« A Different Online Ad | Main | I Knew the MTA Was Lazy... »

World of Warcraft: The Real Cult Consumers

Warcraft and Jetblue?During lunch with a friend today, the topic of World of Warcraft came up. For those like me who aren't hardcore gamers, it's a very popular multiplayer online game. Wikipedia says it had 240,000 subscribers in its first 24 hours on the market.

As of July, it surpassed 2 million paying customers in the US and over 3.5 million worldwide, making it the the most popular game of its kind in the world. Apparently, even Dave Chappelle plays it.

When someone talks about customer evangelism, JetBlue comes up to the top of the list. A recent New York Times article quoted a "trendwatcher":

"Flying JetBlue isn't just about taking a trip," the trend watcher Faith Popcorn said. "It has actually become something fun to do."

Okay, so JetBlue is popular. Everybody knows that. But World of Warcraft, to me, is no less amazing. A Google search for World of Warcraft brings up 3,660,000 results (and almost 50,000 images!) while a Google search for JetBlue only brings up 796,000 results.

Apparently, it's not uncommon for WoW players to devote a suprising amount of their waking hours to this computer game. Plus, these 3.5 million people pay $15 each per month (even if they aren't playing). These sound like cult consumers to me.

· Wikipedia: World of Warcraft [Wikipedia]
· World of Warcraft Achieves New Miletsone with Two Million Paying Customers Worldwide [Blizzard Press Releases]
· A Discount Airline Creates Some Wealthy Admirers [New York Times]

Posted in Business, Technology, jetblue on July 26, 2005, 10:06 PM | Permalink

Comments

Comparing search results for an online game to results for a meatspace service? For shame, Scott.

Posted by: Nick Douglas at July 26, 2005 11:47 PM

Meatspace? I don't even know what that means!

But WoW still has 4.59x the results of Jetblue. Even considering the internet user difference, that still sounds suprisingly high to me.

Posted by: skidder [TypeKey Profile Page] at July 27, 2005 12:03 AM

Meatspace: http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/M/meatspace.html

I'm still not sure about the significance. At an equal number of customers, hell, I'd expect a 10x ratio.

Posted by: Nick Douglas at July 27, 2005 03:05 PM

I was just browsing your site Scott, and this poped out at me. It seems you and I had lunch on or about this date, can this be confirmed? Am I "a friend"? :)


much love scott,
chris

Posted by: chris schmidt at November 7, 2005 03:59 AM

hated when you got to pay a monthly fee, but then I’m only on dialup which don’t make a different. I really don’t have the money to get a faster connection or buy world of warcraft gold like most people, so I found some free tips and information on world of warcraft gold here.

Posted by: orican [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 29, 2005 10:48 PM

Posted by: orican [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 29, 2005 10:49 PM

runescape, runescape gold, runescape money
http://www.runescapeize.com
just have a click the link,you may get surprise
gold of network games cheap and delivery fast!come on!

Posted by: runescapeize [TypeKey Profile Page] at June 21, 2007 05:31 AM

runescape, runescape gold, runescape money
http://www.runescapeize.com
just have a click the link,you may get surprise
gold of network games cheap and delivery fast!come on!

Posted by: runescapeize [TypeKey Profile Page] at June 21, 2007 05:31 AM

Post a comment




Remember Me?