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Pachter: World Of Warcraft Will Reign For Another 20 Years
With just over six years of being the most popular MMO under its belt, World of Warcraft celebrated this week with the release of its much-hyped third expansion pack, Cataclysm. How long will Blizzard's online juggernaut be able to maintain momentum? According to analyst Michael Pachter, it has a nice long run ahead of itself.
Speaking to Eurogamer, Pachter stated plainly, "Nothing will topple World of Warcraft for another 20 years." How will they stay on top? He explained:
"As long as the Blizzard guys keep working on it, the quality will remain very high, and it will remain the dominant game. Your question is analogous to asking what will topple Google in search or Facebook in social media, and the answer is the same. I don't see any game catching up, the lead is insurmountable."
Not everyone looking at the MMO business is as optimistic toward Blizzard's future as Pachter. Cryptic Studios head Jack Emmert says he believes other games will "slowly chip away at" WoW's lead rather than a single game coming along to replace it.
Others, such as Age of Conan director Craig Morrison and GamersFirst head Bjorn Book-Larsson, rejected the idea that WoW needs to be toppled, suggesting that there's plenty of room in the market for competing products without them needing to replace World of Warcraft.
Whatever the case, the positive buzz for Cataclysm certainly seems to suggest that Blizzard doesn't need to worry about ending their run at the top any time soon. Do you think they'll be able to make it 20 more years, though?
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