Since vanilla WoW there hasn't been a mmo that has captured the hearts of gamers. Lotro, Aion, Age of Conan, The Secret World, Warhammer Online, Defiance, Rift, Free Realms, GW2, The Old Republic , Tera and I'm probably missing a few but feel free to add on to some more mmo failures.
Feel free to add that it's just your opinion, lots of MMOs are doing good, in your eyes they are failures because YOU didn't like them and it didn't look like World of Warcraft.
Which is the most dumbed down arcade mmo in gaming history, back then it required no brains to play it, and it certainly doesn't now. If you think Vanilla required brains, omg I feel sorry. Spoonfed leveling to level 60 and from there on it was cookie cutter raiding with 40 lol.
Anyone with a bit of a brain figured out how to work those raids in a instant.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
You may have a point but your choice of games as examples of failure invalidate your whole post.
AoC or TsW has a good launch? No FC game has a good launch ever. Lotro was gone in 3 to 6 months?! Maybe so if you were born a year ago. I did not played many other games but I personally know ppl who still enjoy Aion or GW2 and they say those games are far from "having no staying power".
Please take some time and read about the games you are calling before some one start making jokes of you.
P.S. If it is just another attempt to say "Vanila WoW or bust" - thats a real fail.
How is that fail ? I bet the majority would agree it has been WoW or bust. Can the genre be great again ? Sure it can but not the path they have chosen.
Why? Because players like you don't like it? There are more people in the world than so-called 'hardcore' players, many more. This is the truth of it. A game will NEVER make money based on 'hardcore' players. You need to bring new players into the game and MMO's in general. If you don't do that - the industry will die.
I want to question some assumptions you seem to have made here and point out the conclusion you do not seem to have reached. You do not need to bring more players into gaming or MMO's, the player base does not need to expand. Gaming companies made money from UO and EQ back in the day, the size of the player base then was fine. The gaming industries search for an ever wider player base is about making more and more money not ensuring it does not die.
You mention hardcore players. There were more gamers in the world than the roleplayers and RPG fans who were the first to adopt MMO's. There are more gamers in the world than hardcore gaming fans. But what you don't seem to realise is that there are more people in the world than gamers. And this is the new 'player' base via social media that is being reached out to.
Each time the nature of the player base has changed its ethos has got more removed from core gaming values. Roleplaying has all but been dumped, RPG has been taken out of MMORPG. The EzMMO rules and easymode is king in solo games too. Once again we face a tipping point, this time the values of people on Facebook and Twitter will decide what the values of gamers are going to become.
People with a gaming background no greater than the likes of Farmville will decide the future of gaming as they will become the majority. The baulk of the player base we have with us today I would describe as gamers, no matter what type of gaming they favour. In ten years time I do not think that will be the case.
I thought the change preceded the boom of social media. Things were already moving in that direction. I think you are constructing your own devil from the social media types. There was never much RP in the first place and I don't think they need to be catered to specifically. I've seen people RP in a myriad of games. They don't much care if the game is largely instanced or no, sandbox or themepark, FPS/TPS or isometric.
What I would guess they want, is seclusion. Seclusion from the people who do not RP. Because the greatest enemy of immersion is other players.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
You may have a point but your choice of games as examples of failure invalidate your whole post.
AoC or TsW has a good launch? No FC game has a good launch ever. Lotro was gone in 3 to 6 months?! Maybe so if you were born a year ago. I did not played many other games but I personally know ppl who still enjoy Aion or GW2 and they say those games are far from "having no staying power".
Please take some time and read about the games you are calling before some one start making jokes of you.
P.S. If it is just another attempt to say "Vanila WoW or bust" - thats a real fail.
How is that fail ? I bet the majority would agree it has been WoW or bust. Can the genre be great again ? Sure it can but not the path they have chosen.
Why? Because players like you don't like it? There are more people in the world than so-called 'hardcore' players, many more. This is the truth of it. A game will NEVER make money based on 'hardcore' players. You need to bring new players into the game and MMO's in general. If you don't do that - the industry will die.
I want to question some assumptions you seem to have made here and point out the conclusion you do not seem to have reached. You do not need to bring more players into gaming or MMO's, the player base does not need to expand. Gaming companies made money from UO and EQ back in the day, the size of the player base then was fine. The gaming industries search for an ever wider player base is about making more and more money not ensuring it does not die.
You mention hardcore players. There were more gamers in the world than the roleplayers and RPG fans who were the first to adopt MMO's. There are more gamers in the world than hardcore gaming fans. But what you don't seem to realise is that there are more people in the world than gamers. And this is the new 'player' base via social media that is being reached out to.
Each time the nature of the player base has changed its ethos has got more removed from core gaming values. Roleplaying has all but been dumped, RPG has been taken out of MMORPG. The EzMMO rules and easymode is king in solo games too. Once again we face a tipping point, this time the values of people on Facebook and Twitter will decide what the values of gamers are going to become.
People with a gaming background no greater than the likes of Farmville will decide the future of gaming as they will become the majority. The baulk of the player base we have with us today I would describe as gamers, no matter what type of gaming they favour. In ten years time I do not think that will be the case.
I thought the change preceded the boom of social media. Things were already moving in that direction. I think you are constructing your own devil from the social media types. There was never much RP in the first place and I don't think they need to be catered to specifically. I've seen people RP in a myriad of games. They don't much care if the game is largely instanced or no, sandbox or themepark, FPS/TPS or isometric.
What I would guess they want, is seclusion. Seclusion from the people who do not RP. Because the greatest enemy of immersion is other players.
I am not sure how that change could have preceded social media, how were they reaching out to non gamers? Advertising? It is the advent of social media, which has allowed gaming companies to reach out to them. First they reached out to gamers on the social media sites, now they are reaching out to anyone who has played anything, be it Angry Birds or Farmville.
The people I am supposed to be making a devil of are just like you and me, but they are not gamers. That's the issue here, not what social media types are like.
What roleplayers have lost is roleplaying tools. Which can be everything from languages that were race specific that you could learn, to books you could write in that others could read, to guild HQ's. That is how they were catered for.
I think roleplayers fit better in large worlds but as you say sandbox or themepark does not make much difference. I do think they prefer RPG over FPS/TPS ((strangely enough )). But as you say top notch graphics with an over the shoulder avatar is not needed, many of them started in MUD's after all.
As to seclusion, yes and no. If you want roleplaying where you can bump into players and just roleplay then a separate server is needed. We still have those but they always had a problem with players joining who had no intention of roleplaying. Nowadays you can assume anyone you meet is most likely not to a roleplayer. But if you intend to roleplay with your guild and like minded guilds, having players around that don't roleplay is not much of an issue.
But I think that's backwards. It's not that developers are spending so much money on their games that it requires a massive audience to pay for it all, developers want the maximum number of people to play, therefore they are spending a lot of money in development costs to make it as appealing to the largest group of people possible. It costs more to make games that are that inclusive because the developers have to do what their investors tell them to: make games that make the biggest possible return on investment.
You're looking at it backwards.
Mmmm I think you're confused. That's exactly what I'm saying. They're specifically trying to appeal to more people. The point others have tried to make is that production costs got so high that they simply had to appeal to more people, thus you have the watered down gameplay of themeparks. I'm saying they wanted to appeal to more people (thanks WoW) and then came the increase in aesthetics and streamlining etc.
Enough with platitudes. What does "watered down" gameplay mean exactly? To what are you comparing them?
Originally posted by Holophonist
Originally posted by Cephus404
Originally posted by GeezerGamer
That's wrong, there are more people playing MMOs today than at any other time in the history of the genre. Developers are doing just fine. The problem is that *YOU* want a game that is niche and developers don't pay attention to the kind of game you want because it doesn't make them nearly enough money.
The problem isn't the developers. The problem is your tastes.
More people playing doesn't mean better games. In fact holding most things constant I would say it usually means a worse game. Worse as in less targeted, more mainstream, etc. Just like with music, tv, movies, etc, you can either appeal to a specific group of people on a deep level, or appeal to the masses on a more shallow level.
Worse games... But you're not the judge of what is a good game or a bad game. And there is no rule that more people playing means worse games. How do you know they're not simply hitting a larger niche on "a deep level" and not several on a "more shallow level"?
I've explained it like a million times but whatever. People have different preferences. So to appeal more deeply to one person, you're alienating somebody else. Somebody's "perfect" game is going to be one that is completely 100% tailored to all of their preferences, but it obviously wouldn't be economically viable to build a game for one person. So the question is, are modern MMOs targeting as much as they can? Or are they delivering watered down games to make more money? I think it's pretty obvious that the genre was heavily influenced by WoW's success, and the genre has moved away from targeted games and more towards watered down games.
You didn't lose a lot of xp at death, you didn't drop items or have your body looted, leveling was fast compared to other games that came before (in Lineage 2 it took me 2 weeks i extremely hardcore playing just to get to level 20. And that was all grind).
Losing exp on death is just shitty design, enforcing artificial grind, so is full loot imho. Those things doesn't add any challenge what so ever, only force you waste more time to recover, making you spend time catching up to where you were instead of, you know, enjoying progression.
I am not saying games should be easy, there should be certain punishment to dying, but exp and full loot loss is overkill. The challenge should be in advancing your character and the content, not in catching up to where you were a week ago. Vanilla WoW, imho, hit the sweetspot of the challenge.
You could advance your character relatively easy in terms of level and basic gear, so you could enjoy the basic content of the game. But if you wanted to advance beyond that, game required dedication. Raiding wasn't easy (How many guilds cleared AQ40 and BWL prior to expansion patch?), nor were the preparations for it. The world has loads of secrets waiting on an explorer to discover, such as combat food in Felwood, firepots in Arathi, or the arena trinket in STV. There were stuff to explore and grind for one who wanted to further push his characters.
Nowadays, all the progression is served to you on a silver plate, it is either dungeons and raids, or factions. There is very little to discover that requires you to take a side step from the main path. That's the feeling I miss.
Can anybody point me towards a source that shows the MMO genre is increasing? Also I'd be curious to know what games they're including... specifically if they're including MOBAs.
Even if the genre is increasing, I don't think that is necessarily evidence of anything, certainly not evidence that they're good. But I am curious to see the numbers because a lot of people throw that fact around without backing it up.
Back when "old school" MMOs were at their top - EQ, UO and AC1 - less than a million total players for all of them.
Do I really need to continue?
No, but I will.
Less than a million with too much time on their hands. I suspect it's the same number of people today who want that old time-sucking gameplay back.
Take the casual crowd out of the equation and it's starting to look like the "true" (as they like to call themselves) MMO gamer population hasn't grown at all in 14 years.
Gee, maybe that's why smart game developers don't make those types of games any longer. No market for it.
Well, maybe there is a market for it...DFUW, MO...wait, nevermind.
Originally posted by Neo_Viper Originally posted by Holophonist Can anybody point me towards a source that shows the MMO genre is increasing? Also I'd be curious to know what games they're including... specifically if they're including MOBAs.Even if the genre is increasing, I don't think that is necessarily evidence of anything, certainly not evidence that they're good. But I am curious to see the numbers because a lot of people throw that fact around without backing it up.
Back when "old school" MMOs were at their top - EQ, UO and AC1 - less than a million total players for all of them.
Do I really need to continue?
No, but I will.
Less than a million with too much time on their hands. I suspect it's the same number of people today who want that old time-sucking gameplay back.
Take the casual crowd out of the equation and it's starting to look like the "true" (as they like to call themselves) MMO gamer population hasn't grown at all in 14 years.
Gee, maybe that's why smart game developers don't make those types of games any longer. No market for it.
Well, maybe there is a market for it...DFUW, MO...wait, nevermind.
I think you're confusing "too much time on their hands" with having an attention span. The real difference in game type is how long you play that game on a macro scale. Ie do you quit after a few weeks like narius? Seems to me that games like WoW and other carrot-on-a-stick grindfests can cause people to spend just as much time PER day as other, more long-term games.
Tldr: playing 12 different games in a year, each for a month, doesn't mean you have any less time on your hands than somebody who plays 1 game for the whole year.
Originally posted by Holophonist I think you're confusing "too much time on their hands" with having an attention span.
Having to grind the same mobs in a group for weeks just to gain one level has nothing to do with having an attention span either. It's more about having a high tolerance for boredom, and also being addicted to the point that the carrot (next level) matters more than your own enjoyment.
Such people exist. There are guys who tightened the same screw all their life in the Ford assembly lines. But at least they were paid for it... in MMORPGs, it's the opposite, some people are willing to pay to do a tedious repetitive task. That never ceases to amaze me.
Originally posted by HolophonistCan anybody point me towards a source that shows the MMO genre is increasing? Also I'd be curious to know what games they're including... specifically if they're including MOBAs.Even if the genre is increasing, I don't think that is necessarily evidence of anything, certainly not evidence that they're good. But I am curious to see the numbers because a lot of people throw that fact around without backing it up.
Back when "old school" MMOs were at their top - EQ, UO and AC1 - less than a million total players for all of them.Do I really need to continue?
No, but I will.
Less than a million with too much time on their hands. I suspect it's the same number of people today who want that old time-sucking gameplay back.
Take the casual crowd out of the equation and it's starting to look like the "true" (as they like to call themselves) MMO gamer population hasn't grown at all in 14 years.
Gee, maybe that's why smart game developers don't make those types of games any longer. No market for it.
Well, maybe there is a market for it...DFUW, MO...wait, nevermind.
Not all one million of those people want the same game. Some of them want an EQ like game, some of them want a UO like game, some of them want something like Meridian 59 and if history is any indication, a lot of them want something that isn't UO, EQ or Meridian 59. So yes, the market definitely exists. It's the teeny, tiny size of the market relative to the cost of producing a game that's the problem.
**
For instance, let's say it costs $10,000,000 to write an MMORPG. It takes five years to write that MMORPG. The money comes from investors. The investors expect a modest 5% return on their investment. They'll give the developer two years beyond the game's release date to make a return on the investment before they have them killed and eaten by rats.
$10M at 5% interest for 7 years (remember, the development time counts) means the game needs to make $10,410,000 within two years of being released. The monthly profit generated by the game needs to be $433,750 in order to pay off the investors. If the developer charges a $15 a month subscription, that's almost 29K subscribers for just the profit, ignoring any costs for the developer to run the game.
Mortal Online isn't anywhere near 29K players, much less subscribers. I'm not sure about Darkfall, but it doesn't sound like they are breaking any players records with their one server.
Drop the development cost to $6M, and they only need to make $352,500 a month in profit. That's still over 23K subscribers every month.
When a game like MO or Darkfall is pulling in those kinds of numbers, you'll start to see more development in "old school" style games.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Originally posted by HolophonistCan anybody point me towards a source that shows the MMO genre is increasing? Also I'd be curious to know what games they're including... specifically if they're including MOBAs.Even if the genre is increasing, I don't think that is necessarily evidence of anything, certainly not evidence that they're good. But I am curious to see the numbers because a lot of people throw that fact around without backing it up.
Back when "old school" MMOs were at their top - EQ, UO and AC1 - less than a million total players for all of them.Do I really need to continue?
No, but I will.
Less than a million with too much time on their hands. I suspect it's the same number of people today who want that old time-sucking gameplay back.
Take the casual crowd out of the equation and it's starting to look like the "true" (as they like to call themselves) MMO gamer population hasn't grown at all in 14 years.
Gee, maybe that's why smart game developers don't make those types of games any longer. No market for it.
Well, maybe there is a market for it...DFUW, MO...wait, nevermind.
Not all one million of those people want the same game. Some of them want an EQ like game, some of them want a UO like game, some of them want something like Meridian 59 and if history is any indication, a lot of them want something that isn't UO, EQ or Meridian 59. So yes, the market definitely exists. It's the teeny, tiny size of the market relative to the cost of producing a game that's the problem.
Many of that original "old school" player base also just don't want such games back and wouldn't play them. Many of us veterans enjoy the reduction of tedium in modern MMOs.
I seriously doubt there's much left of the original 1M old school player base who would like to play those games again. The failure of recent games like DFO and MO proves it.
Originally posted by Holophonist I think you're confusing "too much time on their hands" with having an attention span.
Having to grind the same mobs in a group for weeks just to gain one level has nothing to do with having an attention span either. It's more about having a high tolerance for boredom, and also being addicted to the point that the carrot (next level) matters more than your own enjoyment.
Such people exist. There are guys who tightened the same screw all their life in the Ford assembly lines. But at least they were paid for it... in MMORPGs, it's the opposite, some people are willing to pay to do a tedious repetitive task. That never ceases to amaze me.
Thats one of those reasons why there is some devs still developing virtual worlds and role playing games.
When peeps at GW2 for example runds circles and nothing ever changes,starting from harvesting nodes to other peeps actions ,everything is allways the same.
When we compare it to virtual world where someone might actually fight for the loot,nodes ,act friendly or hostile against other players ,we have much more interesting playground and the grind is allways different.
Emotions like " maan i was lucky today" wont come up in games where luck is not needed in the first place.
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014. **On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
1. Challenging is not the same as tedious. MMOs never have been difficult, grinding the same easy stuff over and over again is just an outdated concept. However, causal players want challenging content, because they have less time to invest in easy stupid content. They hate to "earn" the right (which just means the right gear) to do the good stuff. So your whole argument is a complete failure.
2. Moreover, it is always the selfproclaimed "hard core" players, who rush through everything towards endlevel as fast as they can, because they claim end game raiding to be the only real content ("that's, when the game really starts"). So again the noobish casuals would prefer the leveling process to be more difficult and more entertaining.
3. Blizzard released WoW at the same time as EQ2 came out, and they said from the very beginning, that they target casual players. Problem was, that so many hard core players turned to WoW from other MMOs, because it was just the better game. Then they started a war in the community against all the players who made WoW a great experience - the casuals. But it was a causal game for casuals from the very beginning. So the whole argument was absurd!
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.
The point is that developers make games way too easy just so grandma and grandpa know how to play it. No one is saying stop making casual mmos but there needs to be a level of challenging content along with not finishing the game within a month. I will always say quality is greater than quantity. Dumbing down mmos for the casual person who only plays 10 hours a week just ruins the quality of games. You can't please everyone all the time and developers need to stop trying to please everyone all the time.
Many of that original "old school" player base also just don't want such games back and wouldn't play them. Many of us veterans enjoy the reduction of tedium in modern MMOs.
I seriously doubt there's much left of the original 1M old school player base who would like to play those games again. The failure of recent games like DFO and MO proves it.
yeah. Personally, modern MMOs are much better games (to me) than old school MMOs like EQ.
I won't touch a EQ with updated graphics with a ten foot pole. The design is just tedious (for me).
Can anybody point me towards a source that shows the MMO genre is increasing? Also I'd be curious to know what games they're including... specifically if they're including MOBAs.
Even if the genre is increasing, I don't think that is necessarily evidence of anything, certainly not evidence that they're good. But I am curious to see the numbers because a lot of people throw that fact around without backing it up.
Back when "old school" MMOs were at their top - EQ, UO and AC1 - less than a million total players for all of them.
Do I really need to continue?
No, but I will.
Less than a million with too much time on their hands. I suspect it's the same number of people today who want that old time-sucking gameplay back.
Take the casual crowd out of the equation and it's starting to look like the "true" (as they like to call themselves) MMO gamer population hasn't grown at all in 14 years.
Gee, maybe that's why smart game developers don't make those types of games any longer. No market for it.
Well, maybe there is a market for it...DFUW, MO...wait, nevermind.
Most of us (12 Million kind of "most") were very happy with WoW TBC. Sure I played Anarchy Online and SWG and enjoyed both of those games. But my favorite was still WoW at level 70. And that certainly was more than "less than a million" That's the experience I want back. AO, UO, DAOC, AC, EQ, all those were 1st Gen. WoW and EQ2 and others were 2nd gen. Now we have 3rd gen. (Yes, I made that up, but it's convenient) I want the 2nd gen back most. I'd take 1st gen over 3rd, But that's my preference.
You think there is no market for where 12M came in and are sill looking for that? Seems to me there is. 8M still over there. And since then, every AAA MMO that's released generates enough interest to sell millions of boxes. But sure enough, the game did not capture the essence of what keeps players logging in month after month and people leave.
It's really not a hard concept, but everyone wants to put their own spin on why the industry can't hold anyone's attention. Blizzard polished (not developed) a formula that worked for 4 years that neither they or anyone else since have been able to recreate. It has nothing to do with business models or the amount of content (type of content, yes) or grinding, or quest hubs or all the other lables everyone has tried to put on it since. It's really about one thing.
How do you feel when you play the game? And that feeling was best captured in this genre from 2004-2008 for the vast majority.
Would just like to point out that Narius' stats include FPS's ARPG's MOBA's and conventional MMORPG's
"Central to this subscription are the month-to-month revenue estimates of the major MMO titles, such as League of Legends, World of Tanks, Counter-Strike Online, Guild Wars 2 and others."
Loktofelt's numbers are more than double that of Narius' so I would assume they include numbers from other online genres such as social gaming and/or online gambling.
The above is my personal opinion. Anyone displaying a view contrary to my opinion is obviously WRONG and should STHU. (neener neener)
What does reward mean without a bit of tedium or effort? Or time spent? Rift and SWTOR left me feeling empty with no real dedication to my characters or to the guilds and players of those games because it took just a bit of my time to succeed. Say what you want about EQ but I am endeared to the two characters I played in that game. Part of the game sucked. Evenings of just grinding and grinding without any real reward, but parts of that game were some of the best that I have ever experienced in any game.
Patiently waiting for a spawn timer. The thrill of getting a rare spawn to appear right out in front of me. Like any game you play, golf, or bowling or Single player or MMO games, there is tedium and effort involved but, it's that one great shot or throw or rare spawn. It keeps you in and trying. But that was when I had more time to play. Case in point:
EQ, there was a rare Griffin spawn in Iceclad Ocean. It was for a component for a nifty clicky eyepatch, one of the few clicky haste items in the game at the time. For a Rogue it was primo before the PoP expansion. Well it was on something like a 17 hour spawn and it could be 17-21 hours or something. (I dont really remember). What does this mean? It means if my toon was not standing at its spawn point for the duration, I lost my place in line, luckily it was on the weekend and I bloody turned up the volume and had little sleep for that entire time. When that frickin thing spawned I was in shock. It began attacking my Rogue immediately and luckily I was high enough level to kill it. It's effort in, reward out. The item wasn't unique (other people had it but not many) but it had status when people saw it. Or a dagger like The Blood of Mrylokar.
When EQ first came out an SBD (Serrated Bone Dirk) was like major and something to behold when I saw it for the first time because it didn't drop all the time. With instanced zones, there is no contested content and everyone ends up with the same gear if its class based for the quest they are on. In SWTOR, we wiped rarely even in new places and gear was just a matter of time and one Sage looked alot like the next.
Don't get me wrong, EQ had it's faults, it did but it also had something special about it that I miss in newer games. I also enjoyed the HELL out of DAOC and a little known game called Horizons that didn't last very long. (My guild in Horizons nearly bought South March when buying plots went active) Without the tedium and difficulty I do not have much interest. Without character uniqueness that isn't BOUGHT in a cash shop, I have no real 'love' for my toon. That's what a good MMO gave me at some point. But now, lately? Meh~ I'm playing Asheron's Call 2 and enjoying it alot.
First PC Game: Pool of Radiance July 10th, 1990. First MMO: Everquest April 23, 1999
Originally posted by ThomasN7 The point is that developers make games way too easy just so grandma and grandpa know how to play it.
Given the age of your average 'old school' player, that's completely appropriate now?
They're still ranting about these kids today, living in the past...yep, sounds just like granddad.
But...weren't we making these games too easy so the KIDS could play them? I get so confused by these circular arguments that spin around and always end up back at the same place they started.
Ah, right, the Vanilla WoW player...you've been hearing for ten years how you were the "kid that wrecked everything". But you're clearly better than these current WoW kids.... Who are better than the larpers. Who are better than the trekkies. Who are better than the furry fanfic writers... Nerd hierarchy, es muy muy importante.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Originally posted by HolophonistCan anybody point me towards a source that shows the MMO genre is increasing? Also I'd be curious to know what games they're including... specifically if they're including MOBAs.Even if the genre is increasing, I don't think that is necessarily evidence of anything, certainly not evidence that they're good. But I am curious to see the numbers because a lot of people throw that fact around without backing it up.
Back when "old school" MMOs were at their top - EQ, UO and AC1 - less than a million total players for all of them.Do I really need to continue?
No, but I will.
Less than a million with too much time on their hands. I suspect it's the same number of people today who want that old time-sucking gameplay back.
Take the casual crowd out of the equation and it's starting to look like the "true" (as they like to call themselves) MMO gamer population hasn't grown at all in 14 years.
Gee, maybe that's why smart game developers don't make those types of games any longer. No market for it.
Well, maybe there is a market for it...DFUW, MO...wait, nevermind.
Not all one million of those people want the same game. Some of them want an EQ like game, some of them want a UO like game, some of them want something like Meridian 59 and if history is any indication, a lot of them want something that isn't UO, EQ or Meridian 59. So yes, the market definitely exists. It's the teeny, tiny size of the market relative to the cost of producing a game that's the problem.
**
For instance, let's say it costs $10,000,000 to write an MMORPG. It takes five years to write that MMORPG. The money comes from investors. The investors expect a modest 5% return on their investment. They'll give the developer two years beyond the game's release date to make a return on the investment before they have them killed and eaten by rats.
$10M at 5% interest for 7 years (remember, the development time counts) means the game needs to make $10,410,000 within two years of being released. The monthly profit generated by the game needs to be $433,750 in order to pay off the investors. If the developer charges a $15 a month subscription, that's almost 29K subscribers for just the profit, ignoring any costs for the developer to run the game.
Mortal Online isn't anywhere near 29K players, much less subscribers. I'm not sure about Darkfall, but it doesn't sound like they are breaking any players records with their one server.
Drop the development cost to $6M, and they only need to make $352,500 a month in profit. That's still over 23K subscribers every month.
When a game like MO or Darkfall is pulling in those kinds of numbers, you'll start to see more development in "old school" style games.
Why are you using AAA budget numbers for independent titles with small teams and next to no investors?
The profit margins you quote are likely far more than the entire development budget for either of those games in any given year, including advertising, server/hardware, etc.
The above is my personal opinion. Anyone displaying a view contrary to my opinion is obviously WRONG and should STHU. (neener neener)
Mmmm I think you're confused. That's exactly what I'm saying. They're specifically trying to appeal to more people. The point others have tried to make is that production costs got so high that they simply had to appeal to more people, thus you have the watered down gameplay of themeparks. I'm saying they wanted to appeal to more people (thanks WoW) and then came the increase in aesthetics and streamlining etc.
Enough with platitudes. What does "watered down" gameplay mean exactly? To what are you comparing them?
Worse games... But you're not the judge of what is a good game or a bad game. And there is no rule that more people playing means worse games. How do you know they're not simply hitting a larger niche on "a deep level" and not several on a "more shallow level"?
I've explained it like a million times but whatever. People have different preferences. So to appeal more deeply to one person, you're alienating somebody else. Somebody's "perfect" game is going to be one that is completely 100% tailored to all of their preferences, but it obviously wouldn't be economically viable to build a game for one person. So the question is, are modern MMOs targeting as much as they can? Or are they delivering watered down games to make more money? I think it's pretty obvious that the genre was heavily influenced by WoW's success, and the genre has moved away from targeted games and more towards watered down games.
The fault in your reasoning is that you assume an even or near-even division of niches/preferences. Niches are not equal. For example, the niche of open world PvP is smaller than structured/instanced PvP.
Even if we proposed everyone's preference was unique, that everyone was effectively a niche of one, it is realistic to assume that a lot of those preferences overlap. And some preferences overlap more than others. So you don't know whether WoW is offering a deep experience for a very large group of players with a largely unified preference. You assume that because there are so many people playing just one game, that their preferences are not met thoroughly.
As a counter example, how would you know whether Eve offers a deep experience for its players? Maybe Eve is a "watered-down" sandbox for its players. How do you know if UO wasn't watered down? -There wasn't many alternatives in the market after all.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
I think you're confusing "too much time on their hands" with having an attention span. The real difference in game type is how long you play that game on a macro scale. Ie do you quit after a few weeks like narius? Seems to me that games like WoW and other carrot-on-a-stick grindfests can cause people to spend just as much time PER day as other, more long-term games.
Tldr: playing 12 different games in a year, each for a month, doesn't mean you have any less time on your hands than somebody who plays 1 game for the whole year.
Implying that someone might have ADD comes awfully close to flaming. Tread carefully.
grimgryphon was obviously referring to the tedious and time consuming nature of old school MMOs. Not to be confused with how many games you play in a year or anything of the sort.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Originally posted by Holophonist Originally posted by Quirhid
Mmmm I think you're confused. That's exactly what I'm saying. They're specifically trying to appeal to more people. The point others have tried to make is that production costs got so high that they simply had to appeal to more people, thus you have the watered down gameplay of themeparks. I'm saying they wanted to appeal to more people (thanks WoW) and then came the increase in aesthetics and streamlining etc.
Enough with platitudes. What does "watered down" gameplay mean exactly? To what are you comparing them?
Worse games... But you're not the judge of what is a good game or a bad game. And there is no rule that more people playing means worse games. How do you know they're not simply hitting a larger niche on "a deep level" and not several on a "more shallow level"?
I've explained it like a million times but whatever. People have different preferences. So to appeal more deeply to one person, you're alienating somebody else. Somebody's "perfect" game is going to be one that is completely 100% tailored to all of their preferences, but it obviously wouldn't be economically viable to build a game for one person. So the question is, are modern MMOs targeting as much as they can? Or are they delivering watered down games to make more money? I think it's pretty obvious that the genre was heavily influenced by WoW's success, and the genre has moved away from targeted games and more towards watered down games.
The fault in your reasoning is that you assume an even or near-even division of niches/preferences. Niches are not equal. For example, the niche of open world PvP is smaller than structured/instanced PvP.
Even if we proposed everyone's preference was unique, that everyone was effectively a niche of one, it is realistic to assume that a lot of those preferences overlap. And some preferences overlap more than others. So you don't know whether WoW is offering a deep experience for a very large group of players with a largely unified preference. You assume that because there are so many people playing just one game, that their preferences are not met thoroughly.
As a counter example, how would you know whether Eve offers a deep experience for its players? Maybe Eve is a "watered-down" sandbox for its players. How do you know if UO wasn't watered down? -There wasn't many alternatives in the market after all.
I never said eve and uo are the most targeted games imaginable. I have no doubt that many features are watered down or suppressed in order to appeal to more people. That's why I said its a question of where to draw the line.
Also your points about differently sized niches is just kind of wrong... or at least misses what im saying. Yes preferences overlap and form niches. I'm saying watering down your gameplay is finding the most amount of overlap at the expense of the degree to which they overlap. Ill try to explain it more but im on my phone so it probably wont go well.
Think of a venn diagram. Each circle is an individual's preferences. There are going to be some places where a small amount of circles overlap with each other almost completely. Then there will be places where a large amount of circles overlap, but a smaller proportion of each individual circle is actually being included. That's what I mean by watering down the gameplay. I'm saying that those 8 million people playing WoW would probably happier playing a game more tailored to them specifically... which should be intuitive because there's no way they have the exact same preferences as each of the other 8 million people.
Originally posted by ThomasN7 The point is that developers make games way too easy just so grandma and grandpa know how to play it. No one is saying stop making casual mmos but there needs to be a level of challenging content along with not finishing the game within a month. I will always say quality is greater than quantity. Dumbing down mmos for the casual person who only plays 10 hours a week just ruins the quality of games. You can't please everyone all the time and developers need to stop trying to please everyone all the time.
Being casual friendly is not the same as being easy. Casual friendly means you can log in, have fun and achieve something all within 15-30 minutes. It means you play on your own terms. It doesn't really speak about how easy it should be.
For instance: A single player game is casual friendly if it doesn't take too long to start playing and you can save your progression and continue the game at will.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Originally posted by HolophonistCan anybody point me towards a source that shows the MMO genre is increasing? Also I'd be curious to know what games they're including... specifically if they're including MOBAs.Even if the genre is increasing, I don't think that is necessarily evidence of anything, certainly not evidence that they're good. But I am curious to see the numbers because a lot of people throw that fact around without backing it up.
Back when "old school" MMOs were at their top - EQ, UO and AC1 - less than a million total players for all of them.Do I really need to continue?
No, but I will.Less than a million with too much time on their hands. I suspect it's the same number of people today who want that old time-sucking gameplay back.Take the casual crowd out of the equation and it's starting to look like the "true" (as they like to call themselves) MMO gamer population hasn't grown at all in 14 years.Gee, maybe that's why smart game developers don't make those types of games any longer. No market for it.Well, maybe there is a market for it...DFUW, MO...wait, nevermind.
Not all one million of those people want the same game. Some of them want an EQ like game, some of them want a UO like game, some of them want something like Meridian 59 and if history is any indication, a lot of them want something that isn't UO, EQ or Meridian 59. So yes, the market definitely exists. It's the teeny, tiny size of the market relative to the cost of producing a game that's the problem. ** For instance, let's say it costs $10,000,000 to write an MMORPG. It takes five years to write that MMORPG. The money comes from investors. The investors expect a modest 5% return on their investment. They'll give the developer two years beyond the game's release date to make a return on the investment before they have them killed and eaten by rats. $10M at 5% interest for 7 years (remember, the development time counts) means the game needs to make $10,410,000 within two years of being released. The monthly profit generated by the game needs to be $433,750 in order to pay off the investors. If the developer charges a $15 a month subscription, that's almost 29K subscribers for just the profit, ignoring any costs for the developer to run the game. Mortal Online isn't anywhere near 29K players, much less subscribers. I'm not sure about Darkfall, but it doesn't sound like they are breaking any players records with their one server. Drop the development cost to $6M, and they only need to make $352,500 a month in profit. That's still over 23K subscribers every month. When a game like MO or Darkfall is pulling in those kinds of numbers, you'll start to see more development in "old school" style games.
Why are you using AAA budget numbers for independent titles with small teams and next to no investors?
The profit margins you quote are likely far more than the entire development budget for either of those games in any given year, including advertising, server/hardware, etc.
Six to ten million dollars is not AAA MMORPG development. MMORPG costs can easily exceed ten million dollars at a minimum. (Gamasutra) $6M is given a developer the benefit of the doubt about their efficiency.
Those profit margins/number of subscription equivalents are just to pay off the investors, at a 5% yearly rate of return. That's above and beyond any operating expenses for the game itself.
I did calculate the total amount that needs to be paid off wrong though. It's more like $14.1M after seven years, not $10,410,000 on an initial investment of $10M.
The point is that people keep saying "there's a market". Well, there is a market. It's just not large enough to generate enough yearly income to support much more than what's already out there, given the huge cost to develop an MMORPG.
**
"there's a market (for old school/hard core games)"
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I think you're confusing "too much time on their hands" with having an attention span. The real difference in game type is how long you play that game on a macro scale. Ie do you quit after a few weeks like narius? Seems to me that games like WoW and other carrot-on-a-stick grindfests can cause people to spend just as much time PER day as other, more long-term games.
Tldr: playing 12 different games in a year, each for a month, doesn't mean you have any less time on your hands than somebody who plays 1 game for the whole year.
Implying that someone might have ADD comes awfully close to flaming. Tread carefully.
grimgryphon was obviously referring to the tedious and time consuming nature of old school MMOs. Not to be confused with how many games you play in a year or anything of the sort.
And I'm saying they're no more time consuming than modern themeparks. The difference is the longevity on a longer scale, not how much you play per day. Hence the attention span comment which was in no way a flame.
Comments
Feel free to add that it's just your opinion, lots of MMOs are doing good, in your eyes they are failures because YOU didn't like them and it didn't look like World of Warcraft.
Which is the most dumbed down arcade mmo in gaming history, back then it required no brains to play it, and it certainly doesn't now. If you think Vanilla required brains, omg I feel sorry. Spoonfed leveling to level 60 and from there on it was cookie cutter raiding with 40 lol.
Anyone with a bit of a brain figured out how to work those raids in a instant.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
I thought the change preceded the boom of social media. Things were already moving in that direction. I think you are constructing your own devil from the social media types. There was never much RP in the first place and I don't think they need to be catered to specifically. I've seen people RP in a myriad of games. They don't much care if the game is largely instanced or no, sandbox or themepark, FPS/TPS or isometric.
What I would guess they want, is seclusion. Seclusion from the people who do not RP. Because the greatest enemy of immersion is other players.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I am not sure how that change could have preceded social media, how were they reaching out to non gamers? Advertising? It is the advent of social media, which has allowed gaming companies to reach out to them. First they reached out to gamers on the social media sites, now they are reaching out to anyone who has played anything, be it Angry Birds or Farmville.
The people I am supposed to be making a devil of are just like you and me, but they are not gamers. That's the issue here, not what social media types are like.
What roleplayers have lost is roleplaying tools. Which can be everything from languages that were race specific that you could learn, to books you could write in that others could read, to guild HQ's. That is how they were catered for.
I think roleplayers fit better in large worlds but as you say sandbox or themepark does not make much difference. I do think they prefer RPG over FPS/TPS ((strangely enough
)). But as you say top notch graphics with an over the shoulder avatar is not needed, many of them started in MUD's after all.
As to seclusion, yes and no. If you want roleplaying where you can bump into players and just roleplay then a separate server is needed. We still have those but they always had a problem with players joining who had no intention of roleplaying. Nowadays you can assume anyone you meet is most likely not to a roleplayer. But if you intend to roleplay with your guild and like minded guilds, having players around that don't roleplay is not much of an issue.
I've explained it like a million times but whatever. People have different preferences. So to appeal more deeply to one person, you're alienating somebody else. Somebody's "perfect" game is going to be one that is completely 100% tailored to all of their preferences, but it obviously wouldn't be economically viable to build a game for one person. So the question is, are modern MMOs targeting as much as they can? Or are they delivering watered down games to make more money? I think it's pretty obvious that the genre was heavily influenced by WoW's success, and the genre has moved away from targeted games and more towards watered down games.
Losing exp on death is just shitty design, enforcing artificial grind, so is full loot imho. Those things doesn't add any challenge what so ever, only force you waste more time to recover, making you spend time catching up to where you were instead of, you know, enjoying progression.
I am not saying games should be easy, there should be certain punishment to dying, but exp and full loot loss is overkill. The challenge should be in advancing your character and the content, not in catching up to where you were a week ago. Vanilla WoW, imho, hit the sweetspot of the challenge.
You could advance your character relatively easy in terms of level and basic gear, so you could enjoy the basic content of the game. But if you wanted to advance beyond that, game required dedication. Raiding wasn't easy (How many guilds cleared AQ40 and BWL prior to expansion patch?), nor were the preparations for it. The world has loads of secrets waiting on an explorer to discover, such as combat food in Felwood, firepots in Arathi, or the arena trinket in STV. There were stuff to explore and grind for one who wanted to further push his characters.
Nowadays, all the progression is served to you on a silver plate, it is either dungeons and raids, or factions. There is very little to discover that requires you to take a side step from the main path. That's the feeling I miss.
No, but I will.
Less than a million with too much time on their hands. I suspect it's the same number of people today who want that old time-sucking gameplay back.
Take the casual crowd out of the equation and it's starting to look like the "true" (as they like to call themselves) MMO gamer population hasn't grown at all in 14 years.
Gee, maybe that's why smart game developers don't make those types of games any longer. No market for it.
Well, maybe there is a market for it...DFUW, MO...wait, nevermind.
Back when "old school" MMOs were at their top - EQ, UO and AC1 - less than a million total players for all of them.
Do I really need to continue?
No, but I will.
Less than a million with too much time on their hands. I suspect it's the same number of people today who want that old time-sucking gameplay back.
Take the casual crowd out of the equation and it's starting to look like the "true" (as they like to call themselves) MMO gamer population hasn't grown at all in 14 years.
Gee, maybe that's why smart game developers don't make those types of games any longer. No market for it.
Well, maybe there is a market for it...DFUW, MO...wait, nevermind.
I think you're confusing "too much time on their hands" with having an attention span. The real difference in game type is how long you play that game on a macro scale. Ie do you quit after a few weeks like narius? Seems to me that games like WoW and other carrot-on-a-stick grindfests can cause people to spend just as much time PER day as other, more long-term games.Tldr: playing 12 different games in a year, each for a month, doesn't mean you have any less time on your hands than somebody who plays 1 game for the whole year.
Having to grind the same mobs in a group for weeks just to gain one level has nothing to do with having an attention span either. It's more about having a high tolerance for boredom, and also being addicted to the point that the carrot (next level) matters more than your own enjoyment.
Such people exist. There are guys who tightened the same screw all their life in the Ford assembly lines. But at least they were paid for it... in MMORPGs, it's the opposite, some people are willing to pay to do a tedious repetitive task. That never ceases to amaze me.
My computer is better than yours.
Not all one million of those people want the same game. Some of them want an EQ like game, some of them want a UO like game, some of them want something like Meridian 59 and if history is any indication, a lot of them want something that isn't UO, EQ or Meridian 59. So yes, the market definitely exists. It's the teeny, tiny size of the market relative to the cost of producing a game that's the problem.
**
For instance, let's say it costs $10,000,000 to write an MMORPG. It takes five years to write that MMORPG. The money comes from investors. The investors expect a modest 5% return on their investment. They'll give the developer two years beyond the game's release date to make a return on the investment before they have them killed and eaten by rats.
$10M at 5% interest for 7 years (remember, the development time counts) means the game needs to make $10,410,000 within two years of being released. The monthly profit generated by the game needs to be $433,750 in order to pay off the investors. If the developer charges a $15 a month subscription, that's almost 29K subscribers for just the profit, ignoring any costs for the developer to run the game.
Mortal Online isn't anywhere near 29K players, much less subscribers. I'm not sure about Darkfall, but it doesn't sound like they are breaking any players records with their one server.
Drop the development cost to $6M, and they only need to make $352,500 a month in profit. That's still over 23K subscribers every month.
When a game like MO or Darkfall is pulling in those kinds of numbers, you'll start to see more development in "old school" style games.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Many of that original "old school" player base also just don't want such games back and wouldn't play them. Many of us veterans enjoy the reduction of tedium in modern MMOs.
I seriously doubt there's much left of the original 1M old school player base who would like to play those games again. The failure of recent games like DFO and MO proves it.
My computer is better than yours.
Thats one of those reasons why there is some devs still developing virtual worlds and role playing games.
When peeps at GW2 for example runds circles and nothing ever changes,starting from harvesting nodes to other peeps actions ,everything is allways the same.
When we compare it to virtual world where someone might actually fight for the loot,nodes ,act friendly or hostile against other players ,we have much more interesting playground and the grind is allways different.
Emotions like " maan i was lucky today" wont come up in games where luck is not needed in the first place.
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014.
**On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
This discussion is so stupid, because:
1. Challenging is not the same as tedious. MMOs never have been difficult, grinding the same easy stuff over and over again is just an outdated concept. However, causal players want challenging content, because they have less time to invest in easy stupid content. They hate to "earn" the right (which just means the right gear) to do the good stuff. So your whole argument is a complete failure.
2. Moreover, it is always the selfproclaimed "hard core" players, who rush through everything towards endlevel as fast as they can, because they claim end game raiding to be the only real content ("that's, when the game really starts"). So again the noobish casuals would prefer the leveling process to be more difficult and more entertaining.
3. Blizzard released WoW at the same time as EQ2 came out, and they said from the very beginning, that they target casual players. Problem was, that so many hard core players turned to WoW from other MMOs, because it was just the better game. Then they started a war in the community against all the players who made WoW a great experience - the casuals. But it was a causal game for casuals from the very beginning. So the whole argument was absurd!
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.
yeah. Personally, modern MMOs are much better games (to me) than old school MMOs like EQ.
I won't touch a EQ with updated graphics with a ten foot pole. The design is just tedious (for me).
Most of us (12 Million kind of "most") were very happy with WoW TBC. Sure I played Anarchy Online and SWG and enjoyed both of those games. But my favorite was still WoW at level 70. And that certainly was more than "less than a million" That's the experience I want back. AO, UO, DAOC, AC, EQ, all those were 1st Gen. WoW and EQ2 and others were 2nd gen. Now we have 3rd gen. (Yes, I made that up, but it's convenient) I want the 2nd gen back most. I'd take 1st gen over 3rd, But that's my preference.
You think there is no market for where 12M came in and are sill looking for that? Seems to me there is. 8M still over there. And since then, every AAA MMO that's released generates enough interest to sell millions of boxes. But sure enough, the game did not capture the essence of what keeps players logging in month after month and people leave.
It's really not a hard concept, but everyone wants to put their own spin on why the industry can't hold anyone's attention. Blizzard polished (not developed) a formula that worked for 4 years that neither they or anyone else since have been able to recreate. It has nothing to do with business models or the amount of content (type of content, yes) or grinding, or quest hubs or all the other lables everyone has tried to put on it since. It's really about one thing.
How do you feel when you play the game? And that feeling was best captured in this genre from 2004-2008 for the vast majority.
Would just like to point out that Narius' stats include FPS's ARPG's MOBA's and conventional MMORPG's
"Central to this subscription are the month-to-month revenue estimates of the major MMO titles, such as League of Legends, World of Tanks, Counter-Strike Online, Guild Wars 2 and others."
Loktofelt's numbers are more than double that of Narius' so I would assume they include numbers from other online genres such as social gaming and/or online gambling.
The above is my personal opinion. Anyone displaying a view contrary to my opinion is obviously WRONG and should STHU. (neener neener)
-The MMO Forum Community
What does reward mean without a bit of tedium or effort? Or time spent? Rift and SWTOR left me feeling empty with no real dedication to my characters or to the guilds and players of those games because it took just a bit of my time to succeed. Say what you want about EQ but I am endeared to the two characters I played in that game. Part of the game sucked. Evenings of just grinding and grinding without any real reward, but parts of that game were some of the best that I have ever experienced in any game.
Patiently waiting for a spawn timer. The thrill of getting a rare spawn to appear right out in front of me. Like any game you play, golf, or bowling or Single player or MMO games, there is tedium and effort involved but, it's that one great shot or throw or rare spawn. It keeps you in and trying. But that was when I had more time to play. Case in point:
EQ, there was a rare Griffin spawn in Iceclad Ocean. It was for a component for a nifty clicky eyepatch, one of the few clicky haste items in the game at the time. For a Rogue it was primo before the PoP expansion. Well it was on something like a 17 hour spawn and it could be 17-21 hours or something. (I dont really remember). What does this mean? It means if my toon was not standing at its spawn point for the duration, I lost my place in line, luckily it was on the weekend and I bloody turned up the volume and had little sleep for that entire time. When that frickin thing spawned I was in shock. It began attacking my Rogue immediately and luckily I was high enough level to kill it. It's effort in, reward out. The item wasn't unique (other people had it but not many) but it had status when people saw it. Or a dagger like The Blood of Mrylokar.
When EQ first came out an SBD (Serrated Bone Dirk) was like major and something to behold when I saw it for the first time because it didn't drop all the time. With instanced zones, there is no contested content and everyone ends up with the same gear if its class based for the quest they are on. In SWTOR, we wiped rarely even in new places and gear was just a matter of time and one Sage looked alot like the next.
Don't get me wrong, EQ had it's faults, it did but it also had something special about it that I miss in newer games. I also enjoyed the HELL out of DAOC and a little known game called Horizons that didn't last very long. (My guild in Horizons nearly bought South March when buying plots went active) Without the tedium and difficulty I do not have much interest. Without character uniqueness that isn't BOUGHT in a cash shop, I have no real 'love' for my toon. That's what a good MMO gave me at some point. But now, lately? Meh~ I'm playing Asheron's Call 2 and enjoying it alot.
First PC Game: Pool of Radiance July 10th, 1990. First MMO: Everquest April 23, 1999
Given the age of your average 'old school' player, that's completely appropriate now?
They're still ranting about these kids today, living in the past...yep, sounds just like granddad.
But...weren't we making these games too easy so the KIDS could play them? I get so confused by these circular arguments that spin around and always end up back at the same place they started.
Ah, right, the Vanilla WoW player...you've been hearing for ten years how you were the "kid that wrecked everything". But you're clearly better than these current WoW kids.... Who are better than the larpers. Who are better than the trekkies. Who are better than the furry fanfic writers... Nerd hierarchy, es muy muy importante.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Why are you using AAA budget numbers for independent titles with small teams and next to no investors?
The profit margins you quote are likely far more than the entire development budget for either of those games in any given year, including advertising, server/hardware, etc.
The above is my personal opinion. Anyone displaying a view contrary to my opinion is obviously WRONG and should STHU. (neener neener)
-The MMO Forum Community
The fault in your reasoning is that you assume an even or near-even division of niches/preferences. Niches are not equal. For example, the niche of open world PvP is smaller than structured/instanced PvP.
Even if we proposed everyone's preference was unique, that everyone was effectively a niche of one, it is realistic to assume that a lot of those preferences overlap. And some preferences overlap more than others. So you don't know whether WoW is offering a deep experience for a very large group of players with a largely unified preference. You assume that because there are so many people playing just one game, that their preferences are not met thoroughly.
As a counter example, how would you know whether Eve offers a deep experience for its players? Maybe Eve is a "watered-down" sandbox for its players. How do you know if UO wasn't watered down? -There wasn't many alternatives in the market after all.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Implying that someone might have ADD comes awfully close to flaming. Tread carefully.
grimgryphon was obviously referring to the tedious and time consuming nature of old school MMOs. Not to be confused with how many games you play in a year or anything of the sort.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Worse games... But you're not the judge of what is a good game or a bad game. And there is no rule that more people playing means worse games. How do you know they're not simply hitting a larger niche on "a deep level" and not several on a "more shallow level"?
I've explained it like a million times but whatever. People have different preferences. So to appeal more deeply to one person, you're alienating somebody else. Somebody's "perfect" game is going to be one that is completely 100% tailored to all of their preferences, but it obviously wouldn't be economically viable to build a game for one person. So the question is, are modern MMOs targeting as much as they can? Or are they delivering watered down games to make more money? I think it's pretty obvious that the genre was heavily influenced by WoW's success, and the genre has moved away from targeted games and more towards watered down games.
The fault in your reasoning is that you assume an even or near-even division of niches/preferences. Niches are not equal. For example, the niche of open world PvP is smaller than structured/instanced PvP.
Even if we proposed everyone's preference was unique, that everyone was effectively a niche of one, it is realistic to assume that a lot of those preferences overlap. And some preferences overlap more than others. So you don't know whether WoW is offering a deep experience for a very large group of players with a largely unified preference. You assume that because there are so many people playing just one game, that their preferences are not met thoroughly.
As a counter example, how would you know whether Eve offers a deep experience for its players? Maybe Eve is a "watered-down" sandbox for its players. How do you know if UO wasn't watered down? -There wasn't many alternatives in the market after all.
I never said eve and uo are the most targeted games imaginable. I have no doubt that many features are watered down or suppressed in order to appeal to more people. That's why I said its a question of where to draw the line.Also your points about differently sized niches is just kind of wrong... or at least misses what im saying. Yes preferences overlap and form niches. I'm saying watering down your gameplay is finding the most amount of overlap at the expense of the degree to which they overlap. Ill try to explain it more but im on my phone so it probably wont go well.
Think of a venn diagram. Each circle is an individual's preferences. There are going to be some places where a small amount of circles overlap with each other almost completely. Then there will be places where a large amount of circles overlap, but a smaller proportion of each individual circle is actually being included. That's what I mean by watering down the gameplay. I'm saying that those 8 million people playing WoW would probably happier playing a game more tailored to them specifically... which should be intuitive because there's no way they have the exact same preferences as each of the other 8 million people.
Being casual friendly is not the same as being easy. Casual friendly means you can log in, have fun and achieve something all within 15-30 minutes. It means you play on your own terms. It doesn't really speak about how easy it should be.
For instance: A single player game is casual friendly if it doesn't take too long to start playing and you can save your progression and continue the game at will.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Six to ten million dollars is not AAA MMORPG development. MMORPG costs can easily exceed ten million dollars at a minimum. (Gamasutra) $6M is given a developer the benefit of the doubt about their efficiency.
Those profit margins/number of subscription equivalents are just to pay off the investors, at a 5% yearly rate of return. That's above and beyond any operating expenses for the game itself.
I did calculate the total amount that needs to be paid off wrong though. It's more like $14.1M after seven years, not $10,410,000 on an initial investment of $10M.
The point is that people keep saying "there's a market". Well, there is a market. It's just not large enough to generate enough yearly income to support much more than what's already out there, given the huge cost to develop an MMORPG.
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"there's a market (for old school/hard core games)"
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I think you're confusing "too much time on their hands" with having an attention span. The real difference in game type is how long you play that game on a macro scale. Ie do you quit after a few weeks like narius? Seems to me that games like WoW and other carrot-on-a-stick grindfests can cause people to spend just as much time PER day as other, more long-term games.Tldr: playing 12 different games in a year, each for a month, doesn't mean you have any less time on your hands than somebody who plays 1 game for the whole year.
Implying that someone might have ADD comes awfully close to flaming. Tread carefully.
grimgryphon was obviously referring to the tedious and time consuming nature of old school MMOs. Not to be confused with how many games you play in a year or anything of the sort.
And I'm saying they're no more time consuming than modern themeparks. The difference is the longevity on a longer scale, not how much you play per day. Hence the attention span comment which was in no way a flame.