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Themeparks make more money than sandboxes ...
sandboxboi
Member Posts: 13
So, let's just have all the devs in the world stop making *sandbox* style MMORPGs. Sound good? Because that's where it looks like we're heading.
While we're at it, let's just stop building taco stands and chinese food restaurants because more people eat at McDonald's anyways, so.... that's what EVERYONE should eat.
People seem so comfortable with the fact that because themepark mmo's earn more money than sandbox mmo's, devs lean towards themepark design. We have far too many games launched and in development that are clear results of game companies trying to cut in on WoW's profits by trying to 'steal' their players away with similar game mechanics, and a low difficulty curve. They've all but forgotton what MMORPGs are supposted to be, and how they're supposed to feel. We now have a bunch of single-player-esque lobby minigames calling themselves MMORPGs for no other reason than they are online.
Not only do we need a new genre to house these sad excuses for MMO's (including WoW. All be it, a very polished and smooth running completed game. Just not a real MMO anymore.) We also need real videogame companies back. Real developers. People with a passion for gaming and creativity and, gawd forbid, innovation. We now are stuck with businessmen with software engineering degrees. Not videogame makers. Just greedy people who want the most money they can squeeze from the cheap entertainment they programmed using the lowest amount of time, effort and creativity.
We need the programmers that made games because it drove their soul. People that woke up in the morning and couldn't think of anything else than creating the mysterious world they dreamt about the night prior.
What do you think, reader?
{Mod Edit}
Comments
Looks like where we're headed hmm.
*Looks to the number of sandbox/ish games that are reputed to be coming out in the next year or two*
Ok...
Venge
edit - and your opinion on what MMORPS's are supposed to be, despite your claim you don't want to discuss it, is noted and extremely contested. And you get a better response with more engaging discussion if you did not resort to such obvious flame tactics in your post.
{Mod edit}
YES, there are some games coming out. NO I won't be that guy that says "Um, what games? care to list? got links? prove yourself!!" <~~ frack that.
You're right, though. There are some games on the horizon that claim sandbox.... I can't only think of 2 or maybe 3 if you count Black Prophecy, but I am not quite sure what to believe with that one. Anyways,
So, the limited few that 'might' launch this year do not make my point invalid. At best, i think they will be well developed and supported games, with a niche following that may or may not grow to be a loyal playerbase (like EVE) - and if so, the devs might close up shop like the others just because their game isn't pulling in millions of players.
Either way, do you really think devs will shift into work-mode and create some non-themepark-only games for the masses as long as WoW's pulling in millions of subs? It's not that I think they will change... I just wish they did. Hope is a mofo.
Now, I know that there's actually a very small number of MMO's that actually shut down the servers, but nonetheless, once the devs start noticing that they "haven't killed WoW either" , they seem to stop caring about their project and move on to the next WoW-killing endevour. Support goes out the window. Expansions never come. Bugs don't get fixed. Community goes ignored.
{Edit}
Tbh, i'm pretty tired of hearing this "holier than thou" elitist crap. This almost reminds me of war propaganda. Who are you to dictate what games people should play? Don't pretend that you know anything about game development. You have no clue of the resources and effort it takes to make a MMORPG (or any tripple-A game for that matter). The programmers have nothing to do with the design or the direction the game takes. They have designers and producers for that.
What is the point of this post anyway? You just want people to agree with you?
Witty sarcasm is all the op was worth.
It does invalidate your point. The fact is there are sandboxes coming out and always will be. There will likely always be more themepark than sandbox because more people play for entertainment than work. You just have to learn to accept that.
And there will always be devs looking to copy the biggest thing around, and devs looking for an untapped underdeveloped market, just like every other industry and product in this whole bloody world.
And there are still many developers working with their own sandbox that care about their smaller game... again just like every other industry and market in the world.
There is nothing left in you op to discuss, unless you want to start talking about specific features you would like to see.
Venge
So the free-market/capitalism is working as intended but the OP doesn't like it is.
Huh?
If demand is there someone will make it. That's how free-market works.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I like to discuss too. That is why I am here. But this horse has been beaten to death a long time ago.
Anyway, Venge said it best in his previous post. There really isn't anything else to say about this topic.
Lol I just responded to your similar post in another thread dude... ;-)
But yeah... you can keep your capitalist morality.
Supply and demand is not what drove videogames to come into being. It's not what drove creative minds to build a virtual world. They all took risks to introduce electronic gaming to us.
Good thing not all devs care only about making millions of dollars when they make a game.
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Achiever 20.00%, Explorer 86.67%, Killer 60.00%, Socializer 33.33%
EKSA
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Sandbox games just need a little bit more direction in my opinion. Every time i see someone mention a sandbox game or its advertised its always promoted as "do whatever you want." Thats true and the idea itself is very cool but when you log into a game with no actual goals and "doing what you want" is equivelent to running around for hours just looking for something to kill or do its just not fun for most people.
I keep hopin for the perfect sandbox game which is probably impossible. I sitll havent tried Mortal Online tho, Darkfall just didnt pull me in, i think it was the combat itself that turned me off.
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief.
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"While we're at it, let's just stop building taco stands and chinese food restaurants because more people eat at McDonald's anyways, so.... that's what EVERYONE should eat. "
So you know...this happens ALL THE TIME
just sayin
Nothing says sandboxes cant be as popular and as profitable.
900th time typing it this year.
The MMO market didnt exist before WOW it was a small minority of us who played back then thos kids wow brought to the market are now grown up and want something more.
WOW to this generation is waht D&D was to ours it was our introduction to what MMO's could be and now they want more.
Damn, good point.
Dev 1: Hey! I've got this awesome idea for a sandbox game!
Dev 2: That sounds great! Let's do some market research!
* Time Passes *
Dev 1: So, it'll take us 5 years to write this game.
Dev 2: Ya, not too bad. Most games take this long to write.
Dev 1: True, true.
Dev 2: And if we can get 15,000 subscribers, we'll actually have our initial investment paid off in 3.7 years. Now, with operating expenses, that stretches a bit, so...about 8 years after we release the game we can pay it off.
Dev 1: You think we can get more than 15,000 subscribers?
Dev 2: I don't know. You know what the market is like. Plus they whine a lot.
* Time Passes *
Dev 1: You know, Rift just sold 300,000 pre-orders on Amazon alone.
Dev 2: Really?
Dev 1: Yeah.
Dev 2: So they'll have their investment paid off, what, one month after they release their game?
Dev 1: Yeah.
Dev 2: Huh.
Dev 1: I submitted our resumes to Trion.
Dev 2: Sweet!
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
That part about Rift selling 300,000+ orders on amazon alone may have something to say about how many WoW gamers feel about Cataclysm or perhaps WoW in general. While I didn't dislike what I got to see of Rift it seemed fairly akin to what WoW currently offers with added character customization and so so world events. My guess is there are going to be a lot of people LFG (looking for game) within 3 - 4 months of Rifts release.
I recall somewhere on these forums someone equated the Rift events to glorified dps pissing contests (or healing contest for healers) which certainly seemed to be the case. Perhaps outside of beta when the Rifts aren't so zerged over they'll play better.
its no surprise that theme park makes way more money then sandbox.... But with that being said the game that im making right now Virtual Baby is grabing that nitch LOYAL audiance that will play/sub for life. So long term i think its a way better buisness model that will prove to triumph over the theme park type mmo.
If your Virtual Baby game is anything like this http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/peter_molyneux_demos_milo_the_virtual_boy.html then I think Mr. Molyneux beat you to it =(. Luckily for you though this guy also made Fable and boy did that suck =p! So maybe you'll luck out and can fill in where he fumbles. That is, of course, if your game has anything at all to do with this ><. Not much to go on but the name you gave here!
Im actally working on the concept trailer so keep your eyes open.
and the demand has always unquestionable accuracy in the just-value decision making
just think, one day the demand may be for there to be no more free markets..
I want to own property too
So get a degree, make the best game in the world, or make enough millions to fund said game, or quit bitchin. This is capitalism. It has nothing to do with WoW or themeparks or dumb McDonalds analogies. Take a basic economics course, damn.
I see you type garbage after garbage about people being afraid to innovate. Do you know who it's up to to innovate? YOU. Innovation doesn't come from bitchin about how things are and what could be so much better. Innovation comes from the people that take that discontent and are part of the change they want to see.
It's a shame op, gamers of today just want to mash buttons repeatedly for their shinies then do an endzone dance before waving e-peens to the other mouthbreathers in the general vicinity about how 1337 their buttonmashing is- welcome to MMORPGs for the Playskool generation.
Don't you think things like Minecraft are an indications that its over or at least just peaked?
I want to own property too
Problem is you think there is some horrible "state of things". I guess what most people are trying to tell you is that there is sandbox games and right now the number of sand box games is directly affected by the popularity of sand box games.
The market is working as intended. If sand box features were so popular as you claim, then either wow or some over game would be the 800lbs sand box mmo and there would be 100's of sand box clones. Sand box is great and all for alot of people and they have alot of choices of games for that feature. But until the market overwhelmining wants sand box features they won't be in the majority of games.
And as for people questioning your knowledge of game design is a valid one. Its seems like you make alot of assumptions that don;t seem quite right. I think you probably offended many, many devs equating lack of sand box features is a lack of committment or lack on interest by the devs of themepark games.
So with that said. I for one am not sick of the state of games even though personally i would like a more sand box game. Games on both sides are sand box / theme park fence are being released in teh correct proportions. I do however see a small glimmer of hope for more indepth crafting, more city type building, and more player created worlds. And that glimmer actually comes from the social network gaming. I see plenty of people on facebook and alike playing games like farmville and others. These people log on once, twice, or three times of day and spend an hour or two doing what? Crafting things. visiting their friends virtual places, farming, building homes, getting different outfits for their toon, building cities, hitting levels, getting achievements and many, many otehr things that mirror sand box mmo features.
Sure these games are a lot simpler then what we would want in a sand box mmo. But it does show that their are people that want to build virtual places and be immersed in it. However to get that crowd to come over the rest of the game cannot be totally hard core. I think in order for a true sand box mmo to make it big it needs to tone down the rest of the hardcore and also make it family friendly. Think about if WoW just did a 180, got rid of all the hardcore raids, the daily quests, and wiped out half their quests in the game. Then turned around and wiped 75% of all NPC's and 75% of the towns and then made the entrie world, buildable and left room for othehr player intervention would WoW be just as popular? Maybe, or maybe not. I would bet the mount of people that would leave the game would be replaced with many people would would like to sand box in that game.
Now think about the same games, like WAR or AOC. You think if they did that that many people would flock to the game, nah.
Now excuse me, but my cvrops need farming before they wither.
It makes me think that there are gamers that enjoy free thinking and creativity, however it doesn't appear that those players are the ones flocking to MMORPGs. Everything I've witnessed since '98 says that there is a mass influx of hack & slash gamers that have entered the genre. These gamers are easier to appease and their presence is so disruptive to the older generation that appreciate the mechanics and socializing of older games that they either go into the newer games and exit chat channels to the point that they hardly interact with anyone or quit the genre entirely (possibly moving to something more stimulating, such as Minecraft).
Fortunately for investors, publishers, and developers the newer generation have such mind-numbingly low standards that they are infinitely easier to design and develop for and will pay for the most slipshod content so long as their is a constant stream of easy to obtain carrots along the way.
Unfortunately there is no MMO out for gamers that desire something more like Myst than Super Mario Brothers.
I don't know about you but my co-workers, friends and myself all frequent mom and pop resturants frequently and McDonalds and other drive-though based chains on a limited basis and normally only when that's the only option time permits.
As for your argument, Darkfall is the highest quality sand-box-esque MMO that has come out recently and even it is below standards.
I feel fairly safe in saying that WoW has a firm hold on the theme-park, hand-holding players and that no matter what any company produces they will have a hard time pulling a majority of those subscriptions away from Blizz. That said, I think that if a company were to open their eyes and quit attacking the giant with pebbles (WAR, AoC, Rift, etc.) they could have a fair shot at obtaining and keeping subscribers in the "rest of us". The rest of us being the "old school", "hard-core", or "anti-carebear" or whatever else you want to label us as.
WoW provides a more than acceptable solution for those who want the MMO-lite experience with limited time required in one sitting to accomplish something and will continue to draw on their success for sometime. Now, if an MMO dev would release a game as polished as WoW but in more of the line of succesion of EQ > VG > New MMO, they would be able to capture a large majority of the subs for everyone who wants the challenge, punishment and reward based on time spent experience and hold them.
As far as sandboxes go, there is a critical flaw in that by allowing players full freedom to do as they please you are pigeonholed into allowing FFA PvP. The issue in this lies in that their are two distinct groups who desire a sandbox experience; those who want a PvE sandbox experience and those that want Halo/CoD with swords and sorcery (Hexen online?). As such, the current sandbox offerings (DFO, MO and EVE) all draw a strong portion of the PvP crowd and the few PvE players that are willing to deal with the ganking in trade for a free world.
I know this post is a bit rambling but the short version is this:
1. WoW owns the PvE theme-park market and devs need to let them have it instead of trying the WoW+ system. (WAR = WoW + RvR, AoC = WoW + mature setting, Rift = WoW + random PQs, etc. etc.).
2. Some dev needs to nut up and put out a AAA "hard-core" PvE themepark MMO sans yellow !s and ?s and with a real risk vs. reward system to draw and hold the "rest of us".
3. EvE owns the sandbox Sci-fi market and DFO holds the sandbox fantasy market. Eve's quality puts it in a nice position, while DFO could easily be dethroned by a big budget version.
4. This is the "P.S. bullet". Between DCUO, CoX and Champions it seems the hero market is covered.
Any other niches I have forgotten are likely just that, niches and will likely merit little profit, if any.
I completely agree. It's a wonderful game for that audience as well as first time MMO players- it's an excellent game to hop into the genre. But just like Holden McNeil says- I mean, ya gotta grow man. Don't you ever want anything more for yourself? It seems developers aren't looking for those players that are ready for something more, and if they are, just doing a really half-assed job of bringing it (AoC, WAR, etc).