After 5 years, World of Warcraft has finally been dethroned according to Xfire

[rmb1983]

Seriously I don't feel like free-to-play can ever beat WoW. Free to play exists largely because no one except Blizzard seems to be able to get people to pay fees for stuff.

You underestimate the seductive lure of being nickel-and-dimed to death by a F2P model, then. They may not incur a subscription fee, but they all carry storefronts that may grant you awards for being paying members, ability to pay real money for in-game items/power-ups/buffs/etc. Blizzard may make a bloody killing every year on their financial report, but they can't compare to an F2P's store...they've started their own, but it's still barren, and the F2P models have been taxing players for every conceivable whim and fancy for the last couple years.

F2P games also typically have a smaller overhead, so generated quite a bit more profit.

 

[enzilewulf]

WoW is still massive MMO. Nope nothing has changed except two games now take away a lot of peoples social lives.

 

[deadguy]

League of Legends may do very well, but it's like every time a popular PC game / MMO comes out, there are people who believe WoW to be finally dead, only for WoW to continue on being the behemoth that it is.

The being said, I do think League of Legends will probably be around for a long time, and its success really won't affect WoW signifigantly enough for WoW to somehow be dethroned as the biggest PC game of the decade. LoL isn't going anywhere, but can we all just accept that WoW is here to stay?

 

[banksy122]

This is surprising but it doesn't mean anything what so ever. Of all the dozens of WoW players I know, none have xfire, or have ever heard of xfire if I say something. Where as every LoL player I know, has xfire. So it doesn't mean anything.

 

[SinisterGehe]

So you are comparing two totally different games in totally different genres and you say another is superior? Xfire counts nothing, wow players barely use it, since the Bnets own new system is good enough. Also, bring us official numbers than are stone solid or shut up. I for example play many games along with wow, so my presence counts towards many games.

Also what you trying to say here? This topic really serves no purpose. Wow is still huge and generates A LOT of money, it has a huge player base.

 

[Christian Hodgdon]

Who cares who's "On top" or "The king"

Blizzard make shit tons of money, plain and simple. They just lost like 600,000 people to Rift. They barely batted an eyelash. Why? Because they know more people will join up and some of the others will come back. That 600,000 wasn't even half of half of half of half of their player base. Any other MMO would be dead if they lost that many players, but not WoW.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

Trust me, LoL is not better nor more popular then World of Warcraft. Its fun, but not more popular. It has been getting extremely popular in the last couple of months, but not 11 million players popular.

Also, its a free to play game. Its a lot easier to market a free to play game then one where you have to pay 15 bucks a month.

 

[Mustang678]

People still use xfire?
Steam and even WoW itself have developed chat systems that have made xfire redundant

 

[Spencer Petersen]

Indeed. Such as this one: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/

OMG LANCER GET BACK ON TOPIC

Fine, fine.

I think you guys are lookin at this from the wrong angle though, this isn't necessarily about the money, clearly blizzard makes more money from WoW than Riot does from LoL. This is about the fact that League of Legends unofficially has a larger player base than the gargantuan that is World of Warcraft. For the first time in 5 years (which is an eternity in the video game industry) there is a game that is more popular on the PC than WoW.

I dunno, I just kinda feel like it's really interesting. I guess I'm the only one.

Well, if we compare player-base then Facebook games probably beat all the competition tenfold. But the key difference is that Facebook games require no real active investment. LoL and WoW may both be MMO's, but I'm guessing with the subscription and the PVE/guild aspect WoW is a much more domineering game, where you need to invest much more time and effort to be active.

I do find it kind of funny that a game whose origins came from a custom WC3 map has grown so much from the level editor Blizzard designed. It would be like if a Quake mod turned into a game that swallowed up its market (oh wait).

 

[Jesus Phish]

You can't compare WoW and LoL, it's like comparing CoD and Final Fantasy. They're two completely different games.

That's what I was thinking myself. They're so different theres no point comparing them. And what has been said about Farmville should be brought in. If anything "dethroned" WoW it would've been Farmville.

LoL has gotten popular over the last while, but that's because of it's play style. It's more pvp based.

Also I don't think XFire is the best source of info for this. I know plenty of people who don't use that piece of junk

Is LoL even an MMO? I was under the impression it was more like a SC2 type of play where you start a new game and finish it, then start another new one? You don't log into a persistent world?

 

[Merkavar]

free to play and pay to play shouldnt be compared against each other.

apples and oranges.

 

[Feylynn]

Absolutely nothing has changed nor will change.

Because they are completely unrelated to each other they can coexist at opposite end of the universe no matter how large the other is.
It's the same reason Call of Duty, Bejewled, and Mario don't have WoW's crown.

 

[ThongBonerstorm]

is it just me, or does no one even use xfire anymore? WoW has it's own friends list and vent or teamchat is better for comms. where as LoL doesn't have that so you need an external one, maybe?

 

[ThisIsSnake]

You can't compare WoW and LoL, it's like comparing CoD and Final Fantasy. They're two completely different games.

Is LoL even an MMO? I was under the impression it was more like a SC2 type of play where you start a new game and finish it, then start another new one? You don't log into a persistent world?

League of Legends games are 3 vs 3 or 5vs 5 last time I played.

 

[5t3v0]

Sorry, double post...

 

[5t3v0]

Heh... According to statistics... WOW was beaten by LOL...

Still, how accurate are those statistics I wonder?

 

[Timmibal]

I've dropped less than $250 on subscription services. (I buy timecards)

I've dropped well over $2k into pay-for-perks games.

The F2P+benefits model definately has the potential to make money.

I know a guy who devs on a F2P game, and he basically outlined it like this. Some people have lots of time, but not much money. Others have more money, but not much time. A properly balanced Pay for perks system rewards payers with a reduction in the time they need to spend in order to reach the same level as the players.

Now before I go any further, he did add a caveat. Any advantage a player gains from purchasing perks must only ever be applicable at a PVE level. PVP should remain as reliant on player skill as possible.

Look at WoW. No matter how much they 'casualify' it, the people who can bury hours into it will always be ahead of those who can only play a few hours a night. Those are the people who can farm raids and do multiple PUGs per session. Those are the people who idle their glowy purple-clad toons in Dalaran on epic mounts with a 2% drop rate.

And the desire to be at that level is what makes powerlevelling and gold-for-cash services so insanely popular. If Blizzard was serious about combatting the farming companies, the easiest thing they could do is diversify their input economy. Obviously there is a market for people who are willing to sacrifice cash in lieu of the time commitment, or hell, even for something new and flashy. Look at the popularity of the celestial steed or their realm transfer/faction swapping services!

The subscription model is outdated in the current online game marketplace. It's easier for the accountants to balance the books, but will always be reliant on a high number of subscribers to remain viable, which is very difficult when competing in a market with a lot of other little guys competing for the scraps left by the behemoth in the room, whereas a pay for perks model can take a more retail-based approach to flagging income.

Of course, that doesn't mean that I support bonehead moves like Champions Online having remort services as ONLY pay-for-perks. I believe that most things offered by P4P should have equivilant services/rewards available in game for those who do not wish to pay.

 

[deano0417]

Its quite simply, people have cleared current raiding and are bored of wow so they play league because trust me alot of wow players play league and stuff, when firelands comes out those numbers will change