PA Developer Blog

Innovation in the gaming industry is slowly dying. The dominance of WoW could stifle the biggest booming part of the industry. MMO’s have been a growing portion of the industry. Good and bad MMO’s have managed to stick around far longer then anyone thought, they even manage to make money sometimes. Up until now MMO’s have been encouraged to experiment and explore different parts of the industry. Since EQ fell from it’s pedestal no one has held this much of the market and the end user has benefited in the form of many different types of MMO’s. In the past though the gaming industry has proved they won’t mess with a successful combo. The right thing for the industry to do is to try new things and get out from under WoW’s shadow, I don’t think that will happen though. I expect to see a lot of clones in the next few years.

I suppose I should explain that I am not a WoW fan. Sure it looks pretty, but in my opinion it plays like shit. The entire game is a grind to level 60 (soon to be level 70) with little to no worthwhile story along the way. The end game is huge raids and there’s nothing intimate about the game design. I want to play with a few friends, I don’t want to have to join an uber guild to compete. I realize some of this is changing with the expansion, but you still have to get to level 61 before it really makes a difference. The bottom line is, I want to see games that are different, I want to see different takes on MMO’s. I want to have a tough decision between two MMO’s that are very different. WoW’s domination threatens that.