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MMOs are declining in general.
Salio69
Member CommonPosts: 428
Pretty much all mmos I have ever played are declining in general. not just the one everyone keeps talking about, WoW. As someone whose been in this business for over a decade, I have a theory as to why.
MMOs are like revovling doors at a building. Someone comes in, someone goes out. Sometimes more come in, sometimes more go out. People leave for many different reasons, some get bored, some can't play because of financial reasons, some just don't have the time any more beacause of families/jobs.
Usually when someone leaves, theres someone else comming in fill that gap. I'm talking about the genre as a whole not just a speicific MMO. There are now a lot less people comming into the genre. People think the market is saturated with MMOs. It is, but thats still not the main reason, just a contributing factor.
Tablets and smart phones are now the new "IT." Walk into any business that sells PCs/Tablets. Ask them how there PC sells have just plummetted. Then they will add, Tablets are selling like hotcakes. Hewlett Packerd even stopped making PCs because its unprofitable now.
Now I know what you are asking, "wtf does this have to do with MMOs?" Well PCs are the pathway to today's traditional MMOs, the Everquests and clones that followed. If fewer and fewer people are buying PCs and not finding their way to PC MMOs, how are they going to replace the people who have left? Short answer, they aren't, and so MMO populations decline.
Tablets and smart phones have their own MMOs, business is booming for them and for facebook MMOs.
Comments
The same logic could be applied to console games.... but a revolving door that moves a whole lot faster! There are generations of players trying MMO's, I have 3 of them in my house.
These thread pop up pretty frequently. I don't think MMOs are declining at all. I believe this line of thought is similar to folks who say life was better when they were a kid. When you first get into MMOs you're inexperienced and everything seems very fun and exciting. As time goes on, and you get more experienced and seen a lot of stuff, the newness is gone and things seem a little duller than when you were a kid/new MMO player.
I self identify as a monkey.
I don't believe they are declining either, just the dev creativity and innovation is declining.
P.S. 12 year MMO vet myself and based this on personal observation in that time period.
I do not think MMO's are declining, I just think after awhile the players grow up and start realizing they're formulaic and the attraction declines. After a few long years of hardcore MMO gaming, a lot of people are like 'What am I doing with my life?' and they feel that the reason they feel this way is because of MMO's decling, but it's just the player maturing.
not sure if mmos are declining
but subs are down, microtransactions are up
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/37259/Report_Revenue_From_PC_Game_Subscriptions_Fell_For_First_Time_In_2010.php
The report estimates that combined subscriptions from both MMO and non-MMO subscription-based PC titles amounted to $1.58 billion in 2010, down 5 percent from $1.66 billion in 2009. The decline comes after two years of double-digit percentage increases for the sector, and seven total years of measured increases.
IHS Screen Digest expects the decreases to continue through 2015, when subscription revenue will fall to an estimated $1.33 billion for the year.
The cause of the decline, according to the report, is an increased industry-wide focus on microtransactions, which were up 24 percent to $1.13 billion across the North American and European online game markets in 2010.
EQ2 fan sites
I think the total number of mmo players has increased massively over the last ten years or so but the total has now peaked. At the same time i think the games haven't been focused enough on what creates player retention and rebound so the total number of current mmo players has dipped, and will continue to dip, well below the peak of potential players.
I wouldn't say that the industry is decling exactly. Rather, that the industry is shedding a lot of the terrible MMOs that have cropped up in the last few years.
WoW's success created a hype bubble around the MMO industry, which grabbed the attention of a lot of investors and studios. It's taken as long as it has for this bubble to burst, due to the long development cycle of MMOs. The MMOs that are failing are those that lacked a clear scope or direction in development, and the industry has been shedding them either through them going to F2P lifesupport, or outright bankruptcy of development studios. Combine that with the begining of WoW's decline, and investors have been given a healthy dose of reality.
It's similar to what happened with the Internet bubble. Investors saw potential, threw money at it without a second thought, then panicked when they realized that what they were investing in was junk. But that wasn't the end for the Internet, just as the same as it won't be the end for MMOs. The few MMOs that aren't terrible, will stick around and grow stronger.
Blizzard as of several years ago stated that between NA and Europe they have about 5 million subs, there would be less now but for easy math we'll still say 5 million subs. That woule be $900 million, I would be seriously surprised if all of Ncsofts games combined made 500,000 subs in NA, europe (CoH maybe 150,000, Aion less than 100,000, L1, 2 less than 100,000). So with 500,000 subs for Ncsoft for NA, Europe I think I'm being generous, this is $90 million.
Remember this report is saying subs for NA and Europe, not worldwide.
This puts the total to under 1 billion which means there is $580 million dollars available for subs from all other sub games. Doesn't sound unreasonable to me.
Venge