Wednesday, February 28, 2007

WoW on iPhone?

A reader asked me whether I had heard the stories about World of Warcraft coming to the iPhone, reported on iPhone World and WoWInsider. Well, the story sounds extremely dubious, and I don't think a *full* World of Warcraft could be played on any cell phone. Mostly because of a lack of a mouse. Just do the following simple experiment: Try to play World of Warcraft on a laptop without a USB mouse, just using the touchpad. It's horrible. Now if you just had a touch screen and no keyboard, like the iPhone has, directing a character through a 3D world would become an absolute nightmare and totally unplayable.

I mentioned before that I *do* think that MMORPG of the future, but not necessarily WoW, might have a "lite" version for cell phones, which just allows you to do things like sorting your inventory, accessing the mailbox, and buying and selling on the auction house. Or other game elements which you would like to access frequently, but for short periods. I'd call these the "tamagotchi elements", which some MMORPG have, like emptying your harvesters in SWG or paying the upkeep for your house. Being able to access those from your cell phone would probably be attractive for some players, and be a nice source of additional income for the game companies. Nothing empties the wallets of customers as fast as cell phone applications.

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