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Game On #81 - Are AAA MMORPGs Over? - MMORPG.com News
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Game On #81 - Are AAA MMORPGs Over? - MMORPG.com News
This week on Game On, Chris and Braxwolf take on the question of the year: are AAA MMORPGs on the way out? They also talk about the comparisons between The Division and Destiny, Fallout 4's Automatron DLC, the end of EverQuest Next and the future of Daybreak Studios, and more.
Comments
Look at Black Desert for example, Great Game, Behind a heavy pay-wall of Pay 2 Enjoy cosmetic items, they want you to play multiple classes, but only give the costume for a single character, limit player economy and trade too much to be worth playing.
Blade & Soul another good game gone to hell by bots, tried logging in today since they removed Game Guard again looks like for good the damage has been done, cosmetic items are per character not per account like it should be.
Only decent MMO I know of right now is Guild Wars2, right now playing AA waiting for Dark Fall, and I can't stand archeage because Tahyang server has so much toxicity, and dictatorship its not even funny, Trion does nothing about player 2 player harassment either when people grief others for fun.
They also tend to be grindy, and people around here (that I know, at least... since I'm sure someone will say "NOT ME!") don't have time for that mess.
Lots of Asians play in Internet Cafe's. They pay for the time they play the game, so designing a game where you have to grind to XP, or hit on a raid boss for hours until it drops dead (i.e. Lineage II) is a market driver over there.
Virtually everyone here who plays an MMORPG does it from a home internet connection. Given the bandwidth requirements of these games (outside of install/patching), they can play unlimited times. Using grind as a way to drive other businesses is not a good business model here. It just griefs legitimate players by allowing cheaters to run several bots on their PCs and level themselves/farm currency and items AFK amassing huge advantages over legitimate players.
Most Asian Games are bot and farmer heaven in Western Markets because the design of those games simply do not work for the social and economic markets in the west. The people are different, the affordances are generally different, etc.
This is why some NCSoft games, for example, require Korean identification (like a SSN, Phone Number or something similar) to register an account for their server, and they'll ban you if you fraud to get into it. They don't want Western nastiness on the KOR servers, and they want to keep that player base on their own servers to monetize them properly as well.
We are now living in a post MMO universe where smaller indie developers will have to be the ones to pick up the ball and run with it if this genre is to survive.
Maybe finally a return to the virtual world mattering , zero to little spent on voice acted , cutscenes that were never something I wanted or cared about in mmo's and so on will finally occur.
I'm personally glad the attempt to be the next WoW looks like it's done.
Camelot Unchained , Project Gorgon , Chronicles of Ely , Pantheon , etc etc are all much more the type of game I want.
They will save the mmorpg industry for me , as in giving me mmo's I want to play again.
Just as Pillars of Eternity and Divinity Original Sin for me are far better than any single player "AAA" game released in the past several years , I'll likely spend far more hours and enjoy these upcoming mmos much more also.
As if I matter when there are no "them" playing with me.
Or enough of "them" to fund the game's development.
PoE and D:OS aren't MMORPGs, so it's easier for them to be better for you when the only thing they have to care about is making sure you like the game enough to buy it (and there is no free trial).
MMORPGs need constant income to run properly. They are not like single players games.
Which is why the single player mentality is a flawed path to evaluating them.
The market has changed since then, and I doubt you can honestly say whether or not they were fine because you are not evaluating them from an "as launched" perspective, but rather from a "fine for me" perspective.
There's a reason why those games are practically dead and almost no new player would pick them up in this day and age.
The majority of players involved in this genre voted with their wallets and they voted right to say "no", so naturally those who can't deliver what the consumers want will go back to the drawing board or exit this market to be more useful somewhere else, where they can do better with their abilities.
MMORPG's are the most complex undertake for any game developer since they require the most talent, vision and experience in game development. We've seen many wanting to "cash in" and dive into this market even though they clearly can't deliver by labeling most of their games as "MMORPG's".
for a long time now, gamers have been bitchin about getting a game for free. Companies have to get there money from somewhere but gamers don't want to pay. so now we have p2w games flooding the market. there are a few decent MMO's still out there, but its getting very few and far between. have companies been progressing, no, there's no money in it, so why would they, and the risk is huge. So we get what we have paid for.
Only themselves to blame, i still believe almost all of the mmos released 20 years ago are better MMORPGs than anything made in the last 5 to 10 years.
Yes they now look shabby, are underpopulated and some have lost their original charm while they were chasing what everyone thought was better but at core they are better MMORPGs that need a new skin.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
seconding this, now companies can actually try and experiment with new ideas instead of just being 'the next wow'
I'm not an IT Specialist, Game Developer, or Clairvoyant in real life, but like others on here, I play one on the internet.
Like everything in this economy, downsizing and corporate mergers have changed the landscape.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
This is because so many of these companies were publicly owned and their focus was stockholder not having a quality business. Too much is being put on paying stockholders that quality went out the window and people stopped spending money on games. What happened companies are going bye bye instead of having a stable company that makes money. Maybe some industries do not belong on the NYSE.
You're right in the Way Kano. But was a Billion Dollars ever there to start with? One would say yes look at Blizzard. Yet If that was true why was there no other Billion Dollar games? It's because MMOs should be a niche\smaller market vs just overall games. Add to that, that publishers shouldnt be run by Stockholders because the money is not there for Publicly traded companies to make money.
That was such an amazing video and super informative I just subscribed
The state that some triple A mmorpgs release as make them subpar and not actual triple A's even though the fanfare and marketing scams blow them out of proportion.
That said, games could be profitable. I am looking forward to Camelot Unchained. Creating your own formula is a gamble but is also the future.
As long as publishers will apply single player design to MMOs, they will fail. Someone needs to make a world players want to live in for months/years, not a quest chain people will complete and get bored of within 2 weeks.
In fewer words, plz make SWG 2 (Except, you know, maybe try to balance it a bit)
That doesn't mean we can't find some value from these B and C rated games but truth is devs are not giving us their best effort.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
When devs see Wow design,they copy it,devs see moba's ,now tons are copying that,it is really simple,they see $$$$ they go for that market.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.