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General: The Future of MMOs cont'd
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
Sound familiar? We had a whole panel on the subject during PAX East, and it seems to be coming up more often. More recently, the topic popped up over at Eurogamer where Eurogamer's Jim Rossignol discussed the very subject with EA's Paul Barnett, Fallen Earth's Colin Dwans, and EVE Online's Torfi Frans Olafsson.
Paul, as you might recall, was on our aforementioned panel, and in continuing the conversation from said panel, makes the case that the term "MMO" is now irrelevant. Indeed, most gamers often argue about what is or isn't an MMO, reaffirming Paul's point. The issue of games like FarmVille and of course micro-transactions were brought up as well, but something even more important is Jim's point on World of Warcraft. Many people assumed that World of Warcraft's success expanded the pool of MMO players, developers included, and this lead to game's being developed along a similar vein over the past few years.
However, Jim brings up a great point: Perhaps WoW's success didn't expand the audience for MMOs, perhaps it simply created an audience for World of Warcraft.
Fallen Earth's Colin Dwans wasn't as convinced:
"We've definitely benefited from World Of Warcraft's success," says Dwans. "In a strictly business sense, people are more willing to take the MMO space seriously. They understand that if you are able to find loyal followers this can actually make money.
"From the audience perspective, well, I do believe that the vast majority of people come in, hit World of Warcraft, that's their niche, they've found it, they're going to stay there. But there will be a percentage that want something new. I've heard of people making the jump to EVE from WOW, and that's a game that is vastly more complex."
The full article is well worth the read, especially if you attended our panel or you've seen the videos. Check out the full article over at Eurogamer for even more on the future of MMOs.
[Thanks Cecropia for the tip!]
Comments
In some ways it's a shame that game devs don't take the EVE/Fallen Earth approach. Instead it seems that many of them have the idea that their game is one of many in the offering. I can easily undertand this as most companies try to create a prodcut portfolioin and even diversify so that there is some sort of constant revenue stream that is not dependant on one sector in the market.
However, I also think that this thinking bites them in the butt. Eve continues to grow and it has an entrenched and loyal following. Yet a game like Tabula Rasa, or Auto Assault, is shut down after a short amount of time.
So no sense that these games can grow over time and more about what type of returns can they give in relation to the initial inevestment.
As I look around the world of Lineage 2, I see a great game and game world languishing. Lineage 2 was my first game and I was under the preconceived notion that game devs would approach their games like CCP approaches EVE: create a world, create an idea of where that game world should evolve over time and grow it over time.
But after so many years it seems that it really about adding a bit here, a bit there with no real thought on adding depth and permanence to the experience. Ot the latter poitn, it's almost as if they accept that over time the games will lose subs so they approach the game with the idea that there will eventualy be diminishing returns.
Yet CCP has EVE and developes it like it is their business and their baby.
Props to them for believing in what they do.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
It just makes too good business sense to always aim to be the new WoW. Even if the probability is low, the payout is HUGE. A small number times a big number still gives a fairly substantial number, and a lot larger than a somewhat higher number times a much lower one.
If you can blame WoW for one thing it is definately changing the business landscape to aim for AAA launches.
Ah, whether or not WoW has brought new life into the MMO genre or simply brought different expectations as to what a good MMO should be is my question. It can be pretty easily said that at least 80% of WoW players have never played any other MMO, and unfortunately that means that their entire perspective on what an MMO 'should' be like will be colored by their limited experience. Now that's not to say that they are wrong in liking what they do, but it means that many of us who started playing MMOs back when they were MUDS or in the early days of UO/EQ/AC, who liked the more 'Open' format of these 'Old School' games, are being pushed aside by the new regime of developers who are looking to cash in on WoW's success.
Personally I think these developers are wasting their time and money as a large amount of WoW's players will never be happy with any other MMO and in time will slowly trickle out of the ecconomy, leaving behind a dusgruntled group of vets who've seen every independant studio, that may have in time released games based on their feedback, swallowed up by large coporations and sucked dry in an attempt to create a MMO that appeals to people that don't like MMOs (Just WoW) and probably will never even try another.
When the major game studios come to the realization that MMOs aren't the cash cow they were hoping for, and the majority of WoW players leave, they are going to cut and run and what will be left in their wake? When Warner Bros decide that MMOs aren't making enough money to warrant further development where will Turbine be then? Heck, where is Turbine now? How many have lost their jobs, or will lose their jobs, never to return to the world of MMO development again?
It's like when a local coffee shop gets eaten up by Starbucks. How many empty buildings do we have in our towns from these large companies coming in and then shutting down when times got tough? Stretched themselves thin when the money was good and then too bad so sad when the money got tight. So 30,000 people are unemployed, that might have still had jobs in a 'family' owned business, at least Howard Schultz could afford to buy a third yacht.
So dies the MMO. Burned by its own popularity.
I hate WoW.
I'm inclined to believe the comment about WoW having created an audience for itself. I mean, all the other games that were launched after it, some that mimiced it and others that didn't, the best case scenarios for subscription numbers does reflect that of those first generation MMOs. The sub 500K mark.
So it's not so much that WoW's forumla was the right way but instead it's find a niche and do it (game) really well.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
From the article:
"MMO, as a phrase, is something that is becoming irrelevant," says Barnett. "It's like 'dialling' a telephone number. You don't actually dial numbers much now. And MMOs, the games that are massive and multiplayer and online, aren't really MMOs any more."
What he means is that the term "MMO" now encompasses such a large area as to be unrecognisable.
---------------------------------------------------------------
I have to agree with that. What people used to mean when they talked about a MMO(rpg) no longer applies in the minds of many. The basic argument these days is that if it's online and there are lot's of people playing it then it counts as a MMO. So by today's meaning of the term a game like the original Diablo would count as a MMO.
This is why I wish we could get some common terminology to further define the various types of games. To help avoid confusion and also to help people find the types of games in which they have interest. I've suggested in the past that "persistant world game" should be a term used for a game with low (or no) use of instancing and should be used to distinguish those types of games from highly instanced non-persistant world games. I'm sure we could come up with terms for several other fundamental characteristics as well.
The great thing about having more refined terminology is that simply by more clearly defining things into catergories it would push developers to make games to fit into the catergories. If things were more clearly defined in this way it wouldn't be so easy for them to fudge things and blur the lines knowing that whatever they do their game will fit under the all encompasing umbrella of the MMO term.
Of course, this is exactly why the developers themselves will resist any new and more accurately defining termonology. They would resist it because they like to be as vague as possible to try to draw in as many people as possible. Plus it would take away their ability to take the easy way out and still have their game meet the criteria of the category (because right now there is almost no requirement for something to be a MMO other than that people have to be online to play it).
I have been an online gamer since month one of UO(played Chessepeake :-p) and had played many games after that for years. In all honesty I haven't played an MMORPG in almost 4 years now. I keep hoping everday that a game out there will one day fulfill my expectations of games of the past like DAOC, UO or AC. But alas none have.
The community has changed, the games have changed, and i think im coming to realize that us, those who were the pioneeer "gamers" in the online world, are a fading breed, just like the dinosaurs. We're like hippies that are haninging out in Ventura Beach hoping that our Woodstock will come again, but it wont. I still hold a thread of hope for the mmoRPG(!) genre, but I won't hold my breath.
And yes, WoW has a cult following, no more, no less. They have a player base that thinks WoW is the end all be all, that every game should be like it. They do not know consequence as gamers and they demmand instant gratification. (Just like the rest of todays people in "real" life).
yes i'm bitter and yes i'm dissappointed.
Couldn't agree more
A good programmer is the person who creates thousands of bugs while fixing hundreds!
There are only a few good mmo companies left in the mmo genre. The rest are horrible. Years ago the term quality meant something. Today, its all about rushing products out the door finished or not and expecting players to pay fees. Luckily we mmo developers like Blizzard, Square Enix,ArenaNet and Bioware to keep the mmo genre alive. Though I suspect the future of mmos will be on consoles because it is an untapped market for the consoles, less competition and alot easier to develope on the console compared to the pc. The future business model which is currently making its way in will be microtransactions because we live in a time where people have a greater urge for wants than actual needs. People love materialistic stuff.
Has anyone played Heroes of Newerth? If I were to ever play an MMO in closed beta, following it through to open beta, that's how I would like to see the development headed.
The community is a community of sore losers, and competitive nazis - but they all desperately love the game, and want it to thrive - it is, afterall, a continuation of their love for DotA (defense of the ancients - a warcraft 3 map, that brought about a very nice idea of using heroes to turn the tides of an ongoing NPC war)
We need more developers to make games and foster a cult community within the game and the game's forums - have contests, and get some community forum members into moderator positions/community representatives.
I am playing EVE and it's alright... level V skills are a bit much.
You all need to learn to spell.
It is not Star bucks fault that other coffee shops closes down. Ask yourself why Star bucks is so popular instead.
The reason Wow got big was that it's players thought Wow was the most value for the money. Of course after it got really big it it was growing more because everyone else was playing it but it isn't Wows fault it got big.
Both Wow and Starbucks found it's niche and filled it. The problem with most other MMOs is that they just don't do that. You can't make a game that is almost exactly the same and expect to just take away all the players.
The real problem here is that the so called experts know nothing about games and expect the market to be the same as food or something. A game needs to find a open niche for itself and fill it, like Eve did. And Guildwars for that matter.
Make a game that is fun to play and offers a different gameplay than the rest and you will make a lot of money. Or make a sequel to something that is already big, that seems to work too in many cases.
This is why I think TOR will have a good chance of becoming a huge game, because it is aiming for a different gamestyle than Wow. Same goes for FFIX, World of darkness online and Guildwars 2.
I don't think things are as simple as that. EQ and UO was already crumbling fast when Wow released.
And I certanly don't think so much about the few great games when I see Wow, they offered a new and completly different gamestyle while Wow took EQ and remade the game with a great budget and talented crew.
To beat Wow you would have to make a game that is better and have more content and that costs a lot of money (not to mention that you need a good team).
I do admit that Wow does what it does good but the MMO genre (a online version of the pen and paper RPGs with many players) do hold a huge potential and it is a lot easier to make something that offers a different gameplay for other people than to take away the players who actually likes Wow.
Most companies just see Wows players and think of ways to take them but that would take a load of cash and work and even then the odds are that the Wow players would stay. It is easier to offer a different kind of gameplay and attract a different crowd.
It is the same as with pen and paper RPGs, people who prefer D&D usually stays with D&D. Other players play other games, like Vampire, BRP, Paladium or others. There are several large P&P RPGS, D&D is the largest but there are others that are rather huge and sells fine but none of those are close to D&D, they differs a lot in mechanics and often in setting too.
In MMOs we have Wows playstyle and Eve, together with a few small indie games that differs but all those are made with a rather low budget.
I never played Auto Assault so can't comment on it, but...
I too had high hopes for TR. I played it at release, and even though if felt very unfinished, I really thought that one day it might become an excellent game. I'm still disappointed that it was shut down.
But you have to be realistic. MMO developers are primarily interested in making money. TR was a big budget, super-hyped mmo that drew a relatively small crowd, and quickly started to lose even them. Then they proffered up that silly 'send your DNA into space with Lord British' campaign and we all knew the end was clearly nigh.
NCSoft had a bunch of other very profitable games and had, I think, just released Aion (very successfully) in asia. In that context TR and Auto Assault were dead weight that needed to be pruned.
Can't see how it "bites them in the butt" either. NCSoft have 3 of the 5 biggest subscription MMOs on the market. They're not exactly suffering.
As for the Eurogamer article....
I think this article glosses over a few uncomfortable truths.
Sure, there are people leaping off the WOW train into EVE and Fallen Earth, but none of the really big MMOs have bagged the market of millions that World Of Warcraft's subscriber base seems to suggest exists.
What a curious thing to say, because Aion bagged themselves millions - 4 in fact.
But if one looks too closely at that, then one might have to concede that one key thing that sets WoW and Aion apart from many of those less successful MMOs is that they were ready for launch when players started paying money for them, i.e. players weren't being ripped off.
Ripping off your customers isn't good for business - unless of course the customers are unaware of it.
Well thats not all that true. Most vet gamers didn't even play WoW ot if they did, the ones I know didn't stick around that long.
WoW launched a huge marketing campaign that was never seen before with online gaming which brought it to the mainstream and attracted the masses, many of which never had even heard of an MMORPG. WoW built a cult following, like i said earlier, of gamers that do not know consequence and ones that demand instant gratification.
I don't hate WoW, its just the way things work, things change. Like the Buddha said, "nothing is changless". I am sad that the genre will never be the same except for niche games, that will never recieve the funding needed to survive. Many good games had been made post WoW, its just that due to corporate expecations they are never truely polished cause they don't draw 1 million subs. I think companies need to stop looking at what WoW did and put enough money into a "finished" worthy project that will draw a loyal crowd of 200k subs. Shit... 200k subs monthly is still a cash cow.
Im sorry but huge marketing campaigns get you nowhere fast if you dont have the game to back it up. Look at games like AOC and WAR for example. They spent big and lost most of their players in first month.
Its getting old to think that advertisments can sell you a bad product. Good products just need word of mouth. After all - we are talking about online gaming experience... in a world where everyone is connected to 10-100 other friends and family online...
"what are you doing tonight" ?
"playing WOW"
"is it any good?"
"Its AWSOME ! - want me to send you a trial key ?"
How much did that add cost ?
You have a point, but do you remember the first 6 months of WoW? It wasn't that great a product then, but then again it also had no competetion at that point in time so it was able to withstand those 6 monthws of server instability , crashes and que times not to mention other bugs. It also wasn't a finished product, there were zones that weren't finished, monsters that didn't drop any loot or items altogether and broken quest lines. In hindsight it seemed as if WoW was one of those fantasy products that was born and released in the right place at the right time. Of course im just theorizing like the fellas in this article. Nobody knows exactly why the market has changed this way, and from experienced and veteran players view points, its not cause WoW is some superior product. If it were all us vets wouldn't be crying that there aren't any good games out there. People like myself don't play WoW cause we are old and bitter, we don't play it cause it doens't offer up any challenege to us.
Again i don't hate WoW, its just not what games were, and its not necessarily a better game, actually i don't prefer it as many older gamers don't, its just times have changed and us older gamers either needed to give into games like this or quit the genre.(like i have for the last 4 years).
I see you are new to these forums, what other games have you played in the past?
There was nothing wrong with WoW launch in Europe where I played. I played the entire beta and from day one live and had zero problems. It started abit after the US one tho. I enjoyed it from day one.
Considering that I payed for EQ2 and had huge problems just before ... WOW was a godsend...
WOW has set new standards in MMO gaming. That doesn't mean its perfect. But it is so much higher than anything out there atm. Go play WAR for example and see almost every other mob dissapear into walls... and everyone claiming " its not that big of a deal since its PVP game"... Yea right... Its STILL part of the game and it tells a big story of the work ethic behind the entire project.
"What the hell... it doesn't freeze the computer so lets put it live !" Thats the standards of MMOs before WOW - thats still the standard of most other MMOs to date.
And about the games I have played... Im 37 years old so I got a quite a few games from text based up to latest releases. And about 12-15 MMOs from the early days to the latest bunch.