MMO Consumer Trap

Daranar

Anyone else feel like every MMO game is becoming the same?  Of course we are all ranting about this daily.   Then these games in development release info, promising to break the mold, no more WoW cookie cutter.   "Here is our new feature to revolutionize and reinvigorate the genre."   But yet it all feels the same.   SWTOR was going to break the mold with their story driven aspects and VO.   Yet it was just another.   Defiance was supposed to rattle our cages with the whole tie-in to a TV-show.   Yet reviews are coming in, and its just another.    We all want something different, companies promise to break the mold, and then fall right into it?   Why?  Because at the end of the day, we pay, consume, and inadvertantly support it.   Is it time to truly stop supporting "the man's" games?   Will that change anything?   The big companies are solely focused on profit margins, period.   Sure the little guys have to focus on it as well, they have to stay afloat, but are they more concerned with their art, their game?    

But does anyone else feel like I do about independant games?   I constantly ask questions like, "Will it last? or will i put my time into a already sunk game?"  or  "Will their be a sufficient size community?  Will it get the continued content support?  Or will the quality be up to par?"   It does seem to be a safer bet to roll with a major company at times, knowing the support and money is there behind it.    

I say all this but yet my two most anticipated games are Origins of Malu (Independant) and EQ Next (possibly the largest MMO company, SOE)   Complete opposite end of the developer spectrum.   Yet both again promising to bust the mold and be something far out of the current cookie cutter mold....but will they?  Or is the consumer trap too strong?

Aelious

I look at it a little more positively. When an MMO releases with a lot of hype and then tanks a few months later it tells me this: there are a lot of customers but the product isn't good enough to stick around for. This is better than there are no customers there anymore if projects are still to be green-lighted.

They feel the hurt regardless of how the first few months of live go. I've heard many timea that initial box sales make the companies rich so they don't care about the drop. I don't buy that and I think it's more of a conspiracy theory. At least for the big titles.

It's taking longer than it probably should have, millions of subscribers by your competitor is a tough itch to scratch, but we'll be seeing various types of MMOs now that the "grail" is unachievable.

Squeak69

Originally posted by Aelious
I look at it a little more positively. When an MMO releases with a lot of hype and then tanks a few months later it tells me this: there are a lot of customers but the product isn't good enough to stick around for. This is better than there are no customers there anymore if projects are still to be green-lighted.

They feel the hurt regardless of how the first few months of live go. I've heard many timea that initial box sales make the companies rich so they don't care about the drop. I don't buy that and I think it's more of a conspiracy theory. At least for the big titles.

It's taking longer than it probably should have, millions of subscribers by your competitor is a tough itch to scratch, but we'll be seeing various types of MMOs now that the "grail" is unachievable.

that itch isnt really all that bad in the F2P market, where once you get your money and there isnt anything left for people to pay for, the need for people to stick around isnt all that large, and actully more costly due to maintence.

so this rumor has more meat on the bone then you think, and is one i myself beleave in with several companies, but not all of them.

Aelious

Which companies and games we are taking about? Most F2P games have no box sale and conversions are doing everything they can to keep above water. Look at Aion, a model seen as the best F2P model, has been a bust for NC.

TheKraut

Its funny that most games not longer come with a free trial, or at least a demo. I would have NEVER started playing EQ had I not seem the disc at a store with 30 days free play advertised.

Hell, they want you to pay for BETA access at this point and the sad thing is that they do it because they know that they need to dupe enough people into paying early because a good portion of them would have never bought the game after the reviews came out.

I'm sick of people paying for $60 for games almost sight unseen besides a few ideally setup screenshots or 2 minute teaser videos and then finding out the game is garbage. It's sad that this is almost the case all of the time.

pkpkpk

Youthful idealism!!

 

It's time to start stocking up on single player classics. Once you're sick of League of Legends there's nothing left to impress the gamer of refinement.  As for consumer traps, sure, I know people in their 30s who still ping-pong between the latest crappy games, playing one for a few days before going to the next, etc. With the expectancy that this will happen, in fact, companies no longer go the extra mile in their games, and so they all suck; and, in fact, if a company does go the extra mile, generally gamers of refinement are not the target audience, so they will suck anyway.

Four0Six

Said it before and I will say it again. :

"WoW had what? 11 million subs at peak for how many years? Its stupid, 1 hundred plus million a month.....'If you are a game developer or publisher, or even more importantly an inverstor, and don't do everyhting in your power to get a slice of that pie.....you are in the wrong business'"

Now there are countless dissertaions that defend, attack, justify many many angles on the "why's" of that assertion, but fact reamains the stacks of money reresented by the WoW franchise and subsequent production and spin off of the entire online gaming industry show it is capitalism at work. Based on the consumers forking over their continued mounds of cash I could surmise the system is working fine.

As an unbiased outsider, just for perspective, I could point at the eager funding of mere prospects that promise "new and better", as evidance of a growing maliase with the current abundance of games to play. I could also argue that it simply shows that there is an insaitable hunger that needs to be fed. Either way, I see consumers eager to consume.

In closing, I would liked to be allowed to venture forth with an assumption that there is no "Consumer Trap", that isnt meerly the consumer and their desire to consume. The more they are given, the more they will want to consume. They are after all consumers.

itgrowls

unfortunately people will pay for anything it's a given. Even with ample warning about how a game has turned out post launch people will still buy it because they listen to the people who are having their five minutes of fun with it before the devs do something completely idiotic or completely mismanage the game that then directly affects the people who five minutes ago were loving it and didn;t go back and take their original comments on forums out so people still think it's a great game and a great experience.

And then we also have the people who just live to tell us that we're all wrong when it comes to warning people about what these managerial companies have done to bait and switch on some titles post launch, the phrase "this isn't the game we were told it would be" comes out all too often after launch because somewhere along the line someone panicked and said "hey, look at WoW we should be just like them to attract some of their playerbase" and poof a post launch ripoff is born. 

 

Seen it way too many times now, it is an epidemic.

About tired of the 2004 ui's in these titles too. It's 2013, we need updated and fully functional up-to-date ui's. At this point we all know that it's not that difficult to add AOE-selfonly-autoloot with no loot rolls. Seriously.

taus01

 

I have been saying this for over a year and I always get flamed for it. People that buy full price beta or those ridiculous $200+ founders editions with worthless digital items only to get early BETA or ALPHA are the problem. People that pay for crappy unfinished and sloppy thrown together games the likes of SimCity, the ever repeated sports franchises, the never ending shit they sell as call of duty.

I remember the days when we made the companies release Demos and trials before we bought the game. We voted with our wallets and said no to crappy unfinished games. What the FRACK has happened since then that so many people are brainwashed by coporate propaganda: "Games are never finished", "Games are complicated software, they always have bugs", "Why don't you make your own gaming company then" and other nonsense like that.

 

Now, companies want us to pay for testing their Alpha and Beta releases. That is completely ridiculous and i still don't know why on earth any consumer would do that.

Would you do that for any other product, seriously, would you accept these standards from any other product? Surely not! Yet the only industry that gets away with this shit is the gaming industry because WE ALL LET THEM.

It will change, i am sure. The gaming industry will crash again and this whole pile of cow manure will be washed away.

 

 

Jemcrystal

Originally posted by Daranar

Anyone else feel like every MMO game is becoming the same?  Of course we are all ranting about this daily.   Then these games in development release info, promising to break the mold, no more WoW cookie cutter.   ..............................................

Yep.  Sucks no one has a clue what we really want.  I want a genetically evolving fantasy world that is not changed after release by whining PvP'ers.  And is run on a cheap supercomputer that doesn't overpower my old apartment's electrical system.

Magiknight

You hit the nail on the head when you said that the companies only care about profits. It's ironic because so many are going under, like Lucas Arts and Square Enix. They don't give a shit about making a good game. They care about attracting the largest crowd. To attract the largest crowd they have to be as generic as possible. They also have to promise as much as possible. Anything to make you think that you're playing a great game. Most people fall for it, some actually think there couldn't possibly be a better gane. Some actually think the games are getting better. I can't believe I spent money on WoW, TSW, FFXIV, and some others. Makes me want to fing die. But really all these companies care about is money. Anything they say to the contrary is horse crap.

nariusseldon

Originally posted by Daranar

Anyone else feel like every MMO game is becoming the same? 

No. I found there are much variety and a lot of fun.

There is exactly ONE star trek MMO.

There is one D&D, soon to be two.

And there are ARPG with some MMO elements (PoE, D3)

PvP instanced games like LOL, WOT, Star Conflict.

MMOFPS like Defiance with tv tie-in.

I think devs are branching into all sort of different areas. Gaming is good.

Phelcher

Most of these Devs are branching out, from single player games. They are not branchimg out from a sub-genra of online gaming.

Seems some people have not been able to follow the progeny & lineage of mmorpgs

jandrsn

The companies have realized that instead of milking the cow for years, the fastest return is butchering it and selling sub par hamburger. Milk cows make terrible beef, but they say steak and i'll be damned if people don't line up for it, then get angry at people who want better cuts of meat. Oh, you want a ribeye that has flavor, just wait till the next update for it. Why should the mmo mold change when we as consumers are so gullible?