很早之前就看到这个的，现在不由地得再回想一下WOW对我的意义到底是什么。
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Conqueror in a War of Virtual Worlds
By SETH SCHIESEL
Published: September 6, 2005
Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment wanted to make a big splash in the video game world back in March when it introduced Matrix Online, a massively multiplayer online game based on the once-hot film franchise. The game made a big splash all right, like a belly flop.
Over its first three months the game signed up fewer than 50,000 subscribers, a pittance, so in June Warner cut bait and agreed to sell the game to Sony. Last month Matrix Online was downsized from nine virtual "realms" to three, because users were having a hard time finding one another in the game’s vast digital ghost town.
The troubles of Matrix Online were partly of Warner’s own making; many players and critics agree that the game is a mediocre experience. But the online market used to make room for mediocre games. Now, the broader phenomenon is that so many contenders, including Matrix Online, simply cannot stand up to the overwhelming popularity of online gaming’s new leviathan: World of Warcraft, made by Blizzard Entertainment, based in Irvine, Calif.
With its finely polished, subtly humorous rendition of fantasy gaming – complete with mages, orcs, dragons and demons – World of Warcraft has become such a runaway success that it is now prompting a debate about whether it is helping the overall industry by bringing millions of new players into subscription-based online gaming or hurting the sector by diverting so many dollars and players from other titles.
"World of Warcraft is completely owning the online game space right now," said Chris Kramer, a spokesman for Sony Online Entertainment, buyer of Matrix Online and one of Blizzard’s chief rivals. "Look, Matrix Online is good, but it’s like being in the early 90’s and trying to put a fighting game up against Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter; it’s just not going to happen. There are a lot of other online games that are just sucking wind right now because so many people are playing WOW."
Mr. Kramer is in a position to know. Last November, his company released EverQuest II, sequel to the previous champion of massively multiplayer games. Such games, also known as M.M.O.’s, allow hundreds or thousands of players to simultaneously explore vast virtual worlds stocked with quests, monsters and treasure. Players sometimes cooperate to take on epic tasks, like killing a huge computer-controlled dragon, and sometimes fight one another in what is known as player-versus-player combat.
But November was the same month that World of Warcraft hit the shelves. In a subscriber-based multiplayer online game, the customer buys the game’s software for perhaps to , and then pays a monthly fee of usually around . (There are also many games that are sold at retail but then are free to play online.)
Since November, World of Warcraft has signed up more than four million subscribers worldwide, making for an annual revenue stream of more than 0 million. About a million of those subscribers are in the United States (with more than half a million copies sold this year) and another 1.5 million are in China, where the game was introduced just three months ago. By contrast, EverQuest II now has between 450,000 and 500,000 subscribers worldwide, with about 80 percent in the United States.
Just a year ago, numbers like that would have classed EverQuest II as a big hit. The original EverQuest topped out at around a half-million players, and many, if not most, game executives came to believe that the pool of people willing to pay a month to play a video game had been exhausted. The conventional wisdom in the industry then was that there could not possibly be more than a million people who would pay to play a massively multiplayer online game.
Now, World of Warcraft has shattered earlier assumptions about the potential size of the market.
"For many years the gaming industry has been struggling to find a way to get Internet gaming into the mainstream," said Jeff Green, editor in chief of Computer Gaming World, one of the top computer game magazines. "These kinds of games have had hundreds of thousands of players, which are not small numbers, but until World of Warcraft came along no one has been able to get the kind of mainstream numbers that everyone has wanted, which is millions of players."
Or as put by another Blizzard rival, Richard Garriott, an executive producer at NCsoft and one of the fathers of computer role-playing games: "Every year someone writes a big article about how the M.M.O. business has reached a new plateau and won’t get any bigger. And then every year we seem to grow 100 percent. World of Warcraft is just the next big step in that process."
Worldwide, about the only subscriber-based multiplayer online games that can compare to World of Warcraft are Lineage and Lineage II, from NCsoft. Each game claims about 1.8 million subscribers, but in both cases the vast majority of players are in South Korea, where Internet gaming has become practically a national pastime.
World of Warcraft has taken off in many countries because Blizzard has made a game that is easy for casual players to understand and feel successful in, while including enough depth to engross serious gamers, who may play a game like World of Warcraft for 30 hours a week or more. Previously, many massively multiplayer games had seemed to pride themselves on their difficulty and arcane control schemes.
"The emphasis has clearly been on removing all sorts of barriers of entry," Ville Lehtonen, a 25-year-old Finn who runs Ascent, one of Word of Warcraft’s elite player organizations, or guilds, said via e-mail. "The low-end game is a great triumph of usability – everything is aesthetically pleasing and easy to learn, making the experience a very positive one. Also the ease of leveling guaranteed that people didn’t get frustrated too easily. These effects combined to lure in the so-called casual crowds in huge masses."
It is much the same formula that Blizzard has used with its other major properties: the action-role playing Diablo series and the Starcraft and Warcraft strategy franchises.
"This is what Blizzard always does," said Mr. Green, of Computer Gaming World. "They have an innate genius at taking these genres that are considered hard-core geek property and repolishing them so they are accessible to the mainstream. To do that without losing their geek cred is an incredible achievement."
Mike Morhaime, president of Blizzard, which is controlled by Vivendi Universal Games, estimated that about a quarter of the game’s players are women, up from fewer than 10 percent on previous Blizzard games. "I think we’ve introduced a number of people to online gaming who didn’t realize that they would even enjoy it, and so I think that’s good for the industry," he said.
Some of Blizzard’s biggest rivals seem to agree.
"World of Warcraft is absolutely expanding the market, and that’s a positive for us because we don’t want this to just be a niche market," said Mike Crouch, an NCsoft spokesman. NCsoft has at least three new massively multiplayer games on the way including City of Villains, a superhero-themed sequel to last year’s City of Heroes that is scheduled for release this fall. "World of Warcraft is great, but people eventually move on and we will have the catalog for them to move on to."
But there is also trepidation.
"If you’re only playing WOW and you’re paying every single month, what does that mean for all of the other Internet games out there that are trying to get your or or a month?" Mr. Green said. "WOW is now the 800-pound gorilla in the room. I think it also applies to the single-player games. If some kid is paying a month on top of the initial investment and is devoting so many hours a week to it, are they really going to go out and buy the next Need for Speed or whatever? There is a real fear that this game, with its incredible time investment, will really cut into game-buying across the industry."
In any case, as in years past, there are those who believe that paid online gaming is all a fad anyway.
"I don’t think there are four million people in the world who really want to play online games every month," said Michael Pachter, a research analyst for Wedbush Morgan, a securities firm. "World of Warcraft is such an exception. I frankly think it’s the buzz factor, and eventually it will come back to the mean, maybe a million subscribers."
"It may continue to grow in China," Mr. Pachter added, "but not in Europe or the U.S. We don’t need the imaginary outlet to feel a sense of accomplishment here. It just doesn’t work in the U.S. It just doesn’t make any sense."
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原文：Conqueror in a War of Virtual Worlds
作者：SETH SCHIESEL
翻译：舞者
华纳兄弟互动娱乐公司意图通过3月份发布的黑客帝国在线在游戏界激起巨大水花，该游戏是根据曾热映的同名电影系列开发的一款大型多人在线游戏。该游戏的确激起了巨大水花，可惜跳砸了。
游戏头3个月的注册人数少于5万人，非常少，所以6月份华纳决定将游戏售予索尼。上月黑客帝国在线的服务器数量由9个减为3个，因为玩家在游戏中巨大而空荡的数字化城镇中很难找到其他玩家。
黑客帝国在线的麻烦部分是由于华纳自身造成的。许多玩家和评论者认为该游戏是平庸之作。网络游戏市场过去有平庸之作的生存空间，但是现在已日趋明朗：包括黑客帝国在线在内的众多竞争者完全无法与风行的魔兽世界相抗衡，这一在线游戏新的庞然巨物由位于加利福利亚尔湾的暴雪公司制作。
由于其精湛的设计，对奇幻游戏（包括法师、兽人、龙和恶魔）精妙幽默的展现，魔兽世界取得了巨大的成功，甚至产生了争论：魔兽世界因其将数百万新玩家吸引进收费在线游戏是有助于整体行业，还是因其从其它游戏分流了众多资金和玩家从而对部分造成伤害？
“魔兽世界目前完全统治了在线游戏领域”，索尼在线娱乐（黑客帝国在线的购买者，暴雪的主要竞争者之一）的发言人克里斯·克雷默[Chris Kramer]说，“看，黑客帝国在线很好，但就如同90年代初想开发一款与真人快打或街霸对抗的打斗游戏，根本行不通。许多在线游戏正在喝西北风，因为太多人在玩魔兽世界。”
克雷默先生对此有亲身体会。去年11月索尼在线发行了无尽的任务2–原大型多人游戏冠军的续篇。大型多人游戏，又称为MMO，允许数百或数千名玩家同时探索巨大的充满任务、怪物和财宝的虚拟世界。玩家有时合作进行大规模的任务，例如杀死一条由电脑控制的巨龙，或者有时互相战斗即玩家对玩家战斗。
但魔兽世界也在去年11月发行。对一款基于收费用户的多人在线游戏而言，客户购买游戏软件约需花费30至50美元，然后月费通常在15美元左右（也有许多游戏出售后在线免费）。
自从11月份以来，魔兽世界全球拥有超过400万付费用户，则全年收入流超过7亿美元。其中约100万用户位于美国（本年售出超过50万游戏拷贝），150万用户位于中国（3个月前刚刚发行）。与此相对照，无尽的任务2目前全球拥有45万至50万用户，其中80%的用户在美国。
如果仅在1年前的话，上述用户数量本可使得无尽的任务2获得巨大成功。原先的无尽的任务达到过约50万玩家，许多（如果不是大多数的话）游戏主管认为愿意每月花费15美元玩游戏的玩家数量已到极限。行业中的常识是愿意付费玩大型多人在线游戏的玩家绝不会超过100万。
现在，魔兽世界粉碎了先前关于在线游戏市场潜在大小的假设。
“许多年来游戏行业努力寻找使得互联网游戏成为主流的道路”，电脑游戏世界（顶尖电脑游戏杂志之一）主编杰夫·格林[Jeff Green]说，“这类游戏曾拥有数十万玩家，这并不是一个小数字，但直到魔兽世界出现才可能得到每个人都盼望的主流数字——数百万玩家。”
另一位暴雪的竞争者理查德·盖瑞特[Richard Garriott]（NCsoft公司制作人，电脑角色扮演游戏缔造者之一）说：“每年都会有人写长篇大论说MMO这行已经达到新的稳定水平，不会再变大了。但每年我们都似乎增长了100%。魔兽世界就是此过程中紧接迈出的一大步。”
全球范围而言，能与魔兽世界比较的基于收费用户的大型在线游戏是NCsoft公司的天堂和天堂2。每款游戏声称约180万注册用户，但两者主要的玩家集中在韩国，那里互联网游戏已几乎成为全民娱乐。
魔兽世界在许多国家发行，因为暴雪使其对于休闲玩家来说易于理解和获得成功感，同时包括吸引狂热玩家（可能玩游戏例如魔兽世界达到一周30个小时或更多）的足够深度。以前，许多大型多人游戏看上去以其难度和晦涩难懂的控制方式而自夸。
“关键显然是消除所有的入门障碍，”魔兽世界精英玩家公会Ascent的负责人，25岁的芬兰玩家维莱·莱赫托宁[Ville Lehtonen]通过电子邮件说，“游戏的低端内容在可用性方面取得了巨大胜利，所有的一切都令人舒适并易于学习，使得游戏体验非常棒。升级难度的降低使得玩家不会轻易感到挫折。上述结合起来吸引了大量的休闲群体。”
这和暴雪其它游戏–动作角色扮演游戏暗黑破坏神系列，星际争霸和魔兽争霸战略游戏系列——采取的模式一样。
“这就是暴雪一直这么做的，”电脑游戏世界杂志的格林先生说，“他们具有将被视为狂热玩家专利的游戏类型改造为被主流所接受的天赋。这样做的同时而不失去狂热玩家是一项惊人的成就。”
维旺迪环球游戏子公司暴雪公司总裁迈克·莫汉[Mike Morhaime]估计魔兽世界中有四分之一的玩家是女性，比暴雪以前游戏中10%的比例要高。“我认为我们吸引了原先没有意识到享受在线游戏乐趣的人群加入到在线游戏，我认为这对行业是有益的。”
一些暴雪的最大竞争者看起来也表示认同。
“魔兽世界绝对扩展了市场，这对我们是有利的，因为我们不想仅仅是一个缝隙市场，”NCsoft公司发言人迈克·克罗奇[Mike Crouch]说。NCsoft至少有3款新的大型多人游戏正在研发，包括计划今年秋季发行的英雄城市的续篇罪恶城市。“魔兽世界很棒，但人们总会继续前进而我们将拥有他们所需要的。”
但也存在担忧。
“如果你只玩魔兽世界，并且每月付费，那么对其它想每月从你身上得到10美元或12美元或15美元的互联网游戏意味着什么？”格林先生说。“现在魔兽世界如同房间里800磅重的大猩猩。我认为也影响到单机游戏。如果某些玩家除50美元的初期花费之外每月还花费15美元，而且一周花费大量时间在魔兽世界上，那么他们还会出去购买极品飞车续集或者其它游戏吗？真的害怕需要花费大量时间的魔兽世界导致游戏购买力的下降。”
然而正如同以往一样，有人相信付费在线游戏只不过是短暂的狂热。
“我不认为这世上有4百万人真的想每月都玩在线游戏，”Wedbush Morgan证券分析员迈克尔·帕切特[Michael Pachter]说。“魔兽世界仅是一个特例。我认为只不过是一时风行，最终将会回复到平均水平，即约1百万用户。”
“也许在中国会继续增长，”帕切特先生补充道，“但不会发生在欧洲或美国。我们不需要以虚拟方式获得成功感，在美国不会这样，毫无意义。”
