WoW NOT a Success?

Gamasutra is reporting from the GI6 marketing conference in San Francisco. One of the featured articles regards a speech given by Gaia's Craig Sherman. Sherman claims that compared to the 800 million teenagers willing and able to play online games, World of Warcraft's claim to 10 million players was "not a success."

The conference is specific to marketing free games such as Gaia, Puzzle Pirates, Fiesta and MapleStory. Check out the link above to read more.

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Wow- Because you know, every single teen in the world plays an MMO. Shesh. I guess making 150 million dollars off of a game per month is bad, I can live with being bad. Besides, those free MMO's are usually crappy,grind fests that get boring after a few weeks.

If compared to free online games like MapleStory, which claims 50 million subscribers (source), WoW has much less subscribers. The commentator ignored the fact these are paying subscribers and focused on the total number instead.

I think this argument is flawed if profits are ignored. On the other hand freeware appeal usually topples payware if it delivers similar service.

If you ask me, Maplestory was actually much more sucky than WoW. 2 Two reasons: 1. Quests are nothing but kill X and Y, collect Z and return to me. I killed so many pig at Pig Beach it would be considered a homicide... 2. 2D Graphics are a no-no in todays market. Sure the game may run quite well and the whole class/job idea is a sort of reused, but working, thought but if all we can do is go left, right and jump while casting spells/throwing stars/chopping then why play? WoW has: flying mounts, interesting quests (mind you the beginning part has the Kill X, Collect Y, bring to me. Later on quests get much, much more interesting.) and a whole hell of a ton of spells that look superb. Maplestory only has I believe as I am typing 4 attack spells that you use like a worn big Red button.
Gaia online can't even talk about WoW because they are completely opposite games. Gaia is a social network with some avatar aspects BUT no pew pew. WoW is a MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing GAME).
If free-market games are the future then there will be either a future with uber-rich companies that can dish out money to make a free game or it will be a company that holds their programmers like slaves and doesn't pay them. Free games, more often than not, don't work in a large community without some sort of "pay" method. Maplestory isn't free completely. If you want some real neat items you have to pay thru the Cash Shop. Gaia online has the Cash-to-Coin exchange system. In part truth, yes their game is "Free" b/c you don't need to use their system but the experience is a lot more exciting with the extras.
Now, I'm not trying to advertise WoW and say "It's the best MMORPG in existance and you would have to be a blind hobo not to play it." but since they are dissing WoW then they REALLY need to look at what they are saying. Also with Wolfkin, not every teenager on Earth plays a MMO. To say that, "oh hay, you only have 11 million players when the total number of teens in 800 million, thats not much" Like there is more players playing your game?