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Somehow I doubt ANY MMO will ever make more than 400-600k subs in the long run anymore
Elikal
Member UncommonPosts: 7,912
After years of high starting and deep falling MMOs, I somehow feel stronger than before that the WoW mircale sub numbers is something we will not ever see again. I mean, when WoW started, in 2004 it hardly had any competition, we saw 1-2 new MMOs per year and levelling to max was taking a long time.
Today, people can burn to max level in no time, everyone can solo, no dependence on other gamers and 20 new MMOs are launched every year. With that I think it is absurd to assume ANY pay per month MMO can ever hope to have millions of subs. I mean, in theory you could make a really great MMO with all there is, and given the money SWTOR should have been that MMO, but they too make a "niche"/speciality MMO (with story being their pet peeve), and it's the same old story. 1-2 millions at start and then fall back to the standard of 400-600k. What was the formula for Everquest days, remains the quota today.
Asia MMOs not counting, I guess only GW2 may be an exception since it is F2P.
But for the classic MMO formula I think companies need to stop expecting millions of subs. WoW may have been a one time phenomenon and remain as it is, the big elephant in the room (which nobody likes but everyone plays).
/discuss ^^
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Comments
i doubt there will be other mmos with subscriptions taht get as much millions people as WoW. The reasons you mentioned are more than enough to justify that. TOo many mmos launch every year, both good and bad, and most are free. Also, there happens to be companies here and there that make a new mmo that would "revolutionize" or "innovate" 1 specific part of the genre, and then forget about the rest of the game and its content. Thats not a good way to even pretend to gather over a million peeps paying long term, and all these new mmos are doing that mistake.
edit: here hoping GW2 will succeed and set an alternative way for mmos progression and content evolution
I think it's ridiculous for a developer to expect a clone of something already successful, ESPECIALLY a MMORPG-- which requires a large investment of the player's time to gain levels, acquire gear, achievements, and whatnot to explore further into its world-- to be just as successful, by expecting a paying subscriber to drop the character they have possibly invested a matter of YEARS into, only to start from scratch-- from ZERO-- in an indentical experience with nothing really new or innovative to add.
That's like trying to get an Apple fan to dump their iPad for a new consumer brand tablet with less or supposedly equal options for downloadable apps.
Any developer that expects to retain subscriptions based on this principle is just asking for failure.
Sure, they could use a well-known IP as their premise, but if Popsicle® brand Fudgsicles are already your favorite, and some generic or unknown store brand offers their "fudgsicle knock-off" for the same price, which one are you going to buy, and which one are you going to scoff at?
What if they slap the name "Nestle Quick®" in front of it, but it tastes kind of crappy? What happens to the Nestle Quick® brand name then?
Aw, Hell yes!
Just say "No!" to knock-offs!
Lol, this IS what they do. ipad 3 anyone? "oooh it has 2million more pixels"
lawl. but I understand the point you are making, and I agree...just thought your compairison was funny.
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I think GW2 if it would have been a subbed game would have passed atleast Aion the worldwide number 2 subbed game with allmost 3 million subs.
The problem of all those other MMO's is that its just more of the same. atleast GW2 is a little more different and unique. But having no subs will make the game do even better, i think they will sell more boxes then any MMO ever before (in the long run) espescially if they sell a new expansion pack every year.
So GW2 will cost their players about $60 +$20(in shop yearly) = $80 a year on average. On top of that, having no subs allows people to leave for longer periodes of time and then returning for the new expansions and when they get bored with other games.
I think 2 years after release, GW2 will have sold atleast 10 million copies of the orriginal game. and if they where a subbed game, they might not even have sold half of those.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Not if the devs keep thinking they know what we want in a game more than we do.
Honestly I am so sick of the attitude that most of these dev studios have lately that we are all idiots and we are so lucky they are here to tell us how stupid we are and show us what games we should be wanting rather than what games we do want.
lotro did it for a while, rift is currently doing it, eve has done it for a long time, swtor looks like it will be keeping a high retention even thought it peeked. Many other games also have a lot higher retention then people think. Most of funcom games have flopped by gamers standards but have been more then enought to keep the company afloat and growing.
Gamers are not really as good at judging how successful a game is as they think they are.
That's like trying to get an Apple fan to dump their iPad for a new consumer brand tablet with less or supposedly equal options for downloadable apps.
Oops! LOL, yeah I guess that wasn't the comparison I was looking for, but I think the Fudgsicle one definitely fits.
A subscription based MMO will NEVER maintain a million + subs. WoW is the exception, NOT THE FSKING RULE!
But for some reason, investors and publishers seem to think that WoW is the rule and somehow 2 million NA subscribers means their game can have 4 million NA subs.
MMOs are a niche. and therefore need to be treated as such. Bankrolling a game for $100,000,000 and expecting 100% market share is foolish.
Developers and publishers need to realize that the realistic number of subs is more around 200,000-500,000, and base their business model off of that.
Once developers figure out that you cant please everyone and instead go about pleasing a small group of people who share the same interests (CCP is a good example), the game will be better, your customers will be happier, and your game wont suffer a horrible and painful death (TR, SWG, MO).
when you try to please everyone, you piss everyone off instead.
LOLOL swtor will not be keeping a high retention rate just wait a few more months once the new mmos slated for this year release
LOTRO launched in a pretty quiet year for MMO's and with the LOTRO movies fresh in people's memories it sold really well and managed to keep over 600k subs till shortly after Mines of Moria release.
SWTOR, seeing the current activity of all servers, is currently floating around 600k-800k subs tops!
Today there are just too many MMO's out there. With serveral major MMO releases a year, the market has become saturated.
Also, the latest MMO releases have failed to really bring something new to the table! SW:TOR included, as the voice overs is just sugar coating on top of an extremely unfinished generic MMO for today's standards.... so people grow bored pretty quick and move on to the next major release.
And this will continue until a game releases that really does bring something fresh and unique to the table.
Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World are both such candidates that might actually.... but time will tell when they release.
its really up to the game in my opinion. If the game is good enough it will be the "wow killer"
the problem of course is that the game has to be really good..lets face it, people said eq would never be dethroned and it was. another great vision will come along and everything will change again.
Great vision is very hard to come by.
That's part of their job. They are game designers. They are designing a game they hope you will enjoy. It's hard to make something everyone will enjoy!
The MMO market is just oversaturated compared to 10 years ago. It doesn't help that everyone adds the MMO tag to any game they feel like anymore. I love options don't get me wrong, however many of the options (like already pointed out) aren't very different from each other.
I dont really see the evidence for it here....I see the mention of EQ, but the mmo customer pool was way smaller when EQ was pulling in its 600ish k....Then you could say the mmo market is bigger now too...But the more popular games will always attract more people also....
The real problem I see is the push to go f2p by a lot of major studios, and if GW2 does well, that may go to b2p....SoE said they were going to watch and learn from PS2, and if things worked well, they would then use it probably for EQNext...So when you don't have subs anymore, its hard to officially have x number of subs...People are making their mmos ready for the Chinese market, where they cannot sell subs in my opinion....Then they don't have to deal with different means to play, like Blizzard does with WoW...Where you have most of your subs paying per hour and not bringing in Western type sub money.
Because all the MMORPG "designers" are as incapable of creating something fresh and addicting as the OP.
Oh, and a subscription based MMORPG WILL retain a million subscriber. Problem is no one is hiring me.
7-8 years ago 200,000 players was considered a big hit. It still is. But developers have used Wow's success to sell investors and have began seriously bloating budgets, and suddenly that success doesn't seem like the same any more. But I think the biggest thing is each game is just like the last with a couple tweaks. Players consume the content, they move on to the next. Until someone does something revolutionary, this trend will likely keep happening.
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I still cant wrap my brain around how it costs 50 million + to develop a game. Most of the work is labor with a small portion going towards rent, utilities, and liscensing. And i also dont understand the need for a staff of 120 to make a game.
If you can't figure it out, please stay out of running a business.
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If WOW was not in the scene I honestly believe RIFT would be carrying the 800 lb gorilla title right now.The quality of that games launch and the content since is pretty much setting the industry standard right now and shows no sign of letting up.
Think about it.If WOW didn't exist.Can you name another game doing what RIFT is doing after launch?I'm not a RIFT fanboy by any means,I play WOW,AION,RIFT,EQ2 and LOTRO mainly.Rift really stands out to me since it's launch.
The main problem I see is the fact WOW brought so many new mmo players into the mix and they're tied into WOW with multiple 80+ chars and memories.This imo keeps those people from commiting to other games,they just don't want to throw years of gameplay away.
To answer the op,I think it's going to be very very hard to maintain 400k-600k subs long term for any true MMO (doesn't count GW2) just because of WOW.I believe even SWTOR will settle at 200k or so in a couple years,it just isn't that good and the SW name can only sustain for so long.
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250-300k is plenty as long as the servers are full. I want to see 4-5k players when i do a search, like it was 8 years ago, and not like now with sub 1k.
In the long run, sure.
In the medium run? ToR's probably in the 600-800k range currently.
It wouldn't surprise me if RIFT started to grow back into that range. The amount of fun features they've added since launch is impressive, and I'm enjoying my time with it again.
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I agree. After playing WoW since forever, taking a 1 year break to play RIFT and EQ2, dear god in heaven.
EQ2 has really blossomed since launch and RIFT just seemed to launch with both feet on the ground running and STILL is doing damn good. It's really a pleasant game.
With so many MMO's cutting the population that ACTUALLY WANTS TO PLAY the halfass mmo's to begin with, i agree there wont be a WoW-sized population again. THATS FINE WITH ME. Dev's should stop acting like they'll absorb the whole f*#($(#$ mmo crowd with their copypaste game. As long as the mmo I like still runs i'm happy.
I've said it for years now to my friends.
WoW was a fluke. For a number of reasons that will never be recreated.
It will never happen again, not while gaming is still presented on a PC with a keyboard and mouse.