"Why are all the MMO's Dying?"

maskedweasel

This is an article I read this morning 

http://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/why-are-all-the-mmos-dying.html/

I think there are some interesting points, and even a nod to current statistics about SWTOR and Destiny.  Perhaps a large part of traditional MMO decline is the saturation of the genre.  Not to mention how many similarities there are between games these days.  

What do you think?

Sovrath

I think there are so many different segments of the mmo population that it doesn't really tell the whole story.

I don't buy that mmo players are going to mobas and games like destiny. I do believe there are players who played mmo's that have gone there but those players who were primarily looking for "a world" aren't necessarily going to move on to something like the division or a moba.

ananit

they are dying because they all have turned into a routine of grinding daily quests to progress. it's like a job that doesn't get you any money. one day you realise that you can't bring yourself to run that dungeon for the Nth time and you just quit.

Theocritus

I dont think the problem is the individual games themselves, but that we the players are so spread out now that it feels like the genre is dying.

Panther2103

Theocritus said:

I dont think the problem is the individual games themselves, but that we the players are so spread out now that it feels like the genre is dying.

It's not the fault of the players that it happened like that though. They are overproducing games like the plague, it's insane. If you want a super specific niche game, you can probably find one or two games that have it, and you are 100% right because of that. If I want to go play a theme park that has quest hub grinding I have option after option (WoW, EQ, EQ2, Rift, SWTOR, LOTRO, AOC, 99% of modern korean releases here) if I want a sandbox game I have plenty of options there too (Istaria, MO, Darkfall, Runescape, Xsyon, Wurm, BDO if you count that, Archeage, and others) it's just nuts how many devs thought they could cash in on the train of lets get the players this, lets get the players that, lets make a clone of this to make money, oh lots of players want this type of game now lets make that. Half of which are half assed broken messes when they come out anyways. I just want more people to flock to a few games, so that they can develop those games further, instead of going to every new release ever looking for their niche until eventually they either end up on these forums complaining or end up finding that game but then realizing the dev team was 5 people who can't keep up with the development cycle so in 10 years the game gets cancelled or just abandoned.

tawess

If i were to make a personal uneducated guess... 

Operational costs. 

That and over saturation. 

Sure your average AAA game is expensive but one it is launched you have a skeleton crew to patch it and apply some duct tape when needed. It costs peanuts. MMO´s does not really have that luxury.

"but WoW..." Yes WoW... The game that broke the mold... You have one or a few of those in every genre. But those days are gone and done.

"So  the division of destiny?" Maybe... Smaller cheaper MMO´s will most surely be the way forward until someone makes it cheaper to run and maintain them, or much cheaper to produce them. 

DrDread74

Perhaps the genre is oversaturated. There are only so many players who want to play MMOs full time but every developer is trying to make a MMO that expects to have 10 million players when there are already 50 MMOs out there. There's only 100+ million working people in America and a lot of them are doing free games on their phone

Ikisis

DrDread74 said:

Perhaps the genre is oversaturated. There are only so many players who want to play MMOs full time but every developer is trying to make a MMO that expects to have 10 million players when there are already 50 MMOs out there. There's only 100+ million working people in America and a lot of them are doing free games on their phone

mmorpg's and gaming in general will peak again in like 20 years after they advance this VR technology into Dreamscape VR.

Derros

Saturated genre, along with more and more games going online and offering forms of persistance, siphoning off even more players.

kjempff

Many players are...
- tiered of being herded through consumable story content.
- tiered of shallow pvp mmo's.
- searching other genres for the freedom mmo's used to give them.
- instant gratification monkeys who want meaningful experiences but doesn't want to put in the effort.
- devouring with incredible speed anything new, forgetting to enjoy it.

Developers are...
- playing it safe, copy catting
- not grasping what a mmo is about, namely being part of a world not a premade story
- underestimating players abilities, and aiming at lowest common denominator
- not focusing on good gameplay mechanics, but instead on meta
- afraid of the players, daring not to cause any kind of discomfort and thereby failing to create anything interesting, create anything challenging.
- using the calculator to make game design decisions

And the list goes on...

nariusseldon

Because there are better competition like MOBAs, online shared world shooters, and ARPGs?

ceratop001

I firmly believe the F2P model had done a lot of damage. It has spread the player base all over the place, and has given rise to tons of cash grab games. Also, the same old formula for mmorpgs has been used over and over and were simply bored with it. I do believe will see some great games in the future.

Uruketo

All the ideas posted here are very valid reasons. I agree with them. One thing I don't see mentioned though is community. If you have the right community for your comfort level you are far more likely to stick around in one game instead of hopping from game to game. That community could be the game community overall, or it could be a specific server, or possibility even the right guild. Find a game that rates as good enough and then couple it with the right community to you and you will find yourself sticking with a single game 5, 10 or more years.

Amathe

The honeybees know. But someone is killing them before they can tell. 

DrunkWolf

They have just become to easy. every year a new one comes out and i can log in and its just like the last 20 i tried but with a new skin. not only that but whats even the point anymore of those games being multiplayer? They are built so every 1 person can do everything and be this " hero " of the storyline that the game forces you to play. Other players are just in your way most of the time.

personally these survival games are offering way more of a challenge and with all the sandbox elements they offer alot more freedom and i seem to be able to play way more hours without getting bored.

Deathofsage

I hold no ill will to anyone that likes to solo in MMOs but Massively Multiplayer Online games have done too much to cater towards that crowd and so you end up with a group of people who don't want to be a group of people.

I've always thought that MMOs trend of having players solo towards cap and then force grouping upon them (instances, raid content, even story content frequently) hurts because people have no idea how to play.

Playing a tank solo, I might learn a good cooldown rotation but I might learn nothing about single-target threat, and most especially multi-target thread. A solo DPS doesn't learn about maximizing DPS, they learn about bursting, making the monster dead before they are. A healer doesn't learn triage, they learn which of their spells do the least-bad damage.

In short, mmo's were fine while they allowed solo players to carve a niche in a world they're anomalies in. I think things started going downhill when they started designing games where people could play together for people who don't want to play together.

eberus321

I don't think that MMO is dying at all. While individually, years before, mmo from previous generations may had lots of player but wasn't that because there were only few MMO back then? LIke someone said, players may just be spread out thin and until someone show me legit chart or something that show the total mmo players of today are less than the total mmo of the pass generations or that the total active mmo players today are less than the total active mmo players of pass generations, in either percentage or just plain numbers. Thinking about it, players before plays a lot more single player than today. I mean, MMO before were not that accessible so it doesn't make sense that today, where playing MMO is as easy as getting single player game (computer and internet are basically part of our daily needs this days) or even easier sometimes, It doesn't really make sense to say that it is a dying genre.  My guess would be because of the media... or  rather, the psychological effect that media gives why people thinks that this particular genre is dying. Try googling "Mean World Syndrome" and "False-Consensus Effect/Bias". For those who are too lazy to do so, (don't worry, I totally understand that laziness, for I too is guilty of it) basically, Mean World syndrome is a psychological phenomenon where, the people who watches tv, tend to think that the world is an unforgiving and intimidating place or basically, more dangerous than it actually is while False Consensus Effect/Bias is where, gonna quote directly from Wikipedia,  is a cognitive bias whereby a person tends to overestimate the extent to which their opinions, beliefs, preferences, values, and habits are normal and typical of those of others (i.e., that others also think the same way that they do).[1] This cognitive bias tends to lead to the perception of a consensus that does not exist, a "false consensus".
So what I'm trying to say is that, it's not that MMO is dying but simply because, there are lots of ppl saying MMO is dying and in this age, it's really easy to have access to such articles that the first poster gave. Basically, it's not dying but we simply are lead to believe it's dying and find it that, our opinion of it is dying, is correct. People who doesn't read about such articles, though rare in this days but still exist (the world is a big place *nods*), probably won't think that MMO is a dying genre.
That's why I don't believe that mmo is dying. Unless of course, someone show me the numbers i had mentioned earlier, the total and active amount of mmo players today compared to the pass generation's.

P.S.
To that ppl who said mmo turned into a daily grind or something, MMO of the old were way more grindy. You basically can't progress on such games if you play it casually. Well you can but don't hope you'll ever reach the cap level and have good gears with your playtime.

GrumpyHobbit

eberus321 said:

P.S.
To that ppl who said mmo turned into a daily grind or something, MMO of the old were way more grindy. You basically can't progress on such games if you play it casually. Well you can but don't hope you'll ever reach the cap level and have good gears with your playtime.

Back in the day not many people really rushed to get there. That only started happening when games were designed with "everything starts at max level" type nonsense where you were expected to rush though the game expecting there to be something exciting to look at when you got there...and there never was. The journey was always the enjoyable part not the destination. 

flguy147

Many things i think has turned players away and different things for different players but i will name a few.  One may not bother one person but turn another person away but the accumulative impact of this has a massive effect.

1.  F2P with cash shops, this is just horrible for me.  I want to acquire mounts, items playing the game not buying them.

2.  Toxic communities/players, this personally has made me not want to group much anymore.  I havent even queued for a vet dungeon in ESO for this reason and this reason only.    Its sad cause i love grouping more than solo but dealing with toxic players is the worst experience i can have in a MMO so i avoid grouping now due to it.

3.  I have been playing MMOs for about 10 years so i dont know what UO or DAOC was about, but to me i personally hate time sink things in order to progress.  That is one reason i loved AOC so much when i played it, i could log on and hop in a raid for a few nights a week with a chance to progress my character.  But now i feel like with all the dailies and crap, i feel like if i miss one day i fall behind in the game. 

4.  Harder now to find good guilds, guilds i feel like are becoming more of people running around with a name on their head.

5.  I feel like players use to help each other more, now players are just so concerned min/maxing that they wont take anytime too help other players as in to go do a dungeon, quest or something cause it doesnt 'benefit' their character.  

6.  I use to be hardcore but now way more casual from a time perspective, i still enjoy extremely hard content but hate time sink content which i feel like games are moving towards.   Make very tough content that can be done only once a week for incredible gear which is kinda how raids are but some games are if you play 1000 hours a month you become the best with best gear instead of the players with the actual best skill. 

These are just some of my thoughts, you may agree or completely disagree but thought i would put this out there.

Hariken

ananit said:

they are dying because they all have turned into a routine of grinding daily quests to progress. it's like a job that doesn't get you any money. one day you realise that you can't bring yourself to run that dungeon for the Nth time and you just quit.

This pretty much covers it for me.

Kyleran

Over the years they kept changing their designs to cater to people who didn't like them in the first place.  

Then that crowd left to chase MOBAS and shooters like Destiny.

Its OK, just makes room for a rebirth of the genre.

Shaigh

So far this year we have had Blade&Soul, Black Desert and Tree of Savior launching in the west. Last year FF14, GW2, SWTOR and Rift all launched expansions. Elder Scrolls Online had a huge launch on consoles last year.

The real problem is that people still think that mmorpg's should be P2P with at least 500k subscribers and fail to accept that f2p/b2p games are profitable.

The genre isn't the way I hope for but that doesn't mean that the genre is dying. If it did we wouldn't have publishers releasing korean mmorpg's in the west.

Sulaa

tawess said:

If i were to make a personal uneducated guess... 

Operational costs. 

That and over saturation. 

Sure your average AAA game is expensive but one it is launched you have a skeleton crew to patch it and apply some duct tape when needed. It costs peanuts. MMO´s does not really have that luxury.

"but WoW..." Yes WoW... The game that broke the mold... You have one or a few of those in every genre. But those days are gone and done.

"So  the division of destiny?" Maybe... Smaller cheaper MMO´s will most surely be the way forward until someone makes it cheaper to run and maintain them, or much cheaper to produce them. 

I think it is other way around.    Only way for AAA full fledged MMORPGs to be back is for playerbase to realise that they need to pay actual money to get such game.   Not 15$/month sub in 2016, not few dollars in CS, not DLCs.

Once no new AAA western MMORPG gets released for 5+ years and even newest one from 2012-2013 will get old and deserted and even mighty WoW will be an dinosaur game played only by most hardcore of fans - then maybe players will realize that if you want AAA MMORPG you have to continesly and regularly pay money to get it or you don't get such product.

Righteous_Rock

MMO are dying because 5% of people have nothing better to do, 95% of the player base doesn't want to grind out gear and spend money in the cash shop.

Make a pure casual no gear grind all purpose driven mmorpg and casuals will play, make 2 of them and casuals will play both of them, make 3 of them and casuals will play them all.

Think about this too - in the area I live in, 10 golf courses have shutdown in the past couple of years, people just do not have the money to blow on some of these things like they did in the mid 90's through 2008 when mmo sprouted and took off.

RavingRabbid

I don't think they are dying at all. There are so many games out there and the players are spread out among them. Go over to the games list and think that several thousand are playing each game at any given time minus the hugely popular ones like WOW.

SpottyGekko

"Valar morghulis - All Men Must Die..."

Everything comes to an end sooner or later. many MMOs' that are running today have been around for 5 or even 10 years. it's inevitable that some of them are going to die soon.