WoW secondary market

Besides the often discussed market for virtual goods, a successful game like World of Warcraft also spawns a more legitimate secondary market. I just managed to finally buy the special issue on WoW of the German PC Games, which is already in its third edition, the first two editions having sold out before I could get one. I previously tried to get a similar special WoW issue of a French gaming magazine, but that one sold out faster than I could buy it as well.

I already reviewed the offical World of Warcraft strategy guide, which wasn't so bad. But now the same company published the World of Warcraft Atlas, and that one is a ripoff. The only "maps" it has are screenshots of the WoW in-game maps, in bad resolution. There are no maps of instances, and no hand-drawn maps. Keep away from that one.

There is now a World of Warcraft board game, which comes in a huge box, and looks quite interesting. Haven't played it yet. And Blizzard itself is offering a range of WoW merchandise like Murloc keychains or T-shirts. Of course T-shirts with WoW and other MMORPG texts you can get from many places.

All this secondary market for WoW is interesting, becomes it is a measure of main-stream games are becoming. Not everybody will "get" the joke of a WoW T-shirt, but you wear it in the assumption that *some* people will find it funny. But myself, I'm more interested in the secondary market for books and magazines about a game. Because usually a game gets a lot of game press coverage before it is released, and then when it comes out, but afterwards all discussion about the game moves away from the print media to online media. It is interesting to know that companies found out that they can make money by publishing books and magazines with World of Warcraft information.
- posted by Tobold @ 8:31 AM Permanent Link