News Original From: http://www.zam.com/story.html

For those of us who still love our offline games, it's interesting to see the differences in production that surround our 'regular video games' and our MMORPGs. With the console industry, blockbuster releases need to compete only with other games coming out at the same time - Street Fighter 4 doesn't need to worry too much about pre-existing fighting titles because gamers will happily make the purchase, even if they already have Soul Calibur 5, Tekken 5, Guilty Gear XX2 and Street Fighter 3 (guilty!). Perhaps the biggest burden that is placed upon offline games is their aim for key release dates that coincide with consumer purchases. Release for Christmas, or just before the back to school rush when everyone is spending money!

Recent MMORPGs, on the other hand, have been released not in conjunction with hedonistic holidays - instead, the entire development cycle of most MMORPGs seems to be centered on a different world… of Warcraft.

To give some examples, the disastrous Age of Conan was pushed out the door on May 20th, 2008 and Warhammer Online hit shelves on September 18th, 2008. Coincidentally (but probably not!), May 20th marked the very last TBC expansion for World of Warcraft (that was the day that the third gate opened for Sunwell Plateau, granting access to the full instance), and it would also be the beginning of the WoW Summer lull of 2008 which merely saw the beginning of Season 4 Arena and a broad sweeping nerf to all raid content, in order to allow everyone the opportunity to experience endgame WoW before Wrath of the Lich King hit.