They are closing due to AOL getting out of the specialty blog business, it has nothing at all to do with the viability of the site or state of the genre.
Originally posted by Nihilist They are closing due to AOL getting out of the specialty blog business, it has nothing at all to do with the viability of the site or state of the genre.
I doubt that.
If the site is so popular that it is driving millions dollars of ads every month, i highly doubt AOL will shut it down. It certainly is not performing good enough for them to notice if they kill it amongst a bunch of stuff.
Or if it is so valuable, as opposed to close down the hens that lays the good eggs, at least AOL would sell it to someone.
Originally posted by Nihilist They are closing due to AOL getting out of the specialty blog business, it has nothing at all to do with the viability of the site or state of the genre.
I doubt that.
If the site is so popular that it is driving millions dollars of ads every month, i highly doubt AOL will shut it down. It certainly is not performing good enough for them to notice if they kill it amongst a bunch of stuff.
Or if it is so valuable, as opposed to close down the hens that lays the good eggs, at least AOL would sell it to someone.
You can doubt 'till the cows come home, but make sure you catch yourself up with what's going on before you fire off those posts of yours.
"We all suspected this was coming eventually a year ago when a VP whose name I don't even know and who never read our site chose to reward our staggering, hard-won 40% year-over-year page view growth by... hacking our budget in half. There's nothing to do in the face of that kind of logic but throw your hands in the air. It's not about merit or lack thereof, and it's not about journalism or gaming being dead or anything grand like that, so there's no point in taking it personally."
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
Originally posted by Nihilist They are closing due to AOL getting out of the specialty blog business, it has nothing at all to do with the viability of the site or state of the genre.
I doubt that.
If the site is so popular that it is driving millions dollars of ads every month, i highly doubt AOL will shut it down. It certainly is not performing good enough for them to notice if they kill it amongst a bunch of stuff.
Or if it is so valuable, as opposed to close down the hens that lays the good eggs, at least AOL would sell it to someone.
You can doubt 'till the cows come home, but make sure you catch yourself up with what's going on before you fire off those posts of yours.
"We all suspected this was coming eventually a year ago when a VP whose name I don't even know and who never read our site chose to reward our staggering, hard-won 40% year-over-year page view growth by... hacking our budget in half. There's nothing to do in the face of that kind of logic but throw your hands in the air. It's not about merit or lack thereof, and it's not about journalism or gaming being dead or anything grand like that, so there's no point in taking it personally."
So what if they have a 40% year-over-year page view? May be they have so few page-view in the previous year that it does not matter. Are they making millions?
If you show a financial statement showing that the site is making tons of money (compared to the number of staff) then I will agree it does not make sense to close it down.
But just some page view increase? If the budget was cut in half, were they losing money before the increase, or even after the increase? More importantly what is the ROI? If you cannot turn page-view into money, it does not matter (for example, as Yahoo has been finding out).
I haven't really noticed any negative changes in quality of posts recently, could they really be as bad as us?
F2P sucks! P2P sucks! Archeage is good guys I swear! Full loot pvp? enjoy your greifer game! Early access is such a scam! This newly announced game is definitely gonna be the best game ever! Why is a non mmo being featured? Im never buying from Trion/SOE again! Enjoy your themeparks casuals! These graphics are from 1980!
I have paid for a few "Alpha" stage games usually around 20$. This isn't too much money for a game imo, It helps develop a games production. I have MANY hours and fun into alot of the Alpha games you can pay to help support development and dont feel it as a waste of any money. As long as I'm happy playing the game that's great. And if the game warns you what to expect when logging in, and even the times you wont be able to login because of how buggy it is, that's great! People just need to read and if they don't like it? Dont buy it! Simple as that. Stop your complaining and calling it a scam, because if you get "scammed" into buying something without reading about it, then you shouldn't be buying anything in life.
I haven't really noticed any negative changes in quality of posts recently, could they really be as bad as us?
F2P sucks! P2P sucks! Archeage is good guys I swear! Full loot pvp? enjoy your greifer game! Early access is such a scam! This newly announced game is definitely gonna be the best game ever! Why is a non mmo being featured? Im never buying from Trion/SOE again! Enjoy your themeparks casuals! These graphics are from 1980!
This site has more character, you haven't really been a part of the community here, unless you have been banned a few times or received countless warnings for habitual trolling.
By "more character" I assume you mean that in the way a tabloid news paper has more character over real newspaper .
Much of the community here seem to lack a lot of common sense and many of the articles tend to be dumbed down to some degree probably so they can be understood by people who really have very little depth of thought to them . ( there are some exceptions like SBFord which is why I come here )
Sometimes articles here seem to be written to cause controversy and are very much like trolling .
You also cannot trust the writers on mmorpg.com because it appears sometimes a favourable review is being either paid for or being written as not to upset advertisers .
Most people do get warnings its almost impossible not to because the mods are pretty much out of control . You may get a warning for saying something about a game they like and disagree with you .
Sadly this is about only site you can come to for mmo news now at least until the guys at Massively get their new site operational once that happens and there is a site which is well written,run and presented mmorpg.com can kiss goodbye to a lot of its revenue unless it ups its game .
I will probably just read the headlines to see whats going on and then google what I am interested in and read an article elsewhere for the most part .
Look forward to whatever pheonix rises from the ashes of Massively .
MMOrpg.com is not a tabloid news paper; on the other hand LoLiGon, Kotaku and Massively easily fit that description. Unless of course you consider MJ's teenage-magazine writing as being the entry of quality reporting for MMOrpg news.
The problem with MMOrpg.com is that some its reviews are pre-paid to be favourable and that is the number one thing MMOrpgers mention when their name pops up. Another reason is the sensationalist articles like "ArcheAge Column: How ArcheAge Captures the ‘Elder Scrolls’ Spirit Better Than ESO" that are always written when they are needed the most, usually by third parties who are not only dishonest with their intentions but are also what we call in the real world as corporate shills. The discussions so far from its community though can be pretty good and there are plenty of quality-posting and posters alike; unlike again MJ's comments section which is infected by "MMOtakumania".
Long story short is that this website is decent, not ideal, but decent. More decent even than the EuroShamer that practically sleeps with Publishers when reviewing; check out The Crew review for instance.
Writer of the column "An MMO that was once an RPG" on 2P.com
@Torvaldar - I did not know the full story, thanks for that. But I did realise that Timers Warner likes to buy up everything and chew it up. They are to the entertainment industry what EA is to gaming. I think they only bought Lotro because they wanted the rights of anything to do with Lord of the Rings.
@ Enbysra - The MMOs you listed were great games, maybe an indie will bring as some of that old school feel back. But the graphics might be an issue there.
all the gaming sites that make things political are dying
mmorpg.com stays out of politics, so their stponsors don't get hurt and they stayed completely clear of the drama
massively and joystick are the latest victims of their own political agenda
Can you tell us what the political agenda was that these other sites were following? I assume it is one sponsors will not like, but what was it all about?
I think posters should be more concerned by why Massively closed. If their ad revenue could not support them, you have to ask why, it had for eight years. AOL has MMOs in its stable, but did not want to run a online MMO magazine, again why?
Now there are those among us who think that everything is wonderful in MMO-land, but we have Blizzard cancelling major projects, we have studios shutting down and MMO websites shutting down.
The industry has become one of short term gain with casino, easymode MMOs. It does not have the sustainability, even the surety of return that it had five years ago. But it does still make a lot of money, this is blinding people to the issues it has.
Bill talking about massively in MMOFTW said "the genre may be in the weird place right now" as a gaming journalist, that's about all you are going to say.
The industry has problems, MMOs take more investment and time to make than solo games, but players do not want to play them any longer than they do a solo game. The industry drove this change with everything from easymode to cash shops. They only have themselves to blame.
That's my impression too. But see also the other side: in the last few years, we had more and more MMOs being published to a point where I felt it was WAAAY too many. With such a huge pressure and fast stream of new releases, it was nigh impossible to give a MMO time to grow. I hope we don't go back to the EQ era, where every few years one MMO was released, but the constant stream of one new MMO every 2 months is ruining the genre.
And then, game genres always have ups and downs. I recall right before Baldurs Gate and Diablo were released, it was said, Role Playing Games were dead, after a decade of success. It was the impression back then, RPGs had been overdone and lost the novelty and appeal, until Diablo and BG opened new chapters of RPGs. I guess MMOs need that too: a dead point and then a new, fresh start, after a couple of years.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Seven years ago we thought there were too many MMOs to maintain a viable population in them all. But MMO design gave up on the idea of needing a viable MMO population, they went for a population like solo games. Tons of people at first with a huge drop of after a month or two and minimal long term players in a gaming tourist trap.
There is always hope, just don't hold your breath.
Comments
I doubt that.
If the site is so popular that it is driving millions dollars of ads every month, i highly doubt AOL will shut it down. It certainly is not performing good enough for them to notice if they kill it amongst a bunch of stuff.
Or if it is so valuable, as opposed to close down the hens that lays the good eggs, at least AOL would sell it to someone.
You can doubt 'till the cows come home, but make sure you catch yourself up with what's going on before you fire off those posts of yours.
"We all suspected this was coming eventually a year ago when a VP whose name I don't even know and who never read our site chose to reward our staggering, hard-won 40% year-over-year page view growth by... hacking our budget in half. There's nothing to do in the face of that kind of logic but throw your hands in the air. It's not about merit or lack thereof, and it's not about journalism or gaming being dead or anything grand like that, so there's no point in taking it personally."
From this
Edumacate yourself.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
Nothing you said here contradicts what i said.
So what if they have a 40% year-over-year page view? May be they have so few page-view in the previous year that it does not matter. Are they making millions?
If you show a financial statement showing that the site is making tons of money (compared to the number of staff) then I will agree it does not make sense to close it down.
But just some page view increase? If the budget was cut in half, were they losing money before the increase, or even after the increase? More importantly what is the ROI? If you cannot turn page-view into money, it does not matter (for example, as Yahoo has been finding out).
Why do people put up this illusion like there's nothing wrong with MMOs?
If you love the genre then you have the need to critique it. There's nothing wrong with that.
all the gaming sites that make things political are dying
mmorpg.com stays out of politics, so their stponsors don't get hurt and they stayed completely clear of the drama
massively and joystick are the latest victims of their own political agenda
waffles > pancakes
haha presto!
MMOrpg.com is not a tabloid news paper; on the other hand LoLiGon, Kotaku and Massively easily fit that description. Unless of course you consider MJ's teenage-magazine writing as being the entry of quality reporting for MMOrpg news.
The problem with MMOrpg.com is that some its reviews are pre-paid to be favourable and that is the number one thing MMOrpgers mention when their name pops up. Another reason is the sensationalist articles like "ArcheAge Column: How ArcheAge Captures the ‘Elder Scrolls’ Spirit Better Than ESO" that are always written when they are needed the most, usually by third parties who are not only dishonest with their intentions but are also what we call in the real world as corporate shills. The discussions so far from its community though can be pretty good and there are plenty of quality-posting and posters alike; unlike again MJ's comments section which is infected by "MMOtakumania".
Long story short is that this website is decent, not ideal, but decent. More decent even than the EuroShamer that practically sleeps with Publishers when reviewing; check out The Crew review for instance.
Writer of the column "An MMO that was once an RPG" on 2P.com
http://2p.com/user/activity.htm?userId=54a1c09361fc18b91cb56fc3
@Torvaldar - I did not know the full story, thanks for that. But I did realise that Timers Warner likes to buy up everything and chew it up. They are to the entertainment industry what EA is to gaming. I think they only bought Lotro because they wanted the rights of anything to do with Lord of the Rings.
@ Enbysra - The MMOs you listed were great games, maybe an indie will bring as some of that old school feel back. But the graphics might be an issue there.
Can you tell us what the political agenda was that these other sites were following? I assume it is one sponsors will not like, but what was it all about?
That's my impression too. But see also the other side: in the last few years, we had more and more MMOs being published to a point where I felt it was WAAAY too many. With such a huge pressure and fast stream of new releases, it was nigh impossible to give a MMO time to grow. I hope we don't go back to the EQ era, where every few years one MMO was released, but the constant stream of one new MMO every 2 months is ruining the genre.
And then, game genres always have ups and downs. I recall right before Baldurs Gate and Diablo were released, it was said, Role Playing Games were dead, after a decade of success. It was the impression back then, RPGs had been overdone and lost the novelty and appeal, until Diablo and BG opened new chapters of RPGs. I guess MMOs need that too: a dead point and then a new, fresh start, after a couple of years.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Seven years ago we thought there were too many MMOs to maintain a viable population in them all. But MMO design gave up on the idea of needing a viable MMO population, they went for a population like solo games. Tons of people at first with a huge drop of after a month or two and minimal long term players in a gaming tourist trap.
There is always hope, just don't hold your breath.