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What WoW Can Teach Web 2.0

I have been a World of Warcraft fanatic ever since the game came out in November 2004. While I was playing tonight my mind started to compare the similarities of this online game with the online applications and sites we use today. WoW has over 6MM online users willing to pay a monthly fee to run around and kill stuff and chat with buddies.

There are other sites that let us connect with people as well and chat with them, but people on WoW stay on for hours on end. On MySpace and YouTube you might get caught up in the just one more picture/video syndrome for a long period of time, but I doubt it is 3-8 hours a day. Maybe its not fair to compare an online game with static sites that don’t offer the interactivity of an online universe. But sit back and take a look at how great some of these sites could be if they implemented what WoW does just a bit more into their fold.

  • An Online Economy. Imagine only getting to see secret pictures of someone on MySpace if you trade them some pictures of your own. Or maybe you want to create some widgets for your MySpace page and the only way people can get to them is by making you a friend and writing a comment. Lame examples for sure, but an online economy becomes addicting no matter which way you look at it and it draws people in even more.

    Cyworld allows you to buy more acorns so you can customize while Second Life has become the king of producing a virtual economy.

  • Real Time Chat. Remember IRC rooms? 9rules has one and whenever I dive in it becomes a great time due to the conversations that can startup at will. However, with social sites we have gone backwards and conversations aren’t even close to being synchronous or in real-time. There might be modules that add IM features, but where are the large rooms with people talking about specific topics? Why can’t we have those. Hell that might be a great idea for 9rules, but to a lesser extent where we only open the rooms up for certain hours so there isn’t dead time at 1am.
  • Customization. This is where MySpace won the battle of social network supremacy. Facebook will make a charge, but users have to sacrifice the ability to customize with a clean interface that everyone shares.

    In WoW you get to customize your character and overtime dictate what he wears. You can even customize the UI so the game really does become your own. There are restrictions to what you can do so things don’t get out of hand, but allowing customization in a controlled environment can be a very, very good thing.

  • User Feedback. The WoW Community is both strong and vocal and its good to see when a lot of people agree on changes that should be made, many times Blizzard (the creators of the game) implement those changes in one of their weekly patches. Which brings us to…
  • Frequent Updates. Updates don’t necessarily mean features, but even small tweaks allow your users to know that you still care about your site and are working on things. However, don’t tweak just because you want to look fresh, tweak for improvement.

The more I think about the size of WoW and how much is going at once I am marveled at how successful a company could build an online environment that people get sucked in versus some companies that can’t take the time to get their UIs looking crisp on their web apps. We should all play video games.

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Published by Scrivs on October 19, 2006 in Web++ • Did you like it? Subscribe! Or Submit it to Blogosphere News!

17 people says things!

  1. [...] Web 2.0 pundits can learn a lot from MMOGs like World of Warcraft, according to a great post from Paul Scrivens. [...]

    By The Vanguard of Web 2.0: MMOGs « Yoick - Hightechwire on October 19, 2006 8:42 am

  2. Interesting thoughts…you know, I had read an article a few months back that talked about Blizzard trying to market their idea of game development out to other smaller game developers, where the model is come in, develop the game and infrastructure and within three years, launch the game and update every 6-12 weeks. It was more complicated than that, but with the success of WoW, it’s not the worst idea to market the process and not just the game.

    By mattplanet on October 19, 2006 10:10 am

  3. Have you read the following:

    http://shufflebrain.com/etech06.htm
    Putting the Fun in Functional
    Applying Game Mechanics to Functional Software

    It’s a great presentation that dissects game design in relation to website and web application design.

    By Patrick Fitzgerald on October 19, 2006 11:41 am

  4. Campfire, http://campfirenow.com/ is probably the best example of IRC for Web 2.0

    By Matt on October 19, 2006 1:22 pm

  5. Yeah I was thinking of Campfire when I was pondering the real-time chat. It would be nice to offer that service on your own websites I think since it doesn’t seem to overload the server as much as some of these AJAX modules do.

    By Scrivs on October 19, 2006 1:50 pm

  6. Patrick that is a great presentation and I highly recommend anyone to check it out. Thanks for posting it.

    By Scrivs on October 19, 2006 3:00 pm

  7. [...] Speaking of Nokia, here’s their guide to “graphic design for the mobile world, for example, colors, contrast, animation, and icon design, and gives tips on how to make the most of the small screen of a mobile device.” What World of Warcraft Can Teach Web 2.0 [...]

    By adaptive path » blog » blog archive » Signposts for the Week ending October 20, 2006 on October 20, 2006 7:50 pm

  8. Definately read Amy Jo Kim’s work that Patrick suggested above. I keep coming back to that talk, it’s really useful, and covers exactly the ideas in your post.

    By Andrew on October 20, 2006 8:38 pm

  9. Whoa, very cool. All the connections in the world. I work for Linden Lab, makers of Second Life. I came across here while learning more about 9rules and Paul Scrivens!

    Scrivs, are you a Second Life Resident too?

    You may know we have a “frequent update” dilemma in which too many updates gets complained about too because the downtime jostles aside planned events. At least now it’s planned for every two weeks, and in the future, we hope to move towards a “heterogeneous” grid that doesn’t need to down in one fell swoop.

    I also think it’d be useful for us to have persistent, IRC-like chatrooms. Group chat IM sessions are transient at best.

    Keep up the wonderful work and t’care! :D

    By Torley on October 22, 2006 4:34 am

  10. [...] WISDUMP: What WoW Can Teach Web 2.0 – “Maybe its not fair to compare an online game with static sites that don’t offer the interactivity of an online universe. But sit back and take a look at how great some of these sites could be if they implemented what WoW does just a bit more into their fold.“ [...]

    By Jeff Barr’s Blog » Links for Monday, October 23, 2006 on October 24, 2006 1:59 pm

  11. Are you ever going to hit 60, Paul?

    By JC on October 25, 2006 4:03 pm

  12. [...] What WoW Can Teach Web 2.0 » Wisdump Blog on WisDump, the 9rules folks, explaining how Web2.0 can benefit from successes of World of Warcraft (tags: web2.0 virtualworlds design) [...]

    By Donnagh McDonnagh » Blog Archive » links for 2006-10-28 on October 28, 2006 5:07 pm

  13. You’re spot on-gamers’ communities and, even virtual worlds provide a ‘purer’ experience than most web apps and social networks. I blogged about the mashing of virtual world communities with social networks as the future of social networking and a potential strategic direction for Friendster in a post called Why I Would Buy Friendster? on my blog geraldjoseph.typepad.com.

    By Gerald on November 2, 2006 12:52 pm

  14. [...] Inspired by somewhat recent article from 9rules’ Scrivs’, “What WoW can teach Web 2.0″, I decided to write a similar article regarding some of the mistakes that I’ve seen some blogs making, even big ones. [...]

    By Without my Sword I cannot sleep » Blog Archive » What Chess can teach Blogging on November 13, 2006 7:57 pm

  15. Screw the US dentists, I got quoted $25,000 to fix my teeth in the US. So I found a dentist in Mexico and was only charged $11,500. This was 2 years ago and I have never regreted it.

    By Tropic Al on January 4, 2007 9:57 pm

  16. Actually, I think WoW should borrow more from the web 2.0 than inspire it. In most cases, it has crudely copied common internet technology, and crippled it in copying – IRC is one of the examples I’d have listed for that point of view. There’s a more in-depth explanation already over at http://www.unwesen.de/articles/wow_design_improvements_chatting .

    By unwesen on June 22, 2007 1:55 pm

  17. I also think it’d be useful for us to have persistent, IRC-like chatrooms. Group chat IM sessions are transient at best. In most cases, it has crudely copied common internet technology, and crippled it in copying – IRC is one of the examples I’d have listed for that point of view. Great post i look forward to reading more.
    Sydney
    Luwow Goldman

    By Sydney on March 21, 2009 6:19 pm

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