I don't think games like GW2 should be counted, either. GW2 could sell 6mill+ again, but since it's f2p, it's no different than the people that try to stretch their numbers
If GW2s expansions consistently sell 400k+ it can be counted
GW2 will have to generate profits from it's revenue model to match WoW. That's all that matters. Once the box is paid for, the Cash Shop is the only remaining metric.
The total player base of MMOs is growing at a large rate each year. When something unique comes around, it will draw millions of subs. Until that time the userbase will remain splintered as most games are just small degrees of change.
The only mmorpg to ever reach 10 million subs certainly doesn't qualify as something unique.
Far too often people tend to supplant a personal desire for that of the consumer, all we ever hear about on here is how much people want something innovative and "different" and I think maybe we then tend to think somehow this small sampling of posters represents the desires of the masses and I'm just not sure that's the case.
I personally throw WOW out the window because the truth is it so far out paced the subs of everyone before or after it isn't realistic to expect out of the genre.
Maybe on a whole as a community we should simply tone down expectations and start to think in terms of the 500k-1m sub range especially since the only mmo to ever reach such lofty numbers does not meet the expectations of most of us on here.
The total player base of MMOs is growing at a large rate each year. When something unique comes around, it will draw millions of subs. Until that time the userbase will remain splintered as most games are just small degrees of change.
The only mmorpg to ever reach 10 million subs certainly doesn't qualify as something unique.
It was unique when it came out.
It was the first MMO with a heavy solo focusand the first truly designed with instant gratification in mind.
Some of WoW's philosophies were partly present in EQ2 (heavy quest focused, theme park style play) but there wasnt a game like WoW out at the time. It transitoned the genre to a very unforgiving, time consuming environment to a genre far more casual and easier to get into.
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.
You're really going to have to show proof.
I don't believe for one second either game had over 400K subs.
The total player base of MMOs is growing at a large rate each year. When something unique comes around, it will draw millions of subs. Until that time the userbase will remain splintered as most games are just small degrees of change.
The only mmorpg to ever reach 10 million subs certainly doesn't qualify as something unique.
It was unique when it came out.
It was the first MMO with a heavy solo focusand the first truly designed with instant gratification in mind.
Some of WoW's philosophies were partly present in EQ2 (heavy quest focused, theme park style play) but there wasnt a game like WoW out at the time. It transitoned the genre to a very unforgiving, time consuming environment to a genre far more casual and easier to get into.
Only if you were a solo gamer. Once I hooked in with a Guild and made some ingame friends in SWG, It was so easy to reach master. Anarchy Online is one of the hardest level grinders there is. It would be an incredible grind to solo to 220. It would certainly take a long time. And back in the day before dailys, I'd say next to impossible to solo all the way. But if you know how to group, AO is one of the easiest games to level cap in. I honestly think this is why the Asians like grinders. They probably go out in hunting parties and kill while maxing their XP. And to be honest, I played a couple of those. I played Rappelz for a while. Even got into the 90s with an Evo using Pixies. It was fun and it was mostly done in parties grinding dungeon mobs. It was kinda fun.
The total player base of MMOs is growing at a large rate each year. When something unique comes around, it will draw millions of subs. Until that time the userbase will remain splintered as most games are just small degrees of change.
The only mmorpg to ever reach 10 million subs certainly doesn't qualify as something unique.
It was unique when it came out.
It was the first MMO with a heavy solo focusand the first truly designed with instant gratification in mind.
Some of WoW's philosophies were partly present in EQ2 (heavy quest focused, theme park style play) but there wasnt a game like WoW out at the time. It transitoned the genre to a very unforgiving, time consuming environment to a genre far more casual and easier to get into.
Only if you were a solo gamer.
like I said, the first MMO with a heavy solo focus.
Every other game since has this heavy solo focus. Even Vanguard could be played efficiently by soloers.
Games like Rift even have it to the point where grouping is just a bunch of people soloing at once (Rifts)
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.
People come up with alot of theory why wow is successful. But none of those apply to why wow is still successful. People could play UO or SWG for 7-8 years too. But very few do it.
I don't think WoW was a fluke. Blizzard saw what people begged SOE to put in their games. Well, we all know how responsive SOE is to its customers. SOE kicked its customers in the nuts, and Blizzard picked up the torch.
Today, that is the type of company we need. A company that is listening to the player, and not some idiot, clueless investor or CEO that wouldn't know how to kill a level 1 large rat with a maxed out toon.
There is a huge untapped market of players who want something more than the generic quest hub runner, raid progression game. No one is developing that. I predict the company that does is going to see a million plus subs, or an equivalent(whatever that would be in f2p terms).
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.
You're really going to have to show proof.
I don't believe for one second either game had over 400K subs.
Rift certainly had 400k initially. Its highly doubtful it did by month 3 or 4. LOTRO as far as I know peaked around 300k
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.
People come up with alot of theory why wow is successful. But none of those apply to why wow is still successful. People could play UO or SWG for 7-8 years too. But very few do it.
I don't think WoW was a fluke. Blizzard saw what people begged SOE to put in their games. Well, we all know how responsive SOE is to its customers. SOE kicked its customers in the nuts, and Blizzard picked up the torch.
Your assessment couldnt be farther from reality. You know how much hate SoE gets for making its games more WoW like? People bitched and moaned like mad when they made EQ2 more solo friendly. And SoE's biggest problem with EQ was listening to their customers, as changes like the PoK port stones and easier corpse recoveries were 100% community requested features that backfired on SoE from a publc opinion standpoint (omg SoE killed EQ) but in reality probably had an overall positive effect on the game.
I think the fact that 13 years later EQ is still running, still receiving more content per year than Rift (yes, VoA was bigger than all of Rift's heralded added content) and still has a solid player base. 100k after 13 years is impressive.
The total player base of MMOs is growing at a large rate each year. When something unique comes around, it will draw millions of subs. Until that time the userbase will remain splintered as most games are just small degrees of change.
The only mmorpg to ever reach 10 million subs certainly doesn't qualify as something unique.
It was unique when it came out.
It was the first MMO with a heavy solo focusand the first truly designed with instant gratification in mind.
Some of WoW's philosophies were partly present in EQ2 (heavy quest focused, theme park style play) but there wasnt a game like WoW out at the time. It transitoned the genre to a very unforgiving, time consuming environment to a genre far more casual and easier to get into.
Only if you were a solo gamer.
like I said, the first MMO with a heavy solo focus.
Every other game since has this heavy solo focus. Even Vanguard could be played efficiently by soloers.
Games like Rift even have it to the point where grouping is just a bunch of people soloing at once (Rifts)
I can't tell you how many times I have seen entire zone invasion events where not a single word it said in raid chat. And it's not because 20 random people synnergized so perfectly well together.
They are a lot of fun, but they don't do much to foster cooperation.
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.
I'm tired of the attitude that most of the players meddle with developer's art.
You'd think it'd be simple: if you don't like it then don't buy it.
But people spend their money on 'crap' games, and then they complain about how the game isn't what they wanted.
>.>
That's called a bad investment.
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
Games like Rift even have it to the point where grouping is just a bunch of people soloing at once (Rifts)
I can't tell you how many times I have seen entire zone invasion events where not a single word it said in raid chat. And it's not because 20 random people synnergized so perfectly well together.
They are a lot of fun, but they don't do much to foster cooperation.
This is exactly what i was getting at. Granted, its as much the players fault than Trion, because if Trion made invasions and rifts difficult so cooperation was needed people would scream TOO HARD
Games like Rift even have it to the point where grouping is just a bunch of people soloing at once (Rifts)
I can't tell you how many times I have seen entire zone invasion events where not a single word it said in raid chat. And it's not because 20 random people synnergized so perfectly well together.
They are a lot of fun, but they don't do much to foster cooperation.
This is exactly what i was getting at. Granted, its as much the players fault than Trion, because if Trion made invasions and rifts difficult so cooperation was needed people would scream TOO HARD
This is exactly the problem modern devs have they are basically damned if the go hardcore and damned if they don't go hardcore they cannot win, so they make games that appeals to the biggest group of players and at the moment its the solo crowd.
I also saw the Rifting problem in Rift's beta as we were zerging 50+ players from rift to rift it was fun but after a couiple of afternoons with no real co-ordination or co-oporation it became boring. Its one of the reason I think raiding is popular its a great grouping mechanic it requires organisation, co-oporation, communication and discipline to complete so players feel immensely satisfied after a good raid night . Also I foresee the the same thing happening in GW2 with its DE's as with Rift's DE's, Totalbiscuit's beta preview video mentions the zerging of DE's in beta and at launch it'll be the same as Rift's launch zergs of players running from DE to DE roflstomping each one.
Now to the main topic I think Elikal is right but thats because of the amount of games in the marketplace more than anything WoW really had the market all to itself for at least 3 years prior to LotRO launch but even that couldn't dent its numbers, now though its getting long in the tooth and players are looking for other places to lay their virtual hats and when you start investigating the market there are plenty of games to get stuck into, this was not the case in 2004/5/6. I hope SW:TOR can hold up around the 1 milion mark but time will tell on that it might just be my wishful thinking as I feel they have a fantastic base to build on and thats unlike any MMO since WoW IMO.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Now to the main topic I think Elikal is right but thats because of the amount of games in the marketplace more than anything WoW really had the market all to itself for at least 3 years prior to LotRO launch but even that couldn't dent its numbers, now though its getting long in the tooth and players are looking for other places to lay their virtual hats and when you start investigating the market there are plenty of games to get stuck into, this was not the case in 2004/5/6. I hope SW:TOR can hold up around the 1 milion mark but time will tell on that it might just be my wishful thinking as I feel they have a fantastic base to build on and thats unlike any MMO since WoW IMO.
Well, yes, if we ignore eq1, eq2, l1, l2, rs, eve, coh, daoc, ff and swg, naming just those above 150k subs...
We are just in an uncanny valley for MMOs right now.
Current MMOs are "better" than the earlier MMOs but in the kind of way that causes them to not be as compelling. In essence in the old days there were a lot of issues in games. But there were enough of them and it was novel enough that it fell to the left of the valley and people were able to ignore the problems. Now it is more like having a humanlike robot with just that little issue that keeps cropping up and making it utterly creepy. So when you have a mistake in a game, it is jarring rather than being ignored.
In the future games will handle this in several ways. One they will be three-offs where they are enough away from the mainstream in style and play etc that they garner a big following for those differences. Another will manage to get to the right of the valley and hit the mainstream dead on. This might not happen for quite some time however -- and with most of the games shooting for it and falling right into the wow-clone valley on the left side -- we can expect a ton more high-dollar failures in the future.
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.
the Rift numbers look very like AoC, Warhammer and SWTOR did, a sharp hype spike followed by a tank, and the Rift numbers are tanking, they have gone from 600k to 250k. Eve has about 450k subs and people keep calling it niche.
Aion is running at 2.5m subs before it went F2P in the west, even with the 800lb gorilla of WoW. Even Second Life has 800k.
Rift might be a good game from a good company but it's no great shakes in terms of sub numbers. Without WoW it would just be another MMO competing for market share, more like a 30lb monkey.
Aion's 2.5m subs are 95% eastern subs, if not more. Aion was never remotely a factor in the west. In terms of western subs its WoW, SWToR, then EvE. After that its probaby only Rift above the 200k mark (assuming Rift is above the 200k mark, theres a chance it isnt) and it wont last the year there if it is, their first big patch since november and first raid since july only brought back enough players to cover the prior week's decline.
I think there will be another MMORPG to sustain 400k subs (or 400k active players) like EQ and WoW did in the west, but its going to take a very good game, which we havent seen in a long time. If I made a list of top 10 MMORPGs of all time the ost recent entry would be LOTRO.
Please could you advise at what distance from your New Jersey home an MMO subscription ceases to count?
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.
I'm tired of the attitude that most of the players meddle with developer's art.
You'd think it'd be simple: if you don't like it then don't buy it.
But people spend their money on 'crap' games, and then they complain about how the game isn't what they wanted.
>.>
That's called a bad investment.
I love gamers that think game developers are game designers.
Most game developers are coders, tech school certificate holders that spend 100 hours a week dragging and dropping code.
Game designers on the other hand are conceptualist, they are artist, dreamers, and creative.
In the middle should be market researchers, those are the guys and girls that study the target market, get a feel for what we like and don't like then they go back to the game DESIGNER and offer COMPROMISE.. another big word for modern game studios to remember....
Problem is development management.. you know those are the guys in the suits with the business degrees and not a creative bone in thier body, those guys have gotten cheap and lazy. They decided to downsize and cut out the market researches, sometimes even the game designers themselves.
Instead they hand the project to the game developers, yea those tech school lemmings whose total skill set is dragging and dropping code and they say ok make us a 200m game that is going to make us rich.
So as a result we keep gettng exactly the same game, that is because that is all they know how to do.. they learned to do it from exactly the same text book, in exactly the same class.
Side note I attend a ton of conventions and on numerous occasions a geeky kid will come up to a game designer and ask them a creative deep intellectual question, 9 out of 10 times you can see the panic on the developers face and instead of answering the question with the same creative deep intellect it was asked with they laugh it off with some geek comment or other flighty response targeted to get laughs. I see it time and time and time again, the reason they do it is because 90% of the game developers out there are IDIOTS! They do not know the answers and or they are incapable of formulating a response without a manager there to tell them what to say.
I was at a convention recently and this kid has all the technical details of the engine they are using and he asks them why they chose to do some effect in this complicated convuluted way rather than use the engine capabilities and do it in this more effective steamlined way that produced a better effect yada yada bunch of technical stuff I did not understand, the developers look at each other hem and haw and finally respond....
" Well it looked pretty.. hahah"
The kid shook his head in disqust and walked away and I really don't blame him, here were guys that were his heros, guys he idolized, guys that make games for a living, and suddenly he was handed the wake up call they are a bunch of ambivilent morons that are there for a paycheck and don't give a crap about what they are doing or why.
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.
the Rift numbers look very like AoC, Warhammer and SWTOR did, a sharp hype spike followed by a tank, and the Rift numbers are tanking, they have gone from 600k to 250k. Eve has about 450k subs and people keep calling it niche.
Aion is running at 2.5m subs before it went F2P in the west, even with the 800lb gorilla of WoW. Even Second Life has 800k.
Rift might be a good game from a good company but it's no great shakes in terms of sub numbers. Without WoW it would just be another MMO competing for market share, more like a 30lb monkey.
Rift wasn't hyped at all compared to AOC,TOR and WAR.A good many people that bought the game and joined at the beginning had just heard of the game.That's why they tripled the # of servers at launch.The game right now is actually getting people back from what i've seen and many are returning from TOR.I'm not saying it's a population boom,but encouraging.
When I look at subs myself I look at the west,as in NA,EU and Oceanic regions so I don't count games like AION in the east.I look at AION west.Just like WOW and it's 10 mill,how many are west,maybe 4 mill?The thing that stands out to me isif WOW wasn't in the picture when a game released,what might have happened?I think Rift would've benefitted big time.
I would say Rift hasn't tanked at all when you look at subs and look at server numbers and the continued commitment by Trion to further develop the game.
I just like discussing some of these games because I like the genre so much.It's all just my 2c and nothing more.
When you have gpotato, perfect world international, nexon, etc... cranking out F2P titles on a daily basis, they are going to keep pulling folks away from the AAA titles.
But who's going to really play them? There is still quite a good amount of folks that don't like F2P including myself, even though SOE's title s went mostly F2P I'm still throwing them a yearly sub for access to all of them so I don't get bogged down by restrictions and bs. I think all MMO's should offer F2P and a sub for those who don't want to get nickel and dimed to death.
Research has shown that MOST MMO players play F2P titles, and F2P is obviously on the rise.
Personally, in fact, aside from WOW, i prob will never play a sub title again. There are plenty of decent F2P ones (DCUO, STO, DDO, LOTRO, ......)
Comments
GW2 will have to generate profits from it's revenue model to match WoW. That's all that matters. Once the box is paid for, the Cash Shop is the only remaining metric.
The only mmorpg to ever reach 10 million subs certainly doesn't qualify as something unique.
Far too often people tend to supplant a personal desire for that of the consumer, all we ever hear about on here is how much people want something innovative and "different" and I think maybe we then tend to think somehow this small sampling of posters represents the desires of the masses and I'm just not sure that's the case.
I personally throw WOW out the window because the truth is it so far out paced the subs of everyone before or after it isn't realistic to expect out of the genre.
Maybe on a whole as a community we should simply tone down expectations and start to think in terms of the 500k-1m sub range especially since the only mmo to ever reach such lofty numbers does not meet the expectations of most of us on here.
It was unique when it came out.
It was the first MMO with a heavy solo focusand the first truly designed with instant gratification in mind.
Some of WoW's philosophies were partly present in EQ2 (heavy quest focused, theme park style play) but there wasnt a game like WoW out at the time. It transitoned the genre to a very unforgiving, time consuming environment to a genre far more casual and easier to get into.
You're really going to have to show proof.
I don't believe for one second either game had over 400K subs.
Only if you were a solo gamer. Once I hooked in with a Guild and made some ingame friends in SWG, It was so easy to reach master. Anarchy Online is one of the hardest level grinders there is. It would be an incredible grind to solo to 220. It would certainly take a long time. And back in the day before dailys, I'd say next to impossible to solo all the way. But if you know how to group, AO is one of the easiest games to level cap in. I honestly think this is why the Asians like grinders. They probably go out in hunting parties and kill while maxing their XP. And to be honest, I played a couple of those. I played Rappelz for a while. Even got into the 90s with an Evo using Pixies. It was fun and it was mostly done in parties grinding dungeon mobs. It was kinda fun.
like I said, the first MMO with a heavy solo focus.
Every other game since has this heavy solo focus. Even Vanguard could be played efficiently by soloers.
Games like Rift even have it to the point where grouping is just a bunch of people soloing at once (Rifts)
I don't think WoW was a fluke. Blizzard saw what people begged SOE to put in their games. Well, we all know how responsive SOE is to its customers. SOE kicked its customers in the nuts, and Blizzard picked up the torch.
Today, that is the type of company we need. A company that is listening to the player, and not some idiot, clueless investor or CEO that wouldn't know how to kill a level 1 large rat with a maxed out toon.
There is a huge untapped market of players who want something more than the generic quest hub runner, raid progression game. No one is developing that. I predict the company that does is going to see a million plus subs, or an equivalent(whatever that would be in f2p terms).
Rift certainly had 400k initially. Its highly doubtful it did by month 3 or 4. LOTRO as far as I know peaked around 300k
Your assessment couldnt be farther from reality. You know how much hate SoE gets for making its games more WoW like? People bitched and moaned like mad when they made EQ2 more solo friendly. And SoE's biggest problem with EQ was listening to their customers, as changes like the PoK port stones and easier corpse recoveries were 100% community requested features that backfired on SoE from a publc opinion standpoint (omg SoE killed EQ) but in reality probably had an overall positive effect on the game.
I think the fact that 13 years later EQ is still running, still receiving more content per year than Rift (yes, VoA was bigger than all of Rift's heralded added content) and still has a solid player base. 100k after 13 years is impressive.
I can't tell you how many times I have seen entire zone invasion events where not a single word it said in raid chat. And it's not because 20 random people synnergized so perfectly well together.
They are a lot of fun, but they don't do much to foster cooperation.
I'm tired of the attitude that most of the players meddle with developer's art.
You'd think it'd be simple: if you don't like it then don't buy it.
But people spend their money on 'crap' games, and then they complain about how the game isn't what they wanted.
>.>
That's called a bad investment.
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
This is exactly what i was getting at. Granted, its as much the players fault than Trion, because if Trion made invasions and rifts difficult so cooperation was needed people would scream TOO HARD
This is exactly the problem modern devs have they are basically damned if the go hardcore and damned if they don't go hardcore they cannot win, so they make games that appeals to the biggest group of players and at the moment its the solo crowd.
I also saw the Rifting problem in Rift's beta as we were zerging 50+ players from rift to rift it was fun but after a couiple of afternoons with no real co-ordination or co-oporation it became boring. Its one of the reason I think raiding is popular its a great grouping mechanic it requires organisation, co-oporation, communication and discipline to complete so players feel immensely satisfied after a good raid night . Also I foresee the the same thing happening in GW2 with its DE's as with Rift's DE's, Totalbiscuit's beta preview video mentions the zerging of DE's in beta and at launch it'll be the same as Rift's launch zergs of players running from DE to DE roflstomping each one.
Now to the main topic I think Elikal is right but thats because of the amount of games in the marketplace more than anything WoW really had the market all to itself for at least 3 years prior to LotRO launch but even that couldn't dent its numbers, now though its getting long in the tooth and players are looking for other places to lay their virtual hats and when you start investigating the market there are plenty of games to get stuck into, this was not the case in 2004/5/6. I hope SW:TOR can hold up around the 1 milion mark but time will tell on that it might just be my wishful thinking as I feel they have a fantastic base to build on and thats unlike any MMO since WoW IMO.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Well, yes, if we ignore eq1, eq2, l1, l2, rs, eve, coh, daoc, ff and swg, naming just those above 150k subs...
Flame on!
We are just in an uncanny valley for MMOs right now.
Current MMOs are "better" than the earlier MMOs but in the kind of way that causes them to not be as compelling. In essence in the old days there were a lot of issues in games. But there were enough of them and it was novel enough that it fell to the left of the valley and people were able to ignore the problems. Now it is more like having a humanlike robot with just that little issue that keeps cropping up and making it utterly creepy. So when you have a mistake in a game, it is jarring rather than being ignored.
In the future games will handle this in several ways. One they will be three-offs where they are enough away from the mainstream in style and play etc that they garner a big following for those differences. Another will manage to get to the right of the valley and hit the mainstream dead on. This might not happen for quite some time however -- and with most of the games shooting for it and falling right into the wow-clone valley on the left side -- we can expect a ton more high-dollar failures in the future.
GW2 is such a fail MMO it won't even have 1 sub.
Lolipops !
the Rift numbers look very like AoC, Warhammer and SWTOR did, a sharp hype spike followed by a tank, and the Rift numbers are tanking, they have gone from 600k to 250k. Eve has about 450k subs and people keep calling it niche.
Aion is running at 2.5m subs before it went F2P in the west, even with the 800lb gorilla of WoW. Even Second Life has 800k.
Rift might be a good game from a good company but it's no great shakes in terms of sub numbers. Without WoW it would just be another MMO competing for market share, more like a 30lb monkey.Aion's 2.5m subs are 95% eastern subs, if not more. Aion was never remotely a factor in the west. In terms of western subs its WoW, SWToR, then EvE. After that its probaby only Rift above the 200k mark (assuming Rift is above the 200k mark, theres a chance it isnt) and it wont last the year there if it is, their first big patch since november and first raid since july only brought back enough players to cover the prior week's decline.
I think there will be another MMORPG to sustain 400k subs (or 400k active players) like EQ and WoW did in the west, but its going to take a very good game, which we havent seen in a long time. If I made a list of top 10 MMORPGs of all time the ost recent entry would be LOTRO.
Please could you advise at what distance from your New Jersey home an MMO subscription ceases to count?I love gamers that think game developers are game designers.
Most game developers are coders, tech school certificate holders that spend 100 hours a week dragging and dropping code.
Game designers on the other hand are conceptualist, they are artist, dreamers, and creative.
In the middle should be market researchers, those are the guys and girls that study the target market, get a feel for what we like and don't like then they go back to the game DESIGNER and offer COMPROMISE.. another big word for modern game studios to remember....
Problem is development management.. you know those are the guys in the suits with the business degrees and not a creative bone in thier body, those guys have gotten cheap and lazy. They decided to downsize and cut out the market researches, sometimes even the game designers themselves.
Instead they hand the project to the game developers, yea those tech school lemmings whose total skill set is dragging and dropping code and they say ok make us a 200m game that is going to make us rich.
So as a result we keep gettng exactly the same game, that is because that is all they know how to do.. they learned to do it from exactly the same text book, in exactly the same class.
Side note I attend a ton of conventions and on numerous occasions a geeky kid will come up to a game designer and ask them a creative deep intellectual question, 9 out of 10 times you can see the panic on the developers face and instead of answering the question with the same creative deep intellect it was asked with they laugh it off with some geek comment or other flighty response targeted to get laughs. I see it time and time and time again, the reason they do it is because 90% of the game developers out there are IDIOTS! They do not know the answers and or they are incapable of formulating a response without a manager there to tell them what to say.
I was at a convention recently and this kid has all the technical details of the engine they are using and he asks them why they chose to do some effect in this complicated convuluted way rather than use the engine capabilities and do it in this more effective steamlined way that produced a better effect yada yada bunch of technical stuff I did not understand, the developers look at each other hem and haw and finally respond....
" Well it looked pretty.. hahah"
The kid shook his head in disqust and walked away and I really don't blame him, here were guys that were his heros, guys he idolized, guys that make games for a living, and suddenly he was handed the wake up call they are a bunch of ambivilent morons that are there for a paycheck and don't give a crap about what they are doing or why.
Rift wasn't hyped at all compared to AOC,TOR and WAR.A good many people that bought the game and joined at the beginning had just heard of the game.That's why they tripled the # of servers at launch.The game right now is actually getting people back from what i've seen and many are returning from TOR.I'm not saying it's a population boom,but encouraging.
When I look at subs myself I look at the west,as in NA,EU and Oceanic regions so I don't count games like AION in the east.I look at AION west.Just like WOW and it's 10 mill,how many are west,maybe 4 mill?The thing that stands out to me isif WOW wasn't in the picture when a game released,what might have happened?I think Rift would've benefitted big time.
I would say Rift hasn't tanked at all when you look at subs and look at server numbers and the continued commitment by Trion to further develop the game.
I just like discussing some of these games because I like the genre so much.It's all just my 2c and nothing more.
Research has shown that MOST MMO players play F2P titles, and F2P is obviously on the rise.
Personally, in fact, aside from WOW, i prob will never play a sub title again. There are plenty of decent F2P ones (DCUO, STO, DDO, LOTRO, ......)