Monday, January 17, 2005

All’s not happy in WoW

If you're a <A HREF="http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/">World of Warcraft</A> (otherwise known as WoW) addict, all's not happy in Mudville this evening. Apparently unable to sustain their user numbers, Blizzard has implemented user queuing, forcing many World of Warcraft players to wait for an hour or more to play the game. According to some online posts, there are some indications that there's an online population limit of only 1,400 users per WoW "realm."

Given that Blizzard has sold well over 250,000 game copies, and there are 88 realms listed, Computing Unplugged estimates that WoW has a total capacity of 123,200 players. In other words, more than half the people who bought the game can simply not be accomodated. How will this shake out for the otherwise wildly popular game? Will there be more and more customers dropping from the ranks. This is a very interesting trend to watch, because the buy-in to the game is not inconsiderable. In addition to the nearly $50 price of the game, Blizzard also charges $15 for game play, and yet is apparently unable to deliver the purchased services. Stay tuned. This one could get messy.

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