What are the effects of MMORPGs on the video game market?

Comments

• evirus Member Posts: 37

  October 2006

  i remember back in the day expansion packs were rare and if then, a one time deal. now it seems every game must have an expansion pack, some more then one(sims anyone?)

  blah
• godpuppet Member Posts: 1,416

  October 2006

  pwn
  
  
  

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• atreju Member Posts: 60

  October 2006

  On the other hand I'm sure there will be some high quality open-source stuff too if this trend really becomes that rough.
  
  
  

  
• Ruthgar Member Posts: 730

  October 2006

  I think you'll be charged for any online play for most games. Xbox live charges a fee, so I bet the fee might be lower for some nonMMO games, but I think that you will see fewer free online video games.
  
  I thought I read that WoW has caused a slump in the video game market, or was that just PC games?
  Either way, if people pay money for an MMO, a monthly fee and more for an expansion, how much money is left over for other video games?
  
• Bonzar Member Posts: 176

  October 2006

  
  I think open-source mods will always thrive, but look what happened with Oblivion. Didn't they keep the full SDK closed at first so that you couldn't model your own weapons, presumably so that the add-ons they were selling couldn't be replicated or superseded? That's what I meant by being scared about subscription based models and micro-transactions.
  
  When a company asks me to spend $50 on a game, that's a pretty huge investment. Then they always offer a "free" month with your purchase, as if you're given a bonus. If I already plunk down the $50 for the game don't I deserve to play it yet?
  
  Now I agree that it costs a lot to run an MMORPG but how much of the fee is upkeep and how much is profit? I just think that the main reason MMORPGs are so huge right now (besides the fact that it's a relatively new genre and thus a novelty for many still) is that magic WoW number of 7 million subscribers. As if the video game industry isn't making enough yet, now they can say that not only have they made $300+ million in revenue from the boxed copies (ostensibly) but also pull in another $35-70 (depending on how many are active accounts) in subscriptions.
  
  I think most of us feel like the developers create artificial encouragement to their games to keep us paying our subs every month instead of offering compelling gameplay. I know that we love to advance characters and find loot, but when that time spent just trying to "unlock" new content becomes our sole-motivation to play, is it even a video game by traditional terms? I mean, are we playing a game because we enjoy it or are we playing a game to unlock the skills or items that will eventually make the game enjoyable?
  
  I kept returning to arcades as a kid in the late 80's, early 90's because I wanted to play the games and increase my skill. I put all my allowance into quarters so that I could compete face-to-face with my opponents and stack my abilities against theirs. That practice appears to be replicated online with MMORPGs but instead of wanting to play the game we want to get some static reward that lets us hit harder or faster so that we can defeat our opponents, but the inherent gameplay function has changed from an active participation (like fighting games and first-person shooters) into a passive participation where our rewards and time spent in game are the determining factors.
  
  Not that it's bad or anyone's a fool for doing it, but if this is the case (the passive participation) then of course the developers will create more mechanics that feed that system to keep us coming back, to keep us paying our subscriptions. I just think that if the practice moves into single-player games we might be in a lot of trouble.
  
  
  

  
• Bonzar Member Posts: 176

  October 2006

  And that's what's scary, Ruthgar. The idea that developers will contend for our business by forcing as much cash out of us as possible, thus keeping us from playing other games. Then, instead of making better games, they just make games that require more of our time.
  
  I know it seems a little far fetched but I don't think it's an impossible scenario.
  
  
  
  

  
• Torak Member Posts: 4,905

  October 2006

  
  

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  Originally posted by Bonzar
  So I was thinking about all the complaints we're used to reading on these boards. Usually the herd comes to the same conclusion: too many cookie cutters, not even originality. Let's think about why this is for a second?
  
  MMORPGs offer a higher level of income thanks to the residual payments seen through subscription. Now publishers (which in turn means that the developers) are spending their time wondering how to keep us playing. Instead of offering the kind of gameplay that single-player games offer (and keep us coming back), I see a lot of time sinks and artificial rewards.
  
  The reason I'm worried; how long before they try to make this payment structure the status quo? When will I wake up and see that Half-Life 3 offers "continuing improvements and upgrades" and I am getting charged $10/mnth for that? I remember that patches offered updates and content upgrades for free, but now I see a lot of "micro-transactions". I'm not saying that it's all unfair, but the trend is scary.
  
  Does anyone else think that we're entering a new era of video game pricing, where we will be entering a subscription based business model for all games? Maybe not tomorrow, but one day?
  
  
  

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  I don't remember where I read it, it was on one of the video game industry sites. It claims that MMO's, including WoW, only make up something like 8% of the total video game industry revenue.

  Residuals are nice but aside from WoW the player populations of almost all MMOs are reletively low. EQII, SWG, DAoC, L2, SoR, AC, CoX, EVE...all of them have under 200k subscribers and in some cases under 100k. Hardly a big money maker after expenses.

  Servers, Staff, promotions, advertisement and bandwith isn't free. 

  Its more likely you will see this genre die before its formula becomes a norm unless there is a dramatic radical change.
  
• Bonzar Member Posts: 176

  October 2006

  
  While I agree that MMORPGs are a small part of the gaming population, it's also a growing market. It's just finally get serious attention. I think more developers will push into it as they see participation rise.
  
  And I don't think that other games have low populations. Retaining 200,000 people at $15 a month is a pretty difficult feat. I just think that WoW is a phenomenon (as most Blizzard games are) and so it has set ridiculously high standards.
  
  I guess I'm wondering where the fad ends. Will this be like the FPS explosion that Halo brought with it? I think we can all agree that a lot of developers moved from making extreme sports games to FPS games simply because of Halo's success. And in the case of WoW, it's new financial gain (over the old single fee system) as well.
  
  
  

  
• Unknown

  October 2006

  [quote]When a company asks me to spend $50 on a game, that's a pretty huge investment. Then they always offer a "free" month with your purchase, as if you're given a bonus. If I already plunk down the $50 for the game don't I deserve to play it yet?[/quote]
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  

   This statement of yours has been posted many times on these forums. Now consider this:

  
  

    - All other computer games also cost $50.oo roughly (USA dollars)

  
  

   - All other computer games aka stand alone games are on avarage completed in 1 month or less! Then what do you and other gamers do after finnishing the game? AHA! Buy another one! .... for.... $50.oo!  Thus you or one, is spending $50.oo every single month on a new game just to finnish it and store it on a shelf someplace.

  
  

   - After 1 year, the avarage mmorpg costs roughly $160 in subscription + $50 for the box. $210 total. Minus the 1st free month = $195.oo total.

  
  

   - After 1 year of buying stand alone games, finnishing them, then buying another stand alone game, one spends $600.oo (if buy a new game every month.) to $300.oo (if buy a new game every 2 months.)

  
  

   - Now, please tell us what other form of entertainment can you think of that costs roughly .50 cents per day?!? That costs $15.oo per month? That you can engage in anywhere from 10 mins to 24 hours? That is always available for you to engage in at any time?
• Bonzar Member Posts: 176

  October 2006

  Alright, I'll respond with concise answers (not easy for me).
  
  I was saying that the free month isn't a free month, it shouldn't be marketed as a bonus. I know why they charge, I said that I realized why they charge, and I know that most single-player games last only one month if that (not that I agree).
  
  Games that cost less than $.50 a day to enjoy?
  
  I've been playing Counter-Strike: Source for . . . ever since I got it. I got WoW the same day (love those beautiful Best Buy gift cards for my birthday). I played WoW for 8 weeks. Put in . . . 40 hours or so i think. I have over 300 hours on Counter-Strike (I didn't get XFire immediately after getting HL 2). So I've been playing that for 12 times the length of WoW, and it only cost me $40. $50 + $30 on WoW (and I went back for one month, so $45 really) for a fraction of the time. Value=CS:S
  
  I have had Oblivion for a long time on my 360, it only cost $60 and I have put much more time into it (around 100 hours or so) than I did WoW. Again, no extra fees since I haven't bought any of the Marketplace downloads for it.
  FEAR is another game I played for quite some time, lots of multiplayer and singeplayer goodness to be had. I suffered from the ATI bug though and had to rename the .exe so it doesn't show up on my XFire account. And lets not forget NWN.
  
  Those games I listed don't offer passive participation either, the reward is the gameplay as well as continuation of the storyline and advancement. But FEAR captures my attention more than WoW and it only takes a few hours to get to all the guns. No months of endless raiding to finally get to the good content. Why? I think one of the factors is that they don't need to dangle rewards in front of my face to keep up subscription numbers so they don't see a need to string me along.
  
  
  
  

  
• Nerf09 Member CommonPosts: 2,953

  October 2006

  We throw around the terms cookie-cutter, and revolutionary too much.
  
  It is hard to put into words what is wrong with the games.  Southpark did a good job on it for me.