Egon Superb writes -
Admit it. World of Warcraft created the MMORPG industry. I'm talking about the industrial component, involving hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue a year. I'm talking about the mind-blowing popularity. I'm talking about PowerPoint presentations about customer retention, and a few press releases a year telling the media that they've gained another few million subscribers.
None of this is a negative. In fact, I can only applaud and thank Blizzard for its success - it brought a great deal of exposure and popularity to the genre, and created thousands of jobs in hundreds of development houses. Without sarcasm or cynicism I can say that Blizzard took a model that worked before and made it a true business, one that raised the profile of a genre so much that national newspapers and old people knew what it was.