[Editorial] General: MMOs: Titan's Death Signals Change

SBFord

Yesterday’s announcement that Blizzard had canceled Project Titan after over seven years in development spelled a big moment in the MMO genre’s history, perhaps one that many may have overlooked. Consider this: When even Blizzard takes a step back from developing what was undoubtedly a ‘traditional’ MMO, the development world and the player base sit up and take notice.

Read more of Suzie Ford's MMOs: Titan's Death Signals Change

flizzer

I almost see this in the same light as cable becoming popular and taking away market share from the old networks.  We have many more options and players are spread across many games.  The days of one game dominating the landscape, like WoW did and does to some degree, are numbered.  Options for players , of course, are good but will developers invest money if they realize they will never be able to draw the huge numbers WoW has over the past years?   

SteamRanger

It might mean that Blizzard is basically a lazy development company who have never really had an original idea. They have always relied on improving other people's ideas to produce content. That's why then never really come up with anything completely new. 

Muppetier

What will be the next AAA MMO?

A few years ago you would answer that with at least a handful of titles in development.

Elandrial

Originally posted by SteamRanger
It might mean that Blizzard is basically a lazy development company who have never really had an original idea. They have always relied on improving other people's ideas to produce content. That's why then never really come up with anything completely new. 

amen,i got a free month of wow,and it is the same as ever.

Gravarg

Originally posted by Elandrial

Originally posted by SteamRanger
It might mean that Blizzard is basically a lazy development company who have never really had an original idea. They have always relied on improving other people's ideas to produce content. That's why then never really come up with anything completely new. 

amen,i got a free month of wow,and it is the same as ever.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it

 

I've heard that the main reason Titan never went anywhere was because Blizzard never expected WoW to still be doing well.

 

falc0n

Thats ok the last blizzard game I liked was diablo 2

hardicon

The basic concept of a mmo is completely dead.  All mmo style games now are just online single player games with multiplayer co-op.  I do like Warcraft but quite frankly it killed the mmo genre that started with EQ, AC, and Ultima, but instead of having open worlds that we can live in we got single player games that you could party up inside a instance and do some raids or pvp.  Such high hopes for this genre but nobody ever had the vision or balls to try to make a real mmo since swg.  All future games will be mobas, or some form of that pretty much.  Wildstar, WoW, Elder Scrolls and Guild Wars 2 are the last mmo type games and none of those are truly mmos anymore. 

CrazKanuk

Originally posted by Gravarg

Originally posted by Elandrial

Originally posted by SteamRanger
It might mean that Blizzard is basically a lazy development company who have never really had an original idea. They have always relied on improving other people's ideas to produce content. That's why then never really come up with anything completely new. 

amen,i got a free month of wow,and it is the same as ever.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it

 

I've heard that the main reason Titan never went anywhere was because Blizzard never expected WoW to still be doing well.

 

I agree, and until I see layoffs announced, I won't believe a word of it. Titan might be cancelled but the tech and stuff will/can certainly be used elsewhere. I don't care how bad the game was, you simply don't invest 100+ million into developing a game only to get to the sprint to the finish to say "meh, I don't like it." 

 

Ikifales

This is being way over thought. And the redefinition of "MMO" is killing true MMOs by watering down the genre because companies are selling out to the masses. It's similar to the music industry and MTV...trendy crap music has killed originality and creativity.

Nadia

i dont think it signals change

what's to change based on news of Blizzard cancelling a mmo?

 

Blizzard is has the king of the hill mmo but it's their only mmo ...

Battlerock

That Warcraft Lore is just too deep, you can't just walk away from it. Blizzard just needs to keep building upon the lore, imagine a Warcraft themed "Skyrim" or a Warcraft themed '"GTA5" or , OR!!! a Warcraft themed "Halo" if only they had the funding, doh... They do have the funding and doh they do have the development teams in place , gee hey Mickey, are you thinking what I am thinking?

Agent_Joseph

respect for Blizzard , they know none can make something success and new in MMO  game industry

MMO genre today is everything,  but not mmo what should to be .Only old 5+ years mmo games are still great & enjoyable .

Battlerock

That Warcraft Lore is just too deep, you can't just walk away from it. Blizzard just needs to keep building upon the lore, imagine a Warcraft themed "Skyrim" or a Warcraft themed '"GTA5" or , OR!!! a Warcraft themed "Halo" if only they had the funding, doh... They do have the funding and doh they do have the development teams in place , gee hey Mickey, are you thinking what I am thinking?

Kaneth

Originally posted by flizzer
I almost see this in the same light as cable becoming popular and taking away market share from the old networks.  We have many more options and players are spread across many games.  The days of one game dominating the landscape, like WoW did and does to some degree, are numbered.  Options for players , of course, are good but will developers invest money if they realize they will never be able to draw the huge numbers WoW has over the past years?   

This has been my stance for quite a while. MMOs being dominate forces in the past were mostly due to a true lack of competition. For years mmos were the only real avenue of online play with a lot of interaction with many people. Now, pretty much every single game has some type of online play. Consoles have a large online presence as well. It's actually fairly odd if a game doesn't have some type of online play.

Additionally, the average gamer seems to be looking for something that's way more accessible now. MMOs, even now, tend to be slow and methodical compared to many other genres. MOBAs, FPS, Sports, Racing, etc, all offer instant action. They are all genres where "end game" starts immediately and rewards people in a fairly fast manner. Even though mmos have sort of followed suit, they are still very slow to end game compared to pretty much anything else out there, for your average user.

Blizzard came to a realization with Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm, where they can make very small games, with pretty small investments and make a ton of money as long as the game is competitive and addicting. I'd be curious to see how much they've made of Hearthstone in pack sales.

The face of mmos is most likely going to change in the near future. I don't think we're going to see the huge projects that we've grown accustomed to. I believe we're going to see smaller projects that will grow over time. I also feel we're going to see the next big thing from indie developers. Take a look at the Minecraft story. Game started by one man, became wildly popular, one man started a small company and was just purchased by MS for $2.5 billion. That's a hell of a success story.

jesteralways

what i think has really happened is different than what author of this article thinks. what i think happened here is that Blizzard stopped working on a next-gen mmo simply because it will kill their cash cow WoW. they thought there is no reason to continue working on a next gen mmo which will continue to cost hundreds of million $ more as time goes on when they have wow which requires measly amount of investment each year yet makes revenue in billions. they just simply stopped from taking the genre forward to sustain their cash cow.

 

laserit

I don't believe the death of Titan signals anything...  except that all it shows is that Blizzard has seen the writing on the wall, they took too long.

 

The "change" is already deep in production and hopefully it won't be too  long before it releases. 

RPGMASTERGAMER

they are just waiting for when Wow will become less profitable,

when they started project titan that was for remplace wow when it become less popular,

but curently wow still numbers one, why they would release something new for split the community they got and maybe enter the current wow playbase inside the current mmorpg players mindset

'' we play 1 to 3 months of the new released mmorpg then we switch '',

they could easily make a mmorpg where people play for 2-3 months then want something new,

but for blizzard who got a loyal playerbase who subs for years? ... .

and if  these people dont want go back to wow because now they have see something new but that not totaly it?,

they just loss everywhere, so many scenario can go wrong and anyway WoW still numbers one, bring money and people subs, why risk anything ??!!

project titan will come back on the same name or something else but will be the same project when wow become less profitable and i would bet big money on that !!

that what mostly what im thinking, no proof , just pure logic

 

 

 

Shodanas

Blizzard was always very good at heeding the market and the environment in which said market evolves. The recent WildStar fiasco made apparent that in today's over-saturated business releasing an expensive AAA mmo based on a new - unknown IP is like betting on a roulette table. Why go through this process when they already have a number of very successful high revenue products out or about to be released ?

 

 

Bladestrom

^^ hogwash and propaganda. It's simple, option 1 is where they make wow2, the majority of players will move to wow2- aided by allowing achievments to be migrated, blizzard supporta both. the issue here is that they can make similar profits by doing nothing, only wow players lose out - but they will by and large still play wow.

Passionate dev house that cares for their customers would do this (as seen historically with most games). Greedy devs go for max profit.

Scopique

Originally posted by laserit

I don't believe the death of Titan signals anything...  except that all it shows is that Blizzard has seen the writing on the wall, they took too long.

This

MMOs stopped chasing WoW a long time ago. MMOs from the East never chased it, and now those are coming to the West. Developers realized a while ago that no one was going to do WoW numbers, and when F2P came along everyone seemed really cool to give WoW it's due, and then strike off in their own direction (to various degrees).

Since then, Blizzard's been playing catch-up. The MMO industry offerings just exploded in different directions, keeping core mechanics that people are familiar with, but also adding new mechanics like public groups, housing, more in-depth crafting, etc. In order for Titan to be relevant, it would need to cover the bases that ALL other MMOs cover, do it better, and then do MORE. That's a next to impossible feat. 

WoW deserves what it deserves, but the constant fawning over it really needs to stop. Other game developers have moved beyond just aping what WoW did (a la Runes of Magic, Allods Online, etc) and long ago came to terms with their niche markets. That's perfectly fine. No one WANTS to be WoW any more. By respecting WoW, but not following WoW, developers are free to explore other mechanics and appeal to other demographics that have left or which never played WoW. 

Azaron_Nightblade

Originally posted by Shodanas

Blizzard was always very good at heeding the market and the environment in which said market evolves. The recent WildStar fiasco made apparent that in today's over-saturated business releasing an expensive AAA mmo based on a new - unknown IP is like betting on a roulette table. Why go through this process when they already have a number of very successful high revenue products out or about to be released ?

 

 

They seem to be doing that pretty well already.

Hearthstone is clearly a success, and HotS is looking like it'll give LoL a decent run for its money with all the innovations it's bringing to the MOBA genre.

Should we call it a "LoL Killer" since there's already so many "WoW Killers" out there? :P Naaaah, because lets face it - LoL's hardcore fanbase isn't just going to jump to a new game and basically start all over again, just like most WoW players didn't.

I am curious what their next project will be though, now that they've freed up a lot of resources. Will they focus on getting the next Diablo and Starcraft out the door faster? Add the developers to their existing teams and work on WoW/HS/HotS? Or will there be an announcement one of these days that Blizzard's sacking over a hundred employees? 

subxaero

''Blizzard is lazy''....Blizzard is that Blizzard is the other.Haters gonna Hate because their F2P games have   300k subs and a 10yo  P2P MMORPG has still 6.5 million, this is not even competition, this is WoW saying

'' You stole eveything from me, u are free and i still stomp u in the face, take a few thousand subscribers just to survive and stop whining''

What i know about Blizzard is that whatever they make is off high quality and hugely addictive,

What i know about Blizzard is that after  about 2010 WoW changed signifacally to the worse(especially for us the vanilla players) but people i am 110% sure that if Blizard didnt make some of those changed now they would have 6.5 mil the propably would have 2mil and they would have already prepared the Titan, as much as i dont like it thats the truth

In my opinion adjectively the fact that WoW still has such a  big number  of subs till now its unreal, there is NO point arguing when will wows numbers will decline or when it will die or who will kill it.The game sooner or later will die, if someone wanted to kill it or assasinate it..they  had 10 years, the had  new graphic engines, new ideas  and 10 fuking years to develop something new

 

O well my hope is that we will get something really great sooner or later, something we will  get immerse ot it  pretty bad, i see why Blizzard cancelled Titan and Imo they did right , especially  if it didnt stick out from this generic them park...We need something new... Check out the Dayz stand alone how RAW it is how many bugs it has but still tis so addictive and fresh because its something new and fresh

 

 

Toxia

whaaat

Simsu

Meh... I'd lie if I said it wasn't disappointing, but after 10 years without even a hint of what Titan was I'm not all that surprised. Blizzard has canceled games before that it didn't feel were up to par and I'm sure they'll do it again.

 

What I don't like, and I dun think anyone who plays MMOs should like, is that Blizzard seems to be signalling that it's giving up on the full-on-mmo market to develop "cheap easy games" (my  words). And whether or not you like Blizzard as a company, in this "see monkey do" mmo development environment, when  big player gets out it's potentially damaging to the whole scene.

 

That being said, I still think someone could do a revolutionary MMO, but I'm not sure we're gonna see companies (read as people with money) risking their development.

SomeOldBloke

In my opinion the Accountants at Blizzard looked at the revenue generated from WoW and asked "Will Titan produce a similar revenue stream to our cash cow?". They looked at the current market conditions, estimated the future markets and answered "probably not" and decided not t waste any more money on it.

Gamers like to think that big developers make games for the player when the reality of the business world is that they make it for money. They have lower budgets and higher profit margins on single player, co-op multiplayer or MOBAs. That is the way of the future for the big AAA companies. As someone said, innovative smaller indi companies will be the ones making MMORPGs as they want to make games that players want, the Big Guns want $$$.