World of Warcraft having record sales in Europe!

Well Blizzard is doing it again, and again. There's a slew of articles talking about how World of Warcraft (WoW) is a hit in Europe following its success in Korea the previous month, and North America late last year.

Sales rose to 280,000 on its first day, it had sold over 380,000 on its openning week-end. This shows how a well executed MMOG can be a very successful enterprise, and that should be a lesson to the "Earth & Beyond", "Wish" and other failed attempts.

Head over to GamesIndustry.biz, joystiq.com, Gameplanet, TotalVideoGames, Eurogamer.com, to read up on it.

Lets just hope that Blizzard has learned from its overwhelming success in NA last year, and that it now has the infrastructure the massive amounts of european players having fun in this World of Warcraft!

MMOG secondary market: the bad and the ugly!

As reported earlier today on Slashdot, okrata.com's Garthilk managed to get an email interview with IGE president, Steve Salyer. Head over for a quick (and dirty) read on some real hard questions and answers (unless it gets too hard ) on a practice that has all camps fired up.

At the end of the interview he asks one innocent question (or loaded, depending on your point of view) that illustrates quite vividly what virtual goods and character sales does to a game. Whichever camp you're in, this debate is far from over, and it's likely to get uglier before it gets resolved. If it ever does.

Personnaly, I'm not in favor of, either the sales of goods, characters, or currencies, simply because:

• it destroys the delicate balance of the virtual market economy that was created be the developpers and the players;
• it puts an unfair advantage on those who have (or are willing to spend) real life money and use it to get ahead in the game;
• it brings real life elements into a virtual world that is trying to dissasociates itself from it.

How would you feel if you had spent hours, weeks, and months in your VW (virtual world) and had build up your character to something very impressive, only to see all your effort (and fun) wasted when you see some newbie kill/destroy off your character/ship/avatar with his uber character he just purchased on eBay? Or try to answer Garthilk's Monopoly question. And do it honestly.

About CrazyKinux's Musings

I started this blog back in 2005 as a place to think out loud about games and the communities that form around them. At the time, EVE Online had a habit of pulling people in deeper than expected — and I was no exception.

What began as a personal blog slowly turned into something bigger. Posts led to conversations. Conversations turned into regular features, podcasts, and community projects. Over the years, this site has received over 2.4 million pageviews, with thousands of comments along the way. Numbers aside, what mattered most was always the people who showed up, shared their views, and helped shape what this place became.

The focus has shifted over time, as it does. Life changes. So do interests. But the intent hasn’t. This is still a space for long-form thoughts on games, world-building, and the culture that grows when people care deeply about the same things — sometimes a little too deeply.

If you’ve been reading since the early EVE days, thank you for sticking around. And if you’ve just landed here, welcome. Take your time. Read a bit. And if something sparks a thought, say hello.

Same corner of the internet. Same curiosity. Fewer skill queues running in the background.

[December 2025 Update]

After nearly two decades online, this space continues to evolve. I’m spending more time writing here again — about games, world-building, and the long arc of communities — not chasing schedules or trends, just following curiosity and seeing where it leads.

[June 2009 Update]

Massively.com has published an interview about me, this site, and the podcasts I do. Have a read and let me know what you think!

[September 2008 Update]

I’ve added a short video intro to help new readers get the most out of the site. It took about twenty takes before I was happy enough to upload it — but I had fun making it. What do you think?

[May 2008 Update]

I’ve joined the ranks of MMO bloggers over at Massively.com. My column, Have Clone, Will Travel, is a bi-weekly feature on EVE Online. Drop by anytime and let me know your thoughts!

Disclaimer

I may receive compensation from others I mention on crazykinux.ca. Most often, though, I promote products, games, magazines, movies, and hardware simply because I use them and believe they’ll be useful to my readers.

I just love MMORPGS!

I love MMORPGs! That is, I've played several as a Beta tester and I've always found that there is something fascinating about their dynamic. Especially their social aspect - which is kind of obvious since that's the whole idea behind: create a game setting in which hundreds, no, make that thousands of people from all walks of life can interact, roleplay and have a blast.

I've Beta tested Earth & Beyond (which was recently cancelled by EA), Star Wars Galaxies, Lineage II and EVE - Second Genesis.

I've also played the trials of a few others: Shadowbane, Anarchy Online, Asheron's Call. But in the end I came back to EVE.

What a game!! What a world!! What an incredible experience...

The visuals, the game mechanics, the sheer size of it. With 5000 systems in the game (and the option of more being added in the future), many of them with a large supporting entourage of orbiting planets, moons, Space stations, Factories, Asteroid Belts, NPC ships, sentry guns and all sorts of other space paraphernalia. You get to see all these beautifully rendered in stunning DX9 Graphics.

You can't be fair using the written word to truly describe this game - it has to be played to be truly experienced. Simply put, it is.... ah, there's no word for it I tell you.

You'll just have to trust me on this one!