Warhammer Online and how I believe it could have been more succesful

                The game I’ve chosen to analyze today is Warhammer online (referred to as War from now on). A popular MMO from Mythic Entertainment and produced by EA. Based on the extremely popular games workshop table top models and games, War online brings the rich fantasy, brutal combat and extensive lore of Warhammer to fans in a complete package. So, why is it only moderately successful? I have several ideas as to some barriers that War online created for themselves which limited sales and bypassed fan demographics.

               The first barrier standing in the way of War online is its similarities with World of Warcraft (referred to as Wow from now on) People in the know, are aware that Warhammer thought of Orks, Goblins, Dwarves and Halflings long before Wow did...But, then again, J.R.R Tolkien thought of all those things long before either of the companies. The simple fact of the matter is Wow came out first, it was familiar and it had nearly all the races that War online planned to implement. Fans who are not particularly knowledgeable about the two games and their lore will see the races in Wow, compare them to the races in War and think...”well, I’ll go with the more established MMO of the two”

World of Warcraft Orc

Warhammer online orc

       
 

               How could this perceived barrier be fixed? I believe the Lore of Warhammer is about as deep and rich as it gets for fantasy settings. They have several races that could have taken the place of simple dwarves, humans, elves and so forth. Races such as the Skaven, giant, scheming rat man that live underneath the surface of the world plotting their ultimate revenge on the surface races. Or how about Lizardmen, who have an art style and history based on ancient Aztec and Mayan civilizations. Simple humans could have even been replaced by Bretonnians. Yes, they are human, but they are humans entrenched in a feudal knights and lords system which is significantly different than how humans are handled in Wow. Ultimately, War stands apart from Wow in gameplay, but the similarities between the two were too much for many newer players who simply went with the more established World of Warcraft. War needed to standout a lot more to get more new customers I believe.

               Another Barrier is a fairly simple one, price. At $15.99 per month in USD the subscription price is not only high, it’s a dollar more than Wow. Since Wow is their largest competitor and they are already firmly established, it only makes sense to use the simple method of offering a new game, new gameplay and all, for cheaper. This strikes me as a simple way to garner more new subscriptions. I think cutting the price down to 13.99 per month, 11.99 per month for the three month option and 10.00 flat for the yearly subscription would have been a smart move. To further cover overhead, War could have added micro transactions to supplement their income and make up for their cheaper subscription price. The price could have even undercut Wow by just a dollar and I think it would have brought in more new players. I understand this is likely a decision by EA rather than Mythic, but it was still a huge mistake in my opinion and one of their biggest barriers. Ironically enough I believe it would have also been the easiest to avoid.

             The final barrier I will discuss is likely a controversial one as it could really go either way. I believe War online could have garnered more players, what’s more, a different type of player than Wow, if they went with an M rating. While almost all the time, an M rating causes games to lose sales, there are clear and proven exceptions to the rule. I think given the time frame War came out in, it’s  lore (which is incredibly violent and dark) and the fact there were no other big MMO’s with an M rating at the time, War could have gotten away with it. With the Teen rating it received, even with the different art style than Wow, it was clumped into the same frame as Wow. I believe the game didn’t stand out enough if one were to put screenshots of the two together, the color palettes and world environments were just too similar. Yes, War was darker and a bit more refined art wise, but it wasn’t enough. I believe more War fans would have flocked to a Warhammer online universe truer to the lore, extremely violent and extremely dark with elements of very dark humour thrown in to boot. 

               So, where does this leave War?  Well, as a whole, the game was a success. In fact, it was one of only a handful of MMO’s to come out in the last several years to take away players from Wow. Sure, most trickled back to Wow, but it still did not stop the game from making a profit for the developers. I think they could have taken it further though, they knew standing out from Wow was a necessity, but I think they tackled the problem far too timidly. Switching up similarities by adding never before seen races would have been a huge boon I believe, especially if they were marketed properly, something which Mythic did quite well for the game. The subscription price was another fault, being the new guy, how can you expect to charge customers entrenched in Wow more money to switch over to your game? I imagine they thought they could get away with it because it was something fresh and new, but I think in the long run it hurt their subscription base. Finally, there is the controversial belief that the T rating hindered the game. While this is a matter of opinion, I believe I have backed it up with evidence that it may have been a good idea to go with an M rating. Warhammer is extremely dark, it’s always been that way. Making it a Teen game just helped to put it in the same frame as Wow to many players. Since Wow is was more established, cheaper and larger, I think Mythic needed not just some differences, they needed a lot of clear, drastic differences to really take a big chunk out of the MMO market dominated by Wow.