Second Place

People say they want to win, to dominate, to be a global force of awesomeness. In fact, at GamerDNA we were just arguing about what would constitute winning as a business. Some of the guys made the error of stating that they would get our logo tattooed onto their flesh if we were to be winners in the social networking game. I’ve been part of these logo tatt discussions at other companies, and people are such wimps when it comes to follow through, so I pounced – I want to hear numbers, timelines, and tattoo locations.

But that’s maybe a little off topic.

Today’s tidbit of data is about being in second place – and when it comes to games, second place is not a bad place to be for a publisher. There’s plenty of money being spent on second place. And if you’re not in first place, you’re free to take chances. Innovate. And in doing so, maybe steal that first place hat.

Among members of the GamerDNA network:

The number one MMO is WoW – but Guild Wars is second, and Age of Conan may take over the #2 spot soon.

In the RTS genre, Warcraft III is top dog – and Command and Conquer 3 is right behind it.

With FPS games, Counterstrike Source is at the apex, but Battlefield 2 isn’t far behind – with COD4 “on the move.”

And on a fun note, those games that come packaged with Windows? Solitaire is the big cheese, and Minesweeper barely edges out Spider Solitaire for the number two position.

What do you think separates #1 from #2? Also, conventional wisdom says that WoW got a boost from the great reputation of Warcraft – but does that make sense, given the huge differences in the kind of games they are?