I don't see how you guys consider EQN...since it never released...to me a flop is something that was released to the public and wasn't well received. EQN was not in that group. However it was a PATHETIC concept all the way around!! My 2 BTW are FFXIV, and TR.
EQN did pre-release, with paid early access.
Which once you start taking money counts as released in my book
Err, maybe you are are thinking of (EQ) Landmark, I don't believe EQN ever made it to any form of early access.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
EQN for sure. It was a a marquee AAA MMO from a huge studio. You kind of expect indie B level attempts at complex games like MMORPGs to flop so when they do we really shouldn't be all that surprised.
EQN though was a monumental flop of epic proportions.
I believe by the time EQN came along parent corp Sony had become disenchanted with SOE and weren't providing strong financial support for the project.
Probably explains why after announcing EQN the quickly moved to deliver Landmark, to start bringing in money to help build EQN and prove the entire concept had "legs" and was worth funding.
Clearly it wasn't, as not only did Sony sell off the studio, the new owners were not willing to keep investing in it, shutting down Lanmark fairly shortly after acquisition.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Winner: FF XIV online Honorable mentions: APB: All Points Bulletin and Firefall.
I go for ff XIV since its just such a huge company behind such an awful mmorpg. With apb and firefall its more about horribly mismanaged studios burning through a sick amount of investor money.
If I could include projects that never made it to launch Its Everquest Next closely followed by Project Copernicus. WTF were those guys thinking. However, mmorpg projects are shut down all the time because developers understood that the game would be a turd on release. It takes a special something to release that turd so that's why i go for the first three titles mentioned.
Can't agree with FFXIV, sure, 1.0 had a poor launch, but after being reworked it clearly had stood out as one of the more popular MMORPGS in the last 5 years.
Project Copernicus, now there is a real loser, seven years in the making, over $130M wasted including $75M scammed from the State of Rhode Island, looking back its story parallels COEs failures in several ways, but only at a much grander scale.
MOP has a great recap of the sad saga of what happens when people with no game delivery experience try to create the next WOW killer.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I don't see how you guys consider EQN...since it never released...to me a flop is something that was released to the public and wasn't well received. EQN was not in that group. However it was a PATHETIC concept all the way around!! My 2 BTW are FFXIV, and TR.
I hold the same view. For something to have flopped, it needed to first get up out of the water to be able to flop.
Things that never made it to release, are just dead floaters.
IMHO.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
I don't see how you guys consider EQN...since it never released...to me a flop is something that was released to the public and wasn't well received. EQN was not in that group. However it was a PATHETIC concept all the way around!! My 2 BTW are FFXIV, and TR.
For me, EQ Next flopped in our expectations They had some dreams and innovations that we will more than likely never see tried. Destructible voxel worlds and AI that reacts to players' actions I don't think we will ever experience like EQ Next wanted to try.
I understand what you're saying, but EQ Next flopped our dreams and hopes, if that makes sense.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
I don't see how you guys consider EQN...since it never released...to me a flop is something that was released to the public and wasn't well received. EQN was not in that group. However it was a PATHETIC concept all the way around!! My 2 BTW are FFXIV, and TR.
For me, EQ Next flopped in our expectations They had some dreams and innovations that we will more than likely never see tried. Destructible voxel worlds and AI that reacts to players' actions I don't think we will ever experience like EQ Next wanted to try.
I understand what you're saying, but EQ Next flopped our dreams and hopes, if that makes sense.
Exactly what the COE backers said, some were less upset about the money spent vs the dashing of their hopes and dreams.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I don't see how you guys consider EQN...since it never released...to me a flop is something that was released to the public and wasn't well received. EQN was not in that group. However it was a PATHETIC concept all the way around!! My 2 BTW are FFXIV, and TR.
For me, EQ Next flopped in our expectations They had some dreams and innovations that we will more than likely never see tried. Destructible voxel worlds and AI that reacts to players' actions I don't think we will ever experience like EQ Next wanted to try.
I understand what you're saying, but EQ Next flopped our dreams and hopes, if that makes sense.
Exactly what the COE backers said, some were less upset about the money spent vs the dashing of their hopes and dreams.
The only lesson is to stop hyping shit up based on concept and ambition because concepts and ambitions are not games. If something flops in your dreams and hopes the problem is why you got hyped in the first place.
I did that mistake with Warhammer online and Paul Barnett.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
The only lesson is to stop hyping shit up based on concept and ambition because concepts and ambitions are not games. If something flops in your dreams and hopes the problem is why you got hyped in the first place.
I did that mistake with Warhammer online and Paul Barnett.
Theres a live event on in WAR: Return of Reckoning at the moment. As part of it, they've added a model of Paul Barnett to the capitol cities with various audio clips from his over-the-top marketing videos......I thought I might have been hacked when i first started hearing him!
Back on topic, my vote goes to SWTOR.
At the time, largest budget ever for an MMORPG, with the most famous IP in the world, with veterans from Bioware, Mythic and EA working on it. Should have been the greatest MMORPG ever built......
But, it wasnt / isn't an MMO. Their break even point was 500k subscribers, but they dropped below that number about 4 months after release. So, it was a financial failure and critical failure right out of the gate, only pleasing a small minority of it's intended target audience. Since then, it's been a mad dash to recover their lost money through F2P and predatory monetisation whilst minimising costs, hence the low rate of content production post-release.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
EQN for sure. It was a a marquee AAA MMO from a huge studio. You kind of expect indie B level attempts at complex games like MMORPGs to flop so when they do we really shouldn't be all that surprised.
EQN though was a monumental flop of epic proportions.
I believe by the time EQN came along parent corp Sony had become disenchanted with SOE and weren't providing strong financial support for the project.
Probably explains why after announcing EQN the quickly moved to deliver Landmark, to start bringing in money to help build EQN and prove the entire concept had "legs" and was worth funding.
Clearly it wasn't, as not only did Sony sell off the studio, the new owners were not willing to keep investing in it, shutting down Lanmark fairly shortly after acquisition.
Pfft... details, details.
I don't claim to know who at SOE thought what, when and don't really care. What I do know was the hype that led this site to give EQN its 'best of show" award when it was more fully revealed.
And it wasn't just this site - it was huge news across the industry and they certainly threw large amounts of cash and man hours at it for many years. It was failure on a scale seldom seen in game development.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
To me the biggest flops were based on missed potential. Some of these games had sky high ceilings and instead flopped to the ground.
#4 - Hellgate: London - I alpha and beta tested this game. It could have been so, so awesome. Instead it was released way way too soon, lost its fan base, and never recovered.
#3 - Marvel Heroes - A fun game that was thrown on the beach and left to flop in the waves. It had great potential, but never had any real improvements from release. So after an enormous start, it died the death as people got bored of it and suffered from horrible mismanagement. curse you Gazillion!
#2 - Age of Conan - how could they screw this up? This game had a built in fan base, some very well thought out classes, tons and tons of development money, and they sold over 2 million copies at initial release. But BUGS!!!!! and SHIT FOR HIGH END CONTENT!!!!! Those over two million people were a shadow of that a few months later, and Funcom took their money and let that game wither on the vine. Never, ever, ever trust Funcom with your money. The game has improved over the years, but this could have been the true WoW killer with proper pre-release development and just an ounce of effort into its follow up.
#1 - Wildstar - This game had everything except a studio that cared about it. After a great release, nothing was done to improve it until the initial fans were long gone and not in the slightest bit interested in returning. I will give NCsoft credit for staying with this game even though it was obviously losing money (some have suggested that there was a fan with embarrassing pictures of the companies board of directors, possibly involving animals). But it just went nowhere until it finally died.
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
When I was a kid we used to have belly flop contests at the pool. Usually some ruddy faced fat kid won by landing like a beluga.
So among games that flopped, which one flopped the hardest?
I vote Everquest Next. "Sorry guys we're done. It's not fun."
Wow. Like a bug hitting a windshield. Instant death with no meaningful discussion of what really happened.
Honorable (or dishonerable) mention to CoE.
Who gets your vote?
EQN didn't flop because the game was no fun. They tried to push the tech beyond its limits. It was unplayable but still a flop. Worst flop IMO was wildstar. Had a good crue for developers. Everything seemee AAA and the game looked great. I have never been so board playing a great looking game.
Most disappointing failure for me was SOE's TCG...damn Smedley failed at so much.
A full 3D figurine,map like playing surface and yet it failed while Blizzard makes millions from a VERY lazy effort.
OK so let's break it down...
Aesthetics easily goes to SOE. trading ..SOE selling....SOE modes... SOE tournament/table format ...SOE.Reason ,a very small % of the community in HS can get into the tournaments and they only happen once in a blue moon.The idea of daily drafts allows everyone the chance to compete versus the best and everyday.
Most importantly ,just like with MTG we owned our cards to do as we wish,Blizzard does not allow us to own our cards,we have one option,delete them for dust,not much of an option to take a STEEP value loss in our purchases.
Yet Hearthstone is making millions every year...every month.
Point of this long winded speech was that failure is actually more often ,luck and PR more so than the equality of your products.If your really naive then just look at Lu Lu lemons,you think it took a rocket scientist to design those,think it takes a lot of material,expensive material?The guy has made billions of dollars and for little effort,just LUCK.
You think Fortnite is a quality game,LOL,DOTA1/2/Diablo,POE?Pfft they are all lazy cheap game designs,they simply have a MARKET to make money on.It is a no brainer,just look at th eBR,several titles have made money from the simple concept that has been around FOREVER just renamed from Deathmatch to BR.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I don't see how you guys consider EQN...since it never released...to me a flop is something that was released to the public and wasn't well received. EQN was not in that group. However it was a PATHETIC concept all the way around!! My 2 BTW are FFXIV, and TR.
EQN did pre-release, with paid early access.
Which once you start taking money counts as released in my book
Err, maybe you are are thinking of (EQ) Landmark, I don't believe EQN ever made it to any form of early access.
SWG - NGE. Top pick, because it was a cautionary tale. As I see it, for something to be a fantastic flop, like a perfect fail video, you need to be able see how and why it went as bad as it did, like a solid line drive to the nuts, and I really think SWG - NGE, owned that.
Just a bit of interesting trivia.
According to Raph Koster's book, the NGE wasn't the worst for losing subscriber numbers, its comes in second place. Apparently the change that resulted in the most amount of subscriber losses was a patch that changed the amount of XP that groups received. Third place was something to do with the auction house, either it's introduction or some other change that basically made merchants irrelevant. At the time, there were a lot of merchants and they weren't too pleased....
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
I don't see how you guys consider EQN...since it never released...to me a flop is something that was released to the public and wasn't well received. EQN was not in that group. However it was a PATHETIC concept all the way around!! My 2 BTW are FFXIV, and TR.
EQN did pre-release, with paid early access.
Which once you start taking money counts as released in my book
Err, maybe you are are thinking of (EQ) Landmark, I don't believe EQN ever made it to any form of early access.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I don't see how you guys consider EQN...since it never released...to me a flop is something that was released to the public and wasn't well received. EQN was not in that group. However it was a PATHETIC concept all the way around!! My 2 BTW are FFXIV, and TR.
EQN did pre-release, with paid early access.
Which once you start taking money counts as released in my book
Err, maybe you are are thinking of (EQ) Landmark, I don't believe EQN ever made it to any form of early access.
I guess it depends on what the agreed definition of what a flop is.
flop - noun - (informal)
A total failure
I digress.
If we're saying:
1. Betrayal flop - SOE wins hands down with SWG for the damage & total mistrust by a corp caused for so long thereafter
2. Subscription retainment flop - all MMOs lose subs over time but WoW wins the award for a western MMO losing so much
3. Reveiw score flop - Now you have game sites like Gamespot that consider a flop when a game's review score doesn't match the users hype score. There's a whole forum, System Wars, dedicated to users pitting themselves against each other. This would make the number of flops probably legion.
4. Existence flop - These MMOs no longer have the pleasure of gracing us anymore because corps deemed them unprofitable. Vanguard didn't make enough connection with players, Tabula Rasa disintegrated, Matrix Online fell apart, and it goes on.
5. Sub Model flop - Is this considered a flop? Maybe not. These MMOs had to or changed their sub model to stay relevant/afloat.
6. Potential flop - Posters have already listed some in this thread, e.g. Age of Conan great game in Tortage but a mess after etc
I'm thinking 1, 2, & 6 are my definition of flops but others mileage may vary. Also I'm sure there's more ways to think of flops but that's all I have for now.
Some games are good and can succeed if they got rid of the monetization, reduce the hoops you have to jump through to access content or control the ganking that drove players away. Not all games fail because of their inherent poor quality but rather dubious decisions that drove players that would have played but for that reason that made them stop playing.
It isn't easy to simply call a game a flop because it may have its fans and even rabid ones at that. However there are games that just start out so bad that it had no chance at all.
Comments
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Probably explains why after announcing EQN the quickly moved to deliver Landmark, to start bringing in money to help build EQN and prove the entire concept had "legs" and was worth funding.
Clearly it wasn't, as not only did Sony sell off the studio, the new owners were not willing to keep investing in it, shutting down Lanmark fairly shortly after acquisition.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Project Copernicus, now there is a real loser, seven years in the making, over $130M wasted including $75M scammed from the State of Rhode Island, looking back its story parallels COEs failures in several ways, but only at a much grander scale.
MOP has a great recap of the sad saga of what happens when people with no game delivery experience try to create the next WOW killer.
https://massivelyop.com/2019/01/05/the-game-archaeologist-project-copernicus/
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Things that never made it to release, are just dead floaters.
IMHO.
I understand what you're saying, but EQ Next flopped our dreams and hopes, if that makes sense.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I did that mistake with Warhammer online and Paul Barnett.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I don't claim to know who at SOE thought what, when and don't really care. What I do know was the hype that led this site to give EQN its 'best of show" award when it was more fully revealed.
And it wasn't just this site - it was huge news across the industry and they certainly threw large amounts of cash and man hours at it for many years. It was failure on a scale seldom seen in game development.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
#4 - Hellgate: London - I alpha and beta tested this game. It could have been so, so awesome. Instead it was released way way too soon, lost its fan base, and never recovered.
#3 - Marvel Heroes - A fun game that was thrown on the beach and left to flop in the waves. It had great potential, but never had any real improvements from release. So after an enormous start, it died the death as people got bored of it and suffered from horrible mismanagement. curse you Gazillion!
#2 - Age of Conan - how could they screw this up? This game had a built in fan base, some very well thought out classes, tons and tons of development money, and they sold over 2 million copies at initial release. But BUGS!!!!! and SHIT FOR HIGH END CONTENT!!!!! Those over two million people were a shadow of that a few months later, and Funcom took their money and let that game wither on the vine. Never, ever, ever trust Funcom with your money. The game has improved over the years, but this could have been the true WoW killer with proper pre-release development and just an ounce of effort into its follow up.
#1 - Wildstar - This game had everything except a studio that cared about it. After a great release, nothing was done to improve it until the initial fans were long gone and not in the slightest bit interested in returning. I will give NCsoft credit for staying with this game even though it was obviously losing money (some have suggested that there was a fan with embarrassing pictures of the companies board of directors, possibly involving animals). But it just went nowhere until it finally died.
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
A full 3D figurine,map like playing surface and yet it failed while Blizzard makes millions from a VERY lazy effort.
OK so let's break it down...
Aesthetics easily goes to SOE.
trading ..SOE
selling....SOE
modes... SOE
tournament/table format ...SOE.Reason ,a very small % of the community in HS can get into the tournaments and they only happen once in a blue moon.The idea of daily drafts allows everyone the chance to compete versus the best and everyday.
Most importantly ,just like with MTG we owned our cards to do as we wish,Blizzard does not allow us to own our cards,we have one option,delete them for dust,not much of an option to take a STEEP value loss in our purchases.
Yet Hearthstone is making millions every year...every month.
Point of this long winded speech was that failure is actually more often ,luck and PR more so than the equality of your products.If your really naive then just look at Lu Lu lemons,you think it took a rocket scientist to design those,think it takes a lot of material,expensive material?The guy has made billions of dollars and for little effort,just LUCK.
You think Fortnite is a quality game,LOL,DOTA1/2/Diablo,POE?Pfft they are all lazy cheap game designs,they simply have a MARKET to make money on.It is a no brainer,just look at th eBR,several titles have made money from the simple concept that has been around FOREVER just renamed from Deathmatch to BR.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
AC2 Player RIP Final Death Jan 31st 2017
Refugee of Auberean
Refugee of Dereth