Lord of the Links

World of Warcraft is the new 800 pound gorilla in the world of online Massively Multiplayer Games, a niche segment where the player first buys a software and then pays a monthly subscription to play the multiplayer game.

WoW is a journey into a magical world of mazes, dragons and demons, where people can either collaborate on competing against computer controlled creatures, or play player to player.

Blizzard, which made WoW should be happy with itself since it has expanded the market almost by 100% by making the game easy to use for newbies yet retaining the geeky flavour of the game. It has over 2.5m subscribers (with 1.5m in China where the game was introduced 3 months back), and an annual revenue stream of over $700m and growing.

The others are licking their lips to start the fightback!