130-LOTR Online Vs. World of Warcraft

So according to this article Lord of the Rings Online may actually be a worthy adversary to the mighty World of Warcraft. Now I am all about some competition, and it will be interesting to see if anyone can in fact take down the mighty WoW, but I am not sure Lord of the Rings is going to be the one to do it. I was in the beta for LOTR Online and it absolutely ate my computer for lunch. I only got to play in the opening, and while I was impressed with what they have done, I just don't think that it can become the pop culture juggernaut that WoW has become. Even my mom knows what World of Warcraft is.

Now I know what you are saying...but Jim, everyone knows what Lord of the Rings is, and yes...they do. I think that might be the problem. See Warcraft still feels like a secret. Someone can tell me they know what WoW is, but it would take me hours to explain to them the story of WoW. With Lord of the Rings everyone already knows that story. Been there, done that, and I know that the MMO is going to take things in a new direction story wise, but is the average consumer going to know that. I think the reason a good majority of non-hardcore gamers play WoW is because it feels like it's their secret. They play Warcraft and no one knows what that world is like. Millions of people around the world already know what Lord of the Rings is like. I think it is going to take another original IP to win the MMO war. The Matrix couldn't do it, and Star Wars couldn't do it. Well....Star Wars COULD do it, if Bio Ware made it.