a year or two, at least.

- Snipehunter