People like to read fan fictions as well. That doesn't mean its going to be more popular then the writings of the original author. If you consider the creation of games an art - then you will understand why designers do a better job of it. If you think a bunch of fans are going to create content as high quality of that as professionals - you greatly underestimate the talent of our current designers.
We know sandbox games don't work well because they have been tried. There is some appeal - notably for the hardcore who have a lot of time on their hands. But for working professionals who make big money - they are best served by themepark games. The reason being is that they want and can afford having EVERY moment in their game being quality.
With sandbox content you have to muddle through the bad to get to the 'good.' Most people only have so many hours of life and want to just experience high quality play. if your target audience is going to pay virtually nothing and intends to play your game for thousands of hours - sandbox is in fact the way to go.
But if you want to charge people 60 bucks + another 60 for four months of play - then you better have high quality content. You seem to think that Smedley is 'smarter' then the other developers and discovering a new way. What's really going on is he recognizes he can't compete with the AAA studios so he is going after the people with shall we say "a lot of free time' and limited funds.
This is the mine craft crowd. Basically Smedley is chasing a niche. He knows - and you should know that sandbox games aren't going to provide the same high level of quality that a themepark will.
Smedley is snowing you. Themepark content is unsustainable. So what? Sustainablity is not the goal. The goal is making a game that people WANT TO PLAY. Are 'sandbox' games that a lot of people want to play? That depends a lot on how you define sandbox. But If you define it as a game with all player created content - the answer is no. This is especially true if you reject things like battlegrounds as being 'sandbox.'
Think about pencil and paper dungeons and dragons. When is the game fun? When you have a great dungeon master. When did it suck? When you had a bad one. Players don't make very good content. Trying to outsource your game creation to the players seems ingenious but lucky for our wallets its not particularly effective.
Like it or not the only games that a lot of people have wanted to play are themepark games. Yes they are unsustainable - but so that is life.
Imo, you just unintentionally complimented Smedley, cause people "want to play" Minecraft with better graphics and more players abound in a more persistent world, your point is kinda lost there. You underestimate how many people want to play sandbox games and if you would have been there when alpha launched you would have seen how every plot got scooped up within roughly an hour.
Dont forget even though these 3 games arent traditional MMORPGs, they emulate more of what MMORPGS could have become some of them the top sellers on Steam currently, they have sandbox elements games like Day Z, Rust, and Starbound. All of them have MMORPG elements we had at one time , before they was stripped down for people more suited to play MOBAs or dungeon crawlers like Diablo and its ilk. There room for MMORPGS with sandbox elements along with themepark but it almost seems all against this are somehow threatened by this with regards to the status quo. The shift is happening but not in the way these people are thinking. Hybrids are the future .. not themepark or sandbox.
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People like to read fan fictions as well. That doesn't mean its going to be more popular then the writings of the original author. If you consider the creation of games an art - then you will understand why designers do a better job of it. If you think a bunch of fans are going to create content as high quality of that as professionals - you greatly underestimate the talent of our current designers.
We know sandbox games don't work well because they have been tried. There is some appeal - notably for the hardcore who have a lot of time on their hands. But for working professionals who make big money - they are best served by themepark games. The reason being is that they want and can afford having EVERY moment in their game being quality.
With sandbox content you have to muddle through the bad to get to the 'good.' Most people only have so many hours of life and want to just experience high quality play. if your target audience is going to pay virtually nothing and intends to play your game for thousands of hours - sandbox is in fact the way to go.
But if you want to charge people 60 bucks + another 60 for four months of play - then you better have high quality content. You seem to think that Smedley is 'smarter' then the other developers and discovering a new way. What's really going on is he recognizes he can't compete with the AAA studios so he is going after the people with shall we say "a lot of free time' and limited funds.
This is the mine craft crowd. Basically Smedley is chasing a niche. He knows - and you should know that sandbox games aren't going to provide the same high level of quality that a themepark will.
Dont forget even though these 3 games arent traditional MMORPGs, they emulate more of what MMORPGS could have become some of them the top sellers on Steam currently, they have sandbox elements games like Day Z, Rust, and Starbound. All of them have MMORPG elements we had at one time , before they was stripped down for people more suited to play MOBAs or dungeon crawlers like Diablo and its ilk. There room for MMORPGS with sandbox elements along with themepark but it almost seems all against this are somehow threatened by this with regards to the status quo. The shift is happening but not in the way these people are thinking. Hybrids are the future .. not themepark or sandbox.