World of Warcraft takes a look back at its MMORPG roots

Posted Sep 24, 2007 at 1:22AM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: Titles, Opinions & Analysis Tags: Blizzard, Karsten, Ubisoft

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One of the relatively newer genres in the gaming industry is the MMORPG. It's advent goes back to as far as the 1990s when games such as Ultima Online and EverQuest popularized the concept of an online gaming community where people can band together and bash random critters for experience and gold.

One of the most popular MMORPGs to date is Blizzard's phenomenal World of Warcraft, which has a subscriber count of at least 8.5 million worldwide. However, it owes a lot of its existence to its proverbial forefathers. Conditions back then were considerably different for such a budding game genre to grow.

In 1999, Ubisoft introduced EverQuest to the German market. A lot of hindrances such as the limitations of technology, as well as the relatively high costs of online fees made its rise to popularity quite slow compared to today's standards. Peaking at 500,000 subscribers,many consider EverQuest as the one which paved the way for the MMORPG genre to take flight.

Karsten Lehmann, a spokesman for Ubisoft, relates their past difficulties: "It's hard for players today who are accustomed to the idea of flat rate Internet access to remember how complicated this kind of stuff was at the time".

It was only during 2004 that Blizzard capitalized on the growing fame of the new gaming genre and launched World of Warcraft into the MMORPG giant it is today. It took all the elements that gave EverQuest its massive appeal and simplified it for users everywhere to enjoy. It goes without saying that Blizzard definitely struck gold here.

Today, more and more gaming companies are riding on the ever growing community of online gamers. With the genre continually growing in depth and dynamics, who knows what the next wave of online games can bring.

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