Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
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Blackulaa said:
I"m retarded because I have an idea of how a history of being a successful company in a particular industry gets new people to try out your newest product release. Thanks Draeg.

You obviously didn"t read anything I read. I said specifically, that Blizzard is a great COMAPNY IP builder. Lord of the Rings as a "gaming IP", not an overall IP, has no legs, no history, etc. If it was a successful MMO it would only pull in people who already play MMO"s thus not making it a brand.

Blizzard bring in people who do not ordinarily play games. A lot of their customers are first time MMo"ers because of their former IP"s success and relentless marketing. Period. Gameplay HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT.

Wtf is wrong with you? This stuff is simple. You cannot base your personal preference over business. Or you end up with a flawed game design (LOTRO) with an ok "gaming IP" Lord of the Rings, with no international cross over, and BLAM, ok subscriber base.
I wasn"t calling you retarded, sorry, should of quoted Rayne in there somewhere.

However, most of the masses of people playing WOW really even care about the WC RTS game. I know plenty of people in my own little realm of real life that play WOW obsessively that never even heard of the RTS.

It was marketed well. You had large displays in fucking Walmart of all places. I don"t know how you can call LOTR and ok gaming IP. It had everything set up to be an awesome gaming IP. It had plenty of games and movies with fighting and spells and action. They just didn"t make a very good MMO.
 

Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
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Ukerric said:
Actually, IP had everything to do with LOTRO"s moderate success. If you had an exact copy of LOTRO, with all LOTR references ripped, it would have been a sub-50k game or worse.
Poorly worded on my part, I agree with what you said. The LOTR IP has nothing to do with the failure of the game, it actually helped it. The poor game design is what made it what it is. You can"t call it a failure, but you can call it a smashing success.
 

Blackulaa_foh

shitlord
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Ya, Draegan my lovable fat dwarf is back!

Let me better explain. Lotr could be an awesome gaming IP. I"m trying to say that the Lotr games that have been released, console, rts, action rpg, have all been average. So it doesn"t have a real history of sparking huge sales.

Therefore, a non gamer, who might want to try something new isn"t really going to be swayed by it"s gaming history. They will be literally trying it based on the movies they love. Compare that to people who bought World of Warcraft because of Dota or Diablo. Blizzard had an easier sell.

While we are on that note. I think 38 Studios will have a hell of an easier time building a new IP. Basing your MMO on games IPs like Star Wars and Lotr make it tough as hell due to canon. You get the Jedi fiasco and the "we don"t want no hardcore endgame" Lotro decision. Those developers can"t tell the fanbase shut up, its my story!

I can"t remember how many, Lucas won"t allow that, or Tolkien would roll in his grave if magic comes in threads I aswa. Sad really.
 

Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
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I"d be interested in seeing how many people playing WOW today are doing so primarily because of WC1-3, Diablo and SC.

I can"t even pretend to guess at that one.
 

Twobit_sl

shitlord
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It would be an insignificant amount.

The whole "zomg Warcraft and Blizzard owns" crowd joined within the first couple of months. Everything else came from marketting and word of mouth. You don"t need that IP to get initial interest, especially today when the market is so large.. you just need enough to generate the same positive buzz and a game worthy of it.
 

Genjiro

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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That"s just the fanbois, there are a metric ton of other people who have played other Blizzard titles, even if casually, and had positive experiences playing those games. Their product line and quality titles in the past, making them probably the most respected game developer out there prior to WoWs release based on their other titles alone, had to have been a huge draw for people on the edge thinking about trying it out or not.

I"d almost guarantee the success of games like Starcraft in the Asian region alone would have been an incredible boost to the number of subs. Isn"t WoW China like 5.5 million out of its 10m figure anyways?

I guess the question that"s the million dollar one is....how many players did WoW pull in who had no experience with other titles or computer gaming in general, because those who even game casually know of and have heard of Blizzards well deserved reputation.
 

Twobit_sl

shitlord
6
0
Which is where people like R.A. and Todd come in. Not to mention all the high profile devs, CMs, managers and others that Curt and Co. are hiring.

They may not have 10 years of experience as a whole, but the sum of their parts far exceeds that.
 

ShroudedMist_foh

shitlord
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WoW was definitely the first MMORPG that I remember seeing TV ads for it on television. It clearly succeeded at reaching a wider audience outside of people that read gaming magazines, watched G4 etc.

R.A. and Todd matter for shit if the company as a whole can"t EXECUTE. This isn"t to suggest that they"re destined to pull a McQuaid. Time and again throughout the gaming industry we see situations arise where you"d think it"s a slam dunk and people fuck it up somewhere along the way to market. Games are hard and MMORPGs are an order of magnitude harder.
 

Frax_foh

shitlord
0
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Blackulaa said:
Let"s see:

NPD releases the US chart for best-selling PC games during the month of March. So, here"s what US PC gamers are into these days:

1. The Sims 2 Free Time Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts
2. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War - Soulstorm Expansion Pack - THQ
3. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Activision
4. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest - Vivendi
5. Sins Of A Solar Empire - Stardock
6. Command & Conquer 3: Kane"s Wrath Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts
7. Tom Clancy"s Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter JC - Ubisoft
8. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack - Vivendi
9. World Of Warcraft - Vivendi
10. Frontlines: Fuel of War - THQ
11. The Sims 2 Deluxe - Electronic Arts
12. Warcraft III Battle Chest - Vivendi
13. Microsoft Flight Simulator X Deluxe - Microsoft
14. Crysis - Electronic Arts
15. The Orange Box - Electronic Arts
16. Age Of Empires III - Microsoft
17. Sim City 4 Deluxe - Electronic Arts
18. The Sims 2 Bon Voyage Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts
19. The Sims 2 University Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts
20. Diablo Battle Chest - Vivendi



Nah, no IP"s with history in here. All fresh new original games with hot gameplay! - *I guess I have to type sarcasm here*
DII still coming in at #20 is pretty impressive. WCIII coming in even higher is even more impressive.
 

Twobit_sl

shitlord
6
0
ShroudedMist said:
WoW was definitely the first MMORPG that I remember seeing TV ads for it on television. It clearly succeeded at reaching a wider audience outside of people that read gaming magazines, watched G4 etc.

R.A. and Todd matter for shit if the company as a whole can"t EXECUTE. This isn"t to suggest that they"re destined to pull a McQuaid. Time and again throughout the gaming industry we see situations arise where you"d think it"s a slam dunk and people fuck it up somewhere along the way to market. Games are hard and MMORPGs are an order of magnitude harder.
I guess we have to qualify every post with "as long as the game is fun to play and of high quality". You would think that"s a given by now since that"s the first freaking thing that needs to be done regardless of IP, company, or who worked on it.
 

Blackulaa_foh

shitlord
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Twobit,

You are severely underestimating how many copies of Diablo, WC, and SC Blizzard sold. To this day even. In my WOW guild alone we have 20 noobs who never played an MMO before, including 7 first time MMO females. All based on their love of Blizzard. Dota freaks as they like to call themselves.

One little guild on one little server. It would be cool to know the statistics as well, but I"d I venture to say a lot.

I also think you are making MMO"s way bigger in the general public than they are. I still run into people who have never heard of World of Warcraft, let alone, our beloved niche.

Once again, just my opinion.
 

Twobit_sl

shitlord
6
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Blackulaa said:
Once again, just my opinion.
So is it also your (and Rayne"s) opinion that GMG should just pack it up and not even try? I mean hell, they aren"t Blizzard so why bother? You can"t succeed! You don"t have 20 quality games on your record with an IP that is 20-100 years old! Come back in 2030 and maybe then you can hope to make a good MMO!

Just because they want to compete with WoW doesn"t mean they have to. Better to shoot big and come up a little short than to aim small and nail it. Edit: as long as the game is good, high quality, fun yada yada of course.
 

ShroudedMist_foh

shitlord
0
0
Twobit Whore said:
I guess we have to qualify every post with "as long as the game is fun to play and of high quality". You would think that"s a given by now since that"s the first freaking thing that needs to be done regardless of IP, company, or who worked on it.
Wouldn"t it be great if we could consider it a given?

Dare to dream.
 

Blackulaa_foh

shitlord
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0
Twobit,

I"ll assume you just didn"t read what i said. I specifically stated 38 Studios is doing the right thing by solely concentrating on making a great game in their industry. Starting off strong and getting brand recognition will allow them to do what they want to do down the road.

There is plenty of room for new IPs.

My argument was about 4-5 pages back where someone stated that the only reason Wow sold so much was solely because of the great gameplay. I think that"s naive.

go 38S.
 

Rayne_foh

shitlord
0
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Twobit Whore said:
So is it also your (and Rayne"s) opinion that GMG should just pack it up and not even try?
Thats NOT my opinion at all. My opinion is that they"re going into an already overdeveloped sector of the mmo market, AND doing so with the "intention" of competing with Blizzard in that very SAME sector. Do I think they should pack it up? Of course not. Do I think they should pick another sector of the genre from which to go head on with Blizzard to achieve thier goal? Yes. HELL yes.