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Spoils of Warcraft, by Robert Levine
Blizzard Entertainment, a unit of Vivendi, built World of Warcraft into the most profitable videogame of all time by betting that orcs and warlocks weren't just for the Dungeons & Dragons set. World of Warcraft, known as a “massively multiplayer online” game is a hybrid of a traditional PC game and an online Second Life-style virtual space. As in Dungeons & Dragons, players create a character from a selection of races and occupations—gnome, dwarf, warrior, warlock, etc.—and use keystrokes to slay monsters, gather treasure, or just talk with friends as one might in a chatroom. At this point nongamers might be tempted to write off World of Warcraft as the latest in a series of hyped-up virtual worlds that seem to be populated entirely with digital tumbleweeds. Except for one thing: World of Warcraft makes money—a great deal of it. The game has eight million subscribers around the world. In the U.S. , players buy the software, then pay a $15 per month all-you-can-play subscription fee (European gamers pay a similar sum, while in Asia , players purchase time cards). That makes World of Warcraft the most profitable videogame ever made.
