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How to predict which MMORPGs will be shut down.
NetSpiker
Member Posts: 14
I've never played a MMORPG before, but I'm thinking of starting this year. However, I'm really concerned about the fact that the MMO I choose to invest my time in is might get shut down someday. Movies, TV shows, comics, novels and single-player video games can all last forever but online games seem to have a limited lifespan. Here are a few examples:
The Sims Online Shut Down: August 2008 Lifespan: 5 years
Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa Shut Down: February 2009 Lifespan: 1 year
Shadowbane Shut Down: July 2009 Lifespan: 6 years
The Matrix Online Shut Down: July 2009 Lifespan: 4 years
Star Wars Galaxies Shut Down: December 2011 Lifespan: 8 years
City Of Heroes Shut Down: November 2012 Lifespan: 8 years
Cartoon Network Universe: FusionFall Shut Down: August 2013 Lifespan: 4 years
Disney's Toontown Online Shut Down: September 2013 Lifespan: 10 years
Warhammer Online: Age Of Reckoning Shut Down: December 2013 Lifespan: 5 years
Vanguard: Saga Of Heroes Shut Down: July 2014 Lifespan: 7 years
Many of these games were part of popular, successful franchises, but even that wasn't enough to keep them save them. So why does it happen? And is there any way to predict which games are likely to be shut down? Are older games more likely or less likely to be shut down than newer games? Are free-to-play games more likely to be shut down than subscription-based games? Are games with only one server more likely to be shut down than games with many servers?
Maybe the problem is with the companies that own the games. Even if I buy a MMO from a store I can't really own it. I'm just buying permission to play the company's game and when that company decides to stop playing, the game is over forever. Are there some companies with a history of terminating a lot of their MMOs?
Asheron's Call, EverQuest, Final Fantasy XI and Guild Wars have been around for a decade and are still going strong despite having to compete with their own sequels. World Of WarCraft is still the most popular MMO even though it's nearly 10 years old. And Ultima Online has been around since 1997! Why are these games still active, while so many newer games have died? What makes them different?
Too bad I'm not really a fan of the medieval fantasy genre. I'm more into sci-fi. But I don't want to end up like that girl on YouTube who was crying over the fact that Star Wars Galaxies got shut down (who knew girls liked Star Wars?).
Comments
Runescape and EVE can be added to your list of games that have really stuck...
However, what you are searching for is something that is very difficult to tack down. And, people have been trying for a long time. It's called the "It" factor. An MMORPG has "It" or it does not. It's probably hard to say exactly what "It" is because that can be a different thing or combination of things, for different games. It can be one or two aspects that a game does well in. That for some reason, no one has been able to duplicate just-so, or do better-than.
The best you can do is assume that an MMORPG has a natural lifespan. And, that eventually the one you go with, will die. You accept that. And, be willing to find a new one after it happens. If you can't accept that anything can ever be as good or better. You become a jaded vet.
I couldn't give you a very accurate...curve of what works and what doesn't. I don't think any one here could do so, honestly. A lot of things that we might think absolutely shouldn't work...Have a way of living on, long past when we thought they would have died off. Sometimes, the stuff we were really hoping for. Almost inexplicably falls flat, all of the sudden, and we don't know where to place the blame.
It's just a gamble...As I would expect anything worth doing is. There are games that are gone (or gone for practical purposes) that I do miss. But, I am willing to make new good memories in a new environment. So, it's okay. But, if your too afraid to get into a game because you know it won't last forever. I don't know what to say to you except maybe...Get over it. Take the plunge. Make some friends. Rise to challenge. Have some fun. And, don't regret it when it's done.
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Depends if someone flags you for selling the account on ebay or not.
None, unless you invest in stock options that pay dividends.
Every MMO will fall. Eventually, even WoW will lose their dedicated following. WoW might kill itself with another Blizzard MMO, though.
If you want a MMO that lasts, pay attention to forums before a game is released. The ones which have zero criticism on the forums are the ones that will last.
That would just be so sad for all those that have tried to dethrone WoW...If ultimately it goes out on it's own terms, lol. One final "denied son!" Like everyone one in history that someone really wanted to assassinate, but couldn't. Because thee would be victim saw it coming and ended it before their enemies could (Hannibal, Cleopatra etc.)
It really is tough to "know" if an MMO will last or not. Many players play new MMOs for 1-3 months and leave to go play another MMO for the same time frame.
What you really have to consider is not the longevity of that MMO, but rather if your entertainment playing is worth the cost of and/or time playing. That is the key.
- 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
Getting married to an mmo isn't the best way to go about finding one. If you've ever been to an mmo forum and run into those guys that hate everything about the game and what the developers seem to be doing but month after moth keep posting about it.... those are the guys that have that till death do us part attitude towards it.
When you start talking about how much work you put in and all that time you've invested. Games are about fun and enjoying the moment not building a relationship that lasts no matter what. Play it till it stops being fun then go find another one. You can't tell if a game is going to be the one when you first start. It just happens or it doesn't.
SWG was an IP renewal issue. If SOE could have got it renewed they would have been content to keep the game going.
That would perhaps be the biggest factor there above even low population. If the IP is tied to money makers like movies and they think a poorly done MMO is going to damage the brand the IP license will threaten the MMO more than population.
AC 2 shut down really fast and Everquest and AC has not been about for ten rather for 15 years actually since they came out in 1999 .Everquest about a couple months earlier than AC. The thing is to gauge if a game is going to last is very much dependent on surrounding factors.
See if you like a game but you mostly solo or have like just a few friends playing the fact that the game is hugely popular is not really going to impact you unless you're using the auction house a lot or competing for resources. I do remember even in WoW when I played Horde on a server where there was an overwhelming population of Alliance I found the dismal state of of the auction house to be very disheartening. I was soloing then and even after I joined a guild they were all at max level so poor little me finally decided to just PvP my way to gear up.
However when I played Vanguard although by the time I was playing perhaps a year after it launched ,I had betaed then played at launch and got driven away because of the bugs and then returned to a sadly diminished game in terms of population. I was unaffected because I made every single crafter and was therefore not dependent on others for gear. I had a guild albeit a small one and we played together and the fact that the game was steadily dying was of no consequence.
See it is all about who you are playing with . A game's lifespan so to speak is of no consequence if you spend most of it soloing as the game might last for years to you since you are self sufficient. If however you need a populated game to enjoy it then it dying will screw things up royally for you.
Then there is the investment. I thought it was criminal BTW that they shut City of X down even when it was making NCSoft money. That one hurt my heart to tell you the truth the time I invested in that game to have all that work just erased. That is a risk you take and to be honest making an investment in a game is the only way to truly enjoy it. If you are not going to give it your all then just do not bother with it.
However if you are not so invested and dabble in it like I did in Aion,Rift,Warhammer,Tera,GW 2 and a few others even if they do get shut down it is of little consequence to me unlike City of Heroes/Villains shutting down which gutted me. Mind you it had been a year since I was last in the game when they said they were shutting it down and yet the pang hurt badly. It is however more likely due to the current economy that a game would likely go f2p before dying completely so there is a possibility that the game you have invested your time in gets a second life when it goes f2p.
All these terribly calculative thoughts to a hobby but I can understand how mundane things can get in the way of enjoying a game so too do I treasure my free time and would not wish to squander it on a game whose lifespan is that of a fruit fly.
- 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
usually its because the game is flawed in its game design, and no one is playing it, and the population is down signifcantly. If you looked at MATRIX ONLINE, the game wasn't that fun. The same could be said for City of Heroes. It started out pretty solid and alot of people were playing it, but the developers passed off the game to another company and they made a bunch of bad changes, including nerfing people so they weren't so heroic and putting a bunch of items into the game as a sort of bandaid to a game that wsn't really designed for the items. They came up with this architect expansion, the 14th one, which allowed you to create your own monsters to fight against, which allowed you to sort of optimize your fights. If you were a range, you could design mobs that were primarily melee, and if you were mostly melee, you could design mobs that would die quick to your attacks.
The sims online game was not fun to play, and part of the game was visiting other people's places they designed which was boring, so overall the game got boring and wasn't fun.
SWG was alot of fun and alot of people were playing it, but then they messed it up with a huge nerf called CU and people left that game in droves, they also nerfed a ton of classes, including the taming class and dancing class. Before this CU nerf the game was probably not the most balanced game but was alot of fun, after it, alot of anger and resentment and people were not happy, which inevitably caused lower populations and the eventual closure of the game.
tabula rasu was also flawed by design, so not enough of a population and it basically failed.
So the basic rule if a game is going to fail and have to shut down is if its fun, are people still playing it and having fun. Also, are they doing any expansions that ruin that fun and nerf too many people, thus causing people to leave and create low populations. If a game isn't profitable, like any business, they will eventually have to shut down.
If you look at Eve Online, they have only one server by design, but the populations are strong and people are having fun playing that game. The same could be said about ESO.
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The game is dead not, this game is good we make it and Romania Tv give it 5 goat heads, this is good rating for game.
my guess would be that its costing them more money to run the servers than its pulling in, so its a business decision to cut the companies losses.
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The game is dead not, this game is good we make it and Romania Tv give it 5 goat heads, this is good rating for game.
Vanguard has been dead for years. In 2011 after the security breach when we were given 45 days free game time, both servers were still dead, whilst SWGs server grew from 1 full server to 4 full servers. Out of the two games Vanguard seemed to be the most likely to shut down, but carried on. SWG would have done awesome as F2P. If SWG was not shut down then Vanguard probably would have done back then, but with SWG being forced to shut down by LA, SOE could not shut it down then.
SWTOR is now shaky. http://www.gamespot.com/articles/lucasfilm-confirms-all-future-star-wars-content-to-be-canon-including-the-games/1100-6419225/ Not only with its problematic past and Bioware being a shell of a company it once was, all future games are now going to be canon only. Whilst SWTOR is part of the Expanded Universe. Battlefront and the Viscerals Star Wars game both being published by EA will be canon. EA may focus or have to focus their time developing Star Wars canon content, and SWTOR will no longer be getting any more content because it is not canon. The game could be put on Autopilot but without new content it will not last long, unless they are able to add in sandboxy features to play with the existing content eg able to replay missions already done for more credits or other rewards.
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
To my understanding, GW1 has a cheaper than average server architecture (being largely instanced helps). Also, it was a very successful game with over 7 million copies sold. Vanguard, in comparison, has been on life support ever since it launched.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
It is pretty hard to figure out any kind of logic to why some MMOs closes down while they have plenty of players (like TR and SimsO) while others have really few but still keep on going (people here declare Darkfall and MO dead once every few months)...
It is more likely that games with a famous IP get closed down while they still earn some cash since it seems like the IP owner don't like to get bad press or plans to sell the IP to another company that might give them more money and better press...
And it seems like larger companies are more likely to close down games that generate some but not much cash while small companies are happy to keep their employees and continue even if they just go even.
But besides that, it is always hard to say which MMOs that will go down, only common thing is that they have less than 100K players even if some that goes down is close to that number.
Not only that but GW had minimal development costs as well while VG did cost a pretty penny. But maybe SOE wanted to use VGs devs on EQ3 and canceled it due to that, not that they had a large team the last few years but it is still a possibility.
Another possibility is that SOE wanted to clear the server space and bandwidth VG took. ANET doesn't have any new MMO coming out the next few years as far as I know...
Really? Someone will shut down a game that makes $200M+ in 2013? Unless it is not making money, i doubt they will shut it down.
Just put in it the "expanded universe", and do some lore mumbo jumbo ... and you still have a game that makes money.
Lucasfilm's canon policy makes no sense. Star Wars is a film franchise. Therefore, anything that's not a film is part of the Expanded Universe by definition. And an Expanded Universe can never be canon, even if Lucasfilm says it is. The reason an Expanded Universe can't be canon is because the people making the films never bother to read the books or play the games to make sure their films won't contradict anything. Declaring that "everything from now on is canon" doesn't really change that.
Games shut down when the money is no longer 'good enough'. This isnt always that they are losing money, but sometimes when the company backing it. That means that you have to also take into consideration factors outside of the game itself. An example of this (on your list) is Tabula Rasa. Another example is Star Wars Galaxies.
The number of players is related to the health of the game, but it is not as important as the money being generated. This is even more critical with F2P games, as it is not as easy for players to understand the revenue being generated.
If you can objectively look at the performance of a game, you can easily forsee any shutdown prior to the actual event. However, that doesnt meant that you should not play it, as you can still enjoy it until it is gone. MMO's are a service, which you can enjoy up until the day that they close.
Forget about mmorpgs from big companies than. If you want a mmorpg that is gonna last as long as you want it to last, host your own. The few you can that i know of that i think are good, are UO, EQ, and soon SWG and shadowbane. When SWG finishes, I plan on making a server of my own. You wont have millons of people playing. But who really plays with that many people any ways. You can have fun with a couple hundred, or less. As for UO it isnt even really that expensive, its just time consuming to figure out how to do it. You can rent a server computer for like 150 bucks, that could host around 1000 uo players.
Well that is not really true. SWG wasent losing money and that got shut down. So if Disney wants to make a new Star Wars mmo, they will shut down SWTOR.