I feel it’s bad marketing, in general, to claim your product is the “X” Killer. You immediately build a wall for yourself that wasn’t there before, because so many people are going to try and prove you wrong.
Now, I am not a big fan of WoW, let’s be honest, but it has done well, and there is a good reason for it. The problem that its success has created, however, is the MMO market can now be considered mainstream, rather than the niche market they once catered to. As such, developing studios have added a few more zeros to the number an MMO must hit before they consider it “successful.”
I say “problem,” but that’s really kind of sour grapes mixed with a touch of elitism, I will admit. Expanding the idea of what constitutes “success” isn’t, in and of itself, a bad thing. What generates the hate, though (and the point of this list item) is when a developing MMO is billed as a “WoW Killer.” The reason this pisses me off so much is because the moment this phrase is uttered about a given MMO, a glass ceiling immediately pops into existence, preventing that MMO from advancing to a strong, competitive, level.
There are a number of reasons for this… including the general polish levels of MMOs at launch, the expectations players have (subconsciously or not), fanboyism, and genre disillusionment, just to name a few. It seems whenever a studio claims this about their game, said game is doomed to be a slow-simmer in the market, instead of the boil-over success they claimed it would be.
Maybe this just hits a little too close to home, but anytime I happen to be excited about an upcoming MMO these days, my countenance is immediately darkened the moment I hear “WoW Killer” attributed to it.