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[Column] General: A Sad Day For MMOG Enthusiasts Like Me
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
As often happens, I'm writing this column on Sunday. It's slated to appear on Tuesday, which will be the last day for Massively. If you primarily see this as the closure of a key MMORPG.com competitor, it may not seem particularly unfortunate. From a broader picture point of view, however, I'm saddened because I want to believe the growing and deepening interest in the MMOG genre is sufficient to support more sites like it and this one, not fewer.
Read more of Richard Aihoshi's The Free Zone: A Sad Day for MMOG Enthusiasts Like Me.
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Comments
It is AOL. The suites have sat by and watch the industry change dramatically while they did little or nothing at all. Hence AOL is bleeding everywhere so much that they cannot pick out the good from the bad. An excellent example of how NOT to run a business when times are changing as fast as they are.
I don't think it has anything to do with Massively or the MMO industry, someone said cut and they did. I very much doubt the suits even know what Massively did nor their income stream. The cut was made above them and they where caught in the fallout. It happens when the people running the business get so confused they just lash out at anything they don't understand or don't want to bother with the details.
My gut thinks it was simply the GREED up top,not the actual main board of owners but a select few left in charge of running the operation,sort of like Smedley with SOE.Just like in the Banking business there are cut throats looking to pad their BONUSES while chop blocking other employees,selfish and greedy but is fact of life in these businesses.
I remember the President of Yahoo,a female hired her friend whom she brought over from Google just because numbers were not big enough.
Sad really you see multiple millions and it warrants chop blocking employees,even friends you considered solid for the job.Greed at the very top is real,they want big bonuses and Billions not millions,especially if there are too many people dipping in the cookie jar.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Like many corporate decisions, this likely came from the top and from a broad overview of AOL's holdings.
Maybe they are spinning off a bunch of "non-core" assets. Maybe they tried to spin off Massively and there were no buyers. Maybe it didn't occur to the top brass that it could happen. And maybe they didn't care enough about a very small piece of the overall business to even think about it.
I hope all the folks affected by this land on their individual and collective feet. /salute
The biggest problem with MMORPG.com I have right now is that it's transitioned into "RPG" coverage in general and is in large part ignoring MMO coverage. I understand that the genres are similar in a few aspects, but they're completely different in others. There should be no reason that DA:I, The Banner Saga or a bunch of other single player games.
Instead this site needs to cover things like hidden quests within specific games, a look at game designs, and other things of that nature. Real in-depth looks at games from a gamer perspective. Too many articles on this site read that they're from a writer but not from a gamer and are far too vague and unappealing to read. Basically there's not enough MMO coverage on MMORPG.com. (GamesCom 2014 "Awards" was a total of 3 MMOs out of 8 total..the others was 4 RPG games that are not MMOs and 1 thing that was a device and not a game!).
P.S. Oh, and the real kicker. That big fiasco coverage of that game Scarlet Blade while having huge ass banners on the side of the game for advertisement. That kind of sold unethical biased right there.
P.P.S. The Player's Choice Awards for "Best of 20XX" has been a joke for quite some years. Why? Because it's been well known -and documented- that developers have been using social media to get their obsessive fans to bombard this site with votes for their game. Sure it gets your site traffic, but that's all it is seen as: a hollow attempt to boost traffic while handing out an award of pointlessness.
P.P.P.S. Stop giving coverage to crappy F2P Facebook or Mobile games that nobody in the real MMO circle would give 2-pennies about. One article maybe and that's it. You guys give way too much coverage to them that it becomes just as obnoxious as your over complicated website layout on the front page. Yes, it's horrible and everyone knows it. Why have 2 places for the same articles? And one place just links to a 2nd page where the real article is? That's not only completely annoying for the reader, but it's just clearly a waste of website design and programing showing a level of incompetence that one wonders about. Used to have good daily comic features as well as featured game screenshots, neither which have been in upkeep over the years.
Thanks for the article, Richard. I'm glad to see Massively isn't just slipping quietly into the night.
Anyway. While I have no way to support such an endeavor, MMORPG.com needs a competitor. As Siphead noted, this site is more of an MMO and RPG site than a straight up MMORPGs. Moreover, this site (trying to avoid typing the whole thing) has always thrown its arms wide open to most every MMO out there. Now this is what originally drew me to the site, but at the same time it creates a lot of noise.
Massively focused on the main, core games of the past, present, and future. It cut out the stuff it found to be superfluous (what that meant was a matter of the site's personality) and was a lean, mean reporting machine. It did long articles about news and updates, and never just threw out individual press releases without any commentary. It was al about the features. MMORPG.com is more about the news items. It is guaranteed to keep you up to speed, but for good think pieces? Massively.
Now of course this site publishes a lot of long articles. But, if I'm brutally honest, I think there's too much fluff here. Massively only ever put out a long article if they actually had somthing to say. Now that's not to say I think this site doesn't put out good articles, you do, just again, a lot of noise.
If you want to fill the hole in my heart though, you guys might think about doing breakdowns of major patches ala the Mog Log or Eve Evloved. Those were my jam. Strawberry jam. Strawberry. (I know they did more than just patch discussions with those columns, but more would be a bit much. MMORPG.com already has its own thing to do.)
I think this is Joystiq and Massively's own fault.
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People vote with their wallet, when it became clear that Jostiq and Massively were heavily involved in the GameJournoPro secret mailing list, a lot of gamers used their contacts to make sure those sponsors took down their ads. I can tell you that hurt their revenue.
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Games and politics don't mix, and when you turn against gamers, you pay the price. Companies listen to gamers, gamers make their company profitable, not bloggers.
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I have no sympathy for them.
Exactly. In my opinion, we are years from a true traditional mmorpg that is devoid of cash shops and the type of solo classless class system that enables everyone to just solo and destroy any potential for a community.
It is hard to cry "Corporate Greed" when you are talking about something unprofitable. Corporations are focused on making money. That is why they exist. You might better cry a "lack of vision" or "lack of interest "in becoming profitable. From a corporate standpoint, the MMO landscape has changed. Many couldn't wait to jump in somehow, some way when Activision/Blizzard started posting revenues that rivaled small countries.
Anyone else see a parallel with the movie industry? They seem to back sure things now vs. taking a real chance. I see the same thing here. The problem is nobody really knows what formula works anymore.
I am going to miss Massively and I wish this weren't happening but I understand it. Our hobby is changing. We'll have to figure out the new paradigm and learn what works to preserve what we enjoy. People aren't going to pay a traditional subscription anymore. Our level of interest in a new game quickly shifts as people just mow through the content faster than it can be produced. I think the former SOE (now Daybreak) was on to something with the inclusion of user created content with EQ Next. We'll see.
At their core, games need to be fun. We need to be incented to do things in games that reward us in some way or another. Eye candy does nothing for me if the core gameplay isn't fun. Some of the more recent releases have left we cold right out of the gate.
Then again, I eagerly awaited the launch of TSW thinking it was going to be revolutionary. A classless system - hooray! Engagement and event outside of the game to draw us all in - Nice! A great story and exceptional writing - Yes! Having to pass a gatekeeper and demonstrate skill before being allowed to handle Nightmare content - At last! Well the game tanked in record time. Many of us could hear a loud sucking sound as soon as GW2 launched. In retrospect, many weren't ready for some of the changes put forth by TSW (and yes it had some launch challenges too) This launch broke Funcom.
Look at SWTOR..ESO,,,
The MMO space is pretty risky now. I don't see a lot of publishers jumping on board with a AAA development anytime soon.
Lot's of great stuff being crowd funded and a lot of great games RPGs coming out from indies. Let's hope MMOs follow. It is going to take the indies to give our hobby a shot in the arm; that or we'll all be playing iteration after iteration of Angry Birds or Farmville. If that's where we end up, I'll retire from MMOs.
Seaspite
Playing ESO on my X-Box
Take this as it lays, but I recall long ago around the time Occular and Sony were making press peeps about tossing their chips on eventually developing VR as a new entertainment medium and Time Warner throwing down serious money for R&D. MMORPGs can be considered a primal template or model for VR entertainment which would make it logical for AOL to follow-up cornering fan interest a bit later with Massively later coming into being. It could be that Massively was intended as Time Warner-AOL's toe-hold for a future VR audience and I guess developments in the field were too slow for them. STEAM seems to be banking similarly with its in-house VR development and investments in VR companies, so AOL had the right idea but didn't help nurture the tech itself past being a fan site.
MassivelyOverpowered....you heard it here first !
http://www.massivelyop.com/ coming soon
Richard says the way the genre is being reported is changing, and that's down to the genre evolving/changing, which is true.
The genre is being watered down and games that have no right to call themslves MMO's are claiming that title, largely I suspect to justify adding a cash shop.
Here we are in an article from the champion of all things F2P and I'm gonna say it. F2P is killing the genre! Not in terms of MMO production, no (But hey they're all fucking dogshit anyway right?) but it is killing the integrity of the genre.
Human nature being what it is, the vast majority of gamers will play these F2P turds right up until they hit a pay wall and then bail. The devs know this. So why should they bother to spend that little extra time and effort making a great game when they can make one that "good enough"?
The sooner F2P fucks off and dies on it's own vomit the better.
I read this article, and then I read the title for another one immediately afterward, "CCP Games Shuts Down Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines". MMORPGs have always been about bringing in the twitch gamer, the one that's going to play and spend money on something they like for a short time, and then they go away. The market, despite how much time and effort it would require to run in the opposite direction, has been catering to the increasingly casual audience, who will go in, spend days or weeks on a product, perhaps several hundred dollars each, and then will go away. Unfortunately, and I'm not certain anyone really gets why this is happening, or if they are just blissfully ignoring the blinding truth, but more developers come out of the wood work to get their twelve months of fame, if they even last that long, and the phat loot to go with it, and then shutter the doors on a project that took them a long time to make, and that they will barely break even from, if they are allowed to get that far.
There are no games that are developed for role-players -I'm talkin' the old-style dice and paper types that would likely sell their Mother to have a game that would actually care for their needs and desires- to soak in and stick with... forever. Is it financially feasible to do something like this? You have Kickstarter, you have all manner of fund-raising opportunities and, if you build a computer game in accordance with the role-playing game, your fan base might be smaller, but it will be more steady, and long-term. You introduce new rules, make your fixes, over a longer period of time, and actually cater to what the real veteran players want, for once, and give them new modules that live in accordance with the original tabletop game rules, and you'll have money for the rest of your lives, developers, rather than disappointment, nastiness, foul words, etc.
Take Pathfinder, for example... Paizo split their house, so they could continue to produce gazettes for the RPG, and so they could develop an MMORPG. It's a role-playing game, not just a kill everything game and, as soon as it's released, I'm looking to get into it; I didn't get in on early development by being a Kickstarter supporter, and I have yet to lay my hands on the Pathfinder RPG, but I do intend to play. Why? Because I've followed it's development,and it's going to be an RPG, not just Lord of the Rings Online or World of Warcraft. Elder Scrolls Online is a role-playing game, as well, though with a bit more action, and I intend to get into that one as soon as I have a computer expensive enough to play it. Why? You might ask; you've heard it's boring, you've heard it's ridiculously slow. You know what I hear? Lands to explore, caves and castles to check out, whether on my own or with a group, monsters to defeat, even if the lairs these things are in follow a more traditional MMORPG role in having monsters all over the place.
The time of the typical MMORPG are coming to an end, the endless slaughter fests, the really horrible community interactions, etc. Long live the new-old MMORPG, the one I rolled dice on tabletop so many years ago to support.
It's time to change the future, so it's not just more of the same. Time to make it what it was supposed to be, from the beginning.
AOL has a loooong history of being somewhat "hostile" toward its gaming related (and even non-gaming) content providers. They have never taken games seriously, barely giving token lip-service; enough to maybe drag gamers along for a couple more months before announcing one service or another being cut.
Way back in the day Steve Case himself was asked by a player and guildmate about AOL's plans for Neverwinter Nights and his answer was that games were squarely "on the radar". A couple of months later they cancelled the game and kicked most other games off the service, along with the free support forums they provided for other game (and non-game) companies. Bethesda's support has never been as good as it was back in the Elder Scrolls : Arena days.
How bad was the betrayal? Only the SWG NGE surpasses it. Yeah, that bad.
"If MMORPG players were around when God said, "Let their be light" they'd have called the light gay, and plunged the universe back into darkness by squatting their nutsacks over it."
-Luke McKinney, The 7 Biggest Dick Moves in the History of Online Gaming
"In the end, SWG may have been more potential and promise than fulfilled expectation. But I'd rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
-Raph Koster
Apparently a new website called "massivelyoverpowered" is in the works . They already turned down funding from a game developer because of ethicacy issues . It sounds like they want a website that will offer mmo news free of perks/bribes from devs .
Hope they can pull it off . If they do it will be the place to go for news on mmos .
Very truthful post.
And indeed there are a lot of similarities going on in the movie industry. Actually things are a lot worse in the movie industry, but the big 3 / MPAA are doing what they can to minimize how much of that gets discussed publicly.
The problem w/ both of these industries is that creative industries go at odds (to varying degrees) with traditional business sense. Businesses thrive on the known, on the predictable. They look for formulas, for trends, things they can rely upon to manipulate for profit. Creative endeavors thrive on the unknown, what people think might be possible, and discovery. It's in this way that creating a game is much more of a science than a business. Some amount of R&D, of experimentation is necessary to keep things fresh & interesting. It's necessary to keep things growing.
However, that's not what pays the bills. Most experiments operate at a net loss. How companies get around that is by funding such risks with much more profitable (and predictable) projects on the side. I.E. nintendo is a good example of this. They'll release a mario 8, but they'll also have side projects / more risky projects on the side. This is what more companies should be doing, but many are afraid to do. You have your established IPs for your stable financials, but you should always be experimenting with other projects to keep growing. When your company fails to do this (or stops doing it) you end up with situations like Squaresoft. They're so dependant on Final Fantasy atm that if that IP fails they are in serious trouble. The ironic thing is, that when I was younger they had a handful of amazingly strong RPGs at their disposal. And very few of them are still being explored.
Sadly, in the case of MMOs, they budgets are too bloated to take such risks. In order to create a game with the bare minimum of features, graphics, and network capabilities that us gamers expect, you need a substantial amount of resources at your disposal. This has been getting slightly more manageable, and we have started seeing more crowd-funded attempts, but we have yet to see just how well those pay off. Most of those projects are still in the concept / early testing stage. We don't yet know how well they will pull off the end result.
- I don't think we are going to see much out of MMOs until one of two things happen. A) Technology advances to a point where the tools to create an MMO are much less costly.
Us as gamers significantly change / reduce our expectations as to what constitutes a 'real' MMO. I know for some of us (based on some of the posts I've seen on these forums), our expectations have gotten so far off from reality that they are virtually impossible to meet.
I have played many MMORPGs over the last 12 years and though I usually slam the publishers I will this time enact ridicule on the developers.
Ultima Online, Everquest, World of Warcraft...
These were original world class AAA successful MMORPGs that started the industry as far as many are concerned. Some may argue that there are a few others that have been lost to history and they have that right.
However The three mentioned above are the most memorable and trend setting MMORPGs that started it all. The ideas for them were original, two of them, WoW and UO came from RPGs and RTS games. EQ came about from imagination directly with assistance of AD&D and other influences.
Now fast forward nearly 15 years and if one actually takes the time to look, there has been a plethora of knock off clones of those three repeatedly being created every few years. The newbies trying to knock off the oldies.. however thats where things get stupid.
Since EverQuest there has not been one original idea that was succesful, they all ues the same UI, they share engines, they copy from each other... however none since EQ has been successful.
Not SWTOR, not Final Fantasy XI or XIV, not GW or GW2.. hell in the mmorpg market originality has become a myth, a legend. They all take a piece of the pie... but the big one WoW still owns them all in subs.. The money Blizzard makes is absolutely sickening, and they give half assed expansions in return. After 10 Years they still cant think out side of anything Warcraft, Diablo, or Starcraft. all those that existed in the 90's
many wanted to see Blizzard do a cyber punk style MMORPG, they probably could have pulled it off with flying colors and the kitchen sink to boot, instead they trashed the concept they were working on and focused on a M:TG kncok off using the tried and true Warcraft characters... oh and lets not forget their newest enterprise... also using warcraft heroes...
Looks like Blizzard is a one trick pony...
Electronic Arts or EA has failed so many times it has become an expected performance every year. what is the saying... oh yes:
"Move along folks, nothing to see here..."
Explains EA pretty much on the nose... what are they working on now? Anyone bother to check? Me either...
Its the same all over the industry, with two exceptions, Star Citizen and Citadel of Sorcery.
Star Citizen as many know is a MMOSim with RPG elements. It will have RPG, and PVP elements all through the game. Yet many contend it is not an MMORPG.
Just a note, to RPG is to play a role. you are your character, you cannot have multiple characters... I have to say here and now that there are only a few games with this model out and those I feel are the only real MMORPGs out there.
Now Citadel of Sorcery is a fantasy based MMORPG that will have everything original, the devs there are working hard on bringing an entirely original new world for players to dive into, and yes I said world. not game.
Citadel of Sorcery will sport the largest world in any game with a staggering 900 million kilometers for players to explore. If you get bored, hell, go take a walk, it'll lead you somewhere you havent been.
Thats all im saying for now, sorry its so long, game on everyone!
Played: UO, LotR, WoW, SWG, DDO, AoC, EVE, Warhammer, TF2, EQ2, SWTOR, TSW, CSS, KF, L4D, AoW, WoT
Playing: The Secret World until Citadel of Sorcery goes into Alpha testing.
Tired of: Linear quest games, dailies, and dumbed down games
Anticipating:Citadel of Sorcery
Hey Siph,
We're going to keep forging on with RPG coverage, because by and large... people read it and are receptive to both. But the new site WILL have a better way to distinguish. I swear it. We're also working on being more choosy with our news. If anything, because the new site will benefit more from a pickier amount of articles and reporting. You'll see what I mean soon enough.
RE: The Player's Choice Awards. We like doing these. They're not as big of a traffic booster as you think, and instead help us gauge player interest, even if they're weighted more by devs pushing communities to vote (IE: Marvel Heroes). If nothing else, they're fun to watch play out. That's why we do them, and most posters seem to like the arguments and laughs they can bring. Remember P101 Game of the Year? :P
But the above has me confused... I don't think we ever praised Scarlet Blade. We all called it what it was: a cheap and crappy ploy to get lonely men to pay money for fake polygonal boobs. The ads on the site have NOTHING to do with the content. Zero, zilch, nada. I don't have control over what Craig and Ben sell as ad space, and frankly since they pay my bills, I don't argue with them about it either.
If there's any question of ethics, it's in the art style of the ads (which again, I don't control), but definitely not on the editorial side.
Now, on topic: I'm really happy that MassivelyOP is moving forward. Both of our sites have coexisted well for more than 7 years. We serve two important segments of this audience, and they're a necessary voice among the throng. Personally, especially in recent years, I really think our game specific editorials, interviews, and genre columns have come a long way. We've got a REALLY solid core of writers and video content makers. Back in 2009? I don't think we could compete with Massively. Now? Lately? I think our content far outstrips what they were able to produce, both in terms of critical analysis and editorial content.
But that's not to say we can't do better, and trust me... we're always trying. Thanks for your support.
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
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Yes but you said this after the bulk(all?) the ads stopped running on the website. which is why we are calling it unethical(which its really more of a conflict of interest).....they(whoever are in control of the ads) are essentially recommending a game only to blow it to pieces once they aren't getting paid. In an ideal world the website shouldn't be advertising for a service they don't believe is of a certain quality....but then again its not an ideal world and scarlet blade paid the bills.
If MMORPG has to pay bills then they are entitled to do or not do whatever floats the boat. As a frequent and loyal visitor of MMORPG.COM I can say that trust has always been my motivation for even showing up.
I don't care for certain content here and I can avoid it by clicking away. But, honestly speaking, I used to love the insight on emerging games. I used to enjoy the written hype (not a meta-score).
Massively.... I visited the sight once in my entire life. It is not my cup of tea. But, that doesn't mean I can't feel for them as real people now have to find something else to do.
The writing may be on the wall for sites like Massively (looks around) but the ones who diversify are going to be there as genre after genre clicks through their content.
I do not consider MMORPG a kiddie site with all the latest gadgets and do-dads of the gaming world. I expect exactly what I get when some 'worthwhile' game is emerging. Yes...it's business! I get that.. but we are the target (I am the target of that 'business')
I prefer realistic ads... realistic reviews... and that super-awesome section of information that is so hard to find here anymore... 'How to get started? What to expect when you arrive.'
Hell... I spoke with Ripper X a while back as he was making his rounds with an emerging game... 'Ripper, just wanted to say 'Thanks!' for making your videos.' -Ataaka
Uhm-m-m yeah! I've spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars because of some of the neat things MMORPG does above the rest.... lets move forward while cleaning up the things we enjoy to see and generate profit for the big guys.
Sorry Massively.
Thank you MMORPG.
Well, i wonder if there was a possibility to make a joint taskforce called: Massively-MMORPG.com ?
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM