12 Ridiculous Video Game Ideas That Should Never Have Worked

10. World Of Warcraft

The MMORPG is a great idea in principle, of taking the much-loved format of an RPG and putting it on the Internet, where players can interact with others and even team up to take on larger enemies. The MMO has been around for years, but it truly took off when Blizzard's World of Warcraft arrived on the scene in 2004, quickly becoming the most-subscribed MMO of all time, a title it has held ever since despite facing fierce competition. Still, should it have worked as well as it has? Firstly, there's the fact that the game is rooted more in addiction than any finessed gameplay mechanics. As someone who played the game for several years, I found that mindless repetition took a priority over varied gameplay and a great story, but that repetition has nevertheless resulted in a huge subscriber base. Then there's the fact that the game has a subscription fee, and though many MMOs prior to it had required monthly payments, they had never reached close to the all-time high subscriber count of 12 million that WoW had in 2010. Though WoW "only" boasts 7 million players now, it is a far bigger success than anyone could have anticipated, while the majority of its rivals, even the good ones, simply cannot compete with its sheer scale and momentum.