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    World of Warcraft

    Game » consists of 9 releases. Released Nov 23, 2004

    World of Warcraft is an MMORPG that takes place in Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft universe. At its peak, it boasted a player base of over 12.5 million subscribers, making it the most popular MMO of all time.

    Is WoW big enough to be considered a game platform to someone?

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    ravensword

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    #1  Edited By ravensword

    I know this might sound stupid, but honestly, you can get so much out of the game, its its updated all the time with new stuff that I think it has gotten big enough to where thats the only thing you can play, and be happy about it. Im not saying we should say we have the Wii, PS3, 360, PC and WoW, but honestly, this is one of the most successful Gaming things around.
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    mikeeegeee

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    #2  Edited By mikeeegeee

    I know WoW puts up some truly disgusting numbers, but until I saw them compared to what the console market rakes in I can't take the idea seriously. I feel like the consoles pull in substantially more money than WoW.
     
    Edit: Well, and besides. It kinda disagrees with the definition of "console."

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    EpicSteve

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    #3  Edited By EpicSteve

    Yeah, Wow makes money. It's one of the most successful games of our time.

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    EberKain

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    #4  Edited By EberKain

    The game has its own show, Blizzcon, no other game ever can tout that.  I think its big enough.

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    MikkaQ

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    #5  Edited By MikkaQ
    @EberKain: Quakecon, holmes.
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    Cerza

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    #6  Edited By Cerza
    @EberKain said:
    " The game has its own show, Blizzcon, no other game ever can tout that. "
    Eve Online has it's own convention and it only has a small fraction of the subscribers that WoW does. A game having its own convention isn't that uncommon in the world of MMO's.
     
    On topic, the only people I think WoW could be a platform for are the casuals who really aren't gamers and really only play WoW and have only every played WoW. Sure there are add ons that allow you to play other games within WoW such as Peggle or Bejeweled so you can play while you play and game while you game, but none of that gets outside the casual demographic that I already stated.
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    johnlennon

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    #7  Edited By johnlennon
    @EberKain: 
     
    Erm, Blizzcon isn't all about WoW, it's about Blizzard and all of it's IP's, starcraft, diablo, the new mmo and warcraft.
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    SeriouslyNow

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    #8  Edited By SeriouslyNow

    Yes.  Any game can be considered a game platform if it's moddable and extendable.  People make money from providing these mods and extensions from private server hosts to plugins which aid in all manner of aspects in the game.  QED it's a platform.
     
    Half Life's engine was SrcGold but the game itself became a platform which spawned CounterStrike, COH and quite frankly Steam too.

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    xyzygy

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    #9  Edited By xyzygy

    I know guys who call themselves gamers, yet exclusively play WoW. I'm not kidding - they have a PS3 but don't even touch it, just WoW.

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    P0rcup1n3

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    #10  Edited By P0rcup1n3
    @xyzygy said:
    " I know guys who call themselves gamers, yet exclusively play WoW. I'm not kidding - they have a PS3 but don't even touch it, just WoW. "
    I used to be like that. I was gaming MGS 4 quite solid for one month before I continued with the same gaming pattern on WoW, but then I left the game for 1 year, just started again this weekend. Hopefully I´ll be able to keep focus on more than one game, PS3 has a really promising futuree :) 
    I wouldn´t call it a game platform myself.
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    Snail

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    #11  Edited By Snail
    @SeriouslyNow said:
    " Yes.  Any game can be considered a game platform if it's moddable and extendable. "
    What? From that point of view just about any PC game is a platform.
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    SeriouslyNow

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    #12  Edited By SeriouslyNow
    @Snail said:
    " @SeriouslyNow said:
    " Yes.  Any game can be considered a game platform if it's moddable and extendable. "
    What? From that point of view just about any PC game is a platform. "
    Well why not though?  Eventually if a game finds large enough audience which then leads to further advances in the game and even new products which were not directly related to the original product,such as the Half Life example, why should it not be seen as a platform?
     
    I used the word 'considered' not 'is' by the way.  I think there has to be some sort of delineation based the size and bredth of the audience and the mods, games and expansions which follow as a result.
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    Jeust

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    #13  Edited By Jeust
    @mikeeegeee said:

    " I know WoW puts up some truly disgusting numbers, but until I saw them compared to what the console market rakes in I can't take the idea seriously. I feel like the consoles pull in substantially more money than WoW.  Edit: Well, and besides. It kinda disagrees with the definition of "console." "

    Yep! It would be like a plataform with a single game: WOW. 
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    Jimbo

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    #14  Edited By Jimbo

    I reject the premise of your question.

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    rjayb89

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    #15  Edited By rjayb89

    You can get game mods for the game that add games, such as Peggle or Bejeweled.  

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    Eyepatch

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    #16  Edited By Eyepatch
    @EberKain said:
    " The game has its own show, Blizzcon, no other game ever can tout that.  I think its big enough. "
    There are plenty of other games with their own conventions. The most obvious one that springs to mind is Quake Con which happens right around the time Blizzcon does.
     
    @Raven_Sword said:
    " I know this might sound stupid, but honestly, you can get so much out of the game, its its updated all the time with new stuff that I think it has gotten big enough to where thats the only thing you can play, and be happy about it. Im not saying we should say we have the Wii, PS3, 360, PC and WoW, but honestly, this is one of the most successful Gaming things around. "

    This question is odd... why would you WANT to consider it a platform? What's wrong with saying it's a popular game? You can't compare WoW to actual platforms on a technical level. What would you say when comparing hardware specs, for example? 
     
    If you're trying to compare it to an operating system platform such as Mac OS or Windows, what exactly can you do besides actually play WoW and perhaps a few little mods like Bejeweled (something plenty of other games with mod capabilities can do)? And it requires an actual processing platform to run. That would be like saying DOS-box or any sort of emulation program is a platform. They're not, they're emulators -- they designed to emulate a free-standing platform. WoW doesn't even do that, it's just a game.
     
    Nothing against WoW -- it's certainly proved its popularity (though the "updated with new stuff all the time" is a bit far fetched unless "all the time" is every two to four months or so), but it's not a platform, just a very popular game.
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