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The Future of MMORPGs
GPrestige
Member UncommonPosts: 523
I have a fairly quick question. A few friends and I were talking about how almost every MMO in the past few years has failed. There have been the odd exceptions that are able to sustain a fair population, but nothing that has been able to compete with the current top MMO.
Taking a look at upcoming MMOs like The Old Republic, Guild Wars 2, TERA, etc. it made us wonder what would happen to the MMO genre if these games were to fail. I highly doubt all three will fail, at least from what we have heard about them (TERA is a little iffy), but I'm talking IF.
IF ToR fails, IF GW2 fails... then what does that say about the average consumer? Does it mean people only want to play WoW if they are playing an MMO? I mean, even WoW is losing subs as time goes by, which is inevitable for an MMO it's age. However, if a game like The Old Republic fails, which is apparently very costly, I could see other companies that were planning on working on an MMO taking a step back and rethinking their plans. In fact, I believe that the success or failure of TOR, being as hyped up as it is, will determine the future of MMOs in general.
Whether it means its the end of the MMO genre, or simply the P2P MMO genre, I have no idea. I'm curious what other people think though. Do you think that the mammoth that is ToR will have a large impact on the genre, depending on if it fails or does extremely well?
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Comments
I want a dangerous, breathening, massive and explorable world filled with live and dungeon crawling, deep complex character advancement and up to date graphics.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
This ain't directed at you just the general situation overall: The MMORPG genre needs an Apocalpyse. A collapse. Because it's right now stuck in the same lackluster, same unimaginative, same unoriginal pattern for more than 6 years now.
Developers are still chasing on their ragged hands and knees the coattails of Blizzard's success with WoW, but can't duplicate their success for almost 7 years going. Even BioWare made it quite clear who they were going to mimic for SWTOR and were afraid of doing anything different. Blizzard's been laughing their way to the bank for these 7 years watching these fools fall over themselves.
Maybe it's not a good idea to wrestle a 700 lb silverback gorilla, playing them at their own game? Naaahhh... Keep trying I guess. It's been working *so well* for almost 7 years now. All the while Blizzard just keeps piling on more refinement to their product and *still* have cash to work on their next project.
And you know what? When their new title comes out, I'm positive the rest of the fools in the genre will still be trying to topple Blizzard's 2004 success.
This genre needs to collapse. For different MMORPG gaming visions to emerge and take hold with less titles to dilute the genre and gaming populations in each. The genre still has the *potential* in the future to offer a home to anyone's gaming tastes, just like in the early 2000s. But that's nigh impossible for anyone trying anything different than chasing Blizzard's coattails they're not going to get the big money to work on it.
Diversity needs to return to the genre. And a collapse in MMORPG gaming would be a great way for that to happen again. Until then, we can all join in and watch the Benny Hill chase of all these fools chasing Blizzard around but always failing.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
If by "failed" you mean "did not reach WoW's level of popularity", that's correct. If by "failed" you mean "shut down without recouping the initial investment", that's incorrect. If almost every MMO in the past few years turned out to be unprofitable, we obviously would have already seen investors fleeing from the genre like it was made of scorpions on fire.
SWTOR is an anomaly because of just how extraordinarily expensive it was to make. If it fails—that is, if it doesn't turn a profit—that will affect the future of extraordinarily expensive MMOs in the future, though it won't necessarily mean that there won't ever be another one. I think it would have little to no impact on low budget MMOs.
This. To a point.
I mean I agree with it as to what I want (Would like to see). But the suits get it. The majority (players) WANT the easy-mode crap, or it wouldn't still be dominating the market. Why cash shops and micro-transactions are so big now too. Player (Majority) want want want now now now, so given the option to get it quickly with minimal effort other than an "accept payment" button click, most jump at it....sadly.
There will be no future for MMO's if this trend of games continues. Eventually people will give up on them, or leave just out of disgust to the point it just won't be profitable enough to invest in anymore.
MMORPGs were nerd night clubs. Now they're mainstream games with huge budgets and watered down gameplay.
Future? It's already here.
I've seen a lot of these posts over the last few years - that developers don't get what players want, or that X or Y or no game is going to destroy WoW.
At this stage, I wonder if there is that much of a wider playerbase for other games to tap. Those disillusioned with other MMO's is a very, very small of potential players.
The "golden egg" is the new subscriber - enticing in a player who has never touched an MMO before, and bringing them in en mass. That's what Warcraft did all those years ago - those millions of players weren't scattered around on other MMO's - they were pulled in as brand new to the genre.
On that premise, you need an existing franchise with a large number of fans behind it. However, Star Wars Galaxies and Star Trek Online didn't see similar levels of subscriptions to World of Warcraft. I think I know why...
A developer needs to leverage an existing very popular computer game franchise (maybe even have to be the same developer that worked on that franchise). Warcraft I through III had a very loyal following built up over years - and it's these players I feel that made WoW the dominant force it became.
All Warcraft RTS players had computers for gaming. Not all Star Trek or Star Wars fans did. Not all World of Darkness fans will.
Now, SW:TOR has a chance since it is an existing game franchise but I'd argue it's not going to be the runaway success that Warcraft was since I suspect there are inherently less RPG players in the world than RTS players.
Time will tell, but until we see a wildly popular PC gaming franchise transition to MMO-space I don't expect anything to come close to WoW numbers.
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I think the era of Wow-type MMOs already peaked and is in decline. Click and waiting MMOs also seem like they need replacing. I actually think console MMOs will usher in a new era of MMOs.
The next big open-world sandbox MMO is being developed by the co-founder of ArenaNet (ArcheAge isn't as much of sandbox as most had hoped). The game's publisher and fianancier is Microsoft. It's coming out to the Xbox 360.
Other games like Trion Worlds' Defiance and CCP's Dust 514 could help move MMO in a different direction away from the stale WoW and click and wait models. Turbine could also announce their console MMO any week now (it's overdue for an announcement).
If TOR or GW2 fail I think it will be more in the expectations of them. People want to see a WoW sized success, but the truth of it is that the majority of WoW's numbers came from Asia. It's unrealistic to expect a game that ships in the US/Europe to have 10 million active subscribers. 1 million though? I could see both of those titles reaching 7 figure subscribers in the early going, and that would be a huge success. But something tells me that a lot of people would view a million subscribers for a game like TOR to be a failure.
The reality is that before WoW, if a game had 200-500,000 subscribers it was a smash hit. Reality check, it still should be. These games are viewed as flops sometimes because the average MMO budget has swelled over the years. You have projects crediting 20+ people on their video team. How many times do players actually watch those videos? How about investing some money into making it easier for your developers to create new content, rather than throwing as many people as you can at a problem to brute force it?
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.
If GW2 succeed past WoW to carry the torch, we will see the same results of people bitching and complain of it's success. Comparing every new MMO afterwards that it's too Guild Warish. They will come out with expansions, people will be OMG I gotta grind new gear.
This and two other factors. Hardware is an issue, now more than ever because there's been such a big jump in the last few years with acceleration hardware. Anything new needs to look top-shelf (or close to it) and run well on a toaster oven (my expression for an old PC that runs hot). Even after all these years and graphics upgrades, I can still get WoW running and for the most part playable on a Celeron 1.5 ghz (single core) with 2002 vintage onboard intel video and 1 gig of RAM.
Another is global marketing and design. WoW hit big in US, Europe, and Asia then went on to tap smaller markets where it had virtually no competition. That's one huge achievement, and a tough act to follow because the market is much more saturated at this point.
You speak a lot of turth. A mmo doesn't have to have 1 million+ subs to be successful, unless of course the budget where to dictate that they would. WoW was a perfect storm, and another success like that may not be seen for a long time, if ever again.
GW2 will most likely sell 1 million+ units, considering GW1 sold, what 3-4 million units total. That's a good amount of people who at least pay for a box. If ANet plays their cards right, they could also make a ton of cash via optional DLC and fluff via the store. The B2P + DLC mmo is almost a completely untapped market. GW2 is also different enough (from what we've been shown), to have an impact on mmos in general.
SWTOR will no doubt sell 1 million+ units. It's KotOR+mmo...KotOR is still considered to be some of the best Star Wars gaming experience by many. Bioware also has a unique opportunity to cash in on more recent Star Wars fans (youth who were young during the more recent trilogy). LA has placed a ton of emphasis on fostering a younger fanbase, between the Clone Wars cartoon series, and the rest of the more recent Star Wars endeavors. You also still have the die hard older fans who might not have tried a mmo before.
Ultimately, I don't feel like either game is going to outright fail. However, the more story driven mechanics, along with GW2's more dynamic content, if proven to be successful, could at least create a different formula for mmos.
I don't think anything will really change if SWTOR doesn't wind up as big a hit as hoped. As was stated above it would only limit how much money investors would be willing to throw at making a MMO. WoW-cloning will go nowhere, the dumbing-down (i.e. accessibility) will go nowhere. Until these games fail to make any profit at all we'll be stuck with the same ol.'
As for GW2, unless it has stunningly poor sales I don't see how it's sales can't be spun into a "win." Games like Rift with large fluctuations of players are open to "zomg this game is dying" based on sub numbers but all GW2 will have to go on is boxes sold. Even phenomenally successful games like WoW has subscription numbers that will ebb and flow, whereas "boxes sold" will only ever go up.
The future is rather hard to guess.
Maybe we get another 8 years of rather similar games, maybe the genre will change one way or another.
High sub numbers for TOR and low box sales for GW2 might purt a higher focus on story and voiceacting, while the opposite might point the genre into evolving the combat and questing mechanics.
Another possibility is that new technology will change the genre. First of all will most likely the memory of computers change things forever, it seems like harddrives and ram will pretty soon be the same thing 5-10 years from now. That means that you have a lot less reasons for engines with zooning, the computer can have the entire game in the ram and just get the information about people and mobs around you. It should both affect how MMOs look and the mechanics. For one thing will the only reason to use instances suddenly be for story purpose.
But input and output devices will surely also affect how we play the MMOs of the future. Sonys new OLED glasses will put you more into the game and voice acting will be more intergrated as well. We still don't know if you will play the games as we do now, with some system closer to kinect or with something new.
Sonys new OLED glasses will bring the game right in front of your eyes, and with the right technology you should be able to turn your head IRL to do the same in the games eventually as well.
It will also be interesting to see how CCPs merger with White wolf will affect MMOs, it is the first time someone tries to go back to the roots and start all over by translating a pen and paper RPG into a computer game since M59 & UO, instead of just improving what others already made. If WoDO gets popular it can affect future games a lot.
My personal guess is that a little of everything will happen and that the FPS genres MMOs also will be very popular.
While I think that's a relatively apt observation, I still take issue with some of the implications.
While yes, pre-CU SWG is long gone, as is pre-Trammel UO... much of their "nerd night club" spirit remains in many present-day titles.
We've still got Second Life, A Tale in the Desert, and Saga of Ryzom. We've also got Darkfall, Eve Online and Minecraft. But those aren't good enough.
The problem is, despite all the hate for "mainstream games with huge budgets", that's essentially what many of the most vocal detractors envy the most.
You might not be willing to admit it, but you want a game that's as popular as WoW, with as lavish a budget as SWTOR... yet caters to the same tiny demographic of yore.
In short, it ain't happening and your expectations aren't realistic. Furthermore, I'd wager your love for all those "nerd night clubs" of the past is nine tenths nostalgia.
GW2 really depend a lot if NC soft can get back the money they invested in it and how much money they earn on it as well.
While comparing sub numbers and sales between P2P, B2P, F2P and Freemium games doesn't work money talks. The first GW earned many times it production and running cost but it was rather cheap to make it. While ANET isn't affected by people staying away a few months they do need high box sales and to sell many expansions.
So if we look on the income (and possibly on production cost) we can say which games went well and which ones that didn't. Sub numbers really only made sense 5 years ago when almost all games were P2P. Now they are only something some companies use for comercials.
GW2 cannot fail.
The only result from GW2 not being fun would be players not keeping playing.
Which would actually reduce the cost of the game, thus increasing the profit.
And would reduce the number of people who buy the game on the long run, but I'm fairly certain millions will have already bought the game at that point.
... you want Vanguard ?
OP you ask a good question, one that I have discussed with a lot of insiders over the last year. The consensus is if Bioware fail with SWTOR, investors will turn away from MMO games en mass. Will they pull funding on existing projects? No, but things will be re-structured. Will a developer be able to encourage investors to part with $30’000’000 and more in the future? No! This means MMORPG’s will become much more limited and to ensure market support – focused towards casual gamers (its already happening now after the failings of AoC, WAR and LotrO).
Would you give $30’000’000 to make a game that will be critiqued and ripped to shreds by the MMORPG audience (and probably make limited return) when you could employ a Facebook development team to make and run a game for $3’000’000 and have 50 million plus monthly users?
Over expectations, arrogance and immaturity from many in the hardcore gaming crowd are as much to blame for the collapse of MMORPG’s as the success of social and mobile games are. If you spent two years on a game and then some random person who expects everything comes in and says “it’s lame” and your product dies via word of mouth how do you feel towards Joe Public?
Why do you think so much of game journalism is influenced by publishers and investors? They are now too scared to take a risk and waste millions of dollars on a product because not only is it their jobs but the jobs of people who work at the studio. One failure and you turn countless lives upside down and that’s resting on some idiots “it’s lame” comment?
How do I know this...? I have seen it from both inside a development house and from the side of investors.
Anyway, this means ALL GAMES will focus on premium pre-game or in-game sales at some point over the next 5 years. Let’s use World of Warcraft as an example; the game would have been released with three zones which can be played freely and cap the player at a specific level. By spending X amount of Blizzard coins you would get a zone pack containing a few more areas and an increased level cap. This would create a pay to consume game within a theme park setting. Initial development is smaller and only when you earn enough do you create more content.
Similar systems would be implemented for open world/sandbox games and other hybrid MMORPG games. Even games like Call of Duty or Oblivion will end up in a pay to consume mechanic eventually because developers will earn beyond retail release, second hand game sales won’t impact the market and finally more can be earned from the same amount of work being done now.
On a more alarming note, we (gamers) are not the primary audience anymore! The casual masses are. So rather than complaining lets simply encourage and cherish the games we want to play and be more considerate because right now ALL THE MONEY is heading into games so easy and packed with hand holding most of you will simply stop gaming altogether (within 5 years a casual social game like Farmville will be a console system seller and be the talking point at a show like E3).
NOTE: numbers above are from me so reply makes more sense.
1. Yes, I agree to some extent. A few, not the majority.
2. Also MO and Xsyon. All fine examples of retro-styled gaming, except for maybe SL which I have a hard time fitting with the others. Actually toss Vanguard in there as it's styling is also quite retro for a themepark. It's certainly not WoW.
3. Absolutely they do. The former "avid gamer" is no longer the priority for mainstream devs. There's bound to be hard feelings.
4. Yes exactly. Or even half of those budgets would be fine. In fact, how about something that's feature complete and not a bug fest.
5. I have no expectations other than gaming will continue to be watered down by it's own popularity. As for nostalgia... those days are gone. Nostalgia is all there is left outside of a few Indie devs who try very hard to revive a bit of the old-timer gaming experience.
True.
Though if games will be like they are atm : hand holding, very streamlined, easy and made mainly for casuals , + cash shops put in them , and that if what seems it will be.
Then I don't have ANY game I want to encourage and cherish.
Really those very few mmorpg's that I would like to play went freemium / added cash shops to p2p model + selling advantage items like Aion lately , so I don' t have even ONE mmorpg I would chearish now.
Oh there are few indie titles that do have interesting things , but well they are indie. I want AAA production quality.
Seems market reality vs. my expectations (pure P2P , challening and not hand-holding gear grind for casuals, game made with AAA production quality) does not match anymore.
Seems only choice is to leave playing and maybe check out once every year or two if anything changed for better
Which I very doubt it will.
That's the new Glastron? I have 2 earlier models, left over from back when business was good. One is a full HMD (like that), the other looks like a pair of glasses (below) with a cobalt blue lens cover. Back then the resolution was too low for anything other than watching TV. I hear the new ones are plenty hi-res.
Yes with a head tracker they are sort of cool, although the motion sickness can be pretty bad. It's a freaky feeling.
I certainly will stop gaming, and well before five years is up, if all companies can turn out is hamster wheel swill. You used to work for these guys? On the production and investment end? Well here's some news for you: We've been telling you what we want. We keep on telling you, and you guys don't listen. Instead what's the new big thing? These idiotic MMOFPS hybrids. Why? Maybe MMO companies want a piece of the console kids' wallets. Not going to happen, guys. If my teenage son is any indication, you aren't going to find many new players that way. These kids don't want to spend hours leveling and gearing up to shoot each other. Why should they when they can shoot each other right now on somewhat even footing? Not going to happen.
We're your market, and you damn well better have some respect, because it's our wallets with the money in it. So stop looking for fresh meat that you aren't ever going to find and look at what we, the long time, pre-WoW MMO players are looking for. You'll also pull in WoW and post-WoW players if you can get enough of us into one or two games instead of having us scattered to the winds because you won't offer us anything but a boring, easy, lackluster grind.
And stop trying to feed us the same crap, then expecting us to lap it up because we're entertaining each other. That isn't going to happen, either. I've been playing ten years now, so I'm not from the new wave of WoW kids, in fact, I'm not a kid at all, and I assure you, I'm not going to be forced to be more social than I want to be just to make a lame game seem more fun than it is. Nor will anyone else. You guys can't profit by forcing socialization as a way to fill in your content gaps. You can't profit by luring console kids, because they aren't going to bother with you. You sure as hell can't profit by sneering at your customers and blaming us if we don't like your crappy MMOs.
Time to start listening to us. Then maybe you'll profit.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
Honestly, I think us (as MMO gamers) need to take a step back and look at what we are considering a 'failure'. Basically, to us, a failure for an MMO is a failure to maintain close to the interest it had at launch. Now, a lot of times we assume this means it's also a financial failure, but by then most of these games have already made their money. There are a few games that are generating a negative hit (FFXIV), but they aren't as common as you'd think.
Why this is important, is because I see a lot of gamers talking about this very topic. What's funny, is sometimes I see these same people turn around months later and blindly buy into a new MMO all over again. If SWTOR, GW2, etc. didn't keep any players after the first month, they would still do ok on box sales. The games might not stay up in another year, but they'd still make money.
Here's the frustrating thing. The 'suits' are looking at this from a strictly business perspective. There aren't that many studios out there that are truly trying to make 'good games' for the sake of making 'good games'. To do so, often means you have to fund your game (at least to some extent) out of pocket.
- So basically, there's 2 scenarios to this question:
1) Failure to hold interest: This wouldn't really affect things all that much. More gamers would get turned off to the genre, and studios would be trying to figure out if they still want to make full-fledged MMOs, or start creating more short-term MMOs like dragons nest / etc. that are much more casual friendly.
2) Financial failure: This would have a huge effect on the industry. Everyone is watching those 2 games. If both fail, then not only are the studios going to be looking around for blame, so are the investors. MMOs are risky enough as it is, and this would just make them seem all the more risky, for increasingly less reward. This would mean future MMOs would be getting less funding, and if we still wanted to enjoy the genre, our expectations over what is possible would have to shrink quite significantly.
1)Companies should chase success, not WoW's success, it's unrealistic in my opinion. When they free themselves from that notion you may see more originality. I have to imagine though it's hard to not want that level of success if you're producing a game.
2)For all the players on this site that think gaming companies need to look at this site and sites like it and see what the players want. The people frequenting this site, again in my opinion are the minority not the majority. They are chasing the throngs of players who want a more simple instant gratification type MMO.
3)MMO's have seen what most industries that had a boom have seen. Too many companies jumping in trying to churn out something to grab some market. Thus an influx of games that are shall we say not so great.
Add market saturation in with that part. It seems like every 2 weeks a new fantasy RPG pops up. Give it another 4 years and there will be more games than players.
Even though some companies are surely profiting from the box sales of polished turds despite failure of longevity, they can't keep doing it much longer because we're going to stop buying the boxes. You can only burn your customers so many times before they walk away.
Instant gratification is most easily and enjoyably obtained through console shooters and the like, it has never been part of MMO genre. MMOs are supposed to be about enjoying actually playing, something that the identical quest grinds on offer, plus rerunning the same instances dozens of times for gear completely undermines. By failing to please those not seeking instant gratification and by failing, by the very nature of the genre, to provide those who do seek instant gratification with actual instant gratification, developers and their investors have tried to sit their asses in two chairs at the same time, and now they're sprawed on the floor between those chairs, looking up and blinking and stupidly wondering why.
As for whether or not sites like this are indicative of what players actually want, maybe we are and maybe we aren't. There's no way to know, because marketing firms don't share that information with the public. I would dearly love to get my hands on someone who markets for this genre and pick their little brain for info. If any are interested, I'll buy the drinks.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein