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Why did MMOs become about the money and numbers?
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That is no harm, that is a fact - companies become bigger. Same goes for the rest of your post, you are not clearing out what is supposed to represent the harm you speak of, you only talk about things that are different but that alone does not make them any better or worse.
It boils down to 2 situations:
1) You believe game are somewhat worse than they used to be and then I point you out to my rose tinted glasses comment.
2) Games did not become worse and you are just not making any point nor sense.
Your ranting is lacking substance, it's just silly.
But fair enough, it was my bad when I thought you have something to say...
Didn't we already talk about spreading lies on the forums, DF?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
That's right and the bottom line is, most game developers are not in the business to make games for themselves. They make games to make money, which in turn pays the bills and feeds the family. Some designers are fortunate enough that their preferences coincide with the segment they are trying to serve, but I doubt this is the norm.
But Scot's beef must be with the fact that developers are not making games for specifically for him. And this is what fuels his rants.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Misdirect all you want, but AoC and SWTOR would have killed to have a 500k growing subs like EQ did. LotRO too. Instead they continuiously shrink, merge servers, and then go FTP.
And yet the end up at the same place. 500k subs.
No, they don't. If you think 500k people were paying subscribers to AoC before it went FTP you're delusional.
And even if that were the case, hypothetically, the big difference is, old MMOs were made on a much smaller budget, reaching 500k was great. An MMO like AoC that took 100 million at least? Having 500k is beyond failure. And don't just let me do the talking, look up the articles of AoC's launch, TWO partners of Funcom's went bankrupt due to the failure, and most of the staff got layed off. Hell, AoC's marketing budget was probably bigger than the entire budget of two pre WoW MMOs combined.
I don't know what Aoc had before. I do know that DAOC, SWG, UO and AC would have liked to get 500k subs as well.
I do know that swtor has 500k subs.
And yes you are right that they were made on a much smaller budget. There are also 100 x more mmo games today than before. Having 500k was not as much as they hoped but it was what they needed. That was the devs themselves saying that.
Any game today reaching 500k subs with this many games is pretty amazing.
The number of AAA MMOs competing against one another is the same size if not SMALLER than in the past. Pre WoW you had EQ, UO, AO, DAoC, SB, SWG, AC, EnB, L1, L2, FF11, and CoH all fighting one another. Almost all of them were AAA MMOs of their time.
Nowadays, you have, LotRO, AoC, WoW, EQ2, SWTOR, Rift, DCUO, STO, GW, and... that's about it for big budget MMOs. Count that, compare it to the previous list, and keep in mind that there are many MANY more players in the MMO space and way more people with cable internet than there were in pre WoW days.
SWTOR, most expensive MMORPG ever made, only 500k subs (which, we know based on their numbers is way more than they actually have). That's sad. That's what happens when publishers run things, they churn out garbage MMOs.
Meanwhile we have games like Eve, making MMOs like they used to be made in pre WoW days, steadily growing to be the second biggest MMO on the market.
Comparitively there are tons of players now too. There were dozens and dozens and dozens of MMOs back then, but the only ones people talked about then, and the only ones people largely talk about now, are the AAA titles. And comparing the two times, there were more AAA titles in competition then than there are now.
Many of the games on this site aren't MMOs, and of the games listed on this site, some aren't even running anymore.
Whether they meet anyone's strict definition of what an MMO should be or not, the point remains that they have significant enough overlap within the segment that most of those hundreds of games are competing for the same MMO segment time and dollars.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
NO you don't.. You wish they did.. At one point when TOR had dozens of servers, at one point over 100.. But not now.. The population of TOR dropped faster then a prom dress.. LOL TOR has 17 servers, and you can not put that many active accounts on that many servers.. Most people on the forums everywhere are estimating that TOR is in the 200,000 ballpark.. The only ones I ever hear spouting large numbers are fans that wish their team was number 1..
You think I see through rose tinted glasses about the past; I think you see through rose tinted glasses about the current day. I will leave you with this quote as I doubt we will get further on this issue:
"The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."
I don't think it is an issue that we have many games on the list that are not MMO's. Most are 'MMO like' or as was said compete in the same space. I would say though that with every game heading towards having multiplayer content we may end up in a situation were every game released could justifiably be in the same space. So that's one to watch out for.
Where I raise objections is in the like of Nari's thread where he justifies his opinion on what MMO's are by what games are on the game list of sites like this. The Mods are not applying some sort of complex equation to see if a game is a MMO or not. If it is popular, only online and has a couple of MMO elements to gameplay it gets in, that seems to me to be their main criteria.
World of Warcraft is when games became about money... and not the game.
Not the game itself, but the era of cable modems and kids (aka: WoW)
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
The "buy in" for releasing an MMORPG is around ten million dollars.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131252/applying_risk_analysis_to_.php
That ten million dollars gets spent over five years or so of development time. Unless the MMORPG is somehow self funded, the investors have to be paid back. Ten million dollars isn't chump change, never mind the interest.
That's why MMORPGs are about the numbers, because the money and the numbers because the money and the numbers are what determines if it survives or not.
Taking it a step further, in theory if more money is invested, and higher numbers are achieved, then more money will be made. It's kind of like MMORPGs are the developers' avatars and they are constantly trying to achieve higher skill levels with their charisma.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
there was also perceived glut of mmos preWOW
Microsoft didnt think they could compete w SOE and pulled the plug on Mythica
Flood of games, too few players cause change in online realm
Boston Globe article, Feb 2004
http://otherworlds31279.yuku.com/topic/1167/Online-games-failuresuccess-Boston-Globe-article#.UiNBYE2uJp8
Spurred by the success of EverQuest, lots of companies began launching persistent online role-playing games, without thinking through the demands of the market. "Too many products got created, to be used by too few customers," said Jeffrey Anderson, CEO of Westwood-based Turbine Entertainment Software, developer of another successful online game, Asheron's Call. "It's like we all decided we all wanted to create our own version of MTV."
EQ2 fan sites
This doesn't really mean anything. You're claiming that the typical MMO nowadays costs $10 million dollars. I don't know if that's true or not, and in our previous discussions you never cited any kind of example. But supposing it is true, it's not an argument for anything. The point people are making is that MMO's when down the path of more polish, better graphics, more "content" rather than the path of more simulation and deeper gameplay. The former costs more money than the latter.
What you believe is irrelevant.
It costs a lot of money to produce MMORPGs. Unless the develop pulls that money out of their own pocket, the money has to be paid back. That's when an MMORPG becomes about money and numbers.
Richard Garriott didn't self fund Ultima Online. He had to convince investors that there would be enough money, because of the numbers that Ultima Online was worth the investment. This isn't exclusive to MMORPGs, this is for any game that gets made. Self Funded = not have to worry about the money or numbers, Funded by Investors = have to worry about the money and numbers.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
There's a difference between a developer getting funding from somebody to make the game they've envisioned and a developer making a game that is solely designed to make money.
And if the $10 million dollars number isn't supposed to mean anything, then why bring it up? If it's not a "hey look how expensive MMO's can be to produce" then why do you keep throwing it out there? I'm saying it's a bogus number because even if it is true, it's based on the current standards, not the standards of what could've been if MMO's took the other path of more simulation and deeper gameplay instead of the more expensive path of content, polish and graphics.
And like I said, there were just as many, if not more, online games in the past competing for a much smaller market. There were absolutely more AAA MMORPGs pre WoW than post WoW>
So many bad points I don't know where to start.
First of all, I didn't realize that EA was a charity organization...
Wait, it wasn't, it was about making money since day one, like every company that is made to make money. The difference lies in experience and popularity of genre.
You want to know why UO is so good to you? Because back in the days the only market belonged to hardcore gamers. If you wanted profit, you appealed to them (probably to you). Now if you want a profit you appeal to masses, that are no longer hardcore gamers (probably you). You know what has not changed? Yep, profit. It was, is and will be always about making money, since that is a reason you make a company in the first place.
Its success has nothing to do with money or numbers. But if you want to go into money and numbers, then most of current EA's "failed" mmo's, if not all beat UO in profits.
Why do you try to give personality to something artificial like a company? It is a system, not a person. A company "loved" games, but now it became "greedy". What are you referring to as "company"? Is it a being? Are you referring to people that work there? Those people changed over years, but their goals didn't change. They are still passionate about their work and try to be as creative as they can in their environment. Only strategies change, not characters. I find it wierd that you talk about a company like about some being with conciousness... Name people that you find guilty.
It was always about numbers. A bunch of guys make a game in their basement for fun and to bring joy to other people. If those guys create a company, they want to earn money for their work to feed their families. There was never such thing as charity organizations for developing games. And you are wrong if you think that those people that work in the industry don't love making games, it is still all about passion.