Personally, I think what we see is roughly a 4-era history in online games, where each new era was vastly bigger than its predecessor, and became the primary focus for online gamers. Also, each era support different companies, and so far no company has managed to repeat their success.
It started with ID software and Doom, Quake, Unreal. Basically, action shooters. That genre was the top dog in early online gaming, money-wise and player-wise.
Then came the rise of the MMORPG, of which Blizzard and World of WarCraft became the top dog in business. Persistent game worlds, addictive gameplay and repeatable content within a non-repeatable game progression.
Then came the rise of the console online gaming and the success of the tactical shooter and military games. Even in its heyday, Call of Duty sales ecliped WoW sales easily, not to mentioned the also wildly successful Battlefield series.
Now, today, we have seen the first era fade to all but nothing, the second era seems to be starting in on its sunset, and the third era has probably just surpassed its peak. The MOBA and , by extension, lobby game (think World of tanks, Mechwarrior, Star Conflict etc.) is the new era. Already, the market leader has eclipsed WoWs player numbers by a factor of almost 10 within 4 years, and the top 3 online games are LoL, WoT and Dota2.
As such, I believe that the MOBA genre is simply the new era, and the MMORPG will recede to the niche status of the action shooter, and possibly soon the tactical shooter will follow: Genres that work, that can be successful, but genres that had their biggest moment in the past.
I am very curious if Star Citizen will be able to revive a genre long thought dead, and disprove my thoughts as too small in focus. So far, no genre that was laid to rest has been revived to former glory.
Rubbish.
WOW made 1.04 billion dollars in 2013.
LOL hardly scratched 620 million dollars in 2013.
In economics that means that WOW is still 60% ahead of LOL as an industry.
Those 67 million 'players" simply don't exist in LOL as it would appear the LOL gamers are not even investing 1 dollar PER month in the game.
Accounts created perhaps, but active players ? No way José.
Reasons are Obvious: NO women, ONLY PvP ers and LOTS of yelling by the Chinese owners.
But as stated even FREE to play iOS games done by SuperCell brought in 950 million dollars on a yearly basis,
COD , WOW and LOTS of other games (whether they are ftp or ptp) are still much bigger in what counts : $$$ signs.
It is time to question Chinese PR...
So with WOD launching the total revenue of WOW will be approx. 1.2 BILLION dollars for 2014.
Wake me up when LOL will reach half that number please.
I never understood people could be SOOOO naieve when "player" numbers are concerned. because it is SO SIMPLE to look up revenue for games and see what they REALLY pull these days. BTW World of Tanks did not even reach 300 million, so both games COMBINED still fall short to WOW grossings, while COD easely breaks the 1.5 billion dollars per year...
Ok.. just to bring some of your stats on track.
1. Call of Duty with above 1 billion dollar revenue.. Call of Duty is the best selling computer gaming franchise ever. No other game did that.
2. World of Warcraft(as the only MMO) do have a huge revenue, as it does have a very high investment rate. And not one other game could even closely follow that success in the MMORPG genre.
3. Those MOBA numbers are not that unrealistic(i will not guarantee for every MOBA around, but you can bet Valves numbers of DOTA2 are very accurate.. and i guess the others are not that far off eiter).. and also the investment rate from average 1$ per month is more than likely.. because unlike MMORPGs, MOBAs are actually F2P.. you don't have to pay a dime to play competively, which is completely impossible for most F2P MMORPGs.. in some like DoTA2 you have not even the slightest disadvantage if you invest nothing at all.
4. PvP players within the serious gamers( i don't count here casual gamers, which a playing 1-5 h a month with some facebook, smartphone app or other games, like chess including in windows) were always the majority. What do you think a large margin of the Call of Duty success is coming from? Although Call of Duty gathers all kind of gamers.. whereas the battlefield series is much more popular within pvp players not so much with all others.
5. ROI(Return of Investment) and withit the risk to investment is in MOBAs nowadays(and even more the last few years) a lot(factor 10-100) better than with MMORPGs.. they don't cost a lot to develop, they don't cost as much to maintain, they are not that fragmented(playerbase) as MMORPGs. With MMORPGs you have to target a lot of different target audiences to get a huge following, to be very successful.. in MOBAs it is more or less one audience.
With that all said.. from a developer or investor viewpoint MOBAs are the by a large margin better investment, easier to develop, with a higher rate of success as MMORPGs. Basicly.. within MMORPGs you do only have the one hit wonder World of Warcraft and not a lot else.. at least from a investment viewpoint.
So it is ok to live in your own little bubble and believe whatever you want to believe.. but just because you do it will never become the truth.
Edit: And supercell and those smartphone games are very successful, no question about that.. but nevertheless Riot Games with LOL still did more revenue within their existence as Supercell with all there games combined within their existence. Are both very successful? Yeap. Can it be repeated within the same genre from a other company? Most likely not.
I wouldn't say it was from MOBA games.. This is more like a chicken and egg topic.. I personally think the MOBA (the egg) comes from the change of community player market (the chicken).. not the other way around.. Over the years, I have seen games become more casual (soloable) then ever before.. Even games that once relied on large (30+ player) raids have been nerfed down to nothing more then large groups.. Grouping that used to range from 6 to 10, are now nothing more then 5..
Rather it's the console crowd that play your Call of Duties, or your PC crowd that used to play Counterstrike, or BF, I think the market is changing to more small group/solo esport, then community driven games that are now becoming a thing of the past.. As I have preached before, there are ways to salvage what is left of the original MMORPG genre, and even make it grow, but it will require NEW people in charge of development, because IMO, it's the people in charge now that have LEAD to what we have in esport.. I dare to see one community driven PvE game that focuses on community unification and growth, vs esport / PvP..
Yes. Obviously devs should still copy WoW, instead of LoL .. is that your point?
I wonder why Blizz scrapped Titan and make Hero of the Storm instead ....
Well according to Blizzard, Titan just wasn't fun.
Considering Blizzard's roots, I would think that making a MOBA would be a no-brainer. I'm surprised it took them as long as it did to jump on the bandwagon.
As for the OP....
I don't believe any genre of game ruins another genre of game. I'm also a firm believer in "The Best Is Yet To Come"
Yes. Obviously devs should still copy WoW, instead of LoL .. is that your point?
I wonder why Blizz scrapped Titan and make Hero of the Storm instead ....
To show Riot Games how you make a good MOBA. After all, they did it with the MMORPG genre.
which they certainly will. But the bigger question is whether that reflect industry trends (which i bet every dev is looking at what Blizz is doing) that it is "better" (in making money? in finding an audience? in making the game fun?) to make smaller focused online games, than a big MMO.
Blizzard is diversifying. It signals that and not much more, seems to me. Unless they planned on their next MMO garnering the success of WoW (which would mean cannabalizing its older brother's dying population), what's the point in spending cash to compete with yourself? Had WoW's numbers been in steady decline to the point it was no longer the extreme outlier in the genre, I'd be willing to bet Project Titan would've went ahead as planned. It was a security net. After years, they found they didn't need it. So it's being trashed/repurposed.
Much better to try and achieve the same level of success in another genre. Specifically, new/resurging genres chock full of devs with very little experience (relatively speaking) developing widespread-appeal online games.
Quite the opposite. The rise of the MOBA scene is of benefit to MMORPGs - and MMORPG mechanics (such as character creation, trading, and persistent social lobbies) could be of great benefit to the MOBA scene in the hands of a competent developer.
I say that MOBAs are a positive influence because they represent the popularity of some crucial principles that could greatly improve the way MMOs view combat - especially as it applies to PvP.
- They represent the traditional trinity applied in a much more involved, exciting, and realistic manner - even with barebones resources.
- They carry an aspect that MMORPGs do not, but could certainly benefit from. I'll simply call it "adaptive building" - the ability to change one's item build in response to the situation (the opposing team's successes and builds).
- They show how "tanks" (initiators) can be effectively applied against intelligent opponents and in more realistic, involved ways against player and AI alike.
- They show that skill-intensive play has nothing to do with the number of skills on one's bar - but rather the effective application of these. That's important. The difference between "action combat" MMOs and MOBAs is that MOBAs have gotten the specialization of their skills down pat. Titles like Guild Wars 2 are still struggling with overly generalized skill design and dps-focus.
- They demonstrate a popular demand for skill-based, (more-or-less) equal-grounds PvP and show that PvP, when complex and intuitive enough, has mass appeal.
- Some of the newer mobas (like Dawngate) represent cautious experiments on integrating story into PvP modes (and gameplay as a whole). A more wild story-to-gameplay-integration in a medium like the MMO - which benefits from RvR style PvP and a plethora of PvE modes - would be fantastic.
Perhaps most important, however:
- MOBAs represent a much more deep, multi-layered competitive experience than what is traditionally seen in MMORPG PvP. Their take on multi-objective base defense is reminiscent of Guild Wars 1 GvG, which has been left with no modern MMO equivalent and which is still regarded as being among the best PvP modes.
WoW was the cocaine, MOBAs the crack. The two have resulted in game designers who now roll in a Benz, but peddle shit that never gives you that powerful high.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
@thinktank, I am an mmo player and I love Dota. The only reason I don't play Dota is because I find it tpo much fun and too addicting. Mmos and other games put me to sleep after an hour. MOBAs are too much fun but they get too stressful and require too much concentration. @OP, should I start a topic about how angry birds have influenced MMOs?!
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Comments
Ok.. just to bring some of your stats on track.
1. Call of Duty with above 1 billion dollar revenue.. Call of Duty is the best selling computer gaming franchise ever. No other game did that.
2. World of Warcraft(as the only MMO) do have a huge revenue, as it does have a very high investment rate. And not one other game could even closely follow that success in the MMORPG genre.
3. Those MOBA numbers are not that unrealistic(i will not guarantee for every MOBA around, but you can bet Valves numbers of DOTA2 are very accurate.. and i guess the others are not that far off eiter).. and also the investment rate from average 1$ per month is more than likely.. because unlike MMORPGs, MOBAs are actually F2P.. you don't have to pay a dime to play competively, which is completely impossible for most F2P MMORPGs.. in some like DoTA2 you have not even the slightest disadvantage if you invest nothing at all.
4. PvP players within the serious gamers( i don't count here casual gamers, which a playing 1-5 h a month with some facebook, smartphone app or other games, like chess including in windows) were always the majority. What do you think a large margin of the Call of Duty success is coming from? Although Call of Duty gathers all kind of gamers.. whereas the battlefield series is much more popular within pvp players not so much with all others.
5. ROI(Return of Investment) and withit the risk to investment is in MOBAs nowadays(and even more the last few years) a lot(factor 10-100) better than with MMORPGs.. they don't cost a lot to develop, they don't cost as much to maintain, they are not that fragmented(playerbase) as MMORPGs. With MMORPGs you have to target a lot of different target audiences to get a huge following, to be very successful.. in MOBAs it is more or less one audience.
With that all said.. from a developer or investor viewpoint MOBAs are the by a large margin better investment, easier to develop, with a higher rate of success as MMORPGs. Basicly.. within MMORPGs you do only have the one hit wonder World of Warcraft and not a lot else.. at least from a investment viewpoint.
So it is ok to live in your own little bubble and believe whatever you want to believe.. but just because you do it will never become the truth.
Edit: And supercell and those smartphone games are very successful, no question about that.. but nevertheless Riot Games with LOL still did more revenue within their existence as Supercell with all there games combined within their existence. Are both very successful? Yeap. Can it be repeated within the same genre from a other company? Most likely not.
I wouldn't say it was from MOBA games.. This is more like a chicken and egg topic.. I personally think the MOBA (the egg) comes from the change of community player market (the chicken).. not the other way around.. Over the years, I have seen games become more casual (soloable) then ever before.. Even games that once relied on large (30+ player) raids have been nerfed down to nothing more then large groups.. Grouping that used to range from 6 to 10, are now nothing more then 5..
Rather it's the console crowd that play your Call of Duties, or your PC crowd that used to play Counterstrike, or BF, I think the market is changing to more small group/solo esport, then community driven games that are now becoming a thing of the past.. As I have preached before, there are ways to salvage what is left of the original MMORPG genre, and even make it grow, but it will require NEW people in charge of development, because IMO, it's the people in charge now that have LEAD to what we have in esport.. I dare to see one community driven PvE game that focuses on community unification and growth, vs esport / PvP..
Yes. Obviously devs should still copy WoW, instead of LoL .. is that your point?
I wonder why Blizz scrapped Titan and make Hero of the Storm instead ....
To show Riot Games how you make a good MOBA. After all, they did it with the MMORPG genre.
Well according to Blizzard, Titan just wasn't fun.
Considering Blizzard's roots, I would think that making a MOBA would be a no-brainer. I'm surprised it took them as long as it did to jump on the bandwagon.
As for the OP....
I don't believe any genre of game ruins another genre of game. I'm also a firm believer in "The Best Is Yet To Come"
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
which they certainly will. But the bigger question is whether that reflect industry trends (which i bet every dev is looking at what Blizz is doing) that it is "better" (in making money? in finding an audience? in making the game fun?) to make smaller focused online games, than a big MMO.
Much better to try and achieve the same level of success in another genre. Specifically, new/resurging genres chock full of devs with very little experience (relatively speaking) developing widespread-appeal online games.
Quite the opposite. The rise of the MOBA scene is of benefit to MMORPGs - and MMORPG mechanics (such as character creation, trading, and persistent social lobbies) could be of great benefit to the MOBA scene in the hands of a competent developer.
I say that MOBAs are a positive influence because they represent the popularity of some crucial principles that could greatly improve the way MMOs view combat - especially as it applies to PvP.
- They represent the traditional trinity applied in a much more involved, exciting, and realistic manner - even with barebones resources.
- They carry an aspect that MMORPGs do not, but could certainly benefit from. I'll simply call it "adaptive building" - the ability to change one's item build in response to the situation (the opposing team's successes and builds).
- They show how "tanks" (initiators) can be effectively applied against intelligent opponents and in more realistic, involved ways against player and AI alike.
- They show that skill-intensive play has nothing to do with the number of skills on one's bar - but rather the effective application of these. That's important. The difference between "action combat" MMOs and MOBAs is that MOBAs have gotten the specialization of their skills down pat. Titles like Guild Wars 2 are still struggling with overly generalized skill design and dps-focus.
- They demonstrate a popular demand for skill-based, (more-or-less) equal-grounds PvP and show that PvP, when complex and intuitive enough, has mass appeal.
- Some of the newer mobas (like Dawngate) represent cautious experiments on integrating story into PvP modes (and gameplay as a whole). A more wild story-to-gameplay-integration in a medium like the MMO - which benefits from RvR style PvP and a plethora of PvE modes - would be fantastic.
Perhaps most important, however:
- MOBAs represent a much more deep, multi-layered competitive experience than what is traditionally seen in MMORPG PvP. Their take on multi-objective base defense is reminiscent of Guild Wars 1 GvG, which has been left with no modern MMO equivalent and which is still regarded as being among the best PvP modes.
@OP, should I start a topic about how angry birds have influenced MMOs?!
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.