This also doesn't account for player evolution, changing trends, etc. Right now, more and more players are growing tired of themeparks. There will always be a large market for themeparks, but the market for more complex games is growing as well.
When you work in software and technology like I to, you learn to never say never. Look at Star Citizen. A couple years ago, the idea that a crowdfunded game would raise $40+ million was laughable at best. That's a pretty good case for gamers who want something new / different in general.
You'll have to remember MMOData to follow this. He stopped tracking MMORPGs because publishers became more and more close mouthed about their numbers, and more and more MMORPGs started using F2P so the subscription numbers became meaningless. But there's enough information there to follow this.
If you download the spreadsheet information, and look at SWG, UO and SWToR, then fill in the blanks for all the months where there is no data. Do it the easy way. Just assume each month continues on as if there were no changes. So this:
1000 - blank - blank - 2000 - blank -blank - 1000
becomes
1000 - 1000 - 1000 - 2000 - 2000 - 2000 - 1000
You'll have to dig a bit to get numbers for SWToR, but they seem to have hovered around 500k for awhile. I assumed they dropped to 300k, until they jumped back up to 500k after the F2P release. I didn't add any numbers after the F2P release for SWToR (stopping at May, 2013). This will extend the difference in the amount of times used for each of the three games, giving SWToR the least amount of time since it won't count subs to the present, but it doesn't matter.
Calculate/Estimate total revenue for each of those three games. Sum up the total subs per month, then multiply it by $15.
SWToR - $213M total subs
SWG - $261.4M total subs
UO - $283.4M total subs
Now, divide each of those numbers by the number of months it took to generate those numbers.
SWToR - 18 months, $11.9M per month
SWG - 102 months, $2.6M per month ($3.3M adjusted for inflation)
UO - 118 months, $2.5M per month ($3.7M adjusted for inflation)
Even adjusting for inflation, neither UO or SWG come close to generating the kind of revenue that SWToR is generating. I would bet other theme park style games compare this well against "classics" financially. So if you ever wonder why those old sandbox games aren't making a comeback, this is why. $Money$
That's not to say that some new style of sandbox game won't exist, or that older style sandbox games won't exist, just at a smaller scale than AAA theme parks. Especially since newer styles of sandboxes are getting made, and older styles of sandbox games are getting made, just at a much smaller scale than the AAA theme parks.
I think your logic is kinda messed up on the premise that not many people at all were exposed to MMOs when UO And SWG came out or i am sure that there numbers would have much stronger across the board , just look at some of the real deuces for games that generate more than either of those 2 titles now... And only because the market has more than quadrupled in size since 97 ... If the market had the millions of gamers exposed to MMOS then as it has now , they would have pulled in great numbers ...
Again, we can do the same comparison with EQ and WoW and get the same results. Both were contemporaries of these games and both outperformed them by a wide margin.
**
SWToR is apropos because it is widely regarded as a total failure on these forums. Even adjusting for inflation, SWToR earns more than double what each of those games earned and it's very close to earning in two years what each those games earned in their entire lifetimes.
Also, before anyone takes the conversation in that direction, I don't like SWToR. WoW clone, not enough class storyline content versus world story content, odd or bad F2P choices made, small worlds that don't feel like worlds, etc. Take your pick of flaws. The cumulative effect of them was that I did not enjoy playing the game. That's not the point. The point is why the industry moved away from games like UO and SWG in the first place. $Money$
This is an absolutely BUNK argument.
The entire MMO playerbase circa 2000-2001 consisted of between 1.2-1.5million players TOTAL.
The "MMO" playerbase now is somewhere in the range of 15-25 million players. (I'm not including games like DOTA2, LoL, and other quasi MMOs, i mean traditional MMO where you log into a world with several hundred other players on the same "server").
What you're doing is like trying to compare the number of people who enjoyed drinking a very specific type of liquor, lets say Ouzo, to the number of people who enjoy drinking any type of alchohol whatsoever.
This whole topic is bunk because the genre has changed drastically from what it was, primarily to accomodate more casual gamers who would not otherwise have played "MMOs". This was done via making these games more accessible graphically, and as far as play style (quest hubs, tooltips, less time investment, easier content, more forgiving, etc).
Games like EQ, UO, and SWG required actual thought. They didnt have huge exclamation points above quest givers, things like quest hubs didnt exist. You were thrown into a world and you had to figure it out through trial and tribulation.
MMOs now are extremely hand held fairly single player experiences. Now, im not here to argue the merits of one play style vs the other, but comparing MMO's now to MMO's then is worse than apples to oranges, its more apples to potatoes.
To further take this and try to apply it towards an argument as to the merits of F2P vs Subscription is even more ridiculous.
And yet before SWG was running, EQ racked up what, half a million players? WoW racked up millions of players while SWG was running? Certainly more than SWToR.
Your point still doesnt stand. SWG was released in june 2003, wow was nov 2004. Nobody, literally NOBODY disputes the fact that WOW was the game that broadened the MMO genre to mainstream gaming. Even if you account for that, WOW didnt really start exploding in numbers until 2-3 years after it released. It was still in the 1-2million range in the first year.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
You'll have to remember MMOData to follow this. He stopped tracking MMORPGs because publishers became more and more close mouthed about their numbers, and more and more MMORPGs started using F2P so the subscription numbers became meaningless. But there's enough information there to follow this.
If you download the spreadsheet information, and look at SWG, UO and SWToR, then fill in the blanks for all the months where there is no data. Do it the easy way. Just assume each month continues on as if there were no changes. So this:
1000 - blank - blank - 2000 - blank -blank - 1000
becomes
1000 - 1000 - 1000 - 2000 - 2000 - 2000 - 1000
You'll have to dig a bit to get numbers for SWToR, but they seem to have hovered around 500k for awhile. I assumed they dropped to 300k, until they jumped back up to 500k after the F2P release. I didn't add any numbers after the F2P release for SWToR (stopping at May, 2013). This will extend the difference in the amount of times used for each of the three games, giving SWToR the least amount of time since it won't count subs to the present, but it doesn't matter.
Calculate/Estimate total revenue for each of those three games. Sum up the total subs per month, then multiply it by $15.
SWToR - $213M total subs
SWG - $261.4M total subs
UO - $283.4M total subs
Now, divide each of those numbers by the number of months it took to generate those numbers.
SWToR - 18 months, $11.9M per month
SWG - 102 months, $2.6M per month ($3.3M adjusted for inflation)
UO - 118 months, $2.5M per month ($3.7M adjusted for inflation)
Even adjusting for inflation, neither UO or SWG come close to generating the kind of revenue that SWToR is generating. I would bet other theme park style games compare this well against "classics" financially. So if you ever wonder why those old sandbox games aren't making a comeback, this is why. $Money$
That's not to say that some new style of sandbox game won't exist, or that older style sandbox games won't exist, just at a smaller scale than AAA theme parks. Especially since newer styles of sandboxes are getting made, and older styles of sandbox games are getting made, just at a much smaller scale than the AAA theme parks.
I think your logic is kinda messed up on the premise that not many people at all were exposed to MMOs when UO And SWG came out or i am sure that there numbers would have much stronger across the board , just look at some of the real deuces for games that generate more than either of those 2 titles now... And only because the market has more than quadrupled in size since 97 ... If the market had the millions of gamers exposed to MMOS then as it has now , they would have pulled in great numbers ...
Again, we can do the same comparison with EQ and WoW and get the same results. Both were contemporaries of these games and both outperformed them by a wide margin.
**
SWToR is apropos because it is widely regarded as a total failure on these forums. Even adjusting for inflation, SWToR earns more than double what each of those games earned and it's very close to earning in two years what each those games earned in their entire lifetimes.
Also, before anyone takes the conversation in that direction, I don't like SWToR. WoW clone, not enough class storyline content versus world story content, odd or bad F2P choices made, small worlds that don't feel like worlds, etc. Take your pick of flaws. The cumulative effect of them was that I did not enjoy playing the game. That's not the point. The point is why the industry moved away from games like UO and SWG in the first place. $Money$
This is an absolutely BUNK argument.
The entire MMO playerbase circa 2000-2001 consisted of between 1.2-1.5million players TOTAL.
The "MMO" playerbase now is somewhere in the range of 15-25 million players. (I'm not including games like DOTA2, LoL, and other quasi MMOs, i mean traditional MMO where you log into a world with several hundred other players on the same "server").
What you're doing is like trying to compare the number of people who enjoyed drinking a very specific type of liquor, lets say Ouzo, to the number of people who enjoy drinking any type of alchohol whatsoever.
This whole topic is bunk because the genre has changed drastically from what it was, primarily to accomodate more casual gamers who would not otherwise have played "MMOs". This was done via making these games more accessible graphically, and as far as play style (quest hubs, tooltips, less time investment, easier content, more forgiving, etc).
Games like EQ, UO, and SWG required actual thought. They didnt have huge exclamation points above quest givers, things like quest hubs didnt exist. You were thrown into a world and you had to figure it out through trial and tribulation.
MMOs now are extremely hand held fairly single player experiences. Now, im not here to argue the merits of one play style vs the other, but comparing MMO's now to MMO's then is worse than apples to oranges, its more apples to potatoes.
To further take this and try to apply it towards an argument as to the merits of F2P vs Subscription is even more ridiculous.
And yet before SWG was running, EQ racked up what, half a million players? WoW racked up millions of players while SWG was running? Certainly more than SWToR.
Your point still doesnt stand. SWG was released in june 2003, wow was nov 2004. Nobody, literally NOBODY disputes the fact that WOW was the game that broadened the MMO genre to mainstream gaming. Even if you account for that, WOW didnt really start exploding in numbers until 2-3 years after it released. It was still in the 1-2million range in the first year.
You could look at it like this. "Old school" or "Sandbox" games tried to break the genre out of a niche, and a "New School" or "Theme Park" game was what did the trick. It's the same point stated differently. The "old school" or "sandbox" games did not jump the gap from "Niche" to "Mainstream". Unless they incorporate elements of standard, hand holding theme parks, they never will.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
This also doesn't account for player evolution, changing trends, etc. Right now, more and more players are growing tired of themeparks. There will always be a large market for themeparks, but the market for more complex games is growing as well.
When you work in software and technology like I to, you learn to never say never. Look at Star Citizen. A couple years ago, the idea that a crowdfunded game would raise $40+ million was laughable at best. That's a pretty good case for gamers who want something new / different in general.
Star Citizen is freaking crazy. Forty million dollars from a name and an idea. They are operating on a whole different plane of existence from pretty much every other MMORPG being developed right now, whether they are crowd funded or not.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
This also doesn't account for player evolution, changing trends, etc. Right now, more and more players are growing tired of themeparks. There will always be a large market for themeparks, but the market for more complex games is growing as well.
When you work in software and technology like I to, you learn to never say never. Look at Star Citizen. A couple years ago, the idea that a crowdfunded game would raise $40+ million was laughable at best. That's a pretty good case for gamers who want something new / different in general.
Star Citizen is freaking crazy. Forty million dollars from a name and an idea. They are operating on a whole different plane of existence from pretty much every other MMORPG being developed right now, whether they are crowd funded or not.
Eventually someone is going to make another breakthrough in the MMO genre, its only a matter of time, and this breakthrough will most likely include heavy sandbox elements. Star Citizen may be it. Or it may not be. Regardless, it is a long time coming.
I remember back when I first started on these forums in 2007. No one wanted to hear anything about Sandboxes. This forum was very much Pro-Themepark (from what I could remember). So much has changed over the years. Now, there are countless threads made here nearly every week about how Themepark elements are killing games. It's only a matter of time now.
Originally posted by lizardbones Calculate/Estimate total revenue for each of those three games. Sum up the total subs per month, then multiply it by $15.SWToR - $213M total subsSWG - $261.4M total subsUO - $283.4M total subsNow, divide each of those numbers by the number of months it took to generate those numbers.SWToR - 18 months, $11.9M per monthSWG - 102 months, $2.6M per month ($3.3M adjusted for inflation)UO - 118 months, $2.5M per month ($3.7M adjusted for inflation)
Does income/player matter at all, or is it just a nice number I want to grab for?
No, the old MMORPGs are gone. The millions of players today (with the small percentage paying for their games) are not interested in that kind of gaming experience anymore. Quick and efficient are the foundations of today's games.
What gets me the most, is that with the old games, we DID vote with our wallets. We can no longer do that because of the sheer number of players being supported by the goofballs paying massive amounts of money monthly that make these numbers so outrageous. Developers have stopped listening to players that pay and now cater to players that ride for free.
Hail to the almighty dollar and those players with the most.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
The games being developed now Such as The Repopulation, Elite and Dangerous are barely a blip on your average gamers radar and have little to no coverage in major gaming sites. These games may do well but they aren't teaching a large portion of MMO players. IMO it's gonna take something special to revitalize the genre. Star Citizen has a focused story to help build it's world then the option to have freedom on the game which I think is very cool. I love SWTOR but raids as endgame is not always the most appealing thing for me ave I think it would have benefited from some if the ideas Star Citizen is embracing.
The idea of just creating my own story is fairly boring to me however completing a story having the option to take part in other stories when released and playing as I feel with no specific progression seems enjoyable to me. My own story from start to finish I find dull as I never engage in the world. Just like generic questhub raid content without story I find dull as well.
Majority of players have never tried anything but themepark quest hub games. And with WoW skewing the dynamics of niche vs. mainstream you have every other type of MMORPG looking niche to developers. Majority of MMORPGS are niche except for WoW games like MAYBE STWOR which has spent hundreds of millions on development and marketing. Majority of AAA MMORPGS have always been in the 200 - 500k players. Despite themepark quest hubs supposedly being mainstream that hasn't changed.
The WoW formula IMO has created questing fatigue because we have had a decade of bad task filling up our journals. I see people wanting better content but there is only so many ways you can repackage the 7 quest formula and keeping up with content demands and cost are becoming harder for developers. I think SOE is going Sandbox because your content last longer if players are not forced to quest to progress.
Originally posted by Vermillion_Raventhal Majority of players have never tried anything but themepark quest hub games. And with WoW skewing the dynamics of niche vs. mainstream you have every other type of MMORPG looking niche to developers. Majority of MMORPGS are niche except for WoW games like MAYBE STWOR which has spent hundreds of millions on development and marketing. Majority of AAA MMORPGS have always been in the 200 - 500k players. Despite themepark quest hubs supposedly being mainstream that hasn't changed.
The WoW formula IMO has created questing fatigue because we have had a decade of bad task filling up our journals. I see people wanting better content but there is only so many ways you can repackage the 7 quest formula and keeping up with content demands and cost are becoming harder for developers. I think SOE is going Sandbox because your content last longer if players are not forced to quest to progress.
This response could be after several posts, but yours is the last one, so I'm going to respond here.
Regarding how long a game runs, it doesn't matter nearly as much as the overall amount of money being made by the game. If a game can generate more revenue in five years than other games do in ten years or more, developers are going to gravitate towards the five year game. What's happening though, is that these "short" games are running just as long as the really long term "old school" games. LotRO has been running for seven years. WoW has been running for ten years. The reports of "short games" are over stated and the reports of "failure" are just wrong.
At some point there's just going to be a saturation of the market with a particular type of game or set of features. I thought we had already hit that point awhile back, but apparently not. As others have stated, I do think sandbox features are going to start being used in mainstream games, but I don't see mainstream games ever adopting the idea of a pure sandbox. There's always going to be a purely entertainment element, like a movie or story that players will follow. "What am I supposed to do?" is a question that will always be answered in mainstream games. Players may get the option to go haring off into the wilderness, but they will always have the story and the breadcrumb trail waiting for them when they get back.
Who knows, maybe we'll get that Wild, Wild West game I've always wanted, or that Steam Punk Lovecraft game I've been hoping for. Probably not, but I can hope.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Originally posted by lizardbones Calculate/Estimate total revenue for each of those three games. Sum up the total subs per month, then multiply it by $15.
SWToR - $213M total subs
SWG - $261.4M total subs
UO - $283.4M total subs
Now, divide each of those numbers by the number of months it took to generate those numbers.
SWToR - 18 months, $11.9M per month
SWG - 102 months, $2.6M per month ($3.3M adjusted for inflation)
UO - 118 months, $2.5M per month ($3.7M adjusted for inflation)
Does income/player matter at all, or is it just a nice number I want to grab for?
No, the old MMORPGs are gone. The millions of players today (with the small percentage paying for their games) are not interested in that kind of gaming experience anymore. Quick and efficient are the foundations of today's games.
What gets me the most, is that with the old games, we DID vote with our wallets. We can no longer do that because of the sheer number of players being supported by the goofballs paying massive amounts of money monthly that make these numbers so outrageous. Developers have stopped listening to players that pay and now cater to players that ride for free.
Hail to the almighty dollar and those players with the most.
I really think that small scale "Art" or large scale "Entertainment" is the division represented here. You can see it in the movie industry where you can have small scale "Art Projects" or large scale "Entertainment Projects". Both have their merits, and they can each cross over into the other's territory, but not often.
**
I think Income Per Player is something that is very relevant to an individual developer, but not necessarily to the industry as a whole. The market for "$15 per player" is served very well and may be shrinking, but the market for "$4.50 per player or less" still has room to grow.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Originally posted by Vermillion_Raventhal Majority of players have never tried anything but themepark quest hub games. And with WoW skewing the dynamics of niche vs. mainstream you have every other type of MMORPG looking niche to developers. Majority of MMORPGS are niche except for WoW games like MAYBE STWOR which has spent hundreds of millions on development and marketing. Majority of AAA MMORPGS have always been in the 200 - 500k players. Despite themepark quest hubs supposedly being mainstream that hasn't changed.
The WoW formula IMO has created questing fatigue because we have had a decade of bad task filling up our journals. I see people wanting better content but there is only so many ways you can repackage the 7 quest formula and keeping up with content demands and cost are becoming harder for developers. I think SOE is going Sandbox because your content last longer if players are not forced to quest to progress.
This response could be after several posts, but yours is the last one, so I'm going to respond here.
Regarding how long a game runs, it doesn't matter nearly as much as the overall amount of money being made by the game. If a game can generate more revenue in five years than other games do in ten years or more, developers are going to gravitate towards the five year game. What's happening though, is that these "short" games are running just as long as the really long term "old school" games. LotRO has been running for seven years. WoW has been running for ten years. The reports of "short games" are over stated and the reports of "failure" are just wrong.
At some point there's just going to be a saturation of the market with a particular type of game or set of features. I thought we had already hit that point awhile back, but apparently not. As others have stated, I do think sandbox features are going to start being used in mainstream games, but I don't see mainstream games ever adopting the idea of a pure sandbox. There's always going to be a purely entertainment element, like a movie or story that players will follow. "What am I supposed to do?" is a question that will always be answered in mainstream games. Players may get the option to go haring off into the wilderness, but they will always have the story and the breadcrumb trail waiting for them when they get back.
Who knows, maybe we'll get that Wild, Wild West game I've always wanted, or that Steam Punk Lovecraft game I've been hoping for. Probably not, but I can hope.
I'm pretty sure people who say the MMOs are failing is because they fail to hold the customers interest. Usually they start as a subscription based game and then quickly switch to the free to play model because not enough people are subscribing. Then they rely on micro transactions (impulse buying) to extend the life of the game.
Originally posted by Vermillion_Raventhal Majority of players have never tried anything but themepark quest hub games. And with WoW skewing the dynamics of niche vs. mainstream you have every other type of MMORPG looking niche to developers. Majority of MMORPGS are niche except for WoW games like MAYBE STWOR which has spent hundreds of millions on development and marketing. Majority of AAA MMORPGS have always been in the 200 - 500k players. Despite themepark quest hubs supposedly being mainstream that hasn't changed.
The WoW formula IMO has created questing fatigue because we have had a decade of bad task filling up our journals. I see people wanting better content but there is only so many ways you can repackage the 7 quest formula and keeping up with content demands and cost are becoming harder for developers. I think SOE is going Sandbox because your content last longer if players are not forced to quest to progress.
This response could be after several posts, but yours is the last one, so I'm going to respond here.
Regarding how long a game runs, it doesn't matter nearly as much as the overall amount of money being made by the game. If a game can generate more revenue in five years than other games do in ten years or more, developers are going to gravitate towards the five year game. What's happening though, is that these "short" games are running just as long as the really long term "old school" games. LotRO has been running for seven years. WoW has been running for ten years. The reports of "short games" are over stated and the reports of "failure" are just wrong.
At some point there's just going to be a saturation of the market with a particular type of game or set of features. I thought we had already hit that point awhile back, but apparently not. As others have stated, I do think sandbox features are going to start being used in mainstream games, but I don't see mainstream games ever adopting the idea of a pure sandbox. There's always going to be a purely entertainment element, like a movie or story that players will follow. "What am I supposed to do?" is a question that will always be answered in mainstream games. Players may get the option to go haring off into the wilderness, but they will always have the story and the breadcrumb trail waiting for them when they get back.
Who knows, maybe we'll get that Wild, Wild West game I've always wanted, or that Steam Punk Lovecraft game I've been hoping for. Probably not, but I can hope.
I'm pretty sure people who say the MMOs are failing is because they fail to hold the customers interest. Usually they start as a subscription based game and then quickly switch to the free to play model because not enough people are subscribing. Then they rely on micro transactions (impulse buying) to extend the life of the game.
The older games followed the exact same trend as the newer games. Lots of box sales smaller dedicated player base and difficulty in keeping all of their players. The only difference is that Budgets have increased and f2p has emerged as a viable option thanks to the advent of Micro Transactions, DLC and other ways of making money in games over the years. If micro transactions and f2p were around years ago I am pretty sure companies would have used those means to keep their games profitable and running.
This also doesn't account for player evolution, changing trends, etc. Right now, more and more players are growing tired of themeparks. There will always be a large market for themeparks, but the market for more complex games is growing as well.
When you work in software and technology like I to, you learn to never say never. Look at Star Citizen. A couple years ago, the idea that a crowdfunded game would raise $40+ million was laughable at best. That's a pretty good case for gamers who want something new / different in general.
Star Citizen is freaking crazy. Forty million dollars from a name and an idea. They are operating on a whole different plane of existence from pretty much every other MMORPG being developed right now, whether they are crowd funded or not.
This has a lot to do with the fact that they are claiming to bring something basically completely new to the table, and because they have done a stellar job of showing the game development world how a company should communicate with their customers in the year 2014. The thing is though, a large number of gamers have been looking for fresh experiences, and Star Citizen represents just that.
From the perspective of someone who joined MMORPG games during WoW or post-WoW, all they have seen is themeparks. Most of them have no idea what a game with more emergent gameplay looks like, or how it works. Take crafting for example. I've sat here and tried to explain how deep crafting, and a crafting-driven game like SWG works for the past several years, and unless people have been involved in it, they don't get it. All they have seen of crafting is that it is tacked on to regular classes, and can be largely ignored if they want.
The 600lb gorilla in this discussion, is COMPUTER POWER. Star Wars Galaxies absolutely chewed up and spit out even good gaming machines back then on anything at or above medium settings. I came to SWG from Quake 1, 2, 3, Unreal Tournament, Tribes, etc, and I was always on the cutting edge of gaming graphics, overclocking, etc. SWG was an un-optimized pig. It didn't even run very well later on SLI-machines. Many people simply couldn't play it smoothly at all in the early days, even on the lowest settings, where it looked like absolute crap.
WoW, on the other hand, has always run great on mediocre home computers. This is one of the biggest catalysts to their success, and the massive growth of the MMORPG genre. Blizz knows it, and that is exactly why WoW has never seen a really huge engine upgrade.
SWG was buggy and clunky, but those who stuck around to get involved in the community fell in love with the game, largely. I was always a hardcore competitive FPS shooter player, so imagine my surprise when I decided on a whim to try SWG, and found that I loved running a virtual shop (and non-combat classes in general), being involved in a tight-knit in game community, and getting involved in things the game developers at SOE themselves never saw coming; player created content.
Originally posted by Vermillion_Raventhal Majority of players have never tried anything but themepark quest hub games. And with WoW skewing the dynamics of niche vs. mainstream you have every other type of MMORPG looking niche to developers. Majority of MMORPGS are niche except for WoW games like MAYBE STWOR which has spent hundreds of millions on development and marketing. Majority of AAA MMORPGS have always been in the 200 - 500k players. Despite themepark quest hubs supposedly being mainstream that hasn't changed.
The WoW formula IMO has created questing fatigue because we have had a decade of bad task filling up our journals. I see people wanting better content but there is only so many ways you can repackage the 7 quest formula and keeping up with content demands and cost are becoming harder for developers. I think SOE is going Sandbox because your content last longer if players are not forced to quest to progress.
This response could be after several posts, but yours is the last one, so I'm going to respond here.
Regarding how long a game runs, it doesn't matter nearly as much as the overall amount of money being made by the game. If a game can generate more revenue in five years than other games do in ten years or more, developers are going to gravitate towards the five year game. What's happening though, is that these "short" games are running just as long as the really long term "old school" games. LotRO has been running for seven years. WoW has been running for ten years. The reports of "short games" are over stated and the reports of "failure" are just wrong.
At some point there's just going to be a saturation of the market with a particular type of game or set of features. I thought we had already hit that point awhile back, but apparently not. As others have stated, I do think sandbox features are going to start being used in mainstream games, but I don't see mainstream games ever adopting the idea of a pure sandbox. There's always going to be a purely entertainment element, like a movie or story that players will follow. "What am I supposed to do?" is a question that will always be answered in mainstream games. Players may get the option to go haring off into the wilderness, but they will always have the story and the breadcrumb trail waiting for them when they get back.
Who knows, maybe we'll get that Wild, Wild West game I've always wanted, or that Steam Punk Lovecraft game I've been hoping for. Probably not, but I can hope.
I'm pretty sure people who say the MMOs are failing is because they fail to hold the customers interest. Usually they start as a subscription based game and then quickly switch to the free to play model because not enough people are subscribing. Then they rely on micro transactions (impulse buying) to extend the life of the game.
That's the thing. They are holding the customers' interest. Whether it's by offering an optimal pricing model, game play or a combination of the two isn't all that relevant to "success". I didn't extend SWToR's population past the 18 month mark, but they were pretty close to the 500,000 player subscriptions after nearly three years (released in Nov. 2011) with a total of a million people logging in each month. The reality of what SWToR has done puts them much farther ahead of the other games I compared them to. LotRO has had a ton of players for seven years. Other games are running just fine, but at a much smaller scale for three, four or more years now. There definitely games that have fallen short of their goals, and SWToR is one of them, but overall the idea that they are failing or the genre is failing by supporting them isn't ... supported.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Originally posted by Vermillion_Raventhal Majority of players have never tried anything but themepark quest hub games. And with WoW skewing the dynamics of niche vs. mainstream you have every other type of MMORPG looking niche to developers. Majority of MMORPGS are niche except for WoW games like MAYBE STWOR which has spent hundreds of millions on development and marketing. Majority of AAA MMORPGS have always been in the 200 - 500k players. Despite themepark quest hubs supposedly being mainstream that hasn't changed.
The WoW formula IMO has created questing fatigue because we have had a decade of bad task filling up our journals. I see people wanting better content but there is only so many ways you can repackage the 7 quest formula and keeping up with content demands and cost are becoming harder for developers. I think SOE is going Sandbox because your content last longer if players are not forced to quest to progress.
This response could be after several posts, but yours is the last one, so I'm going to respond here.
Regarding how long a game runs, it doesn't matter nearly as much as the overall amount of money being made by the game. If a game can generate more revenue in five years than other games do in ten years or more, developers are going to gravitate towards the five year game. What's happening though, is that these "short" games are running just as long as the really long term "old school" games. LotRO has been running for seven years. WoW has been running for ten years. The reports of "short games" are over stated and the reports of "failure" are just wrong.
At some point there's just going to be a saturation of the market with a particular type of game or set of features. I thought we had already hit that point awhile back, but apparently not. As others have stated, I do think sandbox features are going to start being used in mainstream games, but I don't see mainstream games ever adopting the idea of a pure sandbox. There's always going to be a purely entertainment element, like a movie or story that players will follow. "What am I supposed to do?" is a question that will always be answered in mainstream games. Players may get the option to go haring off into the wilderness, but they will always have the story and the breadcrumb trail waiting for them when they get back.
Who knows, maybe we'll get that Wild, Wild West game I've always wanted, or that Steam Punk Lovecraft game I've been hoping for. Probably not, but I can hope.
I'm pretty sure people who say the MMOs are failing is because they fail to hold the customers interest. Usually they start as a subscription based game and then quickly switch to the free to play model because not enough people are subscribing. Then they rely on micro transactions (impulse buying) to extend the life of the game.
That's the thing. They are holding the customers' interest. Whether it's by offering an optimal pricing model, game play or a combination of the two isn't all that relevant to "success". I didn't extend SWToR's population past the 18 month mark, but they were pretty close to the 500,000 player subscriptions after nearly three years (released in Nov. 2011) with a total of a million people logging in each month. The reality of what SWToR has done puts them much farther ahead of the other games I compared them to. LotRO has had a ton of players for seven years. Other games are running just fine, but at a much smaller scale for three, four or more years now. There definitely games that have fallen short of their goals, and SWToR is one of them, but overall the idea that they are failing or the genre is failing by supporting them isn't ... supported.
Falling short of their goals is definitely a kind of failure. It makes it that much less likely that the next themepark will be funded. Again, there's a reason there has been a shift away from themeparks as of late. I'm not sure why you guys go to such efforts to pretend like it's not happening, and that these themeparks are fine and dandy.
Do they have 500k subs? Sure, I'll take your word for it. 500k is a big number. But as I said before, unless you include cost in your analysis, it's meaningless.
Comments
This also doesn't account for player evolution, changing trends, etc. Right now, more and more players are growing tired of themeparks. There will always be a large market for themeparks, but the market for more complex games is growing as well.
When you work in software and technology like I to, you learn to never say never. Look at Star Citizen. A couple years ago, the idea that a crowdfunded game would raise $40+ million was laughable at best. That's a pretty good case for gamers who want something new / different in general.
Your point still doesnt stand. SWG was released in june 2003, wow was nov 2004. Nobody, literally NOBODY disputes the fact that WOW was the game that broadened the MMO genre to mainstream gaming. Even if you account for that, WOW didnt really start exploding in numbers until 2-3 years after it released. It was still in the 1-2million range in the first year.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
You could look at it like this. "Old school" or "Sandbox" games tried to break the genre out of a niche, and a "New School" or "Theme Park" game was what did the trick. It's the same point stated differently. The "old school" or "sandbox" games did not jump the gap from "Niche" to "Mainstream". Unless they incorporate elements of standard, hand holding theme parks, they never will.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Star Citizen is freaking crazy. Forty million dollars from a name and an idea. They are operating on a whole different plane of existence from pretty much every other MMORPG being developed right now, whether they are crowd funded or not.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Eventually someone is going to make another breakthrough in the MMO genre, its only a matter of time, and this breakthrough will most likely include heavy sandbox elements. Star Citizen may be it. Or it may not be. Regardless, it is a long time coming.
I remember back when I first started on these forums in 2007. No one wanted to hear anything about Sandboxes. This forum was very much Pro-Themepark (from what I could remember). So much has changed over the years. Now, there are countless threads made here nearly every week about how Themepark elements are killing games. It's only a matter of time now.
No, the old MMORPGs are gone. The millions of players today (with the small percentage paying for their games) are not interested in that kind of gaming experience anymore. Quick and efficient are the foundations of today's games.
What gets me the most, is that with the old games, we DID vote with our wallets. We can no longer do that because of the sheer number of players being supported by the goofballs paying massive amounts of money monthly that make these numbers so outrageous. Developers have stopped listening to players that pay and now cater to players that ride for free.
Hail to the almighty dollar and those players with the most.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
The idea of just creating my own story is fairly boring to me however completing a story having the option to take part in other stories when released and playing as I feel with no specific progression seems enjoyable to me. My own story from start to finish I find dull as I never engage in the world. Just like generic questhub raid content without story I find dull as well.
The WoW formula IMO has created questing fatigue because we have had a decade of bad task filling up our journals. I see people wanting better content but there is only so many ways you can repackage the 7 quest formula and keeping up with content demands and cost are becoming harder for developers. I think SOE is going Sandbox because your content last longer if players are not forced to quest to progress.
This response could be after several posts, but yours is the last one, so I'm going to respond here.
Regarding how long a game runs, it doesn't matter nearly as much as the overall amount of money being made by the game. If a game can generate more revenue in five years than other games do in ten years or more, developers are going to gravitate towards the five year game. What's happening though, is that these "short" games are running just as long as the really long term "old school" games. LotRO has been running for seven years. WoW has been running for ten years. The reports of "short games" are over stated and the reports of "failure" are just wrong.
At some point there's just going to be a saturation of the market with a particular type of game or set of features. I thought we had already hit that point awhile back, but apparently not. As others have stated, I do think sandbox features are going to start being used in mainstream games, but I don't see mainstream games ever adopting the idea of a pure sandbox. There's always going to be a purely entertainment element, like a movie or story that players will follow. "What am I supposed to do?" is a question that will always be answered in mainstream games. Players may get the option to go haring off into the wilderness, but they will always have the story and the breadcrumb trail waiting for them when they get back.
Who knows, maybe we'll get that Wild, Wild West game I've always wanted, or that Steam Punk Lovecraft game I've been hoping for. Probably not, but I can hope.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I really think that small scale "Art" or large scale "Entertainment" is the division represented here. You can see it in the movie industry where you can have small scale "Art Projects" or large scale "Entertainment Projects". Both have their merits, and they can each cross over into the other's territory, but not often.
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I think Income Per Player is something that is very relevant to an individual developer, but not necessarily to the industry as a whole. The market for "$15 per player" is served very well and may be shrinking, but the market for "$4.50 per player or less" still has room to grow.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I'm pretty sure people who say the MMOs are failing is because they fail to hold the customers interest. Usually they start as a subscription based game and then quickly switch to the free to play model because not enough people are subscribing. Then they rely on micro transactions (impulse buying) to extend the life of the game.
The older games followed the exact same trend as the newer games. Lots of box sales smaller dedicated player base and difficulty in keeping all of their players. The only difference is that Budgets have increased and f2p has emerged as a viable option thanks to the advent of Micro Transactions, DLC and other ways of making money in games over the years. If micro transactions and f2p were around years ago I am pretty sure companies would have used those means to keep their games profitable and running.
This has a lot to do with the fact that they are claiming to bring something basically completely new to the table, and because they have done a stellar job of showing the game development world how a company should communicate with their customers in the year 2014. The thing is though, a large number of gamers have been looking for fresh experiences, and Star Citizen represents just that.
From the perspective of someone who joined MMORPG games during WoW or post-WoW, all they have seen is themeparks. Most of them have no idea what a game with more emergent gameplay looks like, or how it works. Take crafting for example. I've sat here and tried to explain how deep crafting, and a crafting-driven game like SWG works for the past several years, and unless people have been involved in it, they don't get it. All they have seen of crafting is that it is tacked on to regular classes, and can be largely ignored if they want.
The 600lb gorilla in this discussion, is COMPUTER POWER. Star Wars Galaxies absolutely chewed up and spit out even good gaming machines back then on anything at or above medium settings. I came to SWG from Quake 1, 2, 3, Unreal Tournament, Tribes, etc, and I was always on the cutting edge of gaming graphics, overclocking, etc. SWG was an un-optimized pig. It didn't even run very well later on SLI-machines. Many people simply couldn't play it smoothly at all in the early days, even on the lowest settings, where it looked like absolute crap.
WoW, on the other hand, has always run great on mediocre home computers. This is one of the biggest catalysts to their success, and the massive growth of the MMORPG genre. Blizz knows it, and that is exactly why WoW has never seen a really huge engine upgrade.
SWG was buggy and clunky, but those who stuck around to get involved in the community fell in love with the game, largely. I was always a hardcore competitive FPS shooter player, so imagine my surprise when I decided on a whim to try SWG, and found that I loved running a virtual shop (and non-combat classes in general), being involved in a tight-knit in game community, and getting involved in things the game developers at SOE themselves never saw coming; player created content.
That's the thing. They are holding the customers' interest. Whether it's by offering an optimal pricing model, game play or a combination of the two isn't all that relevant to "success". I didn't extend SWToR's population past the 18 month mark, but they were pretty close to the 500,000 player subscriptions after nearly three years (released in Nov. 2011) with a total of a million people logging in each month. The reality of what SWToR has done puts them much farther ahead of the other games I compared them to. LotRO has had a ton of players for seven years. Other games are running just fine, but at a much smaller scale for three, four or more years now. There definitely games that have fallen short of their goals, and SWToR is one of them, but overall the idea that they are failing or the genre is failing by supporting them isn't ... supported.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Falling short of their goals is definitely a kind of failure. It makes it that much less likely that the next themepark will be funded. Again, there's a reason there has been a shift away from themeparks as of late. I'm not sure why you guys go to such efforts to pretend like it's not happening, and that these themeparks are fine and dandy.
Do they have 500k subs? Sure, I'll take your word for it. 500k is a big number. But as I said before, unless you include cost in your analysis, it's meaningless.