World of Warcraft is an online game where players from
around the world assume the roles of heroic fantasy characters and explore a
virtual world full of mystery, magic, and endless adventure. Each player character has a specific set of
skills and abilities that define that character’s role. For example, mages are
powerful spellcasters who use magic to inflict damage on their enemies from
afar but are very vulnerable to attacks. These traits define the role of the
mage: hang back, do a ton of damage, and hope to kill the monsters before they
reach you.
Similar to Second Life, ‘WOW’ is designed for different
players from around the world to meet each other through a virtual existence. By
the end of 2011 there was an estimated 12,000,000 subscribers making it one of
the largest MMO’s (Massive multiplayer online-game) to date (with new
contenders quickly emerging such as Guild Wars and The Old Republic). At the
same time Second Life has only 1,000,000 users.
I have been speaking briefly to a group of friends that have
been playing online games such as these for quite some time now. My results
have started to show that WOW was the most popular with all five of them having
an active account for at least one year, each. My main inquiry was to why they
chose WOW over any other MMO. The short answer that started to emerge with
all of them was because it was already the most popular online game when they started playing
it.
I will undertake a more in-depth interview with a friend of mine who has been an active subscriber for some years now. This will posted at a later date as I want to find out in detail why WOW is
so popular and the effects it has had on his life…
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