Sony?s Ryan Barker has stated his belief that the insanely popular World of Warcraft will ultimately be toppled by an MMO inspired by social networking phenomenon Facebook.com.
Barker, who worked on Sony?s decade old EverQuest, suggested that Warcraft will be knocked off its pedestal by ?something totally different that we haven?t even thought of yet?.
?At some point someone will dwarf those numbers with a game. If we can get passed some of the barriers that are keeping people from playing with their friends, just because their friends happened to start the game before they did, and maybe started on a different server or whatever, if we can start to get rid of some of those social blocks, I think it can get even better,? he told VideoGamer.com.
Elaborating, Barker pointed to Facebook as a possible inspiration, adding, ?Things like that show us that there are a lot of people out there that are interested in being involved in an internet community, especially with all the apps on Facebook, in playing casual games. At some point someone?s going to do an MMO that really caters to that group, and is going to have a billion subscribers or whatever. There?s another ceiling somewhere that we haven?t hit yet.?
?It?s mostly going to be how the social interactions work. There is still somewhat of a stigma with the fantasy genre. It?ll be some weird mix of something we haven?t seen before. A lot of the standard video game genres I don?t think will have the breadth of appeal that would be necessary for something like that. It might not even be a game world per se; it might be something totally different that we haven?t even thought of yet.?
Released in November 2004, World of Warcraft holds the Guinness World Record for most popular MMORPG and boasts over a whopping 11.5 million monthly subscribers. Regardless if you?re a fan or not, we think you?ll agree it?ll take something rather spectacular to topple the Blizzard behemoth any time soon. Stay tuned.
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Barker, who worked on Sony?s decade old EverQuest, suggested that Warcraft will be knocked off its pedestal by ?something totally different that we haven?t even thought of yet?.
?At some point someone will dwarf those numbers with a game. If we can get passed some of the barriers that are keeping people from playing with their friends, just because their friends happened to start the game before they did, and maybe started on a different server or whatever, if we can start to get rid of some of those social blocks, I think it can get even better,? he told VideoGamer.com.
Elaborating, Barker pointed to Facebook as a possible inspiration, adding, ?Things like that show us that there are a lot of people out there that are interested in being involved in an internet community, especially with all the apps on Facebook, in playing casual games. At some point someone?s going to do an MMO that really caters to that group, and is going to have a billion subscribers or whatever. There?s another ceiling somewhere that we haven?t hit yet.?
?It?s mostly going to be how the social interactions work. There is still somewhat of a stigma with the fantasy genre. It?ll be some weird mix of something we haven?t seen before. A lot of the standard video game genres I don?t think will have the breadth of appeal that would be necessary for something like that. It might not even be a game world per se; it might be something totally different that we haven?t even thought of yet.?
Released in November 2004, World of Warcraft holds the Guinness World Record for most popular MMORPG and boasts over a whopping 11.5 million monthly subscribers. Regardless if you?re a fan or not, we think you?ll agree it?ll take something rather spectacular to topple the Blizzard behemoth any time soon. Stay tuned.
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