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The Decline of MMOs
borghive49
Member RarePosts: 493
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borghive49
Member RarePosts: 493
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You do realize that apart from WoW, nobody was even close to touching 1mil active players 10 years ago? Just because WoW lost at least 2/3 of it's playerbase (due to better alternatives) over the years, that doesn't mean that the MMOs are declining. WoW is declining, FFXIV is growing, ESO is growing, and I'm sure many others are doing fine as well.
When MMOs go back to 100k of active players (at best), then by all means talk about the decline of the genre. As for now, we have some MMOs that are supported by several millions of active players.
I get it that some veterans don't like the newer MMOs, but please don't act like the majority doesn't either.
One person's manifesto doesn't make it so. Sounds more like fake news.
To be clear, one person actually co-developed one of the first virtual worlds, has and continues to write and educate about them to this day.
The other is a random poster on a gaming forum who thinks it's "hip" to throw terms like "fake news" at opinions they don't like.
It's like a typical movie-goer saying "One person's manifesto doesn't make it so" in response to Steven Spielberg talking about the state of the movie industry, referring to it as "fake news".
Hopefully you can see the chasm of difference between the two, and which side of that chasm you find yourself on.
That said, Richard's "manifesto" is damn insightful and hits many points that even those working in the industry have acknowledged - including key people on WoW.
In short, they believe it to be more profitable to offer a larger audience a shorter and shallower virtual experience, than it is to provide a more robust and tailored experience for a smaller audience for a longer period of time. This design has been weighed in the balance by big game companies and venture capital firms, and been found wanting. Thus, there are less mainstream games in development.
At this point, it's safe to say that that paradigm is over and the future belongs to games of higher quality for targeted audiences.
As for ESO, it's active playerbase is actually growing on a year-by-year basis. 2016 was the biggest year ESO has ever had since release, even though the PC release was back in 2014 and Console release back in 2015.
I can't tell you if the DLCs are bringing back the players that left, or if ZOS is constantly bringing in new players. If I had to guess, it's probably a bit of both. Now yes you're right some players will leave in between the DLCs, but when you draw the line at the end of the year, you'll notice that ESO is actually doing better with each year. That's a sign of a growing game, not of one that is declining.
Anyways this topic wasn't to discuss people's different habits than 10-20 years ago. OP claimed that MMOs are declining when in reality stats claim othervise. I'll just leave with this, how many MMOs have sold 5+ million of copies, and who are they? When have they released?
People love to point to all the MMOs that fail and say "see... that proves "x-concept" doesn't work", but then ignore all those that do succeed, and have for years now. It's just confirmation bias.
If someone opens a 50s themed burger joint, and they fail horribly and have to go out of business, it doesn't mean "50s themed hamburger joints can't make money". It means their product and/or service wasn't adequate.
No one has to prove that a MMORPG experience such as Bartle describes, or Pantheon seeks to create can work. We already know it can, because it has for over a decade now. Several MMORPGs designed around that "focus on a core player type and don't try to appeal to everyone" approach are still going 10+ years on and, in some cases, still earning a subscription every month.
Do they have massive player bases? No. But again, they don't have to.
Look at Istaria, or Ryzom. Those games are both still running, and are like... a niche within a niche. They have tiny communities compared to other MMOs out there. Yet, they're still going and people are still playing and enjoying them. Who is anyone else to tell them otherwise because "they don't have WoW-like numbers" (as so many love to do)?
Warcraft became super popular and what followed was company after company make MMORPG's and fail. I guess everyone has their own take on why they all failed, i certainly do. Wrath was the time when (in my opinion) the game started to lose its soul and what i saw was MMO after MMO copying what WoW had become rather than what WoW was.
I dont think the genre is dead or in decline (at least not in a numbers sense) as someone said in an earlier post a lot of MMO's these days have a much higher player base than games like EQ and SWG did in their day. Whats been in decline is the quality of the product and as such players are forever hopping from game to game with short attention spans.
You use Blizzard as your example, but didnt they spend millions on developing a new MMO and fail?
They wouldnt have gone down that path unless there was still a large demand for quality MMORPG's.
If you think all they're doing is "cloning EQ with better graphics", then you haven't been paying any attention to what Pantheon actually is or what they're creating. Again, it has been explained many times, including by Brad himself, that they are not looking to just recreate EQ with better graphics. All the information is out there, on their site and elsewhere.
I understand there are people in this community who want to see Pantheon crash and burn... But you could at least try being more informed and less disingenuous when you talk about it.
"In the age of information, ignorance is a choice".
Even WoW managed to keep an exponentially higher percentage of their audience between expansions for the first 3 years. That's because they modeled it after EQ, to be consumed slower, and as a result every accomplishment felt more significant.
MMORPGs were designed to be long-term endeavors that provide an interactive world for players to inhabit. When that doesn't happen, those worlds become lifeless backdrops.
not games
AAA games
indies games of which are rising in popularity do not have this problem and they are part of the 'games' bucket
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Today the game throw the content on you and rushes you to max level even if you play very casual. At max level you suddenly already done 90% of the content in ultraspeed, the rest will feel slow and boring after that meaning you'll quit.
People might be in more hurry today and have less tolerance to boredom (I blame smartphones) but that is just a part of the problem, I think the games in themselves creates a lot of it.
We did see games that have similarities with mmorpg, a themepark shooter like destiny which will get a sequel and survival sandboxes like dayz, h1z1 and ark: survival evolved just to name a few. Even amazon got on board of developing a game.
I'm not sure why people would want another AAA mmorpg, if you didn't enjoy Rift, Swtor, FF14, GW2 and ESO chances are that you won't enjoy the next AAA budget game anyway. Just because you don't like the existing games doesn't mean that the genre is declining/dying.
A goodly portion left which is what many games were trying to correct.
Both and the ladder indicates the profitability of MMOs. Any smart investors will be looking over revenue numbers in the industry.
/facepalm
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
McDonalds may not have healthy food but their market is absolutely healthy.
You can't compare the health of a food to the health of an industry.