Wow Classic might be the last AAA MMO we ever see

vtravi

There are none in developement right now and the absoulety massive costs to make one makes me think this might be the last one we see. Anyone think a developer will have the balls to spend $200M on a MMO? (WE will get plenty of Indy MMO's which hopefully will be great)

luclinraider

Star Citizen is def fixing to be the next big time MMO.

Will we see it in the next 10 years....who knows?

But its already in its early alpha created a larger universe to roam than any mmo has ever done....so a finished product should bring quite a bit of praise.

demoncrpt480

That is the dumbest uninformed post I have seen in some time. There are a minimum of FIVE that I can list and future ones that are revamping the genre along with statements from big companies about new Graphics engines etc. This is a definite shitpost. 

Avanah

Played WoW since Beta 2004 (It was the biggest topic here at MMORPG), Quit during BFA...Ready to go back in Time!

Celcius

vtravi said:

There are none in developement right now and the absoulety massive costs to make one makes me think this might be the last one we see. Anyone think a developer will have the balls to spend $200M on a MMO? (WE will get plenty of Indy MMO's which hopefully will be great)

This is not really true. Amazon is working on a LOTR MMO, NC Soft might be working on something (hard to keep track with all their mobile titles), Star Citizen, CU,  and Pantheon. Yes, I would consider the last two AAA style MMOs. Honestly the phrase "AAA" game means jack all these days. I would say, if anything, it means the game will be worse and filled to the brink with MTX / bad monetization schemes. There are plenty of games we call "Indie" that aren't really. To me, indie is when there is 1-5 people working on a game. This would include people working on marketing,art,programming, ec.

AAAMEOW

I'm more inclined to believe wow cost around 60 million to develop. 

Google front page says it cost 200 million for development + first four year...  Not sure if I believe in the numbers.  Every game just throwing up big numbers these days.  

But I think the moral of the story is beside large initial development cost, it'll cost a bunch if you have a large team for maintenance. 

I read an interview Ash of creation budget is aim for 30 million budget to complete.   Google says camelot unchained currently raised 17 million.

There are articles which says black dsert cost 1 million dollar initial budget (lol, I don't believe that).  I think it says the company now have 140 employess.  So it grow much bigger now.

Kyleran

demoncrpt480 said:

That is the dumbest uninformed post I have seen in some time. There are a minimum of FIVE that I can list and future ones that are revamping the genre along with statements from big companies about new Graphics engines etc. This is a definite shitpost. 

So list them already, or are you just blowing smoke? 

Oh yes, AAA MMO would have a budget of say...$150M plus, heck we've got indie MMOs with $250M in the plan so far.

Groqstrong

vtravi said:

There are none in developement right now and the absoulety massive costs to make one makes me think this might be the last one we see. Anyone think a developer will have the balls to spend $200M on a MMO? (WE will get plenty of Indy MMO's which hopefully will be great)

Scary thought right, damn.  Hope it all turns around.

AAAMEOW

Kyleran said:

demoncrpt480 said:

That is the dumbest uninformed post I have seen in some time. There are a minimum of FIVE that I can list and future ones that are revamping the genre along with statements from big companies about new Graphics engines etc. This is a definite shitpost. 

So list them already, or are you just blowing smoke? 

Oh yes, AAA MMO would have a budget of say...$150M plus, heck we've got indie MMOs with $250M in the plan so far.

I think 50 million to 60 million is big budget already.  Wow, GW2, Rift type budget.

Kyleran

AAAMEOW said:

Kyleran said:

demoncrpt480 said:

That is the dumbest uninformed post I have seen in some time. There are a minimum of FIVE that I can list and future ones that are revamping the genre along with statements from big companies about new Graphics engines etc. This is a definite shitpost. 

So list them already, or are you just blowing smoke? 

Oh yes, AAA MMO would have a budget of say...$150M plus, heck we've got indie MMOs with $250M in the plan so far.

I think 50 million to 60 million is big budget already.  Wow, GW2, Rift type budget.

In 2004 that was big money, today not so much. There are single player games rumored to be costing upwards of $200M to $300M when marketing costs are factored in.

Let's say $100M then...

MMOExposed

cu

Sovrath

vtravi said:

There are none in developement right now and the absoulety massive costs to make one makes me think this might be the last one we see. Anyone think a developer will have the balls to spend $200M on a MMO? (WE will get plenty of Indy MMO's which hopefully will be great)

would you do it? given how so many games fail?

Take a significant amount of your own money and invest in an mmorpg?

Phry

Sovrath said:

vtravi said:

There are none in developement right now and the absoulety massive costs to make one makes me think this might be the last one we see. Anyone think a developer will have the balls to spend $200M on a MMO? (WE will get plenty of Indy MMO's which hopefully will be great)

would you do it? given how so many games fail?

Take a significant amount of your own money and invest in an mmorpg?

If i was seriously rich, then yeah, i would pay for a Traveller MMO to be made, even if it is ultra niche and hardly anybody else wanted to play it

Kyleran

Sovrath said:

vtravi said:

There are none in developement right now and the absoulety massive costs to make one makes me think this might be the last one we see. Anyone think a developer will have the balls to spend $200M on a MMO? (WE will get plenty of Indy MMO's which hopefully will be great)

would you do it? given how so many games fail?

Take a significant amount of your own money and invest in an mmorpg?

I actually wouldn't even if it was someone else's money and they asked me to invest it for them.

Sovrath

Kyleran said:

Sovrath said:

vtravi said:

There are none in developement right now and the absoulety massive costs to make one makes me think this might be the last one we see. Anyone think a developer will have the balls to spend $200M on a MMO? (WE will get plenty of Indy MMO's which hopefully will be great)

would you do it? given how so many games fail?

Take a significant amount of your own money and invest in an mmorpg?

I actually wouldn't even if it was someone else's money and they asked me to invest it for them.

Exactly! 

So many people complain that companies don't "take chances" aren't brave enough to step up to the plate (so to speak). Well, there are small indy devs who are willing and who would LOVE to have extra money.

If course, then people will say "well they are indy who knows what the quality will be." Ok, fair enough. But then the larger companies who take those chances will want a certain return on their investment or else it's not worth it.

Never mind the risk involved if it doesn't pan out.

Azaron_Nightblade

The lack of news is disconcerting. I don't think this will be the last "AAA" MMO (not even sure if something recycled even counts as the "latest" AAA MMO), but we're not likely to see another MMO race like we had years ago, with every major company jumping in.

We'll probably continue to see our share of Korean games and Indies for the most part, with the occasional ambitious Western MMO like New World, the Lord of the Rings game that's in development and Magic the Gathering. Although I'm going to guess that the MtG MMO is going to be cheap trash that looks hideous and has loot boxes up the wazoo, considering it's a PWE game.

The real Western AAA MMO "releases" are probably the expansions to the major titles out there. I'm pretty sure that FFXIV's Shadowbringers wasn't cheap to produce for example, and neither was ESO's latest xpac.

Kyleran

While I enjoy slagging on them,  I believe Pearl Abyss will be a major player in the coming decade.

They seem to have a good grasp on what their market segment wants and the talent to deliver the goods.

Azaron_Nightblade

Kyleran said:

While I enjoy slagging on them,  I believe Pearl Abyss will be a major player in the coming decade.

They seem to have a good grasp on what their market segment wants and the talent to deliver the goods.

They're also a company that's grown ridiculously fast over the last couple of years, yeah.

I'm curious as to what their new project will be. The one they're building the new engine for.

I absolutely hate their monetization tactics though.

Viper482

Who cares about AAA? Indie is where it's at now. We don't need another AAA WoW clone.

Azaron_Nightblade

Viper482 said:

Who cares about AAA? Indie is where it's at now. We don't need another AAA WoW clone.

We do need games that actually release though

Viper482

Azaron_Nightblade said:

Viper482 said:

Who cares about AAA? Indie is where it's at now. We don't need another AAA WoW clone.

We do need games that actually release though

Says the guy with the Ashes of Creation link in his sig lol. 

Agreed....but you can either wait for the Indie MMORPG's in actual development or keep on that pipe dream that a AAA MMORPG will poof out of thin air. Good luck.

Sovrath

Phry said:

Sovrath said:

vtravi said:

There are none in developement right now and the absoulety massive costs to make one makes me think this might be the last one we see. Anyone think a developer will have the balls to spend $200M on a MMO? (WE will get plenty of Indy MMO's which hopefully will be great)

would you do it? given how so many games fail?

Take a significant amount of your own money and invest in an mmorpg?

If i was seriously rich, then yeah, i would pay for a Traveller MMO to be made, even if it is ultra niche and hardly anybody else wanted to play it

Well, truth be told, if I was "seriously rich" I'd make my own. It would be for the most niche audience though and I'd have to make it so that it didn't need to make money.

But, I imagine I didn't get seriously rich from investing in mmorpg's!

Panther2103

I think the AAA MMORPG space doesn't show enough of an audience for newer titles for that large of an investment to be made into something that could either do great or flop, with MMO's there usually isn't an in between and investors likely aren't large fans of that. 

I don't know that a playerbase could handle a new AAA MMORPG either. The requirements players have for newer games tend to be so high, that if there is anything in the way of them having the carrot to motivate them to keep playing, they will just quit and go back to whatever they were playing before. The content would need to be immense, the game has to have minimal bugs and issues, and then any other choice regarding leveling or PvP could either bring more players in or completely kill off the audience. It's too much of a gamble.

I love that Indie devs are making MMORPGs though, and I'm hoping we get at least one or two that are successful so that the genre keeps getting new additions. I'm just hoping people are willing to look past the parts of the games that the indie devs have to skimp on due to constraints. 

p4ttythep3rf3ct

I'm no time-traveller, but I imagine we will still see AAA MMOs released after WoW.

Aurelt

To be honest AAA is cheap for an MMORPG. In todays standards 150-300mil is nothing special for a single player game. For example we already had AAAA game (kinda mmo) and that is Destiny. the budget for the game was almost a billion (including all the expansions and destiny2). Destiny with all the expansions and sequel is considered one game. it just that the business strategy was to divide it into expansions and sequels. 
And as you see that term AAA is not being used that often in singe player games because its nothing special. you can't flex with it anymore. it's like driving 15 year old ferrari. 
Gaming industry is projected to grow in the next 10 years. so by that time we will see business strategies revolving around AAAA term more often. because that term is still impressive and could potentially intrigue people 

vtravi

Sovrath said:

vtravi said:

There are none in developement right now and the absoulety massive costs to make one makes me think this might be the last one we see. Anyone think a developer will have the balls to spend $200M on a MMO? (WE will get plenty of Indy MMO's which hopefully will be great)

would you do it? given how so many games fail?

Take a significant amount of your own money and invest in an mmorpg?

No way would I take the chance. The best we get these days is Destiny or Division type games. I really hope they add content to Classic and make it kind of a new MMO. I don't want them to go to TBC I would rather just stay in Azeroth