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It's my turn to beat the horse again.

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  • corpusccorpusc Member UncommonPosts: 1,341

    Originally posted by jpnz

    Originally posted by corpusc


    Originally posted by jpnz

    I always ask 'if these people really want 'sandboxes' why aren't the current sandboxes doing well?' 

    Sadly, I never receive an answer. :(

     

     

    it couldn't have ANYTHING to do with FFA full loot PVP could it?  hmmmmmmmm!

     

    you know i've seen that answer many many times on this forum.

     

    being a sandbox and being FFA PVP are not intrinsically tied to each other. 

    but if you're gonna be so short-sighted as to use the past 7 years of limited thinking as proof of anything, i guess you might be so limited as to think that current examples are proof that......... that is all that will ever exist.

     

    If FFA Full Loot PVP is the issue then why isn't "A Tale in the desert" popular?

     

     

    lol, what a ridiculous question

    ---------------------------

    Corpus Callosum    

    ---------------------------


  • TerranahTerranah Member UncommonPosts: 3,575

    Originally posted by RefMinor

    The problem is the genre is aimed at those without dreams.

    I think there is a lot of truth in this.  When media was less varied and more limited, people had to use their imagination more.  But we are constantly bombarded with media these days and it has really stifled individual creativity.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775

    Originally posted by Terranah

    Originally posted by RefMinor

    The problem is the genre is aimed at those without dreams.

    I think there is a lot of truth in this.  When media was less varied and more limited, people had to use their imagination more.  But we are constantly bombarded with media these days and it has really stifled individual creativity.

    Why is that a "problem"? People are looking for entertainment in games, not ways to train how to think and imagine new ideas.

    I use ZERO imagination when i watch the Avatar and have tremendous amount of fun leveraging James Cameron's imagination. Is there a problem?

  • GrumpyMel2GrumpyMel2 Member Posts: 1,832

    I think there are 3 issues at stake....

     1) It's easier to MARKET a good game (or movie, etc) then it is to make one. Thus alot of games fall far short ot the expectations setup for them from the spin/hype machine that thier Marketing Dept. builds for them.

    2) MMO's have moved from the "Entreprenuer" stage to the "Commodity" stage.  This means they are being produced by different people with different sets of dynamics in place. "Entreprenuer's" are by nature risk takers. They are individuals who have a particular idea or concept that they BELIEVE will be successfull and this belief is often based on nothing more then intuition. They thrive in exploring new and unproven business models/verticals. They are usualy experts in the subject matters of whatever business they are engaging in...and will often follow thier "vision" and are motivated by a passion and faith that vision will be successfull.  As such they are constantly experimenting and trying new ideas and concepts. There are many failed entrepenuers and failed projects among entreprenuers but when they do hit upon a success it will likely by novel, fresh and outstandingly executed.

    By contrast, people running the show in a "Commodity" type market, really have no interest or passion in the particular product that they are producing or a particular vision... they simply have an interest on getting the best Return On Investment that they can. They often have little or no direct expertise/knowledge in the subject matter of the product itself. Rather they have expertiese in business processes and market analtyics which they believe they can apply equaly well to any given product vertical whether it be games or toilet paper. The person calling the shots in this sort of situation is as likely to have run a Toilet Paper company for thier prior job as to have anything to do with gaming...they may never have personaly even played an RPG...and have no particular desire to.  What they do have is experience in anlayzing past performance,  metrics and market analysis.... and they use these to drive thier decision making process. The "Commodity" people are FAR less likely to have the same rate and depth of failures as the "Entrepenuers" ....at the same time they are highly unlikely to reach the same heights of success....and rarely if ever will the products they produce have much that is fresh or new or highly innovative to them.... usualy they will be a rehash of some past success (or what is percieved as such) with perhaps a few small variations or improvements added to it. By nature "Commodity" type people are risk averse...and this becomes exaggerated when the investment budgets in new products involve very large amounts of capital (as they have in MMO's today).

    3) The MMO market is very large and diverse and has a wide audience with many different tastes. However the budgets to produce major new products have become so significant....require such a length of time that the money is sunk into the project before realizing some return and are percieved as so risky by nature that it becomes difficult to get funding for anything that is PERCIEVED to cater to anything other then the broadest possible segment......and because of the historical success of a certain number of games (primarly 1 huge one) that are Themeparks, it has become "common wisdom" that is the market segment you have to go for in order to be successfull. Even though there may well be enough of an audience that is interested in other types of games....it's difficult to get significant funding to try to pursue those audiences...just because of the limited prior history that exists for those type of Products. Most of the existing examples are either very very old....made when the MMO audience as a whole was far more limited in scope.....or are very small budget, independant projects that are neccesarly going to have a difficult time scaling up to a large auduence due to resource constraints.

  • GrumpyMel2GrumpyMel2 Member Posts: 1,832

    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    Originally posted by Terranah


    Originally posted by RefMinor

    The problem is the genre is aimed at those without dreams.

    I think there is a lot of truth in this.  When media was less varied and more limited, people had to use their imagination more.  But we are constantly bombarded with media these days and it has really stifled individual creativity.

    Why is that a "problem"? People are looking for entertainment in games, not ways to train how to think and imagine new ideas.

    I use ZERO imagination when i watch the Avatar and have tremendous amount of fun leveraging James Cameron's imagination. Is there a problem?

    Not so much a problem as an entirely DIFFERENT form of entertainment. Some people like reading/watching stories....other people like writing them....others like both. But they are entirely different sorts of entertainment.

    Personaly when I play MMO's, RPG's, and games in general...my preferences run to playing a more active role in the CREATIVE aspects.  For the PASSIVE role...I prefer movies or novels as a medium instead. Nothing wrong with people who's tastes run differently. Alot of us are just rather dissapointed that we have a fairly meager set of offerings geared toward our tastes at the moment.

     

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775

    Originally posted by GrumpyMel2

    Originally posted by nariusseldon


    Originally posted by Terranah


    Originally posted by RefMinor

    The problem is the genre is aimed at those without dreams.

    I think there is a lot of truth in this.  When media was less varied and more limited, people had to use their imagination more.  But we are constantly bombarded with media these days and it has really stifled individual creativity.

    Why is that a "problem"? People are looking for entertainment in games, not ways to train how to think and imagine new ideas.

    I use ZERO imagination when i watch the Avatar and have tremendous amount of fun leveraging James Cameron's imagination. Is there a problem?

    Not so much a problem as an entirely DIFFERENT form of entertainment. Some people like reading/watching stories....other people like writing them....others like both. But they are entirely different sorts of entertainment.

    Personaly when I play MMO's, RPG's, and games in general...my preferences run to playing a more active role in the CREATIVE aspects.  For the PASSIVE role...I prefer movies or novels as a medium instead. Nothing wrong with people who's tastes run differently. Alot of us are just rather dissapointed that we have a fairly meager set of offerings geared toward our tastes at the moment.

     

    So there is nothing wrong with people who play games to just hack & slash and have fun.

    There is very little creative aspects of MMOs for players because, in my opinion, most are interested in CONSUMING content, not creating it.

    BTW, how can you be creative in playing a RPG like Skyrim? You just follow its stories and do its quests. There is ZERO creativity involved. Don't tell me choosing which quest to do first is creativity.

  • jeremyjodesjeremyjodes Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 679

    It's a well beaten horse thats for sure. but still a valid drubbing is required. sadly,developers don't interface with many human beings so they don't come here for ideas much. since they spend a great deal of time watching family guy or sports teams and drinking lattes at starbucks whilst surfing animal porn and telling what little friends they have how they are abused at thier current gig because they only make 250k a year and still don't have a company car.

    Point is I agree with you mainly.

    until the mighty beast and large fluke called Wow which was made possible by angry revolting SWG vets falls...we will never cease to stop beating this horse ever.

    image

  • CloudratCloudrat Member Posts: 1

    I have found a great deal to satisfy my creative outlet while continuing to be able to do the rest that these games have to offer while playing Everquest 2.

    Player made dungeons that others can visit and earn exp and goodies while the builder earns accolades and tokens,

    Player housing with the ability to not just decorate with quested and crafted items, but spaces to build whole villages and parks and architecturally unique buildings.

    Both the dungeons and the housing have easy access for other players to visit and add a thumbs up if they like what they see.

    This game is constantly evolving and growing into one of the finest examples of it's genre available.

  • GrumpyMel2GrumpyMel2 Member Posts: 1,832

    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    Originally posted by GrumpyMel2


    Originally posted by nariusseldon


    Originally posted by Terranah


    Originally posted by RefMinor

    The problem is the genre is aimed at those without dreams.

    I think there is a lot of truth in this.  When media was less varied and more limited, people had to use their imagination more.  But we are constantly bombarded with media these days and it has really stifled individual creativity.

    Why is that a "problem"? People are looking for entertainment in games, not ways to train how to think and imagine new ideas.

    I use ZERO imagination when i watch the Avatar and have tremendous amount of fun leveraging James Cameron's imagination. Is there a problem?

    Not so much a problem as an entirely DIFFERENT form of entertainment. Some people like reading/watching stories....other people like writing them....others like both. But they are entirely different sorts of entertainment.

    Personaly when I play MMO's, RPG's, and games in general...my preferences run to playing a more active role in the CREATIVE aspects.  For the PASSIVE role...I prefer movies or novels as a medium instead. Nothing wrong with people who's tastes run differently. Alot of us are just rather dissapointed that we have a fairly meager set of offerings geared toward our tastes at the moment.

     

    So there is nothing wrong with people who play games to just hack & slash and have fun.

    There is very little creative aspects of MMOs for players because, in my opinion, most are interested in CONSUMING content, not creating it.

    BTW, how can you be creative in playing a RPG like Skyrim? You just follow its stories and do its quests. There is ZERO creativity involved. Don't tell me choosing which quest to do first is creativity.

    Obviously alot more limited in Single Player Games then Multi-Player Games because alot of creative activity in games is based on interaction with other people. However, even with single-player games there is room for creative aspects in how you build a character and how you interact with the games environment and/or story arcs. The openness with which the game design makes a big qualitative difference in what DEGREE the game supports the players creativity.

    For example, Skyrim is much more supportive of player creativity then DA2 for example.

    Even if we look at something as simple as in Skyrim you get to choose your characters name and aren't given a pre-defined backstory...you are just presented with the situation of your IMMEDIATE circumstances. Compared to DA2, where your characters name must be "Hawke" and your entire characters backstory is predefined (or so I understand it to be....only played DAO personaly). Something as simple as this can make a BIG difference in a games appeal to people who are more interested in creative aspects.

    There is nothing wrong with people who play games for whatever reason they choose to play them.... which are many and varied. As long as people derive entertainment from a game...that's fine.... but just as people are different, they derive entertainment from different things.

    I believe a big part of the reasion why todays MMO's tend to limit creative aspects is.....

    1) It's harder to design systems that incorporate player creative imput robustly ( Simple example, if you allow players to choose thier own names. Then when doing game dialogue you must either avoid using that name or create a dynamic lookup element that incorporates that data field into the dialogue....it also makes doing things like VO's and cinematics unable to accomodate that as they are incompatible with dynamic content).

    2) As MMO's are big-bussiness now... Developers are afraid to surrender even a tiny bit of control over the user experience to players...as doing so implies a certain amount of risk. It's the same factor that prevents the actors who play characters at Disney's Themeparks from going "off-script" or ad-libbing.  In early MMO's the Developers (and the players) had more background in MUD/MUSH & PnP gaming....and thus were more comfortable with and less affraid of allowing individuals (whether Players or GM's) more involvement with the Creative aspects of play....because those were common elements in those other venues.

    3) There is a PERCEPTION that players are more interested in consuming content rather then playing a creative role because the one clear runaway success in the MMO world (WoW) emphasized that aspect of play.....so as an example it set expectations among Developers, Investors, Pundits and even Players.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775

    Originally posted by GrumpyMel2

    For example, Skyrim is much more supportive of player creativity then DA2 for example.

    Even if we look at something as simple as in Skyrim you get to choose your characters name and aren't given a pre-defined backstory...you are just presented with the situation of your IMMEDIATE circumstances. Compared to DA2, where your characters name must be "Hawke" and your entire characters backstory is predefined (or so I understand it to be....only played DAO personaly). Something as simple as this can make a BIG difference in a games appeal to people who are more interested in creative aspects.

    I would not call playing SKYRIM creative. Really, picking a name is creative? In that case, i am 10x more creative in WOW than in SKYRIM since i got to pick it 10 times for alts.

    In WOW, you can pick guild names, make a guild tabard, and set a schedule for guild activity. 1000x more creative than SKYRIM.

    And whether u r a backstory or not, you follow the quests in SKYRIM. How is that creative?

  • GrumpyMel2GrumpyMel2 Member Posts: 1,832

    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    Originally posted by GrumpyMel2



    For example, Skyrim is much more supportive of player creativity then DA2 for example.

    Even if we look at something as simple as in Skyrim you get to choose your characters name and aren't given a pre-defined backstory...you are just presented with the situation of your IMMEDIATE circumstances. Compared to DA2, where your characters name must be "Hawke" and your entire characters backstory is predefined (or so I understand it to be....only played DAO personaly). Something as simple as this can make a BIG difference in a games appeal to people who are more interested in creative aspects.

    I would not call playing SKYRIM creative. Really, picking a name is creative? In that case, i am 10x more creative in WOW than in SKYRIM since i got to pick it 10 times for alts.

    In WOW, you can pick guild names, make a guild tabard, and set a schedule for guild activity. 1000x more creative than SKYRIM.

    And whether u r a backstory or not, you follow the quests in SKYRIM. How is that creative?

    Actualy, you don't have to follow the quests at all in Skyrim if you don't want to do so....and you follow them in different ways and can achieve different results that have lasting effects in the game environment....

    But really when we are talking WoW vs Skyrim we are comparing Apples and Oranges....as MMO's and SPRPG's are NECCESARLY different animals that are affected by different operating constraints.

    That's why I used Skyrim and DA2 in my comparison.

    If we wanted to look at MMO's we could potentialy look at WoW when compared to GW2 or the proposed Pathfinder Online, or maybe even something Asherons Call.

    For the record, I thing WoW is more supportive of creativity in some aspects then Skyrim and less in others. For me, Skyrim generaly seems a bit more creative....but then again...it's operating under a different set of contraints.

  • AxehiltAxehilt Member RarePosts: 10,504

    Originally posted by Banaghran

    Well, and how about, say, 2001-2010, was the market not saturated and fragmented by your standards? The market was not saturated and fragmented for Aion and in a broader online games sense for Minecraft.

    To me it sounds like a cop out, like managers of a 6 season tv show arguing that the ratings went down because the show is old, not because half of the writing staff was fired last year and the main actor is on drugs and it shows...

    Or as usual, saying that wow went from popular to old in a time of few months around the launch of wotlk :) 

    In 2001 it clearly wasn't saturated.  In an extremely simple sense, WOW's first couple years saturated the market.

    The US market was definitely saturated for Aion.  I claim no knowledge of the asian market, which is the only place it did well.

    Not sure where Minecraft comes in.  Calling it an "online game" is misleading, given it's predominantly played solo.  The 5+ mil sales are the result of the game servicing a previously untapped audience.  The 5+ mil sales are also misleading, given that I'm amongst those who bought it yet I really didn't enjoy it much and quit within a week.

    WOW didn't go from popular to old as the result of one expansion.  It's been a gradual thing.  Drama queens were saying it was old and finished during vanilla patches, but only now have the genuine quitters (probably) surpassed the new installs.

    "What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver

  • PukeBucketPukeBucket Member Posts: 867

    Think of it from the point of view with investors.

    They're not usually gamers. They see the stats from early EQ, what WoW did, how modern games like DDO and DCUO managed to turn things around, and how at least monetarily successful clone games like RIFT and SWTOR are.

    That's the jist of it.

    We're in an era where crowd sourcing funding is viable and a few games are coming based on that model.

    Also I think there's enough out there for a lot of small companies to try the unique.

    Risk vs Reward for those with the cash to invest is all that really needs to change. Eventually the same ol' won't be a solid green gain and the risk will catch up.

    I honestly think that'll have to wait for technology to advance.

    I used to play MMOs like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.

  • TROLL_HARDTROLL_HARD Member Posts: 312

    Originally posted by RefMinor

    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    Originally posted by RefMinor

    The problem is the genre is aimed at those without dreams.

    Why is this a problem?

    The goal of games is to entertain. I don't find MMOs particularly lacking in that department.

     

    Imagine people had been raised on the films of the Coen Brothers, Scorcese, Hitchcock or Kurosawa and then suddenly the only film you were allowed to watch was Transformers.

    There you have it. 

     

    But worse than that would be watching the overwhelming majority of Transformer fans bash on the other films because they are boring, complicated, make you think too much, etc. And you could vote with your wallet all you wanted, but your ticket purchases would be a tiny drop in the bucket compared to what the majority wanted and spent money on like voracious locusts moving from one new flashy production with shootouts and car chases and BIG explosions to the next.

  • QuirhidQuirhid Member UncommonPosts: 6,230

    Originally posted by TROLL_HARD

    Originally posted by RefMinor


    Originally posted by nariusseldon


    Originally posted by RefMinor

    The problem is the genre is aimed at those without dreams.

    Why is this a problem?

    The goal of games is to entertain. I don't find MMOs particularly lacking in that department.

     

    Imagine people had been raised on the films of the Coen Brothers, Scorcese, Hitchcock or Kurosawa and then suddenly the only film you were allowed to watch was Transformers.

    There you have it. 

     

    But worse than that would be watching the overwhelming majority of Transformer fans bash on the other films because they are boring, complicated, make you think too much, etc. And you could vote with your wallet all you wanted, but your ticket purchases would be a tiny drop in the bucket compared to what the majority wanted and spent money on like voracious locusts moving from one new flashy production with shootouts and car chases and BIG explosions to the next.

    Again, assuming that old MMOs were the Coen Borthers / Scorcese / HItchcock movie equivalent of MMORPGs. Shouldn't take that for granted.

    I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky

  • BanaghranBanaghran Member Posts: 869

    Originally posted by Axehilt

    Originally posted by Banaghran

    Well, and how about, say, 2001-2010, was the market not saturated and fragmented by your standards? The market was not saturated and fragmented for Aion and in a broader online games sense for Minecraft.

    To me it sounds like a cop out, like managers of a 6 season tv show arguing that the ratings went down because the show is old, not because half of the writing staff was fired last year and the main actor is on drugs and it shows...

    Or as usual, saying that wow went from popular to old in a time of few months around the launch of wotlk :) 

    In 2001 it clearly wasn't saturated.  In an extremely simple sense, WOW's first couple years saturated the market.

    The US market was definitely saturated for Aion.  I claim no knowledge of the asian market, which is the only place it did well.

    Not sure where Minecraft comes in.  Calling it an "online game" is misleading, given it's predominantly played solo.  The 5+ mil sales are the result of the game servicing a previously untapped audience.  The 5+ mil sales are also misleading, given that I'm amongst those who bought it yet I really didn't enjoy it much and quit within a week.

    WOW didn't go from popular to old as the result of one expansion.  It's been a gradual thing.  Drama queens were saying it was old and finished during vanilla patches, but only now have the genuine quitters (probably) surpassed the new installs.

    Over one million in the west by a somewhat broken korean grinder compared to not even 500k for a heavily advertised western game that is very close to what you are usually advocating, that is the problem i see here.

    "Untapped", before wow, those 12mil were mostly untapped, if we have another hit, it will attract other "untapped" people, even if we would add up all major mmos and adjust for korea and china to approximately 50million mmo players, it is still scratching the surface of computer gamers worldwide (as minecraft shows, it has, what, 25million players ?), this is another excuse.

    As for wow, it DID go from growth into stagnation over a short period of time, it was not gradual, we can argue about the reasons, but it did happen (see mmodata.net), and while it may seem natural that a huge jump up or down would occur on a expansion release, if you take into account that the game operates with expansions every 2 years that completely overhaul the standing game system, i was mentioning it solely because of the discussions people had in 2009/2010, when the game had a decrease in subs for the first time ever, and one of the arguments used there was "well, the game is just getting old" and you could add "...it wasnt getting old last year (+1.3m), but it IS this year". :)

    Flame on!

    :)

     

  • RefMinorRefMinor Member UncommonPosts: 3,452
    Originally posted by Moaky07


    Originally posted by FrostWyrm


    Originally posted by Moaky07



    Originally posted by FrostWyrm



    Originally posted by Sythion



    Originally posted by nariusseldon
    Innovative implies new. Sandbox ideas have been tried (in fact, very early MMO like UO) and failed to become mainstream. Old ideas never become innovative again.
    You can argue sandbox ideas are different from the mainstream MMOs .. which is probably true.

    There are plenty of cases, even outside of entertainment, where retro ideas are modernized to become innovative. Take "The Artist" for instance. Despite being a throwback to silent films, it's truly a modern movie, with modern story telling flow and cinematography.

    However, you are right in the sense that these old ideas are always implemented in new ways. I agree that to be mainstream, sandbox games will need to grow out of their boxes.

    What nariusseldon doesn't get, however, is that doing the same boring thing (in this case, themeparks) over and over again doesn't move the genre forward either. The reason those retro trends come back is because they were good ideas that are not the same as the norm.

    More of the same thing gets boring. In the 70's Pong was hugely popular. More and more pong without any variation caused the gaming market to crash.

    In the mid 80's, Super Mario caused a "revolution" and suddenly 2D platformers became popular. More and more 2D platformers without any variation nearly caused the gaming market to crash again.

    Later it was 3D fighters.

    Later still, 3D Platformers.

    Later still, FPS'.

    Each type of game that becomes popular gets done to death before the industry moves on to the next flavor of the month. Several years ago it was the themepart MMO's time in the limelight. The market has now been saturated with the same old same old over and over, and many people are beginning to want something else.

    For all the die-hards crying "No! My type of games are here to stay!" You are deluding yourselves. Themeparks will inevitably get old. We're already seeing it begin to happen. They wont disappear completely, just like 3D fighters, 3D platformers, and FPS' haven't disappeared completely, but the focus will, and has already began, shifting to a new direction. Whether that direction is something new, or something that hasn't been tried in a long time is yet to be seen.

    You keep telling yourself that.

     

     

    How many yrs now have we heard "sandboxes are going to be popular any minute now" on this site? 

     

     

    As long as folks enjoy PVE gaming,  themeparks are going to have numbers. Seeing as PVE gaming has been around since I started playing video games, in the late 70s, I sure dont see it going away.

    1) Not once in my post did I mention the word "sandbox". Please don't read things that aren't there.

    2) Sandbox =/= PvP. A sandbox only implies that the player is not coralled from one zone to the next like cattle. There CAN be PvE sandboxes, or even hybrids of sandbox and themeparks. Sandparks, they're commonly called.

    3) I love PvE. Don't be so quick to make assumtions about people. Or rather, I should say I love PvE done well. See, like everything, PvE can be done well, or it can be done poorly. Now whats well or poor is totally a matter of opinion, but when PvE hasn't changed in 8 years, it does become stagnant.

    Give me a freaking break.

     

    You spent your whole post talking about themeparks coming to an end. Which is the same fucking claim we have heard for yrs now on MMORPG. Yep, sandboxes are going to be number 1 any minute now. /sarcasm off

     

    You talk about putting words in your mouth....where in the fuck did I mention PVP? The conversation was PVE, which is something themeparks typically focus on. WHich is why they will hang around.

     

    I would also like to add, those carrying on about "themeparks are only popular cause of WOW"......get real. EQ was the MMO champ for about 5 yrs before WOW hit. It ended up with 450k subs at max, which is a number sandboxes still havent touched. Themeparks have been atop the MMO world for 12 yrs now. First for most subbed game, and once they went mainstream, total subs dwarfed sandbox.

     

    Fuck sandboxes, and folks that tell bullshit stories, to soothe their egos, cause no one wants to make a game for them. If you guys spent your time supporting the games out there, instead of insulting folks that enjoy a different style of game, perhaps Devs would be more apt to make more games to your preference.

     

    "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."
  • AxehiltAxehilt Member RarePosts: 10,504

    Originally posted by Banaghran

    Over one million in the west by a somewhat broken korean grinder compared to not even 500k for a heavily advertised western game that is very close to what you are usually advocating, that is the problem i see here.

    "Untapped", before wow, those 12mil were mostly untapped, if we have another hit, it will attract other "untapped" people, even if we would add up all major mmos and adjust for korea and china to approximately 50million mmo players, it is still scratching the surface of computer gamers worldwide (as minecraft shows, it has, what, 25million players ?), this is another excuse.

    As for wow, it DID go from growth into stagnation over a short period of time, it was not gradual, we can argue about the reasons, but it did happen (see mmodata.net), and while it may seem natural that a huge jump up or down would occur on a expansion release, if you take into account that the game operates with expansions every 2 years that completely overhaul the standing game system, i was mentioning it solely because of the discussions people had in 2009/2010, when the game had a decrease in subs for the first time ever, and one of the arguments used there was "well, the game is just getting old" and you could add "...it wasnt getting old last year (+1.3m), but it IS this year". :)

    Eh?  Both RIFT and ToR shipped over a million to western audiences too.  The fact remains that nobody's getting 10 million users until they do something very divergent from existing games, because the market is saturated.

    What would be more telling is the actual retention of Aion vs. RIFT.  We have no numbers to support it, but logically you're not going to hold as many subscribers by dishing out ultra-repetitive gameplay to them, compared with a game which offers more variety.

    Minecraft has 5.5 mill purchases, not 25 million players, and nowhere near 5.5 million active players because I imagine a ton of players were like me, "Wonder what all the fuss is about.  Oh...this is kinda lame and has super clunky systems design. I'm done."

    No logical person is going to pretend there's some magical singular event where a game gets "old".  That's complete nonsense.  Games get old over time and as players have played a given game longer and longer they're more and more likely to quit, and eventually they quit.  That trait of product creation is combined with install quantity, and results in a bell curve with a long tail representing the players in a game.  Or, if the game doesn't retain players well, a bell curve which sharply curves down shortly after release.  Which is what we've seen from most games.

    The types of games which would substantially grow MMORPGs would not be considered MMORPGs by most MMORPG players.  I agree that some types of games could have the potential to significantly grow the genre (again mostly talking about the western audience here, as that's what I'm familiar with and that's what's saturated; also mostly talking about significant explosive growth as I think the overall MMORPG market is still growth.)

    "What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver

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