i loved earth and beyond. i am a huge sci-fi geek, so to have a sci-fi mmo was a dream. i was devestated when they shut the doors, but i didn't mind too much because EvE was released and i had a better sci-fi experience with it. i still think they should bring back E&B f2p.
You must not have loved E&B that much. It's not in your sig as one of the games you've played.
hah, yeah i totally forgot about it till today. i was even going to put it there after replying but forgot again. i will after this post.
also the last I heard The Realm Online still had between 3-6k subscribers. I think it is still $4.99/mo
Hmm, Face of Mankind recently shut down. Not that it was "major", it was more along the lines of a smaller run company MMO.
__________________________________________________ In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on Aug/13/08 - Rest In Peace; you will not be forgotten
One that i think is totally dead is Dark and Light. The Devs seem to have totally given up on this game with no update for almost a year. That will close soon imo
Bad games usually peak before one year then start the decline.
Decent games usually peak before two years.
Good games can last up to five years before they peak.
I think eve online is the only game ever to last five years without reaching a downturn yet.
Other things can effect these assumptions, like marketing, an expansion, or the release of another game.
You also have to realize that games are global so even if your game flops in the usa it might be a hit in korea or china. If the game flops everywhere you can still license your engine out if you built your own. Plus any equipment you purchased to host servers can be sold or used in other projects. I would assume that very few games that make it to a launch actually lose money all around.
Nobody has yet to answer the question regarding the life-span of any triple AAA titles. With some now reaching a decade (and these are reltively small compared to the bigger titles currently out there), and still not showing signs of the publishers pulling the plug, how long can the 'mega' MMO's last?
Realistically, seeing how long EQ has lasted, and with still a large player base, if you consider a juggernaught such as WoW, can you envision a day in our life-time when it will cease to be?
The main reason for my original post was to get your views on what you suspect shall be the life-span of such titles.
Will we be teaching our grand kids how to play? I for one, cannot envision these games dying out for many, many years to come,
Realistically, seeing how long EQ has lasted, and with still a large player base, if you consider a juggernaught such as WoW, can you envision a day in our life-time when it will cease to be? The main reason for my original post was to get your views on what you suspect shall be the life-span of such titles.
What do you think?
The games have died, EQ is dead, UO is dead, they are over their peak and are just lumping around with a few thousand players.
I do not consider any MMO that yields only 10% of it's peak still alive imo. There will always be very dedicated fans still playing but the games are just there because it costs very little to keep them on a server.
There are still players who play with the Jaguar console of Atari, does that mean the support and games are still made and the console is still alive? NO, it just means some people will keep playing the games regardless of how bad support is or if there are any new games made or not, it doesn't matter for them anymore.
So with this in mind, how long do you think that some of the major games will survive? In one form or another?
They can easily last 20 more years, it costs almost nothing to keep a server up anymore.
If you're waiting for UO or EQ or any other game to become unplayed, you will wait a long time. UO and SoE don't care, it costs them very little to have these games on their server. The support sucks and almost everyone left but until the last person leaves, they have not much reason not to keep a server up really.
Originally posted by Majestico Nobody has yet to answer the question regarding the life-span of any triple AAA titles. With some now reaching a decade (and these are reltively small compared to the bigger titles currently out there), and still not showing signs of the publishers pulling the plug, how long can the 'mega' MMO's last? Realistically, seeing how long EQ has lasted, and with still a large player base, if you consider a juggernaught such as WoW, can you envision a day in our life-time when it will cease to be? The main reason for my original post was to get your views on what you suspect shall be the life-span of such titles. Will we be teaching our grand kids how to play? I for one, cannot envision these games dying out for many, many years to come, What do you think?
Honestly... its hard to say, its not about the cost of operation or anything, if you have 15000 people playing a game thats 5 years old you're still making a profit. What it comes down to is how long will this genre really stay in the main stream? We'll always have fanboi's to a degree for different games, or even the MMO genre, like myself, but eventually most people will get tired of fantasy which is what most of the games are made of at the moment, and there will be a switch to the other direction (i hope to god), and then people will be sick of that and so on and so forth... and yeah, companies stand to make a lot of money by having an MMO but it cost millions to make one, at least it does if you're a big company looking to spend that much.
So in the end it comes down to what people want, the genre of the game itself, and the developers. I know i can keep playing a game again and again, such as the classics like FF7, Skies of Arcadia and Xenogears, but MMO's tire and bore because they rely on a community to keep players involved and often times the most hardcore will leave with expansions like what WoW does and make all that hardcore gear you collected worthless. As much as its about the game play mechanics and the story-line, its about the community equally as much. If you've been playing a game for quite a while and all your old friends leave... its sometimes hard to find another "crew" to game with.
So the question shouldn't be "how long will it take for game 'X' to die?", it should be "when will people be tired of the genres and the current game play that's out there?"
"And after blizzard takes over the world, they are gonna gather a bunch of lemmings, sit on their fat asses near a cliff, and watch the little fuzzy bastards suicide dive into the ground below. . . . . all just for their own entertainment."
Nobody has yet to answer the question regarding the life-span of any triple AAA titles. With some now reaching a decade (and these are reltively small compared to the bigger titles currently out there), and still not showing signs of the publishers pulling the plug, how long can the 'mega' MMO's last? Realistically, seeing how long EQ has lasted, and with still a large player base, if you consider a juggernaught such as WoW, can you envision a day in our life-time when it will cease to be? The main reason for my original post was to get your views on what you suspect shall be the life-span of such titles. Will we be teaching our grand kids how to play? I for one, cannot envision these games dying out for many, many years to come, What do you think?
You refer to LOTRO and WOW as juggernauts but you can't forget that EQ1 was a juggernaut in it's day as well. Eventually the graphics and repetitiveness (game play that is - no matter how many expansions you have, EQ is still EQ) will get to the game and players leave for other games.
The question you should be asking is what is the frequency of releasing AAA titles which will take subscriptions away from the current AAA titles.
The further on we get into the future of gaming, a higher value will be placed on staffing programmers and developers as well as office space, dedicated servers, the price of oil, etc. will affect the operating expenses to run these games. As the MMO industry evolves, I think it will be less likely to see games like UO staying open and more games like Auto Assault closing down after barely a year in operation.
its funny because they cost so much to make (some in the 10's of millions) and as long as they get released and the servers keep going the money keeps rolling in. some of these games must have made the shareholders quite happy. even a small player base (enough to cover costs + extra) for a lengthy period of time (10 years for example ) would make quite a bit of money.
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds -Solid non level based game -Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
The majors have not died: UO, EQ, AC, DAOC, WOW, Lineage, Lineage 2. My own opinion is that after about 5 years the major titles seem to really fade but continue to persist. I am going to guess that for the majors, their shelf life is as long as enough people are around to pay the bills for the servers and limited dev work they receive. Currently it appears that may extend well beyond 10 years for the old titles and due to costs associated with newer titles, it may cap out at about 7-10 years. I'd have to say that UO, EQ, WoW will persist for quite some time just as a matter of pride for EA, Bliz, and SOE.
The thing about MMOs is that they can be updated to modern standards. If the developers choose to go this route, it can keep a game fresh enough that it can keep a continual subscriber base. As an example, EVE Online recently had a massive graphics upgrade and no longer looks at all dated.
-Wrayeth "Look, pa! I just contributed absolutely nothing to this thread!"
The majors have not died: UO, EQ, AC, DAOC, WOW, Lineage, Lineage 2. My own opinion is that after about 5 years the major titles seem to really fade but continue to persist. I am going to guess that for the majors, their shelf life is as long as enough people are around to pay the bills for the servers and limited dev work they receive. Currently it appears that may extend well beyond 10 years for the old titles and due to costs associated with newer titles, it may cap out at about 7-10 years. I'd have to say that UO, EQ, WoW will persist for quite some time just as a matter of pride for EA, Bliz, and SOE.
After about 5 years the development and investment costs of the games are normally paid off. So the game itself is paid for. After that its just a matter of meeting operational costs and some smaller development cycles. So a 10 year old UO with a 100k players is probably dooing better money wise then a reasonably new LotRO or AOC with substantially higher numbers. Far lower operating costs ups profitability.
Population in the old paid for games has to drop real low before they get completely cancelled.
As for some other cases, these costs have been cleared in other ways. We can safely assume that when SOE bought Vanguard outright, and didn't buy the developer or employees, that they got the game at a fire sale price, So with SOE running it they can afford a lower population, since all the debt was left with the original developer. (And if SONY had not done that Vanguard would have closed.)
There are also a few other games that are really teetering on the edge, and have pnly been keeping alive because of ip sales, sales of the game itself, or quite simply the assets are in some way locked into a court battle. Horizons and Darl and Light come to mind for those (though neither was what anyone would call AAA)
edit: As far as WOW. WOW may be one of the few games that actually fully recovered their development costs on box sales right at release. They like most games had budgeted the typical MMORPG spread (at the time) of an expected release of 300k, a really good release of 500k and a max possible ceiling of 1 million. They blew past the 1 million in days and were at 3x that within a very short period of time. They were so far ahead of their original income projections that they essentially started with a clean accounting slate before the first 30 day subscription dollars rolled in a month later.
Has any major MMO died? Umm, schyeah. Hello, "Motor City Online" ring any bells?
j/k although I did totally love that game. There was something magic from 2000-2003 with MMOs so many great ones came out... only to be shut down or butchered
Realistically, seeing how long EQ has lasted, and with still a large player base, if you consider a juggernaught such as WoW, can you envision a day in our life-time when it will cease to be? The main reason for my original post was to get your views on what you suspect shall be the life-span of such titles.
What do you think?
The games have died, EQ is dead, UO is dead, they are over their peak and are just lumping around with a few thousand players.
I do not consider any MMO that yields only 10% of it's peak still alive imo. There will always be very dedicated fans still playing but the games are just there because it costs very little to keep them on a server.
There are still players who play with the Jaguar console of Atari, does that mean the support and games are still made and the console is still alive? NO, it just means some people will keep playing the games regardless of how bad support is or if there are any new games made or not, it doesn't matter for them anymore.
UO still has about 100.000 players, over half in asia.
EQ probably the same and both should be profitable even with 25.000 players (That seems to be the cut off point for bigger companies, though small game compnaies can survive down to 5000 players it seems)
So probably the life cycle of AAA games is 10 years + up to neverending as for example UO fresserver community is still strong - maybe in the hundreds of thousands
Comments
You must not have loved E&B that much. It's not in your sig as one of the games you've played.
hah, yeah i totally forgot about it till today. i was even going to put it there after replying but forgot again. i will after this post.
also the last I heard The Realm Online still had between 3-6k subscribers. I think it is still $4.99/mo
Hmm, Face of Mankind recently shut down. Not that it was "major", it was more along the lines of a smaller run company MMO.
__________________________________________________
In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on Aug/13/08 - Rest In Peace; you will not be forgotten
AC2, AutoAssault, Earth and Beyond, Face of Mankind, Irth Online, Horizons.
Some of those aren't major, but have shut down.
Horizons didnt shut down... exactaly... They changed name
Now it's called Istaria, chronicles of the scammed... err... wait...
_________________
Senhores da Guerra
One that i think is totally dead is Dark and Light. The Devs seem to have totally given up on this game with no update for almost a year. That will close soon imo
So with this in mind, how long do you think that some of the major games will survive? In one form or another?
SWG can't possibly last much longer. I doubt that LA will want two titles in the MMO space and once BioWare announces, its just a matter of time IMO.
Bad games usually peak before one year then start the decline.
Decent games usually peak before two years.
Good games can last up to five years before they peak.
I think eve online is the only game ever to last five years without reaching a downturn yet.
Other things can effect these assumptions, like marketing, an expansion, or the release of another game.
You also have to realize that games are global so even if your game flops in the usa it might be a hit in korea or china. If the game flops everywhere you can still license your engine out if you built your own. Plus any equipment you purchased to host servers can be sold or used in other projects. I would assume that very few games that make it to a launch actually lose money all around.
Own, Mine, Defend, Attack, 24/7
Nobody has yet to answer the question regarding the life-span of any triple AAA titles. With some now reaching a decade (and these are reltively small compared to the bigger titles currently out there), and still not showing signs of the publishers pulling the plug, how long can the 'mega' MMO's last?
Realistically, seeing how long EQ has lasted, and with still a large player base, if you consider a juggernaught such as WoW, can you envision a day in our life-time when it will cease to be?
The main reason for my original post was to get your views on what you suspect shall be the life-span of such titles.
Will we be teaching our grand kids how to play? I for one, cannot envision these games dying out for many, many years to come,
What do you think?
The games have died, EQ is dead, UO is dead, they are over their peak and are just lumping around with a few thousand players.
I do not consider any MMO that yields only 10% of it's peak still alive imo. There will always be very dedicated fans still playing but the games are just there because it costs very little to keep them on a server.
There are still players who play with the Jaguar console of Atari, does that mean the support and games are still made and the console is still alive? NO, it just means some people will keep playing the games regardless of how bad support is or if there are any new games made or not, it doesn't matter for them anymore.
They can easily last 20 more years, it costs almost nothing to keep a server up anymore.
If you're waiting for UO or EQ or any other game to become unplayed, you will wait a long time. UO and SoE don't care, it costs them very little to have these games on their server. The support sucks and almost everyone left but until the last person leaves, they have not much reason not to keep a server up really.
Honestly... its hard to say, its not about the cost of operation or anything, if you have 15000 people playing a game thats 5 years old you're still making a profit. What it comes down to is how long will this genre really stay in the main stream? We'll always have fanboi's to a degree for different games, or even the MMO genre, like myself, but eventually most people will get tired of fantasy which is what most of the games are made of at the moment, and there will be a switch to the other direction (i hope to god), and then people will be sick of that and so on and so forth... and yeah, companies stand to make a lot of money by having an MMO but it cost millions to make one, at least it does if you're a big company looking to spend that much.
So in the end it comes down to what people want, the genre of the game itself, and the developers. I know i can keep playing a game again and again, such as the classics like FF7, Skies of Arcadia and Xenogears, but MMO's tire and bore because they rely on a community to keep players involved and often times the most hardcore will leave with expansions like what WoW does and make all that hardcore gear you collected worthless. As much as its about the game play mechanics and the story-line, its about the community equally as much. If you've been playing a game for quite a while and all your old friends leave... its sometimes hard to find another "crew" to game with.
So the question shouldn't be "how long will it take for game 'X' to die?", it should be "when will people be tired of the genres and the current game play that's out there?"
"And after blizzard takes over the world, they are gonna gather a bunch of lemmings, sit on their fat asses near a cliff, and watch the little fuzzy bastards suicide dive into the ground below. . . . . all just for their own entertainment."
You refer to LOTRO and WOW as juggernauts but you can't forget that EQ1 was a juggernaut in it's day as well. Eventually the graphics and repetitiveness (game play that is - no matter how many expansions you have, EQ is still EQ) will get to the game and players leave for other games.
The question you should be asking is what is the frequency of releasing AAA titles which will take subscriptions away from the current AAA titles.
The further on we get into the future of gaming, a higher value will be placed on staffing programmers and developers as well as office space, dedicated servers, the price of oil, etc. will affect the operating expenses to run these games. As the MMO industry evolves, I think it will be less likely to see games like UO staying open and more games like Auto Assault closing down after barely a year in operation.
[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/28371832@N02/2648951313/[/url]
its funny because they cost so much to make (some in the 10's of millions) and as long as they get released and the servers keep going the money keeps rolling in. some of these games must have made the shareholders quite happy. even a small player base (enough to cover costs + extra) for a lengthy period of time (10 years for example
) would make quite a bit of money.
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
The majors have not died: UO, EQ, AC, DAOC, WOW, Lineage, Lineage 2. My own opinion is that after about 5 years the major titles seem to really fade but continue to persist. I am going to guess that for the majors, their shelf life is as long as enough people are around to pay the bills for the servers and limited dev work they receive. Currently it appears that may extend well beyond 10 years for the old titles and due to costs associated with newer titles, it may cap out at about 7-10 years. I'd have to say that UO, EQ, WoW will persist for quite some time just as a matter of pride for EA, Bliz, and SOE.
The thing about MMOs is that they can be updated to modern standards. If the developers choose to go this route, it can keep a game fresh enough that it can keep a continual subscriber base. As an example, EVE Online recently had a massive graphics upgrade and no longer looks at all dated.
-Wrayeth
"Look, pa! I just contributed absolutely nothing to this thread!"
After about 5 years the development and investment costs of the games are normally paid off. So the game itself is paid for. After that its just a matter of meeting operational costs and some smaller development cycles. So a 10 year old UO with a 100k players is probably dooing better money wise then a reasonably new LotRO or AOC with substantially higher numbers. Far lower operating costs ups profitability.
Population in the old paid for games has to drop real low before they get completely cancelled.
As for some other cases, these costs have been cleared in other ways. We can safely assume that when SOE bought Vanguard outright, and didn't buy the developer or employees, that they got the game at a fire sale price, So with SOE running it they can afford a lower population, since all the debt was left with the original developer. (And if SONY had not done that Vanguard would have closed.)
There are also a few other games that are really teetering on the edge, and have pnly been keeping alive because of ip sales, sales of the game itself, or quite simply the assets are in some way locked into a court battle. Horizons and Darl and Light come to mind for those (though neither was what anyone would call AAA)
edit: As far as WOW. WOW may be one of the few games that actually fully recovered their development costs on box sales right at release. They like most games had budgeted the typical MMORPG spread (at the time) of an expected release of 300k, a really good release of 500k and a max possible ceiling of 1 million. They blew past the 1 million in days and were at 3x that within a very short period of time. They were so far ahead of their original income projections that they essentially started with a clean accounting slate before the first 30 day subscription dollars rolled in a month later.
Has any major MMO died? Umm, schyeah. Hello, "Motor City Online" ring any bells?
j/k although I did totally love that game. There was something magic from 2000-2003 with MMOs so many great ones came out... only to be shut down or butchered
Face of Mankind died recently.
SWG is essentially dead, a few thousand people play it because it has gotten so bad. Tabula Rasa is near death, as is PotBS.
Tecmo Bowl.
The games have died, EQ is dead, UO is dead, they are over their peak and are just lumping around with a few thousand players.
I do not consider any MMO that yields only 10% of it's peak still alive imo. There will always be very dedicated fans still playing but the games are just there because it costs very little to keep them on a server.
There are still players who play with the Jaguar console of Atari, does that mean the support and games are still made and the console is still alive? NO, it just means some people will keep playing the games regardless of how bad support is or if there are any new games made or not, it doesn't matter for them anymore.
UO still has about 100.000 players, over half in asia.
EQ probably the same and both should be profitable even with 25.000 players (That seems to be the cut off point for bigger companies, though small game compnaies can survive down to 5000 players it seems)
So probably the life cycle of AAA games is 10 years + up to neverending as for example UO fresserver community is still strong - maybe in the hundreds of thousands