More succinctly, I belive EvE has been CONSISTANTLY been somewhere between 3-6th place in subscription numbers in the West. I'm fairly certain it has a larger base of subscribers/regular players then LOTRO does right now...and has for some time. In other words, it's OUTPERFORMING about 90% of Themepark games right now. When you consider that EvE has had a fraction of the Development budget that many of the Themeparks it is currently outperforming in terms of subs, I don't really think there is much of a question about whether Sandbox's CAN be proffitable to run and/or invest in. Investment is all about ROI, afterall. QED.
I think the big thing really is that EvE isn't WoW......investors are still dazzled by WoW level of success.....and everyone dreams of hitting that....just like everyone dreams about being the next Facebook. BTW, this is coming from someone who has no interest in playing EvE, personaly.
Doesn't really matter if 90% of themeparks outperform 90% of the sandboxes, does it? It is just one game. Just like WoW is just one game. You need to look further than that to see a pattern, to see a market.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
The reason that there hasn't been any real successful sandbox games in the US is because nobody has taken the time to make a decent Sandbox since SWG/pre-NGE. Most of the sandbox MMO's that are currently on the market are no better than their themepark counterparts. Counterparts that have seen one bad game after another.
The good sandbox games that are out are limited. UO is not growing subs because it is still stuck in graphics age of the 90's, isometric top down view. EVE is all about spaceships - strictly a niche game. So yeah...until Arche Age hits the market over here, we really can't say there is no market for sandbox games. Because currently, with the way subs are going for most themepark MMO's you'd think there was no market for them either - with the exception of WoW.
Make a good theme park game and people will play it - make a bad one and they won't. That is no different than what we see with themeparks. Make a bad one and few people will play it - makea good one and they will. Simple huh.
If themeparks grew from EQ etc where is the continuation of sandbox games following SWG and Eve? Surely if developers saw a significant interest to sandbox games with these titles they'd continue making more with larger budgets? By comparison, there's been a huge surge of themeparks. Clearly devs saw the potential there (Blizzard surely did).
The way some people are excisted about DayZ makes me think Undead Labs have done their homework. 2 years back when they announced what they were doing I was very sceptical. Still their games are made for consoles only at this point, but if they were right about the zombie apocalypse survival MMO maybe they're right about the consoles too, who knows?
My point is, devs actually know what they're doing, despite someone's ravings at some forum. Why do you think so many devs have turned down the proposition of making an AAA sandbox? Maybe they've done their homework there too.
You say we need a good sandbox to create demand for the genre, but you forget we first need demand justify funding for a good sandbox. Its a vicious cycle tough to break.
It is still likely to stay as a niche, I think.
The only answer you need is WOW. After that hit, up till today, every mmo that has come out other than a very few small independent Sandbox games, that were a wreck, have copied the WOW formula and have failed miserably. They were some that were hyped as the WOW killer and had no choice but to go FTP or shut down completely and a few that are on their way.
So, the anomoly that is WOW has brought millions into the genre but what it has done to the genre and how it has changed the way investor's and developer's think has done more damage than good.
The fact is, the mmo genre is a slow moving entity that takes a long time to make change. We had sandbox mmorpg's that by today's standard in visuals would be shunned and shelved but the gameplay they incorporated was ahead of their time. Right now the genre is at a crossroads with copies of copies that continue to be made and continue to be failures. When investor's and devs finally realize that only WOW can do WOW, we will start to get more games that blur sandbox and themepark elements together and not have these hardlines that can't be crossed.
I find it funny that those who are advocates for pure themeparks can't see that the more things to do in a mmo that is not scripted or dev driven is better than doing the same things over and over everyday. In a mmo setting more is always better than less. I do honestly believe that once Archeage hits the West, it will open up many people's eyes to how fun and engaging a good sandbox/themepark can be.
WoW was a fluke. Its the exception of the genre, not the rule. I dont know why more Devs and Investors doent realize this.
It was the Perfect Storm of MMOs.
WoW had a few things going for it that made it work.
1- It had a HUGE (and I mean huge) fanbase from B.net, WC, SC and any other thing Blizzard
2- It came at a time when EQ was old, AO was a wreck, DAOC was slowly patching itself into fail, SWG was borked and HZ and many other just sucked and werent fun. Nothing was really "in front" of it
3- It combined alot of what made those others good, took out or reworked the bad and made a solid stable game. They made a game that while very familiar, was also different than what was available
4- It had big marketing hype when no other MMO did.
Devs and Investors need to realize that this probably wont happen
Everyone else since WoW has tried. All have failed in comparison
Tried: EQ2 - AC - EU - HZ - TR - MxO - TTO - WURM - SL - VG:SoH - PotBS - PS - AoC - WAR - DDO - SWTOR Played: UO - EQ1 - AO - DAoC - NC - CoH/CoV - SWG - WoW - EVE - AA - LotRO - DFO - STO - FE - MO - RIFT Playing: Skyrim Following: The Repopulation I want a Virtual World, not just a Game. ITS TOO HARD! - Matt Firor (ZeniMax)
Sure, I agree with the OP. people don't want the freedom of a sandbox game. That is why Skyrim and Minecraft didn't sell well, right?
Just because no sandbox MMO has sold well untill now, doesn't automatically mean that there isn't enough interest for it. Maybe they are just more difficult to create or the big bucks are just not willing to deviate from what they see as the safe path (themepark).
"In March 2012, EVE Online reached over 400,000 subscribers.[9]"
There you go.
I was also looking for a post on the official forums where one of the devs recently said they were nearing the 450k mark. So EVE is around 450k now and growing. If I can find his post I'll put a link to it.
Originally posted by fadis Ever heard of a little game called MINECRAFT?
The game looks like it was made in 1992, yet has millions of online users... the company that figures out how to take its appeal and twist it into a modern MMO setting will probably have... the... next... big.... thing.
Minecraft uses too much bandwidth to even be thought about as an MMORPG. It's not possible to compress the data that needs to be transmitted any smaller - so the pipe it's passing through needs to be larger, which would make it astronomically expensive. You can fit 3 people per 1Mbs of bandwidth. No time in the near future will it be feasible to squeeze a massive minecraft server into the world.
Aside from that, not one issue with sandbox mechanics is solved by Minecraft. It works because of the scale. People are playing with a small number of people and they are picking and choosing who they play with. Scale it up and you have all the issues you have with sandbox games in general.
Minecraft is a great example that people like sandbox games, a great example of indie development, and a great example that game play is at least as important as graphics, but it's not a good example of the desire of people to play sandbox MMORPG.
** edit ** I play Minecraft and run a server. I also play on other public servers. I'm not bashing the game at all. It just wouldn't solve any issues with sandbox MMORPG.
Although I'm late to the party with the Minecraft mention...
You're missing the point. I'm not versed in all the technical challenges - but the success of a game like Minecraft surely indicates that there is a very lively market for sandbox features. And as many of those types of things that could be incorporated into AAA-quality MMOs, would surely be appreciated.
I don't even really like Minecraft - the game. I see it more as a sort of "tech" demo. And I'd be happy to wager you'll see many features derived from MC start to make their way into more larger-scale and successful online games.
Reading posts like this just make me understand better how our political system is so fu%ked up.
Just like political parties, it seems like so many people on these forums are no interested in discussing issues or talking about how things (games) could be better. Instead, they would rather make posts about how the "other guy" sucks. Instead of actually working towards anything substantial, the forums denegrate into "X fans are better than Y fans neener neener!"
Personally...I think that sandbox concepts could offer A LOT of things that a themepark game could really benefit from. And at the same time, the accessibility and polish of themepark games is something that sandbox games could learn from.
So maybe instead of trying to prove that your chosen sub-genre is "best" you should try to think of a way that BOTH sub-genres can benefit each other.
While I agree completely with your sentiment...
there are, like in politics, some positions/features in the themepark vs. sandbox "debate" that just simply cannot nor will not ever go together.
Indeed! I'm calling BS on the notion that there is this mythical mass of players that want a sandbox virtual world MMO. If there was one, I would hear about it, devs would see it, and there would be games for that crowd. As it stands, there's hardly one, and it has been like that for so long that merely saying there hasn't been the right one yet is not going to cut it. Many have tried, many have failed and even if these games were any good they would've showed much more interest from the public, don't you think?
How can you have a "massive" virtual world when you only have a handful of players to fill it. And how can you get funding to something that has such a small audience. You are doomed to wander from indie game to indie game...
Admit it. You are to rest of the MMORPG players what LARPers are to P&P role players. "Regular people" snicker at people who play D&D but everyone laughs at LARPers (no offense meant - but they do).
Ben "Yahtzee" Crosshaw hit the nail in the head: -"Eve players are to nerds what nerds are to normal people."
Even if some recent themeparks have failed or will fail in your eyes, I'm quite confident in saying that there will be no major shift towards sandboxes of any sort. People still love themeparks - they just don't like shitty games, thats all.
Sounds to me like you are trying to get some type of reaction here. Are you looking for convincing arguments to make a case for Sandbox games?
if that is the case maybe I can give you a hint.
Look at how many WoW Players also Like playing Minecraft. Which is not an MMO I reckon however is a game that intrinsically represents the fundamental spirit of a Sandbox. The next step towards a sanbox MMO would be to have a Minecraft that plays in a persistent environment and the experience is shared Massivelly.
Make your own conclusions.
There has not been a good Sandbox game since the initial one's that are talked about often in these forums, and while you wanted a different answer, it still remains a very real fact, which has defined our decision to play these newer sandboxes or not. And interpreting this like there is no really any Sanbox population is in my opinion an erroneous misinterpretation.
- Duke Suraknar - Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
My point is, devs actually know what they're doing, despite someone's ravings at some forum. Why do you think so many devs have turned down the proposition of making an AAA sandbox? Maybe they've done their homework there too.
You say we need a good sandbox to create demand for the genre, but you forget we first need demand justify funding for a good sandbox. Its a vicious cycle tough to break.
It is still likely to stay as a niche, I think.
Why is there no AAA sandbox being made ?
Not because developers (or anyone else) "knows" that the market for it doesn't exist.
It's because of Return on Investment (ROI). A well-developed sandbox game will be much more difficult (and therefore more expensive) to build than a themepark. The more money borrowed, the greater the risk to an investor. If you try to raise money for the project, the first question you will likely be asked is: "Why don't you just build a themepark instead ?"
There's a fairly large pool of developers with experience of building AAA themeparks that you can potentially hire for your new project, but where will you find experienced AAA sandbox developers ?
The more freedom you give a player in a game, the more complex the game design and code will get to support that player's freedom. There's a good reason why you can't interact with 99% of the world in a themepark MMO.
A sandbox ruleset will have to allow freedom, but also restrict the possibility of abuse. Because the one thing you can always be sure of in an MMO is that if it is at all possible to abuse any game system, several players will dedicate themselves to abusing it to the absolute limit.
So, compared to building a themepark, a sandbox game will be a huge challenge.
500k -1 Mill Sandbox MMO fans should justify funding IMO. That might not be WoW numbers, but its still very good.
Id love to have 500k people buy my product and then pay $15mo for it
You say the numbers for a Sandbox are niche so why try?
How are those numbers for the Themepark MMOs (excluding WoW)?
AoC/WAR/CoX/RIFT/DCUO/ect ?? They all have less than 500k subscribers. SWTOR isnt doing much better.
Why is 500k subs niche if its a Sandbox, but if its a Themepark its...what?..successful and justifies funding for more of them?
Make a stable and fun Sandbox MMO and you will get subscribers. Probably more than you think.
You forget that Eve Online is WoW in the sandbox scene with its 300-350k subs. When you compare that to for example what AoC and WAR got even despite their failed launch and unfinished nature, there's a huge potential compared to sandboxes. Some posters like to take those two as examples of how post-WoW themeparks are doomed to fail, but they hardly demonstrate a well-made themepark, not even a well run develoment project.
Rift and SWTOR showed that well-made, even unoriginal themepark has a huge audience. They are still more succesful than even the best of sandboxes. Make a well-made, original themepark and who knows how much more subs you get.
TOR, AOC, Rift and WAR were hyped up games that sit nowhere near where they were when released and i will bet that by the end of the summer TOR will have a similar sub base than all of those which still falls in line of the 200k to 500k sub base. All of those shot up fast but came crashing down even faster. It still doesn't change that MMO's as of today only hold around those sub numbers mentioned with WOW being the exception.
What it means is that there is much more money to made in convenience food than specialty menu food. You can bleat all you want about greed but companies are about making profits. I wouldn't mind having CCPs profits but I'd rather have Blizzards profits.
Sure. But when you put it in the form of restaurant food vs fastfood, you imply that one requires a refined taste and the other is cheap junkfood - which is an absurd claim to begin with. It is probably one of the most ridiculous metaphors given about the themepark-sandbox differences.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Original UO didn't really "work" either, so EQ was a lot more popular.
What made UO really work and attract and retain a much larger populaion? Their peak in subs?
After the Trammel / Felucca split.
Just like EvE with low/null/high sec split.
All FFA PvP all the time, full loot all the time...
Just. Doesn't. Work.
Sandbox devs learn this, the sub-genre might catch on and be a LOT more popular.
I'm still waiting for the PvE focused AAA sandbox MMO with consensual only PvP that doesn't force you to PvP to play the "good parts" of the game.
The catalyst that will enable this change is advanced, layered, complex AI that creates dynamic PvE content in the same fashion that player versus player in sandbox always create dynamic content.
"In March 2012, EVE Online reached over 400,000 subscribers.[9]"
There you go.
Read the article, it uses no official source, it's merely the article writer being sloppy and make his guess, it's not as if this was the first article writer ever that is sloppy with data. Unless an article writer has a direct reference and quote from a company itself, figures are suspect of possible sloppy number usage or flawed interpretation. Someone should correct that for wikipedia.
As for contradicting info that has at least some of a link to official sources even if indirectly, this is what the mmodata guy posted in May this year:
"CCP has send me new EVE numbers, they look good, 361k subs, so they can celebrate their 9th anniversary knowing they are back on the rise."
Unless you expect that guy to have been lying through his teeth of having received numbers from CCP, I'm going with the guy that references CCP as a source for his data than an article writer that plucks a number out of the air without quote or reference to his source material.
edit: on top of that, 400k isn't even the 450k you were stating.
Originally posted by fadis Ever heard of a little game called MINECRAFT? The game looks like it was made in 1992, yet has millions of online users... the company that figures out how to take its appeal and twist it into a modern MMO setting will probably have... the... next... big.... thing.
Minecraft uses too much bandwidth to even be thought about as an MMORPG. It's not possible to compress the data that needs to be transmitted any smaller - so the pipe it's passing through needs to be larger, which would make it astronomically expensive. You can fit 3 people per 1Mbs of bandwidth. No time in the near future will it be feasible to squeeze a massive minecraft server into the world. Aside from that, not one issue with sandbox mechanics is solved by Minecraft. It works because of the scale. People are playing with a small number of people and they are picking and choosing who they play with. Scale it up and you have all the issues you have with sandbox games in general. Minecraft is a great example that people like sandbox games, a great example of indie development, and a great example that game play is at least as important as graphics, but it's not a good example of the desire of people to play sandbox MMORPG. ** edit ** I play Minecraft and run a server. I also play on other public servers. I'm not bashing the game at all. It just wouldn't solve any issues with sandbox MMORPG.
Although I'm late to the party with the Minecraft mention...
You're missing the point. I'm not versed in all the technical challenges - but the success of a game like Minecraft surely indicates that there is a very lively market for sandbox features. And as many of those types of things that could be incorporated into AAA-quality MMOs, would surely be appreciated.
I don't even really like Minecraft - the game. I see it more as a sort of "tech" demo. And I'd be happy to wager you'll see many features derived from MC start to make their way into more larger-scale and successful online games.
I just don't agree with the OP, at all.
Minecraft is a bad example for saying there's a large sandbox MMORPG crowd. It is a fantastic example of a single player or co-op multi-player sandbox game. Especially a multi-player pvp game as those are the servers that are actually full. Nothing about any of that is going to lead any investor to believe that the game will scale up to a massively multi-player scale. Even ignoring the technical difficulties, watching the admins and devs manage the griefing would deter anyone thinking about investing in a true sandbox like Minecraft at the scale of an MMORPG.
Now...sandbox features...yes. People seem to like the sandbox features and scaling the sandbox features like crafting up to a massive scale doesn't create any obvious issues. In fact, The Secret World's crafting is very similar to Minecraft's crafting so your last paragraph is already true. :-)
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Original UO didn't really "work" either, so EQ was a lot more popular.
What made UO really work and attract and retain a much larger populaion? Their peak in subs?
After the Trammel / Felucca split.
Just like EvE with low/null/high sec split.
All FFA PvP all the time, full loot all the time...
Just. Doesn't. Work.
Sandbox devs learn this, the sub-genre might catch on and be a LOT more popular.
Which is why I think Arche Age will be a big hit, if it is not free to play with a cash shop and pay to win items. If it has a cash shop and pay to win...I do not see it being popular here in the US.
Original UO didn't really "work" either, so EQ was a lot more popular.
What made UO really work and attract and retain a much larger populaion? Their peak in subs?
After the Trammel / Felucca split.
Just like EvE with low/null/high sec split.
All FFA PvP all the time, full loot all the time...
Just. Doesn't. Work.
Sandbox devs learn this, the sub-genre might catch on and be a LOT more popular.
Which is why I think Arche Age will be a big hit, if it is not free to play with a cash shop and pay to win items. If it has a cash shop and pay to win...I do not see it being popular here in the US.
Original UO didn't really "work" either, so EQ was a lot more popular.
What made UO really work and attract and retain a much larger populaion? Their peak in subs?
After the Trammel / Felucca split.
Just like EvE with low/null/high sec split.
All FFA PvP all the time, full loot all the time...
Just. Doesn't. Work.
Sandbox devs learn this, the sub-genre might catch on and be a LOT more popular.
I'm still waiting for the PvE focused AAA sandbox MMO with consensual only PvP that doesn't force you to PvP to play the "good parts" of the game.
The catalyst that will enable this change is advanced, layered, complex AI that creates dynamic PvE content in the same fashion that player versus player in sandbox always create dynamic content.
SWG's TEF system was the perfect solution IMO.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
500k -1 Mill Sandbox MMO fans should justify funding IMO. That might not be WoW numbers, but its still very good.
Id love to have 500k people buy my product and then pay $15mo for it
You say the numbers for a Sandbox are niche so why try?
How are those numbers for the Themepark MMOs (excluding WoW)?
AoC/WAR/CoX/RIFT/DCUO/ect ?? They all have less than 500k subscribers. SWTOR isnt doing much better.
Why is 500k subs niche if its a Sandbox, but if its a Themepark its...what?..successful and justifies funding for more of them?
Make a stable and fun Sandbox MMO and you will get subscribers. Probably more than you think.
You forget that Eve Online is WoW in the sandbox scene with its 300-350k subs. When you compare that to for example what AoC and WAR got even despite their failed launch and unfinished nature, there's a huge potential compared to sandboxes. Some posters like to take those two as examples of how post-WoW themeparks are doomed to fail, but they hardly demonstrate a well-made themepark, not even a well run develoment project.
Rift and SWTOR showed that well-made, even unoriginal themepark has a huge audience. They are still more succesful than even the best of sandboxes. Make a well-made, original themepark and who knows how much more subs you get.
Problem here is that you have to make a "well-made, orgional themepark" that is a BETTER "well-made, origional themepark" then the 20 other guys that hoping to do just the same thing...and better then Wow/Rift/Aion are right now in order to win those players from them. In order to do that you generaly have to sink enough resources into the Development Budget to be competitive with those guys.
Thats why EA's investors are NOT so happy with SWTOR right now, despite the fact that it probably still has around 1 million players, significantly more then EvE. While CCP's investors are pretty happy. Because in order to get a rate of return on every dollar they sunk into SWTOR that's equivalent to the rate CCP got on every dollar sunk into EvE... TOR would probably have to get and SUSTAIN more like 3-5 million players then the 1 million it has.
There is no doubt that Themeparks CAN be proffitable, and CAN be decent investments too. It's just that the competition there is alot stiffer.
Frankly EvE isn't even all that appealing as a "sandbox" game....
- It's 10 years old.
- You play a spacship
- It has a very STEEP learning curve.
- It's unfreindly to new players
- FFA PvP with rampant Griefing and Meta-Gaming
- Very grindy.
- It's combat system has been likened to playing a spreadsheet.
- no IP backing.
The fact that INSPITE of all that it still manages around 300K-400K subscriptions should tell you something about the potential for sandbox games with more "mainstream" features in other aspects of the game.
Original UO didn't really "work" either, so EQ was a lot more popular.
What made UO really work and attract and retain a much larger populaion? Their peak in subs?
After the Trammel / Felucca split.
Just like EvE with low/null/high sec split.
All FFA PvP all the time, full loot all the time...
Just. Doesn't. Work.
Sandbox devs learn this, the sub-genre might catch on and be a LOT more popular.
I'm still waiting for the PvE focused AAA sandbox MMO with consensual only PvP that doesn't force you to PvP to play the "good parts" of the game.
The catalyst that will enable this change is advanced, layered, complex AI that creates dynamic PvE content in the same fashion that player versus player in sandbox always create dynamic content.
SWG's TEF system was the perfect solution IMO.
It was a VERY good system because it didn't seperate PvP and PvE geographicaly like UO did (and EVE) but it still allowed players to make a choice as to whether or not they PvP'd at all and also choose when to fight and when not to.
Gamers do want massive sandbox games it is just that most MMO players today have only played single player action adventrue online games and that is all they know. I think most of them never played a PnP game either so they don't understand the concept of a truly open massive world. The only games as of late are all about FFA PvP and since that is the focus many gamers do not want a massive sandbox game but if a game like AC or EQ was made today (Hopefully AA) it would be a huge game.
Original UO didn't really "work" either, so EQ was a lot more popular.
What made UO really work and attract and retain a much larger populaion? Their peak in subs?
After the Trammel / Felucca split.
Just like EvE with low/null/high sec split.
All FFA PvP all the time, full loot all the time...
Just. Doesn't. Work.
Sandbox devs learn this, the sub-genre might catch on and be a LOT more popular.
I'm still waiting for the PvE focused AAA sandbox MMO with consensual only PvP that doesn't force you to PvP to play the "good parts" of the game.
The catalyst that will enable this change is advanced, layered, complex AI that creates dynamic PvE content in the same fashion that player versus player in sandbox always create dynamic content.
SWG's TEF system was the perfect solution IMO.
It was a VERY good system because it didn't seperate PvP and PvE geographicaly like UO did (and EVE) but it still allowed players to make a choice as to whether or not they PvP'd at all and also choose when to fight and when not to.
Exactly. You'd also see small skirmishes end up in all out battles as covert players jumped in.
Man oh man, I really miss those days. Some of the best MMO memories I have are from those battles that blew up from nothing, good times.
Why hasn't anyone else tried a system like that? I can't think of a better solution for the PvP issue. Wanna PvP? Good, we got that. Don't want to PvP? We got that too. Perfect!
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
My point is, devs actually know what they're doing, despite someone's ravings at some forum. Why do you think so many devs have turned down the proposition of making an AAA sandbox? Maybe they've done their homework there too.
Maybe they actually dont know what they are doing. Ive met too many people in different industries that say and act like they know what they are doing, but really cant pull it off when it comes right down to it.
Maybe they turned down the proposition of making a AAA Sandbox because they did their homework and realized they "Cant Do It" because of limitations and its "Too Hard" to implement...**/cough..zenimax.../cough**
Maybe they just arent as great as they say they are and just hoping the average MMO gamer doesnt find out
Just because someone calls themselves a "professional" doesnt mean they are good at what they do
*edit- I dont want to hear "if they didnt know what they were doing a AAA dev company wouldnt have hired them"
BS.
I work for a top company in the Entertainment Industry. They hired this one guy SOLEY on the fact that he had an Emmy for camera work on some documentary. You know what his job was? cable page for the main Camera Op. He rolled in the excess cable and let out slack when the Op needed it. Everyone that worked on the film got an Emmy. This clown used that as a selling point for skills he absolutely didnt possess
Tried: EQ2 - AC - EU - HZ - TR - MxO - TTO - WURM - SL - VG:SoH - PotBS - PS - AoC - WAR - DDO - SWTOR Played: UO - EQ1 - AO - DAoC - NC - CoH/CoV - SWG - WoW - EVE - AA - LotRO - DFO - STO - FE - MO - RIFT Playing: Skyrim Following: The Repopulation I want a Virtual World, not just a Game. ITS TOO HARD! - Matt Firor (ZeniMax)
Every MMO beside WOW is niche! Every Themepark has failed compared to WOW and compared to the expectations investors and publishers had!
/snip
Yet for not having a massive Sandbox crowd: 6 Million people play Minecraft 10 Million people play Skyrim (sandboxy virtual fantasy world) 22 Million people play GTA IV (which is an open world game and therefore sandboxy) Unknown how many millions of people play sandboxy browser games.
/snip
And yeah, people just dont play shitty games!
Even if we ignore WoW, themepark revenue is way higher than sandbox ones.
Aion/DDO/Lotro/Rift all have 500k-2M subs each. Highest sub for sandbox is EVE with 400-500k.
Despite the millions who play 'sandboxy' non-MMO games, it doesn't translate into sales for sandbox MMO games.
Going by your logic, millions should play PlanetSide cause millions play COD/BF3 which isn't true.
Agree with your last point but being 'shitty' has nothing to do with sandbox/themepark.
McDonalds does more business than Outback Steakhouse in a day, but where would you rather eat? It's the same for my MMO. I can feast on some generic fast food type MMO, or I can treat myself to a bloomin onion, and a juicy T-Bone. At the end of the day McDonalds makes more money that is true, but Outback does enough business to turn a profit without copying McDonald's menu.
You've answered your own question..."McDonalds does more business than Outback Steakhouse in a day ..."
So does that mean that Outback should close it's doors, or switch to selling fast food? No of course not! Why should it be so in the gaming industry? I think your mind is clouded by greed. Where has copying WoW really gotten anyone anyway? Seems like all these clones just fizzle out.
What it means is that there is much more money to made in convenience food than specialty menu food. You can bleat all you want about greed but companies are about making profits. I wouldn't mind having CCPs profits but I'd rather have Blizzards profits.
Yes, but that does not mean that in ANY given market, your chances for success are BETTER opening up a convenience food business then a speciality food business. Even if convenience food is FAR and AWAY a more popular offering.... there is still only a FINITE market for it in any given geographic area.
Problem here is that you have to make a "well-made, orgional themepark" that is a BETTER "well-made, origional themepark" then the 20 other guys that hoping to do just the same thing...and better then Wow/Rift/Aion are right now in order to win those players from them. In order to do that you generaly have to sink enough resources into the Development Budget to be competitive with those guys.
Thats why EA's investors are NOT so happy with SWTOR right now, despite the fact that it probably still has around 1 million players, significantly more then EvE. While CCP's investors are pretty happy. Because in order to get a rate of return on every dollar they sunk into SWTOR that's equivalent to the rate CCP got on every dollar sunk into EvE... TOR would probably have to get and SUSTAIN more like 3-5 million players then the 1 million it has.
I think the problem that dev run into and that people sometimes overlook is that when it comes to sub numbers it really isn't about how well-made or original or better your game is. It is about how many core audiences you can pull in. I think there are 4 main core audiences of MMO players and in order to have subs in the millions you need to grab all 4 of them. Hardcore Pvp Players;Casual PvP players;Hardcore PvE players; and lastely casual PvE players.
Anytime you have subs in the Mil I think it's pretty safe to say the majority of those are casual players there just aren't that many hardcore MMO gamers out there, and the fact is it is really really hard to grab all groups. Without casuals you just can't get a large sub base and casuals will pass up a game that is the best fit for them if the hardcore gaming community doesn't like that game, just how communites work. It just takes so much dedication to keep all groups happy or at least subscribing. I mean Blizzard had to pretty much become a one game company and focus solely on WoW for several years to accomplish it and there just aren't that many companies that have the financial backing, good enough employees, and complete dedication to pull it off.
It takes a lot more then just having a really good game it is a true never ending tight-rope walk and I think many companies are finding this out this past year and will continue to into next year where I predict we will see a huge reduction in the amount of companies that attempt MMOs.
Go to korea or taiwan and play the old Lineage 1, it's P2P and its 50 korean full of people servers show that it is the oldest FFA pvp-pk sandbox with no instances live in the world.
The last hope for us, maybe is Lineage Eternal, the sequel to L1.
Comments
Doesn't really matter if 90% of themeparks outperform 90% of the sandboxes, does it? It is just one game. Just like WoW is just one game. You need to look further than that to see a pattern, to see a market.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
WoW was a fluke. Its the exception of the genre, not the rule. I dont know why more Devs and Investors doent realize this.
It was the Perfect Storm of MMOs.
WoW had a few things going for it that made it work.
1- It had a HUGE (and I mean huge) fanbase from B.net, WC, SC and any other thing Blizzard
2- It came at a time when EQ was old, AO was a wreck, DAOC was slowly patching itself into fail, SWG was borked and HZ and many other just sucked and werent fun. Nothing was really "in front" of it
3- It combined alot of what made those others good, took out or reworked the bad and made a solid stable game. They made a game that while very familiar, was also different than what was available
4- It had big marketing hype when no other MMO did.
Devs and Investors need to realize that this probably wont happen
Everyone else since WoW has tried. All have failed in comparison
Tried: EQ2 - AC - EU - HZ - TR - MxO - TTO - WURM - SL - VG:SoH - PotBS - PS - AoC - WAR - DDO - SWTOR
Played: UO - EQ1 - AO - DAoC - NC - CoH/CoV - SWG - WoW - EVE - AA - LotRO - DFO - STO - FE - MO - RIFT
Playing: Skyrim
Following: The Repopulation
I want a Virtual World, not just a Game.
ITS TOO HARD! - Matt Firor (ZeniMax)
thempark isnt even safe anymore
From Wikipedia - with citation.
"In March 2012, EVE Online reached over 400,000 subscribers.[9]"
There you go.
I was also looking for a post on the official forums where one of the devs recently said they were nearing the 450k mark. So EVE is around 450k now and growing. If I can find his post I'll put a link to it.
Although I'm late to the party with the Minecraft mention...
You're missing the point. I'm not versed in all the technical challenges - but the success of a game like Minecraft surely indicates that there is a very lively market for sandbox features. And as many of those types of things that could be incorporated into AAA-quality MMOs, would surely be appreciated.
I don't even really like Minecraft - the game. I see it more as a sort of "tech" demo. And I'd be happy to wager you'll see many features derived from MC start to make their way into more larger-scale and successful online games.
I just don't agree with the OP, at all.
While I agree completely with your sentiment...
there are, like in politics, some positions/features in the themepark vs. sandbox "debate" that just simply cannot nor will not ever go together.
Sounds to me like you are trying to get some type of reaction here. Are you looking for convincing arguments to make a case for Sandbox games?
if that is the case maybe I can give you a hint.
Look at how many WoW Players also Like playing Minecraft. Which is not an MMO I reckon however is a game that intrinsically represents the fundamental spirit of a Sandbox. The next step towards a sanbox MMO would be to have a Minecraft that plays in a persistent environment and the experience is shared Massivelly.
Make your own conclusions.
There has not been a good Sandbox game since the initial one's that are talked about often in these forums, and while you wanted a different answer, it still remains a very real fact, which has defined our decision to play these newer sandboxes or not. And interpreting this like there is no really any Sanbox population is in my opinion an erroneous misinterpretation.
Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
Why is there no AAA sandbox being made ?
Not because developers (or anyone else) "knows" that the market for it doesn't exist.
It's because of Return on Investment (ROI). A well-developed sandbox game will be much more difficult (and therefore more expensive) to build than a themepark. The more money borrowed, the greater the risk to an investor. If you try to raise money for the project, the first question you will likely be asked is: "Why don't you just build a themepark instead ?"
There's a fairly large pool of developers with experience of building AAA themeparks that you can potentially hire for your new project, but where will you find experienced AAA sandbox developers ?
The more freedom you give a player in a game, the more complex the game design and code will get to support that player's freedom. There's a good reason why you can't interact with 99% of the world in a themepark MMO.
A sandbox ruleset will have to allow freedom, but also restrict the possibility of abuse. Because the one thing you can always be sure of in an MMO is that if it is at all possible to abuse any game system, several players will dedicate themselves to abusing it to the absolute limit.
So, compared to building a themepark, a sandbox game will be a huge challenge.
TOR, AOC, Rift and WAR were hyped up games that sit nowhere near where they were when released and i will bet that by the end of the summer TOR will have a similar sub base than all of those which still falls in line of the 200k to 500k sub base. All of those shot up fast but came crashing down even faster. It still doesn't change that MMO's as of today only hold around those sub numbers mentioned with WOW being the exception.
Sure. But when you put it in the form of restaurant food vs fastfood, you imply that one requires a refined taste and the other is cheap junkfood - which is an absurd claim to begin with. It is probably one of the most ridiculous metaphors given about the themepark-sandbox differences.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Original UO didn't really "work" either, so EQ was a lot more popular.
What made UO really work and attract and retain a much larger populaion? Their peak in subs?
After the Trammel / Felucca split.
Just like EvE with low/null/high sec split.
All FFA PvP all the time, full loot all the time...
Just. Doesn't. Work.
Sandbox devs learn this, the sub-genre might catch on and be a LOT more popular.
I'm still waiting for the PvE focused AAA sandbox MMO with consensual only PvP that doesn't force you to PvP to play the "good parts" of the game.
The catalyst that will enable this change is advanced, layered, complex AI that creates dynamic PvE content in the same fashion that player versus player in sandbox always create dynamic content.
Read the article, it uses no official source, it's merely the article writer being sloppy and make his guess, it's not as if this was the first article writer ever that is sloppy with data. Unless an article writer has a direct reference and quote from a company itself, figures are suspect of possible sloppy number usage or flawed interpretation. Someone should correct that for wikipedia.
As for contradicting info that has at least some of a link to official sources even if indirectly, this is what the mmodata guy posted in May this year:
"CCP has send me new EVE numbers, they look good, 361k subs, so they can celebrate their 9th anniversary knowing they are back on the rise."
Unless you expect that guy to have been lying through his teeth of having received numbers from CCP, I'm going with the guy that references CCP as a source for his data than an article writer that plucks a number out of the air without quote or reference to his source material.
edit: on top of that, 400k isn't even the 450k you were stating.
Minecraft is a bad example for saying there's a large sandbox MMORPG crowd. It is a fantastic example of a single player or co-op multi-player sandbox game. Especially a multi-player pvp game as those are the servers that are actually full. Nothing about any of that is going to lead any investor to believe that the game will scale up to a massively multi-player scale. Even ignoring the technical difficulties, watching the admins and devs manage the griefing would deter anyone thinking about investing in a true sandbox like Minecraft at the scale of an MMORPG.
Now...sandbox features...yes. People seem to like the sandbox features and scaling the sandbox features like crafting up to a massive scale doesn't create any obvious issues. In fact, The Secret World's crafting is very similar to Minecraft's crafting so your last paragraph is already true. :-)
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Which is why I think Arche Age will be a big hit, if it is not free to play with a cash shop and pay to win items. If it has a cash shop and pay to win...I do not see it being popular here in the US.
It's certainly on my radar for this very reason.
SWG's TEF system was the perfect solution IMO.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Problem here is that you have to make a "well-made, orgional themepark" that is a BETTER "well-made, origional themepark" then the 20 other guys that hoping to do just the same thing...and better then Wow/Rift/Aion are right now in order to win those players from them. In order to do that you generaly have to sink enough resources into the Development Budget to be competitive with those guys.
Thats why EA's investors are NOT so happy with SWTOR right now, despite the fact that it probably still has around 1 million players, significantly more then EvE. While CCP's investors are pretty happy. Because in order to get a rate of return on every dollar they sunk into SWTOR that's equivalent to the rate CCP got on every dollar sunk into EvE... TOR would probably have to get and SUSTAIN more like 3-5 million players then the 1 million it has.
There is no doubt that Themeparks CAN be proffitable, and CAN be decent investments too. It's just that the competition there is alot stiffer.
Frankly EvE isn't even all that appealing as a "sandbox" game....
- It's 10 years old.
- You play a spacship
- It has a very STEEP learning curve.
- It's unfreindly to new players
- FFA PvP with rampant Griefing and Meta-Gaming
- Very grindy.
- It's combat system has been likened to playing a spreadsheet.
- no IP backing.
The fact that INSPITE of all that it still manages around 300K-400K subscriptions should tell you something about the potential for sandbox games with more "mainstream" features in other aspects of the game.
It was a VERY good system because it didn't seperate PvP and PvE geographicaly like UO did (and EVE) but it still allowed players to make a choice as to whether or not they PvP'd at all and also choose when to fight and when not to.
Gamers do want massive sandbox games it is just that most MMO players today have only played single player action adventrue online games and that is all they know. I think most of them never played a PnP game either so they don't understand the concept of a truly open massive world. The only games as of late are all about FFA PvP and since that is the focus many gamers do not want a massive sandbox game but if a game like AC or EQ was made today (Hopefully AA) it would be a huge game.
The MMO with the most potential is I think a themepark/sandbox hybrid, that manages to use the best elements of both design paths in an organic way.
Exactly. You'd also see small skirmishes end up in all out battles as covert players jumped in.
Man oh man, I really miss those days. Some of the best MMO memories I have are from those battles that blew up from nothing, good times.
Why hasn't anyone else tried a system like that? I can't think of a better solution for the PvP issue. Wanna PvP? Good, we got that. Don't want to PvP? We got that too. Perfect!
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Maybe they actually dont know what they are doing. Ive met too many people in different industries that say and act like they know what they are doing, but really cant pull it off when it comes right down to it.
Maybe they turned down the proposition of making a AAA Sandbox because they did their homework and realized they "Cant Do It" because of limitations and its "Too Hard" to implement...**/cough..zenimax.../cough**
Maybe they just arent as great as they say they are and just hoping the average MMO gamer doesnt find out
Just because someone calls themselves a "professional" doesnt mean they are good at what they do
*edit- I dont want to hear "if they didnt know what they were doing a AAA dev company wouldnt have hired them"
BS.
I work for a top company in the Entertainment Industry. They hired this one guy SOLEY on the fact that he had an Emmy for camera work on some documentary. You know what his job was? cable page for the main Camera Op. He rolled in the excess cable and let out slack when the Op needed it. Everyone that worked on the film got an Emmy. This clown used that as a selling point for skills he absolutely didnt possess
Tried: EQ2 - AC - EU - HZ - TR - MxO - TTO - WURM - SL - VG:SoH - PotBS - PS - AoC - WAR - DDO - SWTOR
Played: UO - EQ1 - AO - DAoC - NC - CoH/CoV - SWG - WoW - EVE - AA - LotRO - DFO - STO - FE - MO - RIFT
Playing: Skyrim
Following: The Repopulation
I want a Virtual World, not just a Game.
ITS TOO HARD! - Matt Firor (ZeniMax)
Yes, but that does not mean that in ANY given market, your chances for success are BETTER opening up a convenience food business then a speciality food business. Even if convenience food is FAR and AWAY a more popular offering.... there is still only a FINITE market for it in any given geographic area.
I think the problem that dev run into and that people sometimes overlook is that when it comes to sub numbers it really isn't about how well-made or original or better your game is. It is about how many core audiences you can pull in. I think there are 4 main core audiences of MMO players and in order to have subs in the millions you need to grab all 4 of them. Hardcore Pvp Players;Casual PvP players;Hardcore PvE players; and lastely casual PvE players.
Anytime you have subs in the Mil I think it's pretty safe to say the majority of those are casual players there just aren't that many hardcore MMO gamers out there, and the fact is it is really really hard to grab all groups. Without casuals you just can't get a large sub base and casuals will pass up a game that is the best fit for them if the hardcore gaming community doesn't like that game, just how communites work. It just takes so much dedication to keep all groups happy or at least subscribing. I mean Blizzard had to pretty much become a one game company and focus solely on WoW for several years to accomplish it and there just aren't that many companies that have the financial backing, good enough employees, and complete dedication to pull it off.
It takes a lot more then just having a really good game it is a true never ending tight-rope walk and I think many companies are finding this out this past year and will continue to into next year where I predict we will see a huge reduction in the amount of companies that attempt MMOs.
Go to korea or taiwan and play the old Lineage 1, it's P2P and its 50 korean full of people servers show that it is the oldest FFA pvp-pk sandbox with no instances live in the world.
The last hope for us, maybe is Lineage Eternal, the sequel to L1.