Everyone just has this all wrong. They come into this, thinking it's a bussiness, like opening up a pizza store, or something. There needs to be a passion and driving point, you can't just rip other games, deliver half assed SHIT (which is what've been getting) and hope to be successfull. WoW whatever state's it's in today has still, some of the better proggression story ever made in a MMORPG and that's someothing companies aren't out there to try to challenge and that's the issue. They will settle for less because they are too afraid to be new and just continue with the same old schlock.
The main reason is that developers are trying to creat mmorgs that appeals to ALL types of player, 7 year olds, adults, players used to single player games and mmorpg vets. That's impossible without compromising on design.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Originally posted by Atis-nob 1 simple reason: players had been voting with their wallets and current crop of solo-self-play-pseudo-mmorpg won.
Not really. Most themepark games have been pretty public failures, with lots of server merging and fading away into obscurity. The few that stabalized and have been limping along have just about as many players as the older hardcore group MMOs used to have.
But publishers don't care how many times they fail, they're going to keep making singleplayer MMOs until they get WoW numbers. Except that'll never happen.
Originally posted by Atis-nob 1 simple reason: players had been voting with their wallets and current crop of solo-self-play-pseudo-mmorpg won.
Not really. Most themepark games have been pretty public failures, with lots of server merging and fading away into obscurity. The few that stabalized and have been limping along have just about as many players as the older hardcore group MMOs used to have.
But publishers don't care how many times they fail, they're going to keep making singleplayer MMOs until they get WoW numbers. Except that'll never happen.
This just isn't true. Oh sure, if you limit what you read and see to "old school" forum posts, or only to people who are critical to a particular kind of game (those people have always existed, for every type of game) it probably looks really bleak. If you look at all the information available, "public failure" doesn't really describe what has happened.
More people, more money and more games from more developers than ever before is not what happens when "[m]ost themepark games have been pretty public failures".
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
The above post is nonsense. On the contrary, as I'm as hardcore as it can get, that helped me to save more $ on gaming than anyone else could around here and in the same time vote with my wallet. As I'm aware more of the games that become available and what they bring compared to what's already is available I can find methods to find enjoyment if not better for products that have already been long released and demand no $ to be played.
When I was a child I had no self control, cuz I bought almost into any game that was coming, luckily back then games were at least far more innovative, different and creative than today. It's very simple, the day we will have the right people, those like me in charge and leadership of the future games being developed we will start seeing something truly ahead of it's time. After all those who've seen and experienced the most out there to its fullest capacity can go ahead in time to accurately predict what the market of tomorrow will want to see.
If the "hardcore" players weren't buying every single game that came out, we wouldn't be getting such detailed complaints from "hardcore" players about the games. Even here on this site where players should have a really good idea of what a game is and who it's meant for, people keep buying the games that they should have no expectation to enjoy.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
The OP's title is correct, there is one simple reason: Money
(ignore the post where they gave 10).
If you want to change things, spend money. Only the money that gets spent has any effect on the industry. If enough people put money into something (Star Citizen for example), then the industry will watch, and try to follow. This is how we got where we are now, and how things will change going forward.
If you dont spend money, you cant effect the market (as a consumer). No one really cares why you are not spending money, they just care about the money that is being spent. The more money you spend, the greater effect you can have on change.
Well, the MMO genre is certainly not growing as it used to do a few years back and the reason for that is probably that most of them are too similar.
They have usually about the same difficulty, features, setting and mechanics and that do hurt the potential number of players that could play MMOs.
But the state of MMOs is that there are way more players now then when OP started playing in 2001 or when I started in 1996.
There could be plenty more if some publishers decided to make games for people who doesn't like high fantasy themepark MMOs with a modified D&D mechanics (a few such games do exist like Eve and TSW but there should be many more).
Many people here doesn't like Wow (never played it myself) but Blizzard did succeed in getting in a lot of fresh blood and more companies should learn from that, however not by copying Wow but to make games for people who aren't currently playing MMOs but would if the right game showed up.
The solution to get the genre start growing again is to find a new playerbase just like Wow did, not reviving games from way past (even if there are plenty of things you could learn from many old MMOs).
But then OP might want it to return to the small badly funded niche genre it once was, but there were plenty of bad things about that as well. I dunno how many bugs that made people insane back then (M59 or EQ at launch, or even worse AO if you want example).
The thing I personally think they should try again is to make a MMO for pen and paper RPGers, there are millions of us around and games like UO, M59, AC and EQ reylly tried that but had so many technical limitations that doesn't exist today. Sadly did CCP close down their attempt a while back but there is a huge untapped potential playerbase there even if there are many others around.
All that said don't I mean that they should stop making high fantasy MMOs but it is time to stop putting all eggs in the same basket. That is at least my opinion.
The OP's title is correct, there is one simple reason: Money
(ignore the post where they gave 10).
If you want to change things, spend money. Only the money that gets spent has any effect on the industry. If enough people put money into something (Star Citizen for example), then the industry will watch, and try to follow. This is how we got where we are now, and how things will change going forward.
If you dont spend money, you cant effect the market (as a consumer). No one really cares why you are not spending money, they just care about the money that is being spent. The more money you spend, the greater effect you can have on change.
Very few individuals have enough money to make a difference in the market. Look at the big MMOs like LoL or TOR .. they are making hundreds of millions a year.
Your $15 a month matters very little.
I wouldn't try to change the market ... i will just find stuff that i like and be done with.
The OP's title is correct, there is one simple reason: Money
(ignore the post where they gave 10).
If you want to change things, spend money. Only the money that gets spent has any effect on the industry. If enough people put money into something (Star Citizen for example), then the industry will watch, and try to follow. This is how we got where we are now, and how things will change going forward.
If you dont spend money, you cant effect the market (as a consumer). No one really cares why you are not spending money, they just care about the money that is being spent. The more money you spend, the greater effect you can have on change.
But that is not really the reason, is it?
There is no-one saying that a MMO that earns a lot of money must be really similar to other successful games, in fact a lot speak against that (there is already a Wow and stealing it's playerbase have proven way harder than companies like Mythic thought). It is more about cowardice, lets fund stuff similar to other stuff that worked in the past.
And a lot of really expensive games did far from well, look on Warhammer online for example, it is dead now. Guildwars (1) on the other hand earned in many times the rather small cost it was to make it. there are other low budget MMOs that became pretty big as well, like Eve online.
If you want to earn big money you need a good idea others havn't already have and you also need to do some gamble. Safe bets don't bring in as much money as a high odds one that works.
The OP's title is correct, there is one simple reason: Money
(ignore the post where they gave 10).
If you want to change things, spend money. Only the money that gets spent has any effect on the industry. If enough people put money into something (Star Citizen for example), then the industry will watch, and try to follow. This is how we got where we are now, and how things will change going forward.
If you dont spend money, you cant effect the market (as a consumer). No one really cares why you are not spending money, they just care about the money that is being spent. The more money you spend, the greater effect you can have on change.
But that is not really the reason, is it?
There is no-one saying that a MMO that earns a lot of money must be really similar to other successful games, in fact a lot speak against that (there is already a Wow and stealing it's playerbase have proven way harder than companies like Mythic thought). It is more about cowardice, lets fund stuff similar to other stuff that worked in the past.
And a lot of really expensive games did far from well, look on Warhammer online for example, it is dead now. Guildwars (1) on the other hand earned in many times the rather small cost it was to make it. there are other low budget MMOs that became pretty big as well, like Eve online.
If you want to earn big money you need a good idea others havn't already have and you also need to do some gamble. Safe bets don't bring in as much money as a high odds one that works.
It's has nothing to do w/ cowardice.
If you're only options are:
A) Take a risk, with no visible evidence that it will succeed; and if it fails you put yourself and 100s of other people out of business / a job
or
Take less risks, be guaranteed that you will make money, but not have as innovative a game as you would've liked originally.
Any sane person would choose option A. And this is a large part of the problem when it comes to MMOs. You can try and keep your game small (low budget, small staff), but it won't go anywhere. It might make a profit, but it won't be enough to really do much w/ your company. People expect / demand so much from MMOs these days that it's become impossible to deliver on a small budget. And, as a result, devs are forced to deal w/ the complications that come as a result of having a large production budget. Mainly, they have to deal w/ producers, funding, investors, etc. to keep their came afloat.
Warhammer died because of it's IP, and because EA is notorious for cannibalizing it's own products / smaller studios to fund future ones.
GW1 was a success, because the creators weren't trying to make an MMO. The game was essentially a 'proof of concept' for a larger game (which is now GW2). The base game was creating by a couple ex-Blizzard devs out of an apartment, on a really small budget. They then evolved the game into something larger as the game got more popular. It still (to this day) isn't an MMO, but it is a damn good game.
However, if anything GW1 is an example of what is missing from todays MMOs (and us gamers). One of the major differences in how we play MMOs now, vs. how we used to play them back at their inception; is that in the past we were willing to support a smaller idea, and watch it grow into a larger one. Now? We want everything right now. And if a game doesn't launch with everyone we want, it's goodbye as soon as something else pops up that even hints that it might have something better.
When GW1 launched it had few classes, a small fraction of the skills it has today, a good (but short) single player campaign, no endgame raiding, and limited PvP (though it was fun). Nowadays, people wouldn't stick w/ such a game long enough to watch it evolve.
A) Take a risk, with no visible evidence that it will succeed; and if it fails you put yourself and 100s of other people out of business / a job
or
Take less risks, be guaranteed that you will make money, but not have as innovative a game as you would've liked originally.
Any sane person would choose option A. And this is a large part of the problem when it comes to MMOs. You can try and keep your game small (low budget, small staff), but it won't go anywhere. It might make a profit, but it won't be enough to really do much w/ your company. People expect / demand so much from MMOs these days that it's become impossible to deliver on a small budget. And, as a result, devs are forced to deal w/ the complications that come as a result of having a large production budget. Mainly, they have to deal w/ producers, funding, investors, etc. to keep their came afloat.
Warhammer died because of it's IP, and because EA is notorious for cannibalizing it's own products / smaller studios to fund future ones.
GW1 was a success, because the creators weren't trying to make an MMO. The game was essentially a 'proof of concept' for a larger game (which is now GW2). The base game was creating by a couple ex-Blizzard devs out of an apartment, on a really small budget. They then evolved the game into something larger as the game got more popular. It still (to this day) isn't an MMO, but it is a damn good game.
However, if anything GW1 is an example of what is missing from todays MMOs (and us gamers). One of the major differences in how we play MMOs now, vs. how we used to play them back at their inception; is that in the past we were willing to support a smaller idea, and watch it grow into a larger one. Now? We want everything right now. And if a game doesn't launch with everyone we want, it's goodbye as soon as something else pops up that even hints that it might have something better.
When GW1 launched it had few classes, a small fraction of the skills it has today, a good (but short) single player campaign, no endgame raiding, and limited PvP (though it was fun). Nowadays, people wouldn't stick w/ such a game long enough to watch it evolve.
Actually, a lot of investors in other fields take huge risks, like when Norway decided to fund a large project looking for oil or when the East India companies sent ships to India with huge risks. Even today do plenty of people invest in risky stocks, look on all Googles weird projects (they actually hired in about 90% of the worlds robotics experts). Heck, Bill gates thought buying QDOS for a thousand bucks and modding it was risky as well, paid out pretty fine.
As for Warhammer the IP had nothing to do with it, Warhammer have millions of fans but the game wasn't made for them but to get Wows playerbase and become the largest MMO out there (or so Barnett said before launch at least). EA didn't start to cannibalize it until after initial sales, they did actually put more money in it 6 months before launch because they believed in it.
The genre needs a few risktakers (surprisingly enough is the big one right now Microsoft that funds Undead labs which BTW have the same lead designer as Guildwars had), taking risks is what actually made many of the companies big from the beginning. Valves Half-life was a big risk, very different from popular games like Quake 2 when they started to make it. Heck, most EAs own early games were risktakers even if development cost were a lot less back then but so were the companies budgets.
And Guildwars were fun at release, it was different, challenging and made for a rather different crowd then other games. Yeah, it was a CORPG rather than a MMO but saying that people wouldn't stand it today is a mistake, a well made game that is different have a huge potential today as well.
There is no-one saying that a MMO that earns a lot of money must be really similar to other successful games,
It does not have to be .... but certainly there is a correlation.
Madden 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ....
CoD 1,2,3,4,5, ....
Halo 1,2,3,4,5, ......
need i say more?
They are cashing on the IP...Yes, Final Fantasy is best example....but keep in mind that one bad sequel can ruin a whole IP. It's why we've seen so many MMO's using a popular IP. They are cashing in on it for even the cost of ruining it.
At least Square understood that with each sequel the standard, polish and quality must be better and higher than the previous. You saw what happen with Mass Effect 3 or Elder Scroll Online or SWTOR and so forth.
The last time I bought into IP, just based on trust was Star Craft 2...The irony was how I've played 60,000+ games on Star Craft 1, but stopped playing Star Craft within 10 days or less. I never bothered with the campaign as well. Diablo 3, same exact story....played it for only 10 days. I stopped playing it after I was stuck in Inferno act 2, farming over and over with my Wizard...But of course I did not buy Diablo 3, I got it for free with the annual sub WOW promotion.
MMO game play is stale and repetitive. There is simply no way to get any type of immersion because the player is always aware that thousands of other players are doing the exact same thing. I still check out this site once in a while hoping something will change.
I think MMO developers should take a close look at the survival horror genre and take one point away from those types of games. There is a smattering of realism in those games in regards to eating, drinking and healing (for some). This gives the player an awareness that the character's life must be attended to which automatically gives these games a layer of immersion that most MMOs lack. I believe that this is part of the appeal of these games. I am not saying MMOs should adopt the mechanics of survival horror but I do think MMOs should find their own way to make the character's 'life' worth something to the player.
There is no-one saying that a MMO that earns a lot of money must be really similar to other successful games,
It does not have to be .... but certainly there is a correlation.
Madden 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ....
CoD 1,2,3,4,5, ....
Halo 1,2,3,4,5, ......
need i say more?
They are cashing on the IP...Yes, Final Fantasy is best example....but keep in mind that one bad sequel can ruin a whole IP. It's why we've seen so many MMO's using a popular IP. They are cashing in on it for even the cost of ruining it.
At least Square understood that with each sequel the standard, polish and quality must be better and higher than the previous. You saw what happen with Mass Effect 3 or Elder Scroll Online or SWTOR and so forth.
The last time I bought into IP, just based on trust was Star Craft 2...The irony was how I've played 60,000+ games on Star Craft 1, but stopped playing Star Craft within 10 days or less. I never bothered with the campaign as well. Diablo 3, same exact story....played it for only 10 days. I stopped playing it after I was stuck in Inferno act 2, farming over and over with my Wizard...But of course I did not buy Diablo 3, I got it for free with the annual sub WOW promotion.
That is you. And your play time has very little to do with the market. (And let me digress, there are plenty of people putting in even thousands of hours into SC2 & D3).
The fact is .. sequel (and by def, the same game with some incremental improvement) sells. While there are always exceptions (like bad sequels), many of these franchise will keep running and running.
Well, the MMO genre is certainly not growing as it used to do a few years back and the reason for that is probably that most of them are too similar.
They have usually about the same difficulty, features, setting and mechanics and that do hurt the potential number of players that could play MMOs.
But the state of MMOs is that there are way more players now then when OP started playing in 2001 or when I started in 1996.
There could be plenty more if some publishers decided to make games for people who doesn't like high fantasy themepark MMOs with a modified D&D mechanics (a few such games do exist like Eve and TSW but there should be many more).
Many people here doesn't like Wow (never played it myself) but Blizzard did succeed in getting in a lot of fresh blood and more companies should learn from that, however not by copying Wow but to make games for people who aren't currently playing MMOs but would if the right game showed up.
The solution to get the genre start growing again is to find a new playerbase just like Wow did, not reviving games from way past (even if there are plenty of things you could learn from many old MMOs).
But then OP might want it to return to the small badly funded niche genre it once was, but there were plenty of bad things about that as well. I dunno how many bugs that made people insane back then (M59 or EQ at launch, or even worse AO if you want example).
The thing I personally think they should try again is to make a MMO for pen and paper RPGers, there are millions of us around and games like UO, M59, AC and EQ reylly tried that but had so many technical limitations that doesn't exist today. Sadly did CCP close down their attempt a while back but there is a huge untapped potential playerbase there even if there are many others around.
All that said don't I mean that they should stop making high fantasy MMOs but it is time to stop putting all eggs in the same basket. That is at least my opinion.
A very intelligent response. I don`t think anyone necessarily wants to return to the niche situation for MMOs. But I`m not entirely convinced that I agree with your analysis of why WoW was successful either. I am aware that it was considered casual and commercial compared to EQ etc. But it also did make a name for itself for having an endgame that was unbeaten for about a year, and then only by Nihilum basically. TBC already went very casual compared to this, and had about 2% of the player base getting things done in SWP at the end. But it`s still a pretty high hanging fruit, and it helped make the game so exciting because virtually nobody ever really ran out of content.
Personally I think this was one of the main attractions of the game, and why the subs peaked in Wrath. All the old addicts came back and a surge of new players came in as well. But then it was too easily accessible and the addicts ran out of content and were bored and left again. And so the subs dropped by five million. Not rocket science this, if you ask me.
It's simple economics. PvP at best vs producers and consumers. Producers make products for $ and consumers spend $ to enjoy products.
I'm the consumer and the fact producers have failed to take $ from me in the last 3½ years is most evident that I'm the winner in this PvP as example. The great news is the numbers show that many others are as resilient as me...With weak sales, weak profits I can only see far more amazing products in the upcoming future.
If WOW could, any other product can, not just get but surpass the numbers and success Blizzard had...Also today the market is far bigger than it was when WOW was at the top. More people have higher tech hardware and access to the internet and more are familiar with MMO's.
The way I see it right now...there is a big hole out there that someone eventually will fill. A lot of players are without a great game and a great opportunity exist for someone to capture and create a significant market toward his product.
The way I see it right now...there is a big hole out there that someone eventually will fill. A lot of players are without a great game and a great opportunity exist for someone to capture and create a significant market toward his product.
What are you talking about? There are plenty of "big" games with tens of millions of players. Just that they are not traditional MMORPGs.
I don't think there is a big hole .. just that the demand is now filled by other types of online games. MOBAs, card games are all filling up gamers' time.
Comments
The reason why the mmorpg genre is the way it is today is because developers can't create the perfect virtual world that I want.
Please, someone. I need a cookie for my insight. These revelations take a lot of energy.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Not really. Most themepark games have been pretty public failures, with lots of server merging and fading away into obscurity. The few that stabalized and have been limping along have just about as many players as the older hardcore group MMOs used to have.
But publishers don't care how many times they fail, they're going to keep making singleplayer MMOs until they get WoW numbers. Except that'll never happen.
I have the OP on Ignore for a reason (long ago). Almost clicked (Show Post). whew.
But your quotes reaffirmed it. I think he is the reason the second line in my Signature exists.
"My Fantasy is having two men at once...
One Cooking and One Cleaning!"
---------------------------
"A good man can make you feel sexy,
strong and able to take on the whole world...
oh sorry...that's wine...wine does that..."
This just isn't true. Oh sure, if you limit what you read and see to "old school" forum posts, or only to people who are critical to a particular kind of game (those people have always existed, for every type of game) it probably looks really bleak. If you look at all the information available, "public failure" doesn't really describe what has happened.
More people, more money and more games from more developers than ever before is not what happens when "[m]ost themepark games have been pretty public failures".
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
If the "hardcore" players weren't buying every single game that came out, we wouldn't be getting such detailed complaints from "hardcore" players about the games. Even here on this site where players should have a really good idea of what a game is and who it's meant for, people keep buying the games that they should have no expectation to enjoy.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
The OP's title is correct, there is one simple reason: Money
(ignore the post where they gave 10).
If you want to change things, spend money. Only the money that gets spent has any effect on the industry. If enough people put money into something (Star Citizen for example), then the industry will watch, and try to follow. This is how we got where we are now, and how things will change going forward.
If you dont spend money, you cant effect the market (as a consumer). No one really cares why you are not spending money, they just care about the money that is being spent. The more money you spend, the greater effect you can have on change.
Well, the MMO genre is certainly not growing as it used to do a few years back and the reason for that is probably that most of them are too similar.
They have usually about the same difficulty, features, setting and mechanics and that do hurt the potential number of players that could play MMOs.
But the state of MMOs is that there are way more players now then when OP started playing in 2001 or when I started in 1996.
There could be plenty more if some publishers decided to make games for people who doesn't like high fantasy themepark MMOs with a modified D&D mechanics (a few such games do exist like Eve and TSW but there should be many more).
Many people here doesn't like Wow (never played it myself) but Blizzard did succeed in getting in a lot of fresh blood and more companies should learn from that, however not by copying Wow but to make games for people who aren't currently playing MMOs but would if the right game showed up.
The solution to get the genre start growing again is to find a new playerbase just like Wow did, not reviving games from way past (even if there are plenty of things you could learn from many old MMOs).
But then OP might want it to return to the small badly funded niche genre it once was, but there were plenty of bad things about that as well. I dunno how many bugs that made people insane back then (M59 or EQ at launch, or even worse AO if you want example).
The thing I personally think they should try again is to make a MMO for pen and paper RPGers, there are millions of us around and games like UO, M59, AC and EQ reylly tried that but had so many technical limitations that doesn't exist today. Sadly did CCP close down their attempt a while back but there is a huge untapped potential playerbase there even if there are many others around.
All that said don't I mean that they should stop making high fantasy MMOs but it is time to stop putting all eggs in the same basket. That is at least my opinion.
Very few individuals have enough money to make a difference in the market. Look at the big MMOs like LoL or TOR .. they are making hundreds of millions a year.
Your $15 a month matters very little.
I wouldn't try to change the market ... i will just find stuff that i like and be done with.
But that is not really the reason, is it?
There is no-one saying that a MMO that earns a lot of money must be really similar to other successful games, in fact a lot speak against that (there is already a Wow and stealing it's playerbase have proven way harder than companies like Mythic thought). It is more about cowardice, lets fund stuff similar to other stuff that worked in the past.
And a lot of really expensive games did far from well, look on Warhammer online for example, it is dead now. Guildwars (1) on the other hand earned in many times the rather small cost it was to make it. there are other low budget MMOs that became pretty big as well, like Eve online.
If you want to earn big money you need a good idea others havn't already have and you also need to do some gamble. Safe bets don't bring in as much money as a high odds one that works.
It's has nothing to do w/ cowardice.
If you're only options are:
A) Take a risk, with no visible evidence that it will succeed; and if it fails you put yourself and 100s of other people out of business / a job
or
Any sane person would choose option A. And this is a large part of the problem when it comes to MMOs. You can try and keep your game small (low budget, small staff), but it won't go anywhere. It might make a profit, but it won't be enough to really do much w/ your company. People expect / demand so much from MMOs these days that it's become impossible to deliver on a small budget. And, as a result, devs are forced to deal w/ the complications that come as a result of having a large production budget. Mainly, they have to deal w/ producers, funding, investors, etc. to keep their came afloat.
Warhammer died because of it's IP, and because EA is notorious for cannibalizing it's own products / smaller studios to fund future ones.
GW1 was a success, because the creators weren't trying to make an MMO. The game was essentially a 'proof of concept' for a larger game (which is now GW2). The base game was creating by a couple ex-Blizzard devs out of an apartment, on a really small budget. They then evolved the game into something larger as the game got more popular. It still (to this day) isn't an MMO, but it is a damn good game.
However, if anything GW1 is an example of what is missing from todays MMOs (and us gamers). One of the major differences in how we play MMOs now, vs. how we used to play them back at their inception; is that in the past we were willing to support a smaller idea, and watch it grow into a larger one. Now? We want everything right now. And if a game doesn't launch with everyone we want, it's goodbye as soon as something else pops up that even hints that it might have something better.
When GW1 launched it had few classes, a small fraction of the skills it has today, a good (but short) single player campaign, no endgame raiding, and limited PvP (though it was fun). Nowadays, people wouldn't stick w/ such a game long enough to watch it evolve.
Actually, a lot of investors in other fields take huge risks, like when Norway decided to fund a large project looking for oil or when the East India companies sent ships to India with huge risks. Even today do plenty of people invest in risky stocks, look on all Googles weird projects (they actually hired in about 90% of the worlds robotics experts). Heck, Bill gates thought buying QDOS for a thousand bucks and modding it was risky as well, paid out pretty fine.
As for Warhammer the IP had nothing to do with it, Warhammer have millions of fans but the game wasn't made for them but to get Wows playerbase and become the largest MMO out there (or so Barnett said before launch at least). EA didn't start to cannibalize it until after initial sales, they did actually put more money in it 6 months before launch because they believed in it.
The genre needs a few risktakers (surprisingly enough is the big one right now Microsoft that funds Undead labs which BTW have the same lead designer as Guildwars had), taking risks is what actually made many of the companies big from the beginning. Valves Half-life was a big risk, very different from popular games like Quake 2 when they started to make it. Heck, most EAs own early games were risktakers even if development cost were a lot less back then but so were the companies budgets.
And Guildwars were fun at release, it was different, challenging and made for a rather different crowd then other games. Yeah, it was a CORPG rather than a MMO but saying that people wouldn't stand it today is a mistake, a well made game that is different have a huge potential today as well.
It does not have to be .... but certainly there is a correlation.
Madden 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ....
CoD 1,2,3,4,5, ....
Halo 1,2,3,4,5, ......
need i say more?
They are cashing on the IP...Yes, Final Fantasy is best example....but keep in mind that one bad sequel can ruin a whole IP. It's why we've seen so many MMO's using a popular IP. They are cashing in on it for even the cost of ruining it.
At least Square understood that with each sequel the standard, polish and quality must be better and higher than the previous. You saw what happen with Mass Effect 3 or Elder Scroll Online or SWTOR and so forth.
The last time I bought into IP, just based on trust was Star Craft 2...The irony was how I've played 60,000+ games on Star Craft 1, but stopped playing Star Craft within 10 days or less. I never bothered with the campaign as well. Diablo 3, same exact story....played it for only 10 days. I stopped playing it after I was stuck in Inferno act 2, farming over and over with my Wizard...But of course I did not buy Diablo 3, I got it for free with the annual sub WOW promotion.
MMO game play is stale and repetitive. There is simply no way to get any type of immersion because the player is always aware that thousands of other players are doing the exact same thing. I still check out this site once in a while hoping something will change.
I think MMO developers should take a close look at the survival horror genre and take one point away from those types of games. There is a smattering of realism in those games in regards to eating, drinking and healing (for some). This gives the player an awareness that the character's life must be attended to which automatically gives these games a layer of immersion that most MMOs lack. I believe that this is part of the appeal of these games. I am not saying MMOs should adopt the mechanics of survival horror but I do think MMOs should find their own way to make the character's 'life' worth something to the player.
That is you. And your play time has very little to do with the market. (And let me digress, there are plenty of people putting in even thousands of hours into SC2 & D3).
The fact is .. sequel (and by def, the same game with some incremental improvement) sells. While there are always exceptions (like bad sequels), many of these franchise will keep running and running.
A very intelligent response. I don`t think anyone necessarily wants to return to the niche situation for MMOs. But I`m not entirely convinced that I agree with your analysis of why WoW was successful either. I am aware that it was considered casual and commercial compared to EQ etc. But it also did make a name for itself for having an endgame that was unbeaten for about a year, and then only by Nihilum basically. TBC already went very casual compared to this, and had about 2% of the player base getting things done in SWP at the end. But it`s still a pretty high hanging fruit, and it helped make the game so exciting because virtually nobody ever really ran out of content.
Personally I think this was one of the main attractions of the game, and why the subs peaked in Wrath. All the old addicts came back and a surge of new players came in as well. But then it was too easily accessible and the addicts ran out of content and were bored and left again. And so the subs dropped by five million. Not rocket science this, if you ask me.
It's simple economics. PvP at best vs producers and consumers. Producers make products for $ and consumers spend $ to enjoy products.
I'm the consumer and the fact producers have failed to take $ from me in the last 3½ years is most evident that I'm the winner in this PvP as example. The great news is the numbers show that many others are as resilient as me...With weak sales, weak profits I can only see far more amazing products in the upcoming future.
If WOW could, any other product can, not just get but surpass the numbers and success Blizzard had...Also today the market is far bigger than it was when WOW was at the top. More people have higher tech hardware and access to the internet and more are familiar with MMO's.
The way I see it right now...there is a big hole out there that someone eventually will fill. A lot of players are without a great game and a great opportunity exist for someone to capture and create a significant market toward his product.
What are you talking about? There are plenty of "big" games with tens of millions of players. Just that they are not traditional MMORPGs.
I don't think there is a big hole .. just that the demand is now filled by other types of online games. MOBAs, card games are all filling up gamers' time.