There is one wildcard out there that may be able to take WoW down. It’s something that’s entirely unlikely, but I wouldn’t ever rule it out. There exists a game called Alganon that was released last year but went free-to-play with the subscription fees refunded after much uproar about how it appeared that most of the game’s graphics were ripped directly from WoW. The company developing it, Quest Online, now has a new president named Derek Smart and is rebuilding. Derek Smart, to me, is one of the greatest game developers of all time.
If we compare WoW to Pepsi and Alganon to Coca-Cola then we could relate this to the New Coke incident in 1985 when Coca-Cola was down to 24% and Pepsi was reigning supreme. Coca-Cola released New Coke which was met with a huge amount of resentment and they later recalled it and replaced it with Classic Coca-Cola placing it at its now massive market share of over 60% (as of 2004). While Quest Online hasn’t been around forever, the press it has generated has been massive.
Before Mr. Smart took over this is what Alganon looked like. A simple idea, people love WoW so why not clone it? That just shows how desperate ideas are getting in the industry to tackle WoW. Thankfully all of this is being removed ASAP.
Not to mention Derek Smart’s uncanny ability to drum up press. See, Derek Smart is known for the longest flame war ever in the history of the Internet. Before we had phpBB, proboards, and other web friendly forums there was something known as Usenet. Mr. Smart frequented Usenet and was involved in a 7 year plus flame war over his flagship game, Battlecruiser 3000AD. Of course, Battlecruiser 3000AD is one of the worst games of all time, or was at its launch, which can actually be blamed on Take Two instead of Mr. Smart for the early release. He later fixed the game and released it as freeware.
Additionally, his second game, Universal Combat was a game he developed over a four year period by himself. It was rather buggy and unplayable when it was released, but he has since fixed it up and released it as well as freeware. It’s important to understand he developed it by himself, got it published, and was able to eventually turn it into a pretty good game. That’s a major accomplishment in my book.
He’s a great developer, even if some computer game magazines ran many stories about him assaulting a Coca-Cola vending machine, or the fact that he’s still out there right now trolling forums defending Alganon and writing massive posts about what went down with David Allen and the current lawsuit involving the previous president and company founder, David Allen vs. Quest Online, its investors, and Derek Smart’s own company (click here to see the lawsuit (outside link, PDF file).
Back to the point, though, with Derek Smart in charge of Alganon it may make a direct 180 from failsville to mainstream. Many may accuse Derek Smart of being incompetent, but not me. He’s created massive complex games by himself. He’s had some of the best ideas the industry has ever seen. He was John Romero before John Romero was even a name people knew. Not to mention, EVE Online started small and is now massive. Starting small with small expectations may be the boon a game needs to rise up.
Sure, Alganon pretty much ripped WoW off and has gone and got on the quick train to obscurity after everyone got bored of making fun of it. Yet, with a man like Derek Smart in charge, it just might turn itself around. If it does then WoW might have a run for its money. There is a small, small chance of it happening, but with some of Derek Smart’s cool ideas actually professionally implemented we may see something more than a WoW ripoff. We might see a WoW competitor or we might see yet another failure. Time will tell. Even if it doesn't (which, honestly, it probably won't) there is a chance that a small title from a cool upstart with an awesome team will be what it takes to topple the #1 kid in the playpen. Again, just look at EVE Online.
Of course, Derek Smart could always bring victory by a simple and foolproof strategy. He'll storm into Blizzard's offices and begin punching every vending machine he sees until there is not one standing, depriving Blizzard of the necessary caffeine in order to produce their games. Whenever someone tries to stop him he'll immediatly troll them harder than any troll on the Blizzard forums has ever done, temporarily stunning them as he continues to vanquish all of the vending machines. On his way out, he'll drop copies of Universal Commander that many employees will install and then immediately set their computers on fire in order to remove it, as everything from the uninstaller to the game itself does not work.