Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
General: Why Do MMOs Die?
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In his latest "The Rant" column, MMORPG.com's resident ranter, Adam Janovyak, begins with a question: Why do MMOs die? He meanders through the money issue and the 'lack of interest' angle and finally comes to the real reason he believes MMOs die. Read "The Rant" and see if you agree with Adam's ultimate findings. Be sure to leave a rant of your own in the comments below.
So I think I’m going to be a little bit more “ranty” in this week’s rant. I hope no one minds too much, but I have something I need to get off my chest. What’s the deal with all these MMOs getting cancelled? Let me rephrase that and this time I need you to read it with some bravado, some serious anger - really crank up the hate. So basically don’t read it like Jerry Seinfeld, as I imagine most of you did with the last one.
Why the hell would someone shut down an MMO in the first place?
Read more of The Rant: Why Do MMOs Die?
)
Comments
Got two words on why Tablua Rasa died, "Richard Garriott".
I believe NCSoft shut it down was because they didn't want to pay him anymore after his fiasco.
Now as to why other mmo's die is basically very bad lag, constant bugs, and terrible management.
As for Hellgate: Revival, well last i heard they were having a bit of trouble with publishing for the NA/EU region.
This is the last news report on Hellgate.
Bots. Man. Fking Gold Selling bots kill every game they infest. >.>
there will always be reasons, unlimited i might add, when it comes to gamers from different parts of this globe, it's just human mentality, always different, maybe if we were NPC's we wouldnt have any reasons to whine about anything since we would be programed with a basic & plain AI to like whatever everyone else likes, as if. by design.
the main problem we all have is the Need to Compare x with y and from that point on everything falls under patterns.
and then there are those that think they are above everything and everyone and no matter if 100 or 1000 or 10000 or even 1bilion other people point the differ, they will still do it their way, even tho doing so it might ruin every single chance of success. aka - "The American Way --Because I Can."
And then there are those that still don't wanna accept the fact that 90% of the mmorpg ever made were all coming from Asia if not deved/coded/designed by the above mentioned.
also in their opinion the Katana was not made in Asia, but in fact the asians have stolen & copied the design from a previews WoW version. aka teh well known "WoW Clone"
those text based rpg's that were created 15-20 years ago were WoW Clones also.
there is nothing New, that's why MMO's Die.
even if you make a joint open source project and let everyone bring their own ideas to create a New mmo, it will still Fail. why? i will point you to check our past, starting from stoneage to gold rush ages and then you will figure it yourself why it will fail.
mmo's die because kids get bored too fast these days....thats why!
Asherons Call
AC2
Steam: Neph
My question is:
Who the hell is having sex with cows?!
twitch.tv/itpaladin
@ITPalg
YouTube: ITPalGame
Maybe because their target audience are teens who have time to play games all day, when the reality is their target audience should be the 25-35 market that has disposable income, but also a lot less time on their hands what with life, jobs, family, etc.
If they based their income off of parent-credit-card wielding kiddies with no responsibility other than waking up in the morning, they are then sorely mistaken and deserve to fail when mommy and daddy take those credit cards away when little Billy doesn't bring in the garbage because he's raiding.
Make a game thats very accessible (able to be completed, too, not just 90% of it) by adults with little time to play anymore, and you will see games that are succeeding. Guild Wars has always done well because you can solo almost the entire game where henchmen take away all the time/randomness needed to get groups together. Now GW2 will come out, polished like a new coat of wax on a hot summer day, have no sub, and be wildly successful because they know their target audience and cater to them.
what bugs me most is that those games just to end up on a backup drive in some1 safe and damned to never been seen aggain.
why cant they just open Source them? I Allways liked Tabula rasa, even if it had its flaws. im quite sure the OpenSource community would had made something great out of it.
Lots a reasons mmo's die, new mmo's die fast due to poor and cheap delvopment, or the whole concept was just a bad idea from the start, but the powers to be could not see that for some reason, plus first person shooter type mmo's just don;t seem to have the player base that rpg type mmo's have, granted shooters are great games in the right setting I play them allot, but in an mmo, it just does not translate well.. older games are just older tired played out the development team ran out of ideas for anything new and fresh, plus games that allow rampant use of third party mods like radar, AOC buddy, when cheating is allowed to run wild allot good players run away, alot games can make it on a niche market, you don;t have have the subs of wow to make money, bean counters ruin allot of games as well forcing them pushed out before there time to recover some costs from box sales.. I have been playing mmo's since 1997 and have seen allot in trends and marketing, some times you just gota /facepalm with some of these companies..LOL
I agree with the market target they normally use, but the rest.....
games are are easy to start they always was, but you need to want it, if you close your mind and say this is too dificult you really will not move one (taht not in games but on everything else), really I have a job I go to the gym and I can still play games here and there some days not so much, others a lot, if you really have problem to manage your time, don't matter if is a MMO or a single player you will not play it at all. but also remember MMOs are ment to be played with others, NOT ALONE, so having parts who can be done only with groups is normal and required, tossing the "lack of time" normally is just for people who are bad on doing it.
and for GW2 please don't hype games, wait for then come and we will see if is good or not, before that anything you say about the game is moot
MMOs die because their consumer demand wanes to a point where it is no longer profitable for a company to keep the servers open. Remember that companies are not charities and they could give a rats ass if you enjoy, love, cherish or despise their game. All they want is $$$ so they can feed their families and live the lives they want to live.
That you ask this question blows my mind.
Playing: Tera, BF3, ME3
Waiting on: Guild Wars 2
I wish I could inhabit the plane of existence that you currently reside. It must be awesome being told something and absolutely know it to be 100% truth. I tire of this world of empty promises and marketing lies. Might I get an invitation to this world of yours.?
Playing: Tera, BF3, ME3
Waiting on: Guild Wars 2
I dont think a whole article is needed for such a simple question. MMORPGs are about business and the longetivity of a business is, at the end, about profitability.
So if an MMORPG is not profitable then for sure it will get closed down. Unless now some corporation creates an MMORPG so to somehow get money from a indirect way. E.g. PS3 was for a long time, and maybe still is, more expensive to produce than it was to sell so Sony actually lost money selling just the console.
However where they earned money was from game licenses (or something of that effect) but still it all boils down to profitability.
Art on the other hand is something completely else as then the product itself is the goal and not the profit you can reap from it. However it was loooong time ago that games were produced for that reason.
My gaming blog
yes it is about profitablity. If you cant make money then the game you play,palce where you work, the apartment complex where you live all close.. that said i play pwi and spend between 40 and 60 dollers a month on the cash shop, i dont have to but i like the fashtions, hp and mana charms and the dragon orbs to upgrade gear, and i know people who spend a 1000.00 dollers in a year. So if you sell stuff that people want then your game will make money, and lots of it.
as much as i like f2p mmos (because there free...), alot of mmos are now turning over to the p2w (pay to win), which of course slowly kills off pvp/pk in games so that only heavy cash shopers can have fun, so if i go onto a f2p game, its most likely gonna end up me doing pve only, i like p2p though for 1 reason, theres no cash shop to kill the game faster then it needs, no *insert credit card for god mode* business, just pure game play for your gear, if f2p games just had a micro transaction of buying items that had nothing to do with pvp, that would be great, but shamefully that will never happen, f2p games just love refining assistants in the cash shop.
I haven't given it much thought but if the gaming companies would create a way to actually buy in-game money with real money just like the gold sellers and keep the prices lower than any gold seller at some point the gold sellers will realize that working on that game will end up making them lose money so they will quit.
About bots i have to say that i don't really care about it. If you think about it whether I use a bot or not it still helps me. If I use it the reasons are obvious how it helps me and if I don't because of all the items they gather they in turn lower the market prices so i can buy weapons, armors etc cheaper. Also i've seen some games that have their own bots and even if they were pretty basic they had everything you needed.
First off.. I'm not a fan of Free 2 Play games. It just seems like there is less man-power behind them. GM responses take forever, innovation seems to go out the window, and updates are virtually non-existent. It feels like the game is dying and then they are offering things for cash purchase. Why would I spend cash on a game that feels like it's dying?
MMOs die. Why? Because they jump on the Bandwagon. When just ONE of them becomes successful with an idea then they all make attempts to implement that idea into their MMO. UO (Ultima Online) was the best MMO that I have ever played. It captured my attention for years. What happened to it? EverQuest came out with a much simpler game to play that offered gameplay in 3D, with less pvp, and a leveling system. Here, I would like to make 2 points; 1: Anything new is going to draw attention; 2: The easier a game is to play the more people are going to enjoy playing it. Look at WoW (World of Warcraft) for example. There has never been an easier MMO to play. That is what draws people to it. Once EQ had released, and had become relatively successful, UO had felt the need to imitate EQ's success. In doing so they ultimately ruined their own masterpiece by making things easier, releasing shitty 3D options (if you're going to do something,do it right!), and end the end of my time anyway; implementing resistances and super powered weaponry thereby removing skill out of the equation and turning the game into an item-based game.
Unfortunately, there is the select few of us that enjoy competition. We enjoy difficulty and challenge. We don't want things handed to us and we thrive on actual skill and reflex. This is where the problems arise. We find it difficult to believe that there are not more out there like us and the MMO market continues to feed the majority what they thrive on. Thus making each MMO feel very similar if not exactly the same as the last. Sounds kind of boring, doesn't it??
"Can't... Sleep... The Carebears... Will get... Their way..."
I think the FTP model while successful at the moment being the new kid in town, might be profitable in the short term but perhaps in the long term, not so much. Once the Mafia Wars generation dies out a little, and you get less content, less gameplay, less graphics, because let's face it, the game is free, I think you'll find subscriptions coming back into vougue. People will want a better game and will be willing to pay for it. I know I am...
I also agree with another poster that the MMO's have to be geared towards young adults with jobs and disposable income. Those of us that grew up playing MMO's and are always looking for the next great MMO to hold our attention for a while. Something I can play here and there and solo if needed because I have a life. I have no problem paying $15 a month to play a few times a month as long as the graphics and gameplay mechanics are worth it.
I think FFXIV may made an exception to all of this.
But they wisely said.. "Oh well, you uh- are helping us fix the game! Yeah! All of you are diligent.." blah blah.
How about the games that never make it out the door?
Like Hero's Journey.
I wonder how many games that remain profitable are cancelled to move the personel on to a different project in hopes that the new venture would be highly profitable. After all, a game's IP can be sold to recoup losses, and if it's not showing the promise that the developers feel they could acheive, then why not drop it and move on.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
Nah, that can't be AC2, it looks like the chat is working.....
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
MMos focusing on a specific type of players/gameplay are able to make it. See WW2online for instance, not a blockbuster to say the least yet still in the place since 2001. Same story with Eve.
Unrealistic licensing agreements inked long before the realities of day-to-day production come into being.
You can't keep a game up-and-running for long if you have to pay $50,000 per month to various parties whose contracts say they must be paid as long as the game is up and running. $50K per month was a pittance when your business plan had you grossing $1,000,000 per month a few months after go-live. When you end up only having 2,000 subscribers at $15/month, suddenly that pittance is a literal game-breaker.
Others in this thread will do a great job explaining why MMO's die (not rocket science you know), all I wanted to weigh in with is that bad MMO's deserve to die, only way we'll every get the message through to the folks that build them on what we really think of their games.
"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