The Horizon

franksalbe

 

Are we on the cusp of a new era in MMO? Are developers starting to doubt that a successful repeat of WOW game will be possible with the same formula? If WOW is the IT product and now the minimum standards for any future MMO in terms of concept, game play, and content, then where do you go from there? Be assured that we will not be witness to a return of the “good old days” so many of us references like senior citizens recanting their days of youth.

The past year of ‘09 has made me ponder on many more questions still. I will try to explain what I believe is the current state of the MMO market. All markets for any products always reach a peak in terms of that products maximum value and innovation. Once this crescendo is reach for this product a steady decline (This is when the same product is rehashed with a new gimmick but who value is minimal at best.) of enhanced features follow until you reach a point in the market where no introduction of new feature makes any significant difference to the product or its value.

If this statement is true and WOW in terms of the MMO genre is the “IT” that everyone is trying to play catch up with in one way or another. I must ask again. Where do we go from here? In the past 2 years or so, we have seen quite a few key IP’s (Lord of the Ring Online, Age of Conan, Warhammer, Aion, etc) try to put a “spin” on the current IT product, but not totally revolutionize the product bringing it to its next stage of evolution. They all may have had some success in their own right but no different then the Motorola Razor, Sidekick, or BlackBerry in it’s time.

Take of instances the I-phone. Just when the cell phone market had reached its crescendo as sales of new phones where not being influenced by new features but simply just that your contract ended and you could now get a new phone for free or cheaper then your last phone. Along comes Apples and introduces a market changing innovation. All other developers are currently overhauling their cell phone product line to adapt to the new IT product. We will all be around probably to see a cell phone market where just about all the cell phones developed will be touch screen. Even flip phone will eventually go touch screen it seems to be the natural progression of the market so far. (There will always be a market for cell phones with a traditional keypad, but this will be similar to someone will always probably play UO.)

With this thought in mind, what will be those key new features that will change the status quo and revolutionize the industry? Will it be Voice over, advanced community integrated game play feature, maybe Graphics, or something completely beyond what we can currently imagine?

I for one do not have an answer, but I also feel that no game currently in development has the answer either. I believe that we are still in the “stale” state of the market. Sure many game developers will claim to have the next big game changing feature in their product, but I am skeptical at best, unless they plan to hire some folks from Nintendo, because they sure were thinking outside of the box with the Wii. Microsoft and Sony would have introduced the technology into their game system as well if Nintendo did not exclusively own it. That is how game changing the Wii concept actually is. Both Microsoft and Sony have tweaked their controllers to be as close as possible to the Wii concept without infringing on any patents. You can say that games like EVE are a step in another direction, but I take it more as EVE being just a popular novelty then product changing. Eve is the Sidekick of WOW’s Blackberry. It is cool and many people like it but it is unlikely to be a game changing product, not after all this time.

So this bring us to 2010, it is just around the corner and once again we have a round of games aiming to be the next big IT. The list is short in my book: Star Trek Online, Star Wars TOR, Guild Wars 2, and FF XIV, I hold as the four largest IP’s for 2010. (Distant fifth would be Star Gate Worlds, but news on that is sketchy at best.) Will any of them bring to fruition the sort of game changing innovation that fundamentally alters our game play interaction in the MMO genre? Only time will tell. I can only leave them with these two words “Good Luck.”

 

What do you think will revolutionize the MMO genre?

 

heremypet

I doubt any of those titles will be as revolutionary as WoW or the iphone, but I think these titles will all draw away from WoWs player base.  Fact is WoW is getting old, it can't expect to keep 10+ million subs for many more years.

Czzarre

I am not sure that MMO companies are trying to be 'inventive' as they are trying to maximize their playerbase from the existing models. Almost like every car has 4 wheels and an engine ..everything else is bells and whistles. Has there been any truely novel method for personal transportation over the last 40 yrs?

talismen351

I think the only thing that will change the genre is for Devs to look beyond what WoW has become. Look back at the older games and see what they had that kept people playing for years. UO,EQ,AC,DAoC all had something that kept players loyal to these games for years.

WoW has those players too, but the WoW playstyle has been done again and again. Todays gamers are ping ponging between new releases, then returning to WoW. Simply because what they left WoW for...offers too much of the same ol same ol.

Look to the past to develop the future MMOs. And Devs need to stop thinking about making WoW and start thinking on making their own games that won't have the WoW numbers...but will have a loyal playerbase.

Chealar

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Originally posted by franksalbe
 All markets for any products always reach a peak in terms of that products maximum value and innovation.

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Badly-used economy 101... Looks at product like colas, there is no decline... Sure, they regularly try to "reinvent the wheel" with less cafeine, less calories, ore vitamins, etc., but basically that the same product with just a fresh input of buzz.

The iPhone wasn't as ground-breaking as you'd think as 3G phones were already there and tactiles screens had been around long enough to give birth to the Nintendo DS.

As a rule, the new "IT" something generally comes at a surprise, no one, including the inventor / publisher just expected it to work that well. What is seen most is a "buzz" souffle suddenly going down as users/buyers realise the hype was over nothing.

Nizur

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Originally posted by Chealar
The iPhone wasn't as ground-breaking as you'd think as 3G phones were already there and tactiles screens had been around long enough to give birth to the Nintendo DS.

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At the risk of derailing the thread (which I don't want to do), 3G and touch screen weren't the big ground-breaking features of the iPhone. It was its design, UI and later on its apps that blew the market open.

Anyway, that's all I'm going to say. Back to the original discussion...

Gestankfaust

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Originally posted by talismen351I think the only thing that will change the genre is for Devs to look beyond what WoW has become. Look back at the older games and see what they had that kept people playing for years.

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Not just the devs but the players also. I see the gamers being far too critical these days and abandoning otherwise good games. And the devs react to that and make another cookie cutter MMO so they don't have to worry about failure. They want to feel that they can make good money on a great product, but end up making a good product and less money on what really becomes a "meh" game.

franksalbe

Originally posted by Chealar


 

Originally posted by franksalbe

 All markets for any products always reach a peak in terms of that products maximum value and innovation.

 

Badly-used economy 101... Looks at product like colas, there is no decline... Sure, they regularly try to "reinvent the wheel" with less cafeine, less calories, ore vitamins, etc., but basically that the same product with just a fresh input of buzz.

The iPhone wasn't as ground-breaking as you'd think as 3G phones were already there and tactiles screens had been around long enough to give birth to the Nintendo DS.

As a rule, the new "IT" something generally comes at a surprise, no one, including the inventor / publisher just expected it to work that well. What is seen most is a "buzz" souffle suddenly going down as users/buyers realise the hype was over nothing.

 

Colas are a perfect example of my original post. Your rights just like cars, colas have not seen any significant change for decades now. But that does not change the fact that someone would not come along and revolutionize the Soda Pop industry with some new product. It's just on a  longer curve. 

As for the  IT something this is true of almost all inventions.Colas was the IT thing  which ended up revolutionizing the beverage industy as it garnished popularity and then fell into a status quo.  Cars were the IT thing and once Ford created a method for the avr person to buy one made it status quo. WOW was the IT thing garnishing huge popularity and now it is the status quo. economy 101 is based on Supply and Demand and other such concepts. I am giving you the marketing perspective of a product and it's cycle as it popularity becomes a norm. In economics this principle  of UTILITY:

 

Utility

Economist-speak for a good thing; a measure of satisfaction.  Underlying most economic theory is the assumption that people do things because doing so gives them utility. People want as much utility as they can get. However, the more they have, the less difference an additional unit of utility will make – there is diminishing MARGINAL utility. Utility is not the same as utilitarianism, a political philosophy based on achieving the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

WOW  was AWESOME when it fist came out, but as  time progress and we try to recapture that same satisfaction from other MMO's, who in return try to capture that WOW awesome. This cycle is less satisfying each time. No matter how you try to alter it. That is why you get such high hopes for a new Game promising something new, but when it ends up filling the same utility as WOW might fill for that person currently they become disenchanted. Until a fundamental change in the way an MMO interacts with a user is introduced. The utility of that game will be short lived as it a satisfaction has already been experienced before.

Caleveira

i dont think MMOs as a market have developed to the point the soft drink indutry or even cell phones have. The current generation of MMOs lack the refinement you can find in those other two industries. Our games still have a long way to go in many areas, like customer service or amount of content, before you can speak of a true revolution in the genre. No doubt the technology that will most impact MMOs will be on the developers side, not the users.

I think a better analogy for MMOs would be with other types of content media. We are still sort of the equivalent of a B movie subgenre or an underground little known music scene. Yes, we have one sort of big hit that was able to impact the mainstream and our very own cult classics. But theres still a long way to go in terms of sofistication (the equivalent of musicianship or production values in film). Sure, those of us in the scene are pretty much tired of watching the same old hacks do a rehash of their previous work, but the genre wont be advanced until we have managed at least a couple of works that are refined enough to earn us some credibility with the critics. Either that or rapid wild success, but i really doubt the masses will start playing MMOs all of a sudden.

We need games most of the people in these forums would agree to call works of art, regardless of wether we personally like them or not. And not just a seriously flawed niche like EVE. Now, when we cant even manage succesful launches or games whitout serious issues in balance, management, bugs, etc. the situation looks outright grim. 

We need a couple of games that do everything an MMO is suposed to do right. Not games that everyone will like, but that everyone will respect. And no, WOW is not such a game, it sort of was five years ago. We need refinement rather than inovation.