Are *any* games as popular as World of Warcraft?

[Reece Dunn]

On 01/10/2007, Jesse Allen <the3dfxdude at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/1/07, Daniel Remenak <dtremenak at gmail.com> wrote:
> > No other single game has the market penetration and staying power of
> > WoW as things stand.
>
> I think starcraft has it beat for penetration and staying power,
> actually. But WoW is the current money maker.

Until Starcraft II :) (Interestingly, these are all Blizzard games.)

There are different things to consider when deciding the popularity of a game.

Searching Google is only really useful around the time of release
(with a suitable time window either side). That is because there will
be a media buildup to, say, Halo 3 and people will get excited about
it. After release, you will get reviews from magazines and the like
published on the internet, as well as user reviews from blogs. There
will also be activity on game forums that may be hard to judge by
Google alone.

In time, as bugs and issues get resolved; as the excitement dies down,
this activity will fade. Does this mean that the game is no longer
popular? No. It may be that you are still making your way through
Oblivion or its extensions, or that you are playing Starcraft,
Warcraft III, Counterstike and others at LAN parties with friends.

You may have dusted off your copy of Settlers II or Lemmings,
installed DOSBox and are enjoying revisiting classic games.

The online multiplayer facilities of games like Starcraft, and the
MMORPG games like World of Warcraft and Guild Wars, have more
visibility because of their online nature and visibility there.

- Reece