Quote Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name View Post
WoW single handily became an a gaming empire over an entire genre that was sketchy at first over how profitable it could become.
I disagree with this. Several MMOs had already been very profitable before WoW was released. Ultima Online was released in 1997, well before Blizzard had even released Starcraft and Diablo 2. It's still going strong today and is extremely profitable for EA. Asheron's Call and Everquest were also very successful and preceded WoW by 5 years each. Both were good enough to spawn sequels, and EQ2 is still doing decently. In Asia, Lineage, Ragnarok Online, and Lineage 2 also did extremely well before WoW was ever around.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that WoW broke new ground and was influential... but it's just wrong to say that the industry was "sketchy" about how much money there was in MMOs before WoW. Blizzard capitalized on the existing MMO market, they didn't create it.