Something good does not have to be popular!

thexrated

Yes, pretty much stating the obvious, but it seems that many people forget this, or suffer from cognitive dissonance or simply remain willfully ignorant, when their long anticipated MMO finally arrives and does not manage to do well in terms of subscriptions. So here I state it again and try to justify my statement with four short points.

 

Why something good does not have to be(come) popular?

My first point is that, there are games that are almost exclusively meant for a niche market. And we also know that some of those games in the niche markets have universal acclaim. Granted that while some games might have been developed with a larger audience in mind, they came to serve a niche very well...and profitably.

 

Secondly, If you find a game that is entertaining for you, what does it matter what others think? Is popularity that big of a deal? How does it factor in to your buying decision? I think people should focus on these questions really hard. Personally, I could not care a less either way, being popular can be both positive and negative for me. It might mean, in general, having to suffer from longer queues or inflated prices, but on the other hand it might also mean that you get higher quality of service and better value for your money.

 

As a third point. It is good to keep in mind that appealing to popularity is actually a logical fallacy:

In logic, an argumentum ad populum (Latin: "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition to be true because many or all people believe it; it alleges: "If many believe so, it is so."

This type of argument is known by several names, including appeal to the masses, appeal to belief, appeal to the majority, appeal to the people, argument by consensus, authority of the many, and bandwagon fallacy, and in Latin by the names argumentum ad populum ("appeal to the people"), argumentum ad numerum ("appeal to the number"), and consensus gentium ("agreement of the clans"). It is also the basis of a number of social phenomena, including communal reinforcement and the bandwagon effect, the spreading of various religious beliefs, and of the Chinese proverb "three men make a tiger"

 

And lastly, the great thing about today's MMO market is that we have such a high number of games coming out each year. There is a lot of choice! It would be absurd to like all games. It would be equally stupid and unreasonable to expect that they were all made with our special taste in mind. 

You will no doubt hate some games, while having no idea how other people can find them entertaining, but they do. Just remember that not everyone is wired the same way. Many of us even find out that our entertainment needs change over time. Perhaps you are suddenly busy with a school, other hobby, new job or starting a family. Sometimes we have to allocate our time better when we can longer find the free time to grind mobs for 8 hours a day. The point is that there are many reasons why it is good that we have so many games coming out. Chance to find something good for YOU increases.

 

Thanks for reading my rant.

Loke666

Something good does usually become popular but I agree with you, many people spend too much time worrying what other people think instead of living their own life.

There is however a limit to this, a game need a certain population to be fun. A instanced game like GW does need enough people so you can do some grouping, a game like EQ (and most games following it) need some more so that it feels at least somewhat alive and a PvP based game needs a lot more people than that.

To just soloplay a game because no one else is playing it is pretty pointless, you might as well play a single player game then.

So some people is needed to make the experience fun. Not that much unless it is a RvR game but there still have to be people around.

Grunty

For many people coffee is good. It's popular. I can't stand the stuff. To me it's bad.

What is good is still a personal choice.

thexrated

Originally posted by Loke666

There is however a limit to this, a game need a certain population to be fun. A instanced game like GW does need enough people so you can do some grouping, a game like EQ (and most games following it) need some more so that it feels at least somewhat alive and a PvP based game needs a lot more people than that.

To just soloplay a game because no one else is playing it is pretty pointless, you might as well play a single player game then.

So some people is needed to make the experience fun. Not that much unless it is a RvR game but there still have to be people around.

True enough. I did not mention this point because once a MMO reaches this point, it is unlikely to be profitable. Population is usually kept in check with server merges etc. Also, some smaller games have managed to stay online for years and have a loyal player base. They probably aren't very profitable either.

So when you have many vs. few shards, it does not really matter as long as shards have healthy population (what is healthy o course depends on the game and its desing etc.)

laokoko

I find truth in that.

I have never played an MMO where I can't find "someone" in there that played the game from the open, and is still having a tone of fun.

It's like how the FFXIV are full of anger customer, and my gamer friend from atlantica online are telling me he is having a blast, and want me to come join him. 

So who knows? as long as the particular game are making "some people" happy, it's not a bad thing.  But to me, I think it's partially because they havn't tried other game, so they dont' know that there are better things out there.