My ultra moronic stupid ramble of the day (srsly, wat wud u do without em)

WoW is the target for The Old Republic, says LucasArts and EA.

Executives are CLUELESS IDIOTS.

Lets make it clear, the reason WoW is “THIS” successfull and has “11 million subs” is because it is not tied to any certain culture.

And it doesn’t actually has those subs, either.
What they do have is a significant portion of these so-called subs coming from Asia and they’re not exactly buying a copy of the client and paying monthly fees, no, the income from there operates in an entirely different way.

So, while yes, WoW has a huge chunk out of the North America gamers, and some in Europe, the reason it is successful is because it has ZERO ties to anything other than a privately owned (or licensed) Intellectual Property that has nothing remotely resembling anything familiar to a certain culture or another, thus allowing it to be something that the Asian market can relate to.

As such, unless Warhammer or StarWars are as big a smash hit thing in Asia as they are in the USA and, perhaps, some of Europe, they’ll never be able to draw in the kind of crowd numbers WoW is talking about.
Simply because they’re rooted in Westren cultures which the East has no feelings towards.

A BattleTech or Gundam MMO, on the other hand, have very high chances of being a “WoW Killer” since they’re properties which speak to both the East and the West - the entire globe.

This is what it would seem all these studio heads have failed to figure out.
Something anyone who worked on single player games and publishing them knows by now - if you want to breach onto the non-america territories, you need to have a sort of IP that can bridge over/through the cultural gap.
If you have an IP that was born out of the USA, it is much likely to fail even in London and Finland or Norewegia, much more so in Japan, China, Korea, Malaysia, et cetera.

Disclaimer:
I’m probably entirely ignorant and SW IS a huge thing in Asia too.
Isn’t warcraft essentially humans vs orcs which is dated to basic D&D…was D&D any good in grabbing hold and turning the Asian teenagers onto devoted dungeon zealots?
I think I overloopd, and under-grammared, and I’m not even entirely certain this was said in English or Americaneze or anything resembling a spoken tongue.

But I’m hopped up on 5 smith apples, 500grams of Belgian choclate and…I stopped counting the alcohol literage…it’s been a hard day, OKAY!?

Warhammer isn’t American.

So what is Warhammer? European? Vietnameese? Russian? I’m really an ignorant douche.

Whereas I wrote America or American though, I meant the continent, just for obsolete clarification.

It doesn’t matter what the content or property is. All MMO executives and producers are required by law to claim that their target is WoW.

Well, I’d seriously hate for SWTOR, which if to go by KotOR would have great elements as well as the perk of driving the importance of nerrative (a stake I’d love to see layed smack down onto the heart, of the industry and its “wow mob” gamers, successfully) to end up like Vanguard.

I don’t know if Battletech or Gundam are really that popular in the West. At least not in the right demographic groups; the little kids watching the Gundam TV shows aren’t the main ones playing MMORPGs, and it’s unclear if that interest really carries over into the age groups that do. Battle Of The Planets may have been a popular cartoon when I was a kid, but the people still interested in that kind of thing into high school and college were still dorky outcasts.

In case you didn’t know this, the point system they using in Asia also support monthly payment like US or europe, and it cost $1-3 more compare to to the 15.99 we pay in the states.

No, I didn’t know. In repeat: I’m an ignorant douche.

Are there any numbers though to show how many over there choose this venture? It’d be really interesting to know, scholarly.
Since the presiding convention is that the Asian market hates monthly P2P and love paying for exact(hourly) playing time or free-playing and paying for items.
Speaking of the latter, are there any numbers about Project Entropia, in specific gross earnings if not profits?

Warhammer is British, or at least the IP is.

Yeah, this is pretty much standard practice. Last I heard, even Activizzard was planning to target WoW players with their new “Wrath of the Lich King” game, which is based on characters from a popular series of RTS games. I guess they’re hoping that the popularity of the franchise will help them draw away some of WoW’s 11 million subscribers, particularly in the asian markets.

  • Alan

LucasArts doesn’t know what they are doing, they just cancelled development on Indy!

To the OP: You don’t know a fucking thing about Asia.

Not every Asian wants to play a ‘asian’ (for the lack of a better term) MMORPG. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms MMORPG is nowhere as popular as the Western-influenced games like Dark Ages, Ragnarok Online or even Warhammer Online.

Warhammer Online’s actually managed to garner quite a huge following in China because they absolutely love the gritty setting, the LOTR-esque (which is huge in China) Chaos, Orcs, Goblins, Dwarves and Elves and the fact that it’s a PVP game, which is something they’re big on as opposed to EQ-style raiding. In short, it’s can be every bit as popular in Asia as it is in the West. The only reason someone would pick a game like Romance of the Three Kingdoms is if it costs less, not because they prefer that style of game.

A Gundam MMO does exist. And it is not popular. ECO online and a number of very ‘anime influenced’ MMOs exist, and none of them are very popular, not even in Japan from which they originate. People prefer FFXI over any of them, and FFXI isn’t a very Asian game, either.

There are Knights, Rangers, Paladins, and dragons. China loves World of Warcraft, because it’s a very Western game. The whole human faction? That’s Western, buddy. Dwarves and Undead are Western influenced too.

Legolas graces the ads of credit card companies in much of Asia, including China. People are big on LOTR, and they’re big on Harry Potter. There were tons of ‘unofficial’ translations of both series because people loved it. There’s even unofficial sequels (well written fan fiction, really) for Lord of the Rings because a lot of people can’t get enough of it. Warhammer falls in the same boat: people love it.

I’d like you to find the numbers to back up what you say about Star Wars’ lack of popularity in the region.

Suit reads about this “WoW” thing in the Financial Times
Suit runs to other Suits and tells them about the $$$$ Blizzard makes with this one game
Suits want to have $$$$$ as well
Suits find a developer and tell them: “Make a game like WoW!”
Gamers find out about WoW attempt No. 102934. Reaction: Yawn
Suits are pissed, sue devs and bankrupt them.

= Another MMORPG the world doesn’t need / want
= Another dead developer
= Another reason that PC gaming seems to be dying (no one played their lame game)

I’d also like to add that armored dudes are cool regardless of whether they’re Teutonic Knights, Samurai or Chinese imperial knights or even Lightsabre-wielding Jedi Knights. They all carry big swords, wear cool garb and beat the shit out of things.

Besides, Star Wars accomodates both the East and West in its outfits. Qui Gon Jinn is dressed in Samurai-like heavy robes, and Darth Vader has the whole ‘dark knight’ thing going for him.

I’m rooting for WHO (yes, WHO, why WAR? lame blizzard influenced name, it is WHO, on its own right, not some WARcraft chaser, long before warcraft even knew itself to exist as what it is), so this is great news to hear.

An important question to be queried here, though, is whether or not they receive the professional staff and funding, that say…Mythic has, which is required to successfully bring up such a product?
After all, when the game is SUCK, doesn’t matter what its property/theme/et cetera is cough SWG cough V:SoH cough.

And it rather sucks, too, from what I gather?

Wouldn’t go bragging about that, personally…points at the crysis=games’r’gay thread

Thanks for the information, man!
You’ve made me a tiny bit less ignorant, though still a douche. ;D

Risking a crossover with the crysis=games’r’gay thread…

Seriously, braids??? Pigtails are for GIRLS!

Let’s stand back and allow Sol and Foxstab discuss this. You know, seeing as they’re forum patriarchs and all.

I’d be more than happy to hear your opinion as well.

And I’d be really happy to get someone who can actually give NUMBERS on these issues.
This is very much an interesting thing from the all philosophical debate standpoint.
Just how much are Eastren themes catch on the West and vice versa.
What truth is there in that the Asian market prefers the “bought items” model over monthly payment (I heard this is also relevant in Spain?), and so on.

These are the kind of things you WANT to know, if not albeit curious, if not for those who ARE in the industry and NEED to know at that… (though I assume that if you are in the need then you already do know)

Anyone can braid their hair. Vikings did, as did Teutonic Knights, and they pillaged the hell out of people’s faces. Chinese knights braided their hair, too. Most of them had ponytails or kept their hair extremely long. Samurais shaved off most of their hair and kept a… why am I talking about this?

An important question to be queried here, though, is whether or not they receive the professional staff and funding, that say…Mythic has, which is required to successfully bring up such a product?
After all, when the game is SUCK, doesn’t matter what its property/theme/et cetera is cough SWG cough V:SoH cough.

Bandai’s pretty big, so yeah. They do have the funding. Koei’s running the Three Kingdoms MMORPG, and while it’s decent, it’s not very popular either. V:SoH sucked because it was unpolished, released way too early (or developed too slow), and there just wasn’t much to do in a world that was way too big. It was a game that time left behind. Trends change: people are more into PVP than PVE, and Vanguard was just a continuation of Everquest’s massively grindy PVE system.

And it rather sucks, too, from what I gather?

It’s an acquired taste. It’s all about PVE. Imagine a World of Warcraft where the entire game consists of nothing but Molten Core-esque raiding back in the early days when a single mistake meant the entire raid wiped. That’s FFXI. It’s hard, and a lot of people like it at least in Japan. The same people who enjoyed EQ would probably love it if that game didn’t have such a messed up registration system.

Concerning the Harry Potter and LOTR thing: it’s more popular among today’s young people than any Chinese or Japanese authored fantasy fiction. That’s not to say that The Twelve Kingdoms isn’t a popular read in Japan or that nobody enjoys a movie or book about The Battle for Red Cliffs, but books like A Song of Ice and Fire find plenty of readers over there.

I don’t know about the twelve kingdoms, but back in the day, playing Sango Fighter got me to read a bit on the three kingdoms. Good material.

Albeit more on topic:
Someone argued on the SWtOR forums that what turned WoW onto a big thing in Asia was actually that due to the lazy bums in the Americas, Asian gold farmers sprung up to help the bums get fast into the game (good self employment if there ever was one), and from there it somehow (it’s maaaaaagic!) trinkled onto the general mass conscioussness and cought fire from there.

I assume it’s complete garbage, but it’s an opinion, so it is thereby mentioned, to be scolded and ridiculed.

And back to offtopic again:
While Vikings are lauded as the epitome of manliness and machoism, it was known to have had quite a bit of “male bonding” going on in there.
And even much more so within the ranks of the Samurai whereas “brotherly love”, sometimes displayed in an entire “group party” was quite common.