Off the bat, the video contradicts itself claiming time investment prevents players from continuing to play a game. The author says players won't continue playing an MMO because of the time investment necessary and because players already have too much time invested in another game.
On both accounts, that isn't really accurate. Time investment is a good thing, if the time the player is investing is fun. Furthermore, players are hardly quitting games because they are "too invested" in other games. Outside of WoW, most people aren't bound to other games and even when they are, most of those games offer you a way to get right back to "end game" inside of a 2 week window. Shit, older MMOs straight up give you high level characters.
Hype, bugs/exploits, bad launches definitely destroy MMOs. Vanguard had so many good things going at launch, but was unplayable by so many people. Even after those kinks were worked out, no one came back.
Free to play is probably the biggest MMO killer at this point (or perhaps second to creating WoW clones). The underlying concept behind MMOs is that players must engage in the game and interact with other players in order to advance. When you allow players to pay to do this, the entire system falls apart.
Oversaturation is a huge problem, but its not because there are too many MMOs, but too many of the same MMO targeting the same audience.
The final point, World of Warcraft, misses the mark. MMOs are not suffering because of WoW. Even when WoW had 10M subs, that is just a drop in the bucket. Games don't rise or fall because WoW is successful, they rise or fall because they've all spent the last decade trying to emulate WoW and directly compete over Blizzards (casual) target audience. Most people clearly want something different - something better.
Again, only as small niche product. The big problem with MMOs was that publishers/developers greatly overestimated their planned income (of course, everyone was eyeballing WoW)
Didn't the AAA devs already learn that lesson? No one in the west is investing in a AAA MMORPG anymore. (I take it your mean MMORPGs .. because games like world of warships are still being made and probably successful.)
MMOs will always have their small niche audience, but for time being, big AAA MMOs that cost hundred(s) of millions of $ are history. The kicker is - if you want a MMO that has a lot of stuff - it really does cost a lot ot make.
Not really if the content are the players. This is what current developers don't understand. If you build a Social MMO which revolves around people, you don't need a ton of content to have fun. Players will create their own fun if they are given the tools.
This is 100% correct. The key behind successful subscription based MMORPGs is player driven content. The old MMORPGs such as UO & EQ had the social aspect down, MMORPGs such as DAOC had the player driven content down. Why games have gone so far away from this beyond me. Why no game has tried to recreate what DAOC is still mind boggling to me. Finally there is one in development that is taking a chance on it (Camelot Unchained).
I do understand that it takes more than a subscription model for the game to be successful, but we have to take it one step at a time here. You can take a great game, slap a micro transaction P2W model on it and destroy the game. Take that same game using a subscription model and people will pay it for years. But if the game its self stinks it's going to fail independent of the business model used.
This is 100% correct. The key behind successful subscription based MMORPGs is player driven content. The old MMORPGs such as UO & EQ had the social aspect down, MMORPGs such as DAOC had the player driven content down. Why games have gone so far away from this beyond me.
Because the audience that value convenience and face-less interactions is bigger than those who want social interactions?
If social interactions are so important, LFD would not be so popular, and toxic "community" would not get so big (obviously players want the gameplay more than the community .. otherwise why tolerate the toxicity?).
According to Fortune Fallout 4 made $750M in the first 24 hours of release. It dwarfs other MMORPG revenue even WoW. ...
No. It doesn't "dwarf" WoW in total. WoW has been selling subs for 10 years. It has made far more over its 10 year run than Fallout 4 is likely to make. Single player games sell a lot for a few months and then have to be deeply discounted to sell at all. You are trying to compare 2 completely different revenue models.
Not at all because they can make several single player or multiplayer / mmo style games over that time. They don't need to have FO4 make that revenue they just need to keep pumping out those high revenue titles. They stagger the releases and continually make more money than MMORPGs. Overall the revenue of the industry has dwarfed WoW.
New titles are more akin to releasing xpacs for MMOs. It's a similar investment and release cycle. Why do you think ActiBlizz hasn't released a new MMORPG since WoW? Why have they all been MMOs instead? Because they're cheaper and can be released more often. Old content in MMORPGs is discounted or free as well, much like single player titles. WoW doesn't make major revenue on selling old xpacs. They give those away for free.
Look at the studios and IPs Take2 or Zenimax has in their roster. They can keep pumping those games out to make much more revenue than an mmo. They can't keep pumping out mmos at the same rate for the same return. ActiBlizz can't either.
Making new games is far more expensive than keeping an MMO running. Trust me, WoW is *hugely* profitable to keep running since most of the money they spent on it was spent years ago and now it is virtually pure profit. Blizzard doesn't want to make a new MMO while WoW is successful because they would just end up cannibalizing the WoW player base.. Why make a new game when millions of people are still willing to pay for the game you made 11 years ago? That much is pretty simple to figure out.
Fallout, like Skyrim previously, was able to pull big numbers, but even they can't compete with WoW. Those games might pull big number on release but after a month numbers fall dramatically. To you Fallout $ 780 Million on its first day might sound impressive and in a way it is, but you need to keep in mind that who wanted to buy Fallout generally bought it the first week, the overall revenue aren't going to increase dramatically after the first week. As for WoW, it profits $ 1 Billion a year for Blizzard, and it has done that consistently for many years.
And MMOs have better margin, with a single investment of $100 Millions 10 years ago Blizzard created 10 years of profits. To make the same amount another publisher has to make 10 Fallout at the cost of $100 Millions each ($1 Billion total investment), and of course they have to pray they all are succesful.
The difference between Single player games and MMO is that MMOs keep bringing huge profit year after year, while single player games only lasts few months. That's why this market is always important for game publishers, and it will stay so.
Of course I agree that Mobas got the upper hand over regular MMOs, in fact League of Legend is wiping the floor with the rest of MMOs, even Warcraft. But that doesn't mean that MMORPGs are a tiny niche and they just gonna die because of it. They are different markets and serve different kind of players. And while the MMORPG market is over saturated with titles, Mobas is pretty much untapped territory, that's why everyone is putting so much effort in developing MOBAs while MMORPGs are currently stagnating.
I used to feel guilty when I quit a mmorpg. But I overcame that. Basically I will quit if the sheer annoyance to fun ratio is out of balance.
why? You feel guilty when you stop using an entertainment product?
well, it is certainly your prerogative to do so ... it just sounds very odd to me. We are talking about games here.
Keep in mind I overcame any such guilt.
But before it was because I would tell myself "C'mon, you have to give the game more of a chance. A lot of work went into this product. You can't kick it to the curb. Maybe you are being too picky. A real gamer would soldier on."
Now I am more apt to tell myself: "They had 5 years to make this turd. That was ample time for them to review market data and polling, beta test, and assemble focus groups - all of which would have put them on notice of why I am sitting here frustrated and annoyed. So on to better things."
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
That's why this market is always important for game publishers, and it will stay so.
Of course I agree that Mobas got the upper hand over regular MMOs, in fact League of Legend is wiping the floor with the rest of MMOs, even Warcraft. But that doesn't mean that MMORPGs are a tiny niche and they just gonna die because of it. They are different markets and serve different kind of players.
The key is that MMORPGs are in decline. Sure it is still big .. but few are going to invest in a declining market. Not even Blizz would make a new one.
Sure, all the companies will still milk as much as possible out of the current games (they will be silly not to) but if you look to the future, the trends are MOBAs, CCG, even shooters. MMORPGs will no longer be the go-to genre for big new AAA investments.
The most enlightening point this guy makes is that all MMOs seem to be a clone of other MMOs, namely WoW and there's no reason to leave WoW for another WoW where you do the exact same thing but has 10% of the content. But if the industry would simply try a new formula or gameplay mechanic instead of grinding till high level end game, like EvE Online does or maybe Dark Age of Camelot did with RvR, there would be true converts and you can make another successful MMO game.
Its not even about the features, Housing, loot systems etc. the base game needs to change or no one is going to leave the one they are currently playing.
Really so many of the MMORPGs feel the same today...Pretty much every new MMO I try out feels exactly the same as the last one...Until these companies buck the quest to end game mentality we are just going to get WoW clones over and over.
The key is that MMORPGs are in decline. Sure it is still big .. but few are going to invest in a declining market. Not even Blizz would make a new one.
Sure, all the companies will still milk as much as possible out of the current games (they will be silly not to) but if you look to the future, the trends are MOBAs, CCG, even shooters. MMORPGs will no longer be the go-to genre for big new AAA investments.
If you read my post I covered this part as I explained some business basics. I'll try again.
MMORPGs are here since 1999, that means 15 years. In those 15 years any gaming company (and even some random dude from the street) tried to get into this emerging market and get a slice of that pie. Result, now we have hundreds of MMORPGs that has to share a market that it is no growing at that kind of rate.
MOBAs and CCGs is a new market (like MMORPGs were 15 years ago), at the moment there are few big boys (LOL in primis) around but for the size of this new market the numbers of those games are ridiculously low, there are obviously huge gaps for both big and smaller developers to make some good business there. And that's what they are doing right now.
MMORPG market = 300 games to compete with MOBAs market = 20 games to compete with (and bigger market than MMORPGs)
If you had a spare $ 100 Million where would you invest your money? It's not that MMORPGs are not appealing anymore, it is not the right time to make new ones, there is no more room in the market for more, unless it is something new or groundbreaking of course (or niche).
If you had a spare $ 100 Million where would you invest your money? It's not that MMORPGs are not appealing anymore, it is not the right time to make new ones, there is no more room in the market for more, unless it is something new or groundbreaking of course (or niche).
I basically said the same thing. AAA companies are not investing in non-growing, declining, markets with heavy competition.
No one said no one is playing MMORPGs .. just it is not the new big growing trend. You said nothing to disagree with that.
If you had a spare $ 100 Million where would you invest your money? It's not that MMORPGs are not appealing anymore, it is not the right time to make new ones, there is no more room in the market for more, unless it is something new or groundbreaking of course (or niche).
I basically said the same thing. AAA companies are not investing in non-growing, declining, markets with heavy competition.
No one said no one is playing MMORPGs .. just it is not the new big growing trend. You said nothing to disagree with that.
Good to hear that. But there are still many people here that insist the genre is dying. It is not dying, it is stalling and at the moment it is not the right time to make a new one, particularly when there is a brand new market to exploit. It will pick up pace again in the near future when the MOBA market will settle, and old MMOs will need some refresh.
If you had a spare $ 100 Million where would you invest your money? It's not that MMORPGs are not appealing anymore, it is not the right time to make new ones, there is no more room in the market for more, unless it is something new or groundbreaking of course (or niche).
I basically said the same thing. AAA companies are not investing in non-growing, declining, markets with heavy competition.
No one said no one is playing MMORPGs .. just it is not the new big growing trend. You said nothing to disagree with that.
Good to hear that. But there are still many people here that insist the genre is dying. It is not dying, it is stalling and at the moment it is not the right time to make a new one, particularly when there is a brand new market to exploit. It will pick up pace again in the near future when the MOBA market will settle, and old MMOs will need some refresh.
How do you know it will pick up pace again?
It does not have to die, but it also does not have to rise again. It can just wallow in insignificance. Look at fighting games .. they are no longer as popular as their hey day (SF2? the first few Mortal Kombat?) and while there are still new games, they never recover their popularity. Same is true for point-n-click adventures.
Dying is a strong word, and not accurate. But declining is accurate, and it is not clear (one way or another) that classical style MMORPGs will ever approach its popularity ever again.
This is extremely accurate and a great article/video. Seriously. It pretty much lists everything.
IMPORTANT: Please keep all replies to my posts about GAMING. Please no negative or backhanded comments directed at me personally. If you are going to post a reply that includes how you feel about me, please don't bother replying & just ignore my post instead. I'm on this forum to talk about GAMING. Thank you.
Starts out talking abut MMORPGs, then switches to MMOs......
If you have a mmorpg list - might want to stick to actual mmorpgs only.
Mmorpgs were popular 15 years ago, it doesn't mean that they have to remain popular.
Why are we making an assumption that mmorpgs must stay popular?
I don't understand............aren't SWTOR, ESO, Tera or Archeage MMORPGs? Why you say he is not talking about MMORPGs? Can you clarify it?
And for your info MMORPGs are still popular and will remain so, though not as popular as other type of game but they are. Player got more demanding though, so they will not invest in any "copy & paste" MMORPGs, there are already hundreds out there, that's why they fail, not because people stopped liking the genre. There is always room for original ideas, look at Star Citizen, $100 raised for its new ideas which are still mainly on paper. Reason why at the moment the market is stagnant is because there are too many MMORPGs for the size of the market. So you either come up with something original or you fail.
Someone is just mad that Defiance and Archage got mentioned as bad examples, so he has to nitpick on the video, trying to discredit it.
It does not have to die, but it also does not have to rise again. It can just wallow in insignificance. Look at fighting games .. they are no longer as popular as their hey day (SF2? the first few Mortal Kombat?) and while there are still new games, they never recover their popularity. Same is true for point-n-click adventures.
Dying is a strong word, and not accurate. But declining is accurate, and it is not clear (one way or another) that classical style MMORPGs will ever approach its popularity ever again.
Wallow in insignificance is the same as dying. Fighting games are virtually dead.
MMORPG is not just a fad though. Playing online is what people want, and playing RPGs online is not going to become suddenly unpopular. RPG have a solid history in videogaming and as long as they remain popular as single player games, they will remain popular as online games.
You know they said the RPGs were dead so many times, FPS would kill them off they said, that was when Doom and its clones came out. Then Baldurs gate came out, Neverwinter came out, Skyrim, Fallout, Mass Effect and a plethora of other RPGs, all very succesful. Guess what, FPS might be the biggest market (Actually Sports are) but RPGs are not far behind, publishers are still very keen in making RPGs, despite all the doom and gloom of 20 years ago. And as long as people want to play RPGs, I don't see why they wouldn't want to play Massive Online RPGs.
If you think MMORPG will slip into oblivion, you are mistaken. Again the genre is over saturated with games and it needs a break, it can't sustain all of those titles, MOBAs are a better investment right now.......that's until it gets bloated too.
Comments
On both accounts, that isn't really accurate. Time investment is a good thing, if the time the player is investing is fun. Furthermore, players are hardly quitting games because they are "too invested" in other games. Outside of WoW, most people aren't bound to other games and even when they are, most of those games offer you a way to get right back to "end game" inside of a 2 week window. Shit, older MMOs straight up give you high level characters.
Hype, bugs/exploits, bad launches definitely destroy MMOs. Vanguard had so many good things going at launch, but was unplayable by so many people. Even after those kinks were worked out, no one came back.
Free to play is probably the biggest MMO killer at this point (or perhaps second to creating WoW clones). The underlying concept behind MMOs is that players must engage in the game and interact with other players in order to advance. When you allow players to pay to do this, the entire system falls apart.
Oversaturation is a huge problem, but its not because there are too many MMOs, but too many of the same MMO targeting the same audience.
The final point, World of Warcraft, misses the mark. MMOs are not suffering because of WoW. Even when WoW had 10M subs, that is just a drop in the bucket. Games don't rise or fall because WoW is successful, they rise or fall because they've all spent the last decade trying to emulate WoW and directly compete over Blizzards (casual) target audience. Most people clearly want something different - something better.
If social interactions are so important, LFD would not be so popular, and toxic "community" would not get so big (obviously players want the gameplay more than the community .. otherwise why tolerate the toxicity?).
Making new games is far more expensive than keeping an MMO running. Trust me, WoW is *hugely* profitable to keep running since most of the money they spent on it was spent years ago and now it is virtually pure profit. Blizzard doesn't want to make a new MMO while WoW is successful because they would just end up cannibalizing the WoW player base.. Why make a new game when millions of people are still willing to pay for the game you made 11 years ago? That much is pretty simple to figure out.
That is why Blizz scrapped titan and made Overwatch.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
well, it is certainly your prerogative to do so ... it just sounds very odd to me. We are talking about games here.
Regarding WoW this is an interesting article about the Blizzard game I suggest you read it.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/07/19/world-of-warcraft-still-a-1b-powerhouse-even-as-subscription-mmos-decline/
Fallout, like Skyrim previously, was able to pull big numbers, but even they can't compete with WoW.
Those games might pull big number on release but after a month numbers fall dramatically.
To you Fallout $ 780 Million on its first day might sound impressive and in a way it is, but you need to keep in mind that who wanted to buy Fallout generally bought it the first week, the overall revenue aren't going to increase dramatically after the first week.
As for WoW, it profits $ 1 Billion a year for Blizzard, and it has done that consistently for many years.
And MMOs have better margin, with a single investment of $100 Millions 10 years ago Blizzard created 10 years of profits.
To make the same amount another publisher has to make 10 Fallout at the cost of $100 Millions each ($1 Billion total investment), and of course they have to pray they all are succesful.
The difference between Single player games and MMO is that MMOs keep bringing huge profit year after year, while single player games only lasts few months.
That's why this market is always important for game publishers, and it will stay so.
Of course I agree that Mobas got the upper hand over regular MMOs, in fact League of Legend is wiping the floor with the rest of MMOs, even Warcraft.
But that doesn't mean that MMORPGs are a tiny niche and they just gonna die because of it.
They are different markets and serve different kind of players.
And while the MMORPG market is over saturated with titles, Mobas is pretty much untapped territory, that's why everyone is putting so much effort in developing MOBAs while MMORPGs are currently stagnating.
But before it was because I would tell myself "C'mon, you have to give the game more of a chance. A lot of work went into this product. You can't kick it to the curb. Maybe you are being too picky. A real gamer would soldier on."
Now I am more apt to tell myself: "They had 5 years to make this turd. That was ample time for them to review market data and polling, beta test, and assemble focus groups - all of which would have put them on notice of why I am sitting here frustrated and annoyed. So on to better things."
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Sure, all the companies will still milk as much as possible out of the current games (they will be silly not to) but if you look to the future, the trends are MOBAs, CCG, even shooters. MMORPGs will no longer be the go-to genre for big new AAA investments.
The most enlightening point this guy makes is that all MMOs seem to be a clone of other MMOs, namely WoW and there's no reason to leave WoW for another WoW where you do the exact same thing but has 10% of the content. But if the industry would simply try a new formula or gameplay mechanic instead of grinding till high level end game, like EvE Online does or maybe Dark Age of Camelot did with RvR, there would be true converts and you can make another successful MMO game.
Its not even about the features, Housing, loot systems etc. the base game needs to change or no one is going to leave the one they are currently playing.
http://baronsofthegalaxy.com/ An MMO game I created, solo. It's live now and absolutely free to play!
I'll try again.
MMORPGs are here since 1999, that means 15 years.
In those 15 years any gaming company (and even some random dude from the street) tried to get into this emerging market and get a slice of that pie.
Result, now we have hundreds of MMORPGs that has to share a market that it is no growing at that kind of rate.
MOBAs and CCGs is a new market (like MMORPGs were 15 years ago), at the moment there are few big boys (LOL in primis) around but for the size of this new market the numbers of those games are ridiculously low, there are obviously huge gaps for both big and smaller developers to make some good business there.
And that's what they are doing right now.
MMORPG market = 300 games to compete with
MOBAs market = 20 games to compete with (and bigger market than MMORPGs)
If you had a spare $ 100 Million where would you invest your money?
It's not that MMORPGs are not appealing anymore, it is not the right time to make new ones, there is no more room in the market for more, unless it is something new or groundbreaking of course (or niche).
No one said no one is playing MMORPGs .. just it is not the new big growing trend. You said nothing to disagree with that.
But there are still many people here that insist the genre is dying.
It is not dying, it is stalling and at the moment it is not the right time to make a new one, particularly when there is a brand new market to exploit.
It will pick up pace again in the near future when the MOBA market will settle, and old MMOs will need some refresh.
It does not have to die, but it also does not have to rise again. It can just wallow in insignificance. Look at fighting games .. they are no longer as popular as their hey day (SF2? the first few Mortal Kombat?) and while there are still new games, they never recover their popularity. Same is true for point-n-click adventures.
Dying is a strong word, and not accurate. But declining is accurate, and it is not clear (one way or another) that classical style MMORPGs will ever approach its popularity ever again.
1.) - If I want a leveless OW I have to deal with FFA.
2.) - I'm tired of a tread mill linear leveling and want more of a building and crafting type play.
3.) - I no longer have time to commit to development of my own and KS is killing the market.
4.) - Single player games are better.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
Fighting games are virtually dead.
MMORPG is not just a fad though.
Playing online is what people want, and playing RPGs online is not going to become suddenly unpopular.
RPG have a solid history in videogaming and as long as they remain popular as single player games, they will remain popular as online games.
You know they said the RPGs were dead so many times, FPS would kill them off they said, that was when Doom and its clones came out.
Then Baldurs gate came out, Neverwinter came out, Skyrim, Fallout, Mass Effect and a plethora of other RPGs, all very succesful.
Guess what, FPS might be the biggest market (Actually Sports are) but RPGs are not far behind, publishers are still very keen in making RPGs, despite all the doom and gloom of 20 years ago.
And as long as people want to play RPGs, I don't see why they wouldn't want to play Massive Online RPGs.
If you think MMORPG will slip into oblivion, you are mistaken.
Again the genre is over saturated with games and it needs a break, it can't sustain all of those titles, MOBAs are a better investment right now.......that's until it gets bloated too.