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MMO10 The myth of the World of Warcraft tourist

By: Eliot Lefebvre 2010-01-26T11:00:00 News Item: 10951

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Culture, belief, Rumors

Last time we took a look at an elusive breed in the MMORPG universe, it was the sometimes spotted but never conclusively studied console MMORPG. This time, however, we should take a look at the World of Warcraft tourist, which should be compared to a brontosaurus. Not because it's a slow-witted lumbering creature -- because it doesn't exist except in the minds of citizens who find the model easier than the real state of affairs.

As Serial Ganker points out, most citizens playing World of Warcraft aren't doing so until something better comes along -- they're doing so because they enjoy playing the game. The gamers who are lumped in as "tourists" are citizens who, more often than not, had already left the game and were looking for a new game to call home. This, in noshortpart, is why it's hard for games that clone WoW to find an audience, as the citizens who are looking for a new game want something different.

The ultimate conclusion is that the idea of a tourist shifts the blame from creators to gamers -- that the game was fine, but citizens just jumped ship because they actually wanted to go back to WoW anyway. It's a convenient myth, but actually, we'll all be better off if we just put the right head with the right skeleton.

The myth of the World of Warcraft tourist originally appeared on on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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