Bushnell Predicts End of 'Warcraft'

Posted by Stephen Johnson - Tuesday, July 08, 2008 11:44 AM

Atari and Chuck E. Cheese creator Nolan Bushnell has gazed into his crystal ball and determined that World of Warcraft is over.

In an interview with Gamasutra, Bushnell said:

"World of Warcraft just passed what I call the Bushnell Threshold. The Bushnell Threshold is... I watch my sons, and because they're my sons, they tend to start things at the beginning, or sometimes a little bit before. So they play and play and play and play, and all of a sudden, they don't play anymore. They stayed with World of Warcraft for a long time. My older son all of a sudden got Mage 72 or whatever it is and quit. All at once. Cold turkey. I didn't think it was going to happen. And my 14-year-old is getting close to there, which is surprising."

Coming from anyone else, we might dispute Bushnell's vision of the future, but because the dude successfully predicted the appeal of bloopy lights on TV screens and pizza served by anthropomorphic mice, we gotta give him the benefit of the doubt. When he sees the future, he sees the future, even if it involves a rat handing off a slice of pepperoni!

Also, we sort of feel the same thing with Warcraft... maybe it hasn't jumped the shark yet, but it's water-skiing around the ramp in its leather jacket. Do you think so?

Gamasutra: Nolan Bushnell: What The Game Industry Misses

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Tags: MMO News, PC Gaming, Videogames

Comment(s)

Posted by Iclabgod - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 12:00 PM

No offence to Mr. Bushnell but his record is pretty soso since after all he stole the tech idea and tech from Odyess to create pong. Plus he left Atari out to dry when they merged with IBM

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Posted by jargy1 - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 12:04 PM

I think it's a fair guess. It'll die slowly because people have an attachment for whatever reason to characters they invested in, but there's only so long someone can be expected to enjoy the same exact thing over and over again. I know people who invested hundreds of hours in their Sims and they walked away, or a hundred hours in Final Fantasy games or Oblivion or a ton of others, including MMOs. There's a point when it just isn't fun anymore. I hit that point about 3 months into it personally. Going from rapid leveling and new areas to monotonous grinds doesn't appeal to me. MMOs need a paradigm shift to get my money for years the way WoW has done for most people.

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Posted by defiantketchup - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 12:16 PM

see also the term:

http://www.urbandictionary.c om/define.php?term=nuking+the+ fridge

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Posted by Accolade83 - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 12:21 PM

You know I felt several weeks ago that it was finally starting to go downhill. I had quit playing for almost a year and for that entire year I swore off the game and thought i would never play it again and I felt it was dying...

Then suddenly for seemingly no reason at all, Just last week, I had the extremely overwhelming and sudden urge to play again... and now I am. I've started completely anew and now I, of course, don't feel its dying at all and am excited about the new expansion.

Blizzard has created some kind of new addictive drug. Bushnell's kids will start playing again, mark my words.

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Posted by thiswillallbeburned - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 12:23 PM

I bet, because of this, Blizzards stock will drop.

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Posted by happs - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 12:28 PM

wow always dies down before a new expansion because whats the point of doing anything when your going to get new levels in a few months.

everyone will come back.

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Posted by trashymac - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 12:28 PM

Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 says stock will rise ;)

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Posted by g4tvroxdahouse - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 12:30 PM

Oh Noes! You don't think this could mean the end of the World.................. of Warcraft?

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Posted by ThataUFO - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 12:38 PM

A buddy of mine has played FFXI since its inception, and he is still playing. He is losing his family and friends because of it. He would rather sit there and do nothing at lvl 75 than go out and do something with his friends. I bet the same kind of people are keeping WoW going. There is always that dude that just plays and plays and plays. Think about the South Park WoW episode. Thats how I explain the fact that SW:G is still going.

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Posted by gil1210 - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 12:39 PM

It's all about The World of World of Warcraft!

http://www.theonion.com/cont ent/video/warcraft_sequel_lets _gamers_play

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Posted by gingerbredman24 - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 12:42 PM

Maybe it is on its way down, maybe it isnt. but in the last 2 years the user base has gone from 9 million, to 10...so that should answer the question about its declining popularity

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Posted by CaBB - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 12:43 PM

First off he's basing this on 2 people. Plus its not uncommon for people to leave MMOs after endgaming.

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Posted by RgvXavi - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 12:45 PM

WoW has been dead to me since it was released. i don't know how long it's been out but I haven't even played a trial version of WoW. and don't want to. I could not tell you what the box art looks like or the basis of the game. And I really don't care. WoW, IMO, is a detriment to building real-life social skills. It's one thing to talk on a mic and totally different from going out in public and having a face-to-face conversation. Since i will NEVER play WoW: someone please tell me why you pay the monthly service fee to play this game? What is so special about it?

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Posted by UndiscoveredBum - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 12:49 PM

Im glad this stupid geek fest is finally going away..its about freaking time..and think how much money you have wasted over they years to sit in front of the screen......just pathetic
GG WOW

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Posted by vferg - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 12:52 PM

Honestly the game may die a little over the next year but as long as the expansions keep coming I dont see a reason why WOW will just fade out all of a sudden. If anything it will drop to a fan base of say one of these new MMO's that keep popping up, and even that is still successful. I dont see WOW dying for another 5 years at least. Besides who cares if it dies! Its accomplished so much in the genre that it more then surpassed what it was meant to do.

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Posted by sinister6972 - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 12:57 PM

"A buddy of mine has played FFXI since its inception, and he is still playing."

Finally!!! Someone understands my pain. You know what's crazy?? The boys over here have been playing FF since who knows!! I'm telling you, FF7 is still alive as far as I'm concerned. And trust me, I've gave the game a shot BUT the name "RPG", let's just say that I don't agree...

As for "WOW", can someone help me over here, please? Is crazy! LOL!!

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Posted by BONERJAM - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 1:05 PM

Never played and never will

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Posted by zeropilot - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 1:07 PM

WoW sucks, good riddance.

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Posted by morbo1993 - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 1:10 PM

uhm, just thought i should tell you how it is, Wow does NOT have 10 mill active accounts... When they count they're user base they take in count every one that has ever played or had an account, if you leave the game and delete your account you are still a part of those "10 million". Of course, Wow is deffinentally the largest mmog, just not THAT large

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Posted by StrangeOne - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 1:10 PM

Im just going to assume his oldest son discovered the joy, wonderment, and mystery of the Vagina

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Posted by altizar - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 1:12 PM

How can you tell when a popular MMORPG is over. When they start releasing expansions on a regular basis.

This means that people are tired of the same mechanics over and over again and the only thing keeping them interested is new content. And content doesn't grow on tree's, especially in a limited mythos like Orcs vs Humans. . .

The key thing is to watch is how long it takes to develop new content that takes a long time to play versus how long it takes the guilds to power through the previous content and start getting bored and leaving enmasse, eliminating the financing necessary to develop new content.

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Posted by something1337 - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 1:16 PM

WoW currently has nearly twice the active subscribers than all the other MMOs combined and three times the subscribers of any other game at it's peak. I don't think that it's going anywhere for a while.

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Posted by capthavic - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 1:17 PM

With all due respect, I think he's crazy.

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Posted by fozzy360 - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 1:18 PM

Bushnell has his head up his a**, like he always does.

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Posted by panzerfist - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 1:21 PM

Of course it's so successful because every1 loved the original warcraft games. Then an MMO comes out when the idea was fresh so sure enough it succeeded. Blizzard made the game in such a way that it could suck, yet pull in massive amounts of ppl due to addicting low lvl gameplay, and an easy lvling mechanic, really making it a fad. It's like no matter how much it sucks, it still pulls in ppl and looks good. Sorta like a reverse Bono-effect.

I play this game a lot and i still wish that it'd fail, atleast enough to warrent the attention of blizzard and force them to fix issues, because right now, there's no incentive.

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Posted by satisfire - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 1:33 PM

Blizzard is alot like Israel, never challenge them, they may be small, but they wont hesitate to force you wear your ass for a hat.

but I think with WoW, because of blizzard's ambition, the "when it's done" strategy it turning around to bite them in the butt. They said they'd do one expansion pack a year, which meant they planned on the game lasting 5 years. For a blizzard game, thats totally possible. But in actuality, its taking 2 years per expansion pack, which means (this is all suggesting that blizzard plans on making expansions all the way to level 100) the game will have to last at least 8 years before they will say their "done". 8 years is really ballsy, even for blizzard.

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Posted by azdak4444 - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 1:56 PM

@RguXavi (whatEVER): why post about things you know NOTHING about? Judgmental much?

WOW will be around for a very long time, regardless of what Bushnell sez. After all, where is Atari now? Is the reason Atari is no longer a player because he wasn't clever enough to catch the next wave of graphics and gameplay? And Chuck E. Cheese is SO 1980; who wants to bring their kids to a place with games that aren't fun to see animatronics that are not clever to feed them pizza packed with sugar?

People who have actually PLAYED the game (WOW) for any length of time (+1 year) will tell you that you will absolutely burn out on the game and stop playing...for about 1-2 or maybe 6 months. BUT, they WILL NOT let their subscription drop; and then, they get right back on and play, discover new things, start another char, change factions, play in the BG's or the Arena.

WOW isn't going anywhere and will only get more and more popular.

That is until the apocalypse, of course.

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Posted by stilblad - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 2:00 PM

His older son did exactly the same think I did along with most of my friends. We played for a long time then when the xpack came out we leveled about to 72 then quit cold turkey

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Posted by Githbyte - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 2:04 PM

Once I got my mount I quit playing. I didnt see a point in going on.

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Posted by morbo1993 - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 2:05 PM

@aadak

i played wow for 2 yrs, got sick and quit, i cancelled and deleted my account immediatly... have never looked back

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Posted by Phreezer - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 2:14 PM

Seeing as how you can only get to level 70 right now you can tell how much "research" Bushnell did.

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Posted by soulwound - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 2:26 PM

cancelled my account recently and several I know are following suit(or already have.) You can't string people along forever, and I doubt this expansion will come out fast enough to get people back who have moved on to other games/mmo's etc.

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Posted by bobbymet - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 3:00 PM

WoW should have died when it started. Thats right kids, time to come out of the basement and see the sunlight for the first time in 4 years!

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Posted by mr_nice_guy - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 3:15 PM

Stephen Johnson you dont know what jumped the shark means do you?

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Posted by L337Instagator69 - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 3:47 PM

You People are nothing but retarded stereotypical idiots, assuming everyone who plays wow is a loser. HA. gtfo, your as bad as them

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Posted by Ieyke - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 3:48 PM

SJohnson's a little off with his use of "jump the shark" but I think he and Bushnell are right, WoW is dying off (very slowly tho). I have an awful lot of hardcore WoW playing friends and about half of them just declared they're tired of it and quit.

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Posted by RottenRonnie - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 6:06 PM

I don't think it will die. I think not only will blizzard continue to release new content but wasn't there also a rumor that there will be a graphical update for WoW? I agree that people will get tired of playing it eventually. However I also think that once people get a break from it that they will eventually come back for more. WoW kicks a$$!

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Posted by Astalen - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 7:48 PM

As a raider in wow, one thats taking a break, I can tell you all that WoW is no where near dead. It's still growing and they are expanding into Russia, Blizzard has a run away success and it won't die for years.

Additionally, after following alot of game news, almost ALL predictions of failure on WoW and other major games by non-game new sources tend to be horribly off the mark.

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Posted by JuliousRinsteel - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 8:07 PM

I JUST broke level 50 for the first time, and i still maintain a social life. i can keep invested in wow for a while. while other people watch movies or enjoy a hobby, i play wow. because i havent sampled all the classes yet, i havent gotten anywhere near bored with it. because of this, ill probably keep playing wow still blizzard abondons it.

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Posted by i_is_drummer - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 9:28 PM

I think this might be a possibility. I have a bunch of friends that were all pretty much addicted to WoW, but then all of a sudden decided that it was getting too boring and stopped playing. They also said that they are gonna start playin the new Warhammer game once it comes out.

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Posted by Ieyke - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 11:39 PM

Alright, I think maybe most of you miss the point a little. No doubt WoW will keep some amount of zombies glued to their screens for years to come but in gaming terms it is dying the same way Pokemon died. Not totally exhausted out of existence, but withered out of phenomenon status and general importance to the gaming community.

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Posted by typhonic - Wednesday, July 9, 2008 12:52 AM

I've been hearing this "WoW is dead" crap for at least 6 months now. The game still gets new FREE content on a semi-regular basis and the next xpac is just around the corner. So please someone inform me, how is this game dead/dying?

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Posted by warriornun - Wednesday, July 9, 2008 8:15 AM

I think the game has had it. Blizzard really needs to come up with some new stuff.

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