If you are over a certain age, you might not have heard of World of Warcraft. I won't begin to try to tell you all about it. Suffice it to say that it is an online multi-player role-playing video game, and it's addicting. I have at least one employee who is a regular participant. I also have a 15-year-old son who plays it waaaaaay more than he should, and has succeeded in involving his mother in this alternative universe.
Ten million people worldwide subscribe at an average cost of 50 cents per day or $15 a month. That = cha-ching to the tune of $5 million a day. The game is so engrossing that psychologists have estimated that between 10-40 percent of these gamers are more or less addicted, with the attendant consequences on the player's everyday life.
I bring it up because I recently saw this commercial for a Toyota Tacoma truck, in which a "Truck Sommoner" invokes a weapon called Four Wheels of Fury, which is, of course, the aforesaid Tacoma. Actually, I can't believe I just wrote that sentence.
Why, you may ask, would Toyota spend good money on a commercial referencing a video game that is obviously for kids? Well, it turns out, it's not. The average age of a WoW player (if you use this abbreviation, you will show that you are not terminally uncool) is 28.3 years, and they are 84 percent male. Not a bad demographic for someone wanting to sell trucks. (Scarier number: they spend an average of 22.7 hours per week playing WoW, with no difference between the genders in amount of playing time.)
How long until we see an ad for a personal injury attorney as a WoW warrior?
Attorneys are already on MySpace, and if you don't know what that is...well, that's a subject for another blog post.
By the way, you need to be cautious with this sort of thing lest you fall victim to the rule that states: once a trend reaches anyone over 30, it's over.
Did you see the recent news report which stated a woman was divorcing her husband because of his addiction to World of Warcraft? Both were 'gamers' but his addiction got so out of control..and the husband just didn't care. So, this may be a great 'family' lawyer's opportunity.
Posted by: Susan Cartier Liebel | February 17, 2008 at 01:23 PM