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The Future of MMOG's.
goneglockin
Member UncommonPosts: 706
There is a lot of room for MMO's to expand beyond the niche market they represent today. They can and will. Right now the MMO industry is extremely polarized; with little room for hybrids- hybrids will eventually bring a lot of console gamers over to MMO's.
Right now 85%+ of every MMO out there is a cookie-cutter RPG. Yet the market for these games continues to grow and is predicted to continue on. I think this is a testament to the disdain a lot of people have for the "eye-candy" phase console gaming is going through right now; where gameplay is coming second. Subsequently, these console gamers are discovering MMO's for the first time- and a common topic on this forum seems to be; where can I find more?
Only now is the mold of the MMO world being broken- MMOFPS games are coming slowly but surely in response to SOE's half-hearted pioneering of the genre with Planetside. MMO hybrid FPS/RPG games are sure to follow. It took SOE less than 18 months to respond to Origin Systems' "Ultima Online" with "EverQuest." Shortly thereafter there was an MMORPG explosion that lasted eight years bringing us to today. Planetside; the MMOFPS pioneer that was scantly invested in by SOE; lacking almost any advertising- is closing in on the two year from release mark. Recently Quake Wars was announced and shown to be well into development from iD Software- it was completely under the radar of this website. The MMOFPS explosion is coming; more slowly than the MMORPG's climax- due to SOE's cold feet with Planetside resulting in other companies taking caution- but it's coming.
MMOFPS's will not have the 8 year exclusive reign that RPG's had though- they will have a few years before the hybrids come; they will be the solution to a polarized industry in it's infancy- and will offer some real variety to aging gamers growing weary of Teen marketed games for the sake of profit.
MMO's are behind the times in the ratings department of well- they can expand in this area. I have only ever seen two mature rated MMO's. Market analysts insist Teen rated games fetch more profit. I think the success of GTA console series is making companies less weary of what analysts have been preaching for some time. We are starting to see the release of many mature rated console games over the past several years- MMO's are sure to follow.
I think that MMO's will eventually trade places with console/PC single player gaming in terms of market share. MMO's will become the dominant sales force and cash machine in the gaming industry- it's end up this way for several reasons.
Technology is going to reach a point where the human eye will no longer be able to discern the difference between a bajillion pixels; and 2 bajillion pixels. This will end the eye-candy phase of gaming and will cause developers to rely almost exclusively on their gameplay and content- lots of unimaginitive developers leave the business after cashing in on the eye-candy phase almost exclusively.
At the same time that technology is reaching limits in visual presentation; cheap technology that is very powerful by today's standards is being proliferated- this results in more people owning PC's that will be excellent gaming platforms; and more people ready to make the shift to the MMO world.
On the flipside of the technology coin is the piracy issue. To be honest; the only PC games I've purchased since 1994 have been MMO's. Doom... 1 was the last game I actually paid for. X-box games? I get them for ten bucks from a friend who modded my box and threw in every nintendo, SNES, sega genesis, gameboy color, and advance game made up to that point for 40 dollars.
Piracy is only going to get worse as technology becomes more advanced- and many developers will come to appreciate the security an MMO offers in sales. Not only from the software; and not only from the subscription fees- but quite possibly- from advertising slots sold for in-game display.
It is quite possible that subscription fees will either become redicuously cheap; or non-existant for major MMO titles that can attract millions of subscribers. If the GTA series can sell 32 million copies as of November, 2004- than so can an MMO.
If an MMO can get 32 million subscribers- that's a guaranteed market to advertise products in. In fact an MMO with access to 32 million people could sell advertising for more than what most TV networks can fetch with the average show that only generates several million viewers.
If advertising in MMO's becomes a reality once a critical mass of subscribers is reached and their are companies that want to target this demographic; this benefits a gamer in two ways.
One; you can bet subscription fees will decrease dramatically; and two- this will cause MMO's to compete with one another to achieve better "ratings" amongst one another in the form of subscriber count.
The future of MMO's will be filled with a variety of games that are cheaper and yet dozens of times more entertaining than what we see today. This industry is in it's infancy. Give it 10-15 years. You'll see.
Hope you got your things together. Hope you are quite prepared to die. Looks like we're in for nasty weather. ... There's a bad moon on the rise.
Comments
Great post! I like your insight, it will be interesting to see how the MMO future pans out. Also, I like the link with advertising as this would force the companies to release audited active subscriber numbers and that would put pay to a few of the WoW press releases on subscriber numbers. We'd get to see the real churn rates of players and gain a better understanding of how a game is performing. And finally we might get less posts asking which frigging MMO to play.
-Enjoy
Excellent insights.. your post was great fun to read.
Another thing is that, as MMOG games become the dominant ones which are made, no doubt a number of different genres will evolve.
Not only will there be RPG/FPS hybrids, there will also be other variables within which different games can range, to give a different playing experience.
For instance, there are MMOGs now in the categories of historical (Roma Victor), non-combat based (A Tale In the Desert II), and other genres.
There are also games which are sci-fi, fantasy, and many other genres.
The fact is, the variety of possible MMOGs is just as varied as the epic storylines and settings for every book ever written.
Once gaming companies realize that there is huge potential in all of the areas that they haven't tapped, and they lose this rigid attitude of doing what's been done before, then the market can really explode.
_______________________________________________________________________
Looking forward (cautiously) to: Age of Conan, Dark Solstice, Armada Online.
Will soon try: Guild Wars
Overall: Amazed and bewhildered at the current sad state of the artform of gaming.
the problem with the mass market is that it's lowest common denominator. As soon as marketing becomes a vital item on the MMO balance sheet, the marketing guys get a say on the content. This leads to the censorship that exists on TV, attempts to avoid any legal action, copyright etc. Not to metnion the mass market is all about fads, one moment its GTA, the next its Halo 2, then WoW, and all the stupid fanboi hype surrounding it.
I personally hope that the tools for making your own MMO(RPG)'s are realised, kinda like NWN or Second Life. I see it as a natural step for the mod community to go down, as it pairs up the 'game master' idea from tabletop with the ability to create whatever setting. gameplay and graphics you want. Second Life is IMO an excellent idea poorly implemented.
---sig---
PvE in general is pretty lame, if you think long and hard about it. You are spending your time beating a severely gimped AI that would lose to a well trained monkey. Best not to think too long and hard why you are wasting time playing games in general actually...
The future of MMO's that you described will be here within the next 10 years. The first of the major non subscription fees(that are actually good) is obviously guild wars. If you search hard enough, you can find games with qualities that you descibed. Hopefully, some company will combine them all. Its these futuristic games that are catching on more and more now.
I agree, the future is in MMOFPS/simulations. As an avid FPS gamer I always wanted a huge scale game. Found World War II Online and loved it ever since. So far WWIIOL is the only game to get it right, and its been a difficult slope to climb. Even though the # of subscriptions is low (10,000) compared to other MMO games, games like WWIIOL I notice have unlimited potential. There are so many of the same games on the market right now, somethign new is bound to break through.
I agree with you.
However a MMO that leave little room to solo will always be behind consoles games for obvious reasons.
Solo deserve more then what CoH or WoW give them. Solo need a solo focus, just a smuch as grouping need a grouping focus.
MMO have a multiplayer EDGE. Turn that in an enforcement, an obligation, and from an edge, you have now a flaw. Multiplayers is an edge, as long as it remain optional. Grouping need it own system with it rewards, but so do solo.
And yes, many differents types of games will flourish.
I am suprised to not see a MMO racing game, it should be bringing havoc on the market and take a lion share! I am not into racing games myself, but I know racing have a HUGE fanbase, and multiplayers options = quite interesting to build a carreer plan for your racer...I mean, just think about it 1 moment...
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
I agree with _myco - once the marketing department get a hand in things, they start making mainstream games that are dumbed down and appeal to the broad mass market.
WoW and EQ2 are prime examples.
I really hope MMO's stop catering for the mainstream across the board and start implementing some new and original thought.
I'm playing WoW right now as a time filler till something interesting and exciting comes along.
greetings
A good read your post, i mostly agree that is definitly a possibility.
I wanted to add two more things, that, effectivly have not much to do with mmorpgs.
As you pointed out MMorpgs are a win/win situation for companies, as they get continued revenue and no piracy (or very very limited). i see more and more company going this route, but making mmorpgs or massive online games in general might not be the answer to all of them as the development cycle for one of this is quite massive. (Wow: 5 years. EQ2: 4-5 years).
So what i see is that more companies will follow the way of Valve, introducing Mmorpg-like systems to combat piracy (that believe it or not is killing the PC Gaming market, just look at Troika games, makers of Vampire: bloodlines a quality Rpg that had to close for that).
I can even imagine a central system in which you have to register your details AND all the cd-keys of the game you buy. So you have to log in to play any games you bought. This system would drastically reduce piracy and ,theoretically, leads to a lowering of gaming prices (did you know that 70% of all mainstream games are pirated? yes, for each 3 warcraft 3 original sold, there are 7 pirated copies).
If this scenario won´t come to reality, then i can see Consoles getting all the game market (already they have the great majority... like said.. GTA 32 millions of copies, when it was a pc game sold that much in so little?) but for mmo games. So Pcs would return to be work machines and Online games platforms while you would use your X Box, PS or whatever for your single player game needs.
Have a nice day.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
Just to add to the further comments, it's true that WWll Online has offered a different angle to the typical MMO game formula, IMHO - they have only received the low subs numbers due to the chaotic launch period & strategy. The MMO genre will defiantely broaden to include new types of games FPS & RTS based and I think the curve outlined for this development 5-10 years is realistic.
One area not covered is the likely expansion of revenue models for MMO games the subs model can't cater for the ever increasing launch of new games. I'd pay particular attention to the revenue model being deployed by Roma Victor. A model that allows basically free access to a game but also allows you to top up on in-game currency is a much fairer system than subscriptions.
-Enjoy
Marketing- some of you said it may have a down side to it. That down side being pushy sponsors or pressure to retain sponsors. Watch the movie "Private Parts" with Howard Stern- when he first came to big radio in Washington, D.C.- a lot of sponsors pulled the plug on the station he was working for; and his bean-counting bosses tried to run his show; same thing when Howard went to NBC.
You guys who brought this up are right; sponsors paying for advertising in MMO's will try to push the MMO company around to anything they find objectionable; and the bean-counters at the development company will push on the people who make the game content.
It may be awkward at first; but I use Howard Stern as an example because he prevailed. He almost didn't make it.
Anyway- I believe MMO's will become immensely popular in the near future- and it's only a logical step to sell advertising time whenever you can get tens of millions of people to be forced to listen to you. We'll have to wait and see though- just thought I'd stir it up a bit; it's exciting to imagine the possibility.
Hope you got your things together. Hope you are quite prepared to die. Looks like we're in for nasty weather. ... There's a bad moon on the rise.