I figured we hadn’t done a good old fashioned gaming article, so it was about time we did! Over at Australian gaming site BigKid [ http://bigkid.com.au/ ] a writer there raises the very real possibility that the immensely popular World of Warcraft, [ http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/ ] published by Blizzard Entertainment (or Starcraft and Warcraft fame, if you’ve been living under a rock for the past year or so) very well be contributing to the lack of good games on the shelves for the PC, and might be overall contributing to the death of the PC gaming market.
The stipulation is simple; because WoW is so incredibly popular and it’s a pretty fair bet that everyone knows several people who are playing the game, the sheer popularity of the game has both made people stop purchasing and looking forward to other PC games that are coming to market in the near future and simultaneously made PC game distributors and producers less interested in pushing the best possible titles out there because they know that the market is all but dominated by World of Warcraft. Blizzard, of course, raking in the dough from monthly fees and the rapid expansion of the game around the world, has no reason to see anything wrong with this model, so they’ll continue doing what they’ve been doing, and current WoW players are looking forward to the World of Warcraft expansion pack, The Burning Crusade, that’s expected from Blizzard sometime late this year or perhaps next. (although Blizzard has not announced a release date)
The argument in the article is solid, but the discussion in the comments is almost better; point and counterpoint to the article are raised and there’s an excellent discussion that will help you see both sides of the argument. Some people contend that the former reason is the cause for the latter and the World of Warcraft really is to blame for the stagnation of the PC gaming market, and others believe that if game producers made games of the calibur and quality of World of Warcraft, we wouldn’t have this discussion, but instead the market is flooded with “Generic First Person Shooter 17” and “Crappy Video Game Version of Flopped Movie” and so on. Head on over and check it out. What do you think? Feel free to post in the comments what your opinion is, whether you’re an active gamer or not!