This has been discussed ad nauseum but here goes again.
1. Marketing
2. Blizzard Brand Name
3. Game so easy a child, and his mom could play (and does).
Let's analyze item 1. Not only has Blizzard constantly advertised their game on the internet and TV, but also they practically gave the game away to millions of chinese players. Now Blizzard can claim to have "millions of players," and suckers like you and I think "hey that must be a great game since so many people are playing."
I, nor any of the hundreds of EQ players I knew, have ever played WoW. I assume it is as easy as the stupidly dumbed down state of Live EQ.
In contrast, SOE spends almost zero dollars on marketing. I suspect it is because they are spread too thin on too many games to market any one particular product. SOE can crank out great products in incredible timelines but are fairly retarded when it comes to marketing and leveraging their IP.
Further, if SOE didn't completely redo their game every six months, alienating most of their customers along the way; they would have subs equal to, if not higher, than WoW.
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