I think it's really straightforward. Someone mentioned it earlier—this wasn’t ever about forcing people into guilds or trying to make them more social. The genre itself was a novelty back then. The idea of logging on, playing with thousands of others on a single server, seeing players running around the world, exploring uncharted territories, fighting monsters, and figuring out game mechanics that, by today's standards, are pretty simple. Game sense has evolved significantly since then, making those old mechanics feel almost quaint now.
In 2004, when World of Warcraft took off, and even in the 2007-2010 years of Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, gaming was still considered niche in a lot of circles—especially MMOs. Despite WoW’s meteoric rise to the pinnacle of gaming, forever altering the genre, it was still a new experience for so many. Everything felt fresh and uncharted. World of Warcraft pulled in scores of casual players, many of whom had never touched an MMO before. There was almost nothing to compare it to, no frame of reference for what an online world could be.
Today, players encounter more intricate and challenging mechanics in single-player games than in the hardest raids of those early WoW days. The same goes for other MMOs now. Most players have an innate sense that fire on the ground is bad news, that bosses have visual cues signaling deadly abilities. They "get it" because they’ve seen it before. It’s familiar now—a language everyone understands, thanks to years of experience with the same core ideas.
The sense of exploration is dead, it's not like it used to be. New MMOs that launch even if they have cool worlds to explore, never and will never capture the same feelings that I had back when WoW first launched. Even though I had played games like the Realm Online before jumping into WoW or EQ, it was just such a new experience. It was exciting. It's all kind of just old hat now.
As for the genre dying? I don't think it's dead, I certainly don't think it's going to die. I do think that it's incredibly stagnant and people are waiting for something to happen. There needs to be another big MMO to push the genre forward. The Baldur's Gate 3 or Red Dead Redemption 2 of the genre. One that pays attention to details, one that focuses on expanding the world, and creating new things that people haven't explored or interacted with before.
Crappy korean grinders and low effort ports are going to (and do continue) to lose player interest. It's why World of Warcraft is still top dog. It's hands down the best MMO on the market for a vast majority of people still playing MMOs.
MMOs are not dying. They may be evolving, but not dying.
Author is just seeing old time memories and then complains: "Thou knowst, kids, in time of mine sun was brighter, youth was kinder and now everything roth, youth hath no respect for us oldies and Apocalypse is at hand, amen".
Many MMOs are easier. Many MMOs are more solo-friendly. That's not the sign of death.
Yes, modern technologies made in-game chats almost obsolete. Why use ingame chat when there is Discord and lots of other software?
MMORPG as genre may die, because of Role Play. I personally see roleplay as very niche thing in our days. MMOs (without rp) would thrive.
Maybe it would evolve more into "cozy game", where there is almost no violence. Maybe most mmos would become even more solo-themed. Genre itself would continue and prosper.
Oh my god, no. You completely missed my message here. I am not pining for the days of old. In fact, I haven't played an MMO made before 2020 since before 2020, except when playing to write an article. I don't want to go back to the "olden days", and the games weren't better.
What I am saying is that MMOs flourished in the early days of the internet because of the communities that grew in them. MMOs were worse than other games of the time both visually and technically, but no other games had that online presence and community.
Now, every game has an online presence, whether it is multiplayer or solo, in the form of Discord, Twitch, etc. MMOs are still inferior products that offer the same thing they did in 2005. At the same time, gamers, myself included, crave better games and don't need to put up with MMOs just to get some sort of community thanks to how the internet has grown.
Single-player, offline games having a major online presence and community is not a difference between today and 20 years ago. If that were the cause of the decline of MMORPGs, then it would have happened long ago.
cash shops
pay to win
same design basically since EQ, no new innovation and all the games feel exactly the same
grouping/raiding is boring to most people. The hardcore and those with alot of time love it, but the majority don't want to keep running the same content for one piece of gear every 2-3 weeks.
rep grinds
cash shops
quest design is boring
the worlds are too small! the original EQ felt big and full of danger. New mmo's feel small with quest hubs every 200ft and no danger. The maps might be bigger but the sense of exploration and not being 50ft from a town is gone.
No, that's not why the MMO genre is dying. Actually is not dying at all. We had Lost Ark release with over 900 thousand players concurrent users (!!!) and now Throne and Liberty with over 300 thousand. That's insane.
If anything, is because the dev haven't yet found a way to actually "break free" from the traditional mmo and actually to come up with a better version for today's .. needs.
Yes! Gamers have evolved. Including me and many more others. If I watch a stream on twitch, doesn't mean I am not playing the said game. For the most part I play all the games I watch on twitch.
For the most part I played Throne and Liberty, actually it felt so much more a MMO than other releases that talking in Dungeons or asking questions while fishing and such was something old .. but new and fresh.
Internet brings people together, not "parting" them, including in games.
So yea! I think you are a very nostalgic player which refuses to adapt ( to each his own ) and now he throws his frustration to the internet..the same internet why you have a job.
Bad "article".
Lost Ark released with over 900000 players. Two years later, it has how many? 90K was the peak this year, with an average hovering around 30K. If WoW had those type of numbers in 2007, we would never have seen WoW killers in 2008.
I'm not frustrated by the type of MMOs we have today. I am currently playing Throne and Liberty and enjoying it very much. That said, I think it is inferior to other solo and online genres, and I doubt I will still be playing it in 2025.
As for the comment about "is because the dev haven't yet found a way to actually "break free" from the traditional mmo and actually to come up with a better version for today's .. needs", that is pretty much a more winded version of my last line, "and unless a new MMO comes out that can take advantage of what the internet has become, the MMO genre will die."
So, thanks for agreeing with my bad article.
You love saying that you are around MMOs genre for "a long time", yet you have no clue what concurrent players mean , right? Lost Ark 900k+ players were concurrent players not the total amount of active players. Actual players in the first month of release in Lost Ark was by millions.
..which I believe the majority was in the first 6 months. That is a very good number for a MMO.
But two years later, yes .. it lost a lot of players, but not because "genre is dying", but because the game's fault. The interest was/is there.
If WoW had almost 1.3 mil concurrent users on the release day, they would have had an heart attack. They said they were happy with 150k subscribers monthly. So 1.3 mil is a HUGE number because if the game is good it can grow, if not..well .. look at Lost Ark.
But yea! The genre is not the same like it used to be, but again, not because whatever reason you gave, but because of the devs.
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy? Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
I can understand that other services offering social spaces has had an impact on MMOs. But, I think that is only a secondary factor.
I am of the opinion that MMORPGs have gradually watered down, or even removed, the main components of the genre: being massively multiplayer, and being roleplaying games.
There have been very few games released since 2014 that are actually massively multiplayer. Like, 1 or 2 a year, compared to 5-10 a year in the previous decade. And the older MMOs have been gradually removing their multiplayer capability, through excessive instancing and layering.
But being massively multiplayer is the unique selling point! No other genre has it! But developers are largely ignoring this feature.
On the roleplaying front, this also gets watered down. There are fewer and fewer roles, and the roles are becoming more and more similar. On the combat role front, action combat is a big reason for combat roles getting watered down. Its really hard to differentiate roles when each role only has 6-10 skills available. Economic roles have been mostly watered down or made irrelevant, sacrificed on the alter of loot. Player roleplaying has become harder / more boring as modern games have far less emotes, dances, expressions, moods etc. There are less and less "fluff" activities like music, fishing, things that used to bring roleplayers together.
So, if modern MMOs have largely given up on being massively multiplayer, and the roleplaying has been watered down so much that you're better off playing BG3......whats the point? You're better off sticking to older MMORPGs which still have something going for them, or just playing single player / coop RPGs.
As a further aside, I also feel that the lack of popular IPs also has a big impact. My most played MMOs were SWG, LotRO, WAR and SWTOR: all IPs that I already had a huge interest in. Hell, I played SWTOR for a year, even though it wasnt massively multiplayer and had a terrible design, purely because it was Star Wars! The desire to "live" within our favourite IPs is a big one, but very few MMOs of teh last decade have been built on popular ips.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
I would just chalk it up to more things competing for our attention. The online/media landscape is unrecognizable from 2004 when WoW arrived. Cell phones were just for phone calls. Virtually no social media / no streaming services, etc.
Rather than MMO's are dying, ever think maybe there are too many for any new MMO to maintain a consistent amount of players? And how many more just around the corner?
Ok, so I "missed the point", even if I didn't. But let us presume I missed the point of OP. So - MMO genre is dying because community is not what author remembers and likes. Back again to "sun was warmer when I was young".
Communities. Communities have changed. First of all, there are much more bad people online. One who could do anything and basically remain unpunished (IP ban? Seriously? Gosh, use vpn. Nick ban? Seriously?). Poisonous people poison communities. Poisonous people encourage others to be poisonous.
Then we have social media. I may not know my neighbour John, but I may know some John_Cat_Dad lives nearby to me and posts really cool photos of cats. Or neighbour Juliette has 13 kids and posts on her facebook "Proud_Mom" account, yet her posts are...lame, unfortunately. My clan may be really active on Discord, engaging in strategy how to flank Stinky Bog Daemoness and which skill rotation our off-tank should use. Then we have natural (horrible dictu!) wish of any individual to be self-sufficient. If I can mine ore, craft sword and armour - I do not need 2 crafters to do it.
Communities do exist, feel free to visit famous Lotro events. Bands playing, people marching etc. Somehow Lotro is not dying...
It's a little more tahnt just 'Flavor fo the month', 'Twitch', 'Discord' ....
More and more games became Pay to win systems , and with that the respect for other players was lost.
How many games with NO RULES PVP, where you can buy all the bonuses , and be a god compared to other players, whom you handle their ass in 2 sec flat ...
no rules, no respect, only the basest instincts of the human are the focus of those games...
Shit on the other players heads.. and be your god (even if your a god for only 2k people and for 3 months ... )
There are many reasons and I don't disagree with any in the article. The issue with the internet is an example of how "too much of anything is not good for you".
I don't think the problem with only making MMOs to the "MMO formula" was sufficiently emphasised but that's a problem for every genre of gaming except in indie.
The effect of "what else we were doing" is mentioned by other posters, the likes of XTwitter and You Tube and other online games changed what people thought their online experience should be. We used to play MMOs like they were 3 1/2 hour films and think nothing of sitting there through that time.
The way MMORPGs created a diaspora of genre's from MOBA to Survival. That pulled at the player base, diluting it away from MMORPGs.
Can we go back to the those days, no. But can we learn something from them to change todays MMOs for the better, most definitely. And a few developers are still trying to do that, it is not just "nostalgia" from old fans.
Principally I would look at two areas. Bringing in any gameplay which increases the social aspect. The likes of timeouts from player death that need recuperation in a tavern, anything that helps social.
Secondly, move away from "King Solo" and gameplay which needs little time investment like dailies. Yet as you do that give incentives for each step taken so those with less time still feel they are getting something.
MMoRPGs are not dieing at all, millions of people are playing them. EQ at its peak had what, maybe 200K players. There are way more players now, if anythng the genre is over saturated with mediocre games
this reminds me of all the you tube videos from old farts(like myself) who are claim rock music is dead and that no new rock is being put out its just all the old bands....if you actually seek it out there are tons of great new rock/metal bands putting out music
every generation since our brains evolved to the point where we could think complex thoughts has cryed about the new generation not being as tough or cool as our generation, rose colored glasses are part of the human psyche
Dying in comparison to what. Everquest at its peak had 450-500k players.
Don't judge every game by the 12 million standard of WoW. Cannot achieve that now. It was a confluence of events and design that created those numbers.
Right now games do well if they can maintain about 200-300k numbers. That isn't dying in a landscape where many games old and new are still going strong and there is the whole private WoW servers that poach some of the population too.
Gamers also keep hopping from one game to another. I have seen posts on Reddit about people that rotate a few MMORPGs a year and habits have changed. Loyalty to one game isn't much of a thing any more. Thank heavens for that as it allows for a more varied landscape of titles and survival games have also eaten into that pie.
I think we're just desperate for a QUALITY MMO. They were being pumped out between 2010-2017. I don't think anything about the internet or specifically MMO gamers has changed. I'm still stuck in old school runescape and occasionally guild wars 2 just desperate for something to come out that is even comparable. OSRS is popping and not about to die anytime soon. It's not about the players, it's the lack of new MMOs that compare to our standards. We're getting a bunch of empty cash grab games and they're surprised when they flop. Idk. I really enjoyed Maple Story 2 and it just shuts down. New World was decent at the start but end game was very flawed and not planned out well so it just got worse.
If you told my 12 year old runescape playing self that in 2024 there'd be nothing new to play and I would still be playing runescape.. idk. just crazy to think about.
hopefully chrono odyssey or brighter shores will be decent.
I think we're just desperate for a QUALITY MMO. They were being pumped out between 2010-2017. I don't think anything about the internet or specifically MMO gamers has changed. I'm still stuck in old school runescape and occasionally guild wars 2 just desperate for something to come out that is even comparable. OSRS is popping and not about to die anytime soon. It's not about the players, it's the lack of new MMOs that compare to our standards. We're getting a bunch of empty cash grab games and they're surprised when they flop. Idk. I really enjoyed Maple Story 2 and it just shuts down. New World was decent at the start but end game was very flawed and not planned out well so it just got worse.
If you told my 12 year old runescape playing self that in 2024 there'd be nothing new to play and I would still be playing runescape.. idk. just crazy to think about.
hopefully chrono odyssey or brighter shores will be decent.
For me, its not that I still play or desire to play older MMO's (like I have said before, if they remastered DAOC, I would be the happiest gamer on this planet) but the shocking thing to me is that no recent MMO since SWG has captured that same magic as EQ, EQ2, DAOC, SWG, COH even. Even my thousands of hours in WOW and ESO and others and it all misses something.
And to the author's point, that magic is missing and it just is. I cannot put my finger on it or really know why but modern MMOs just do not hook me the same way.
In short, while technology has evolved and allowed the creation of better-looking, more complex games, the game design of MMOs remains mired in the RPG tropes of the past.
It's not just the social aspects of MMOs that need a reboot. The role trinity (which, I should note, is not even needed in tabletop RPGs) needs to go. Leveling needs to go. Scripted battles need to go, to be replaced by emergent gameplay and enemies controlled by competent AI.
Until these things happen, we cannot expect any better than WoW clone after WoW clone.
Out of curiosity, which game in the last 20 years uses the trinity still? The only game I remember that really needed the trinity was EQ, and that went away after a few expansions. Most MMOs I have played the last 20 years were simply overpower the opponent. There wasnt much strategy to them, just get stronger.
As for the reason why MMOs are dying, at least in the classic sense that we have known them, is what Angrakahn posted earlier where the dynamic of the players has changed. Gen Z and the milennials for the most part dont want a game that takes hours. Nowadays, it is about finding a game where you can get people to spend money quickly because they most likely will have moved on after a few weeks. Mobile gaming is pretty much the polar opposite of MMO gaming.
What I am saying is that MMOs flourished in the early days of the internet because of the communities that grew in them. MMOs were worse than other games of the time both visually and technically, but no other games had that online presence and community.
I can only speak for myself, and I'm sure I'm in no way indicative of the majority, but in the early days, I played MMOs despite all the other players, mainly because I enjoyed the gameplay and couldn't find anything similar in single-player games.
At its core (and ignoring the multiplayer aspect), Ultima Online was a survival game set in a fantasy world. I can't think of any other game at the time that featured that kind of classless character system with survival-type open-world gameplay. Perhaps such a game existed, but I didn't know about it back then. Additionally, UO had my loyalty as an Ultima fan. I only jumped ship when I realized how unpleasant it was to try to play a full-PvP game as a solo player (before the Trammel-Felucca split).
Luckliy, EQ came along. It was less about survival and more about open-world exploration and questing -- again, not something you saw a lot of in a 3-D environment at the time. (I had to upgrade my brother's PC to even play the game!) I was thrilled that I could play it without being killed by other players. I did enjoy trading with other players, but that wasn't my primary purpose for playing. I joined parties all the time, and I was even a guide (volunteer GM) for a while, but I never really found a guild or anything like that, and none of my RL friends played the game. Suffice it to say that my love of EQ had everything to do with the setting and story and exploring the various character classes, and absolutely nothing to do with the social aspect of the game.
It wasn't until COH that I actually cared at all about community, but -- again -- I was primarily there because of the gameplay. There had never before (or since) been a superhero game with such amazing character customization, and the sidekick system started me on my journey to the realization that vertical progression is nothing but a hindrance in every game it curses with its foul taint.
So I have to strongly disagree with the statement that "MMOs were worse than other games" as well as the idea that community was the only thing they had to offer.
Dying in comparison to what. Everquest at its peak had 450-500k players.
Don't judge every game by the 12 million standard of WoW. Cannot achieve that now. It was a confluence of events and design that created those numbers.
Right now games do well if they can maintain about 200-300k numbers. That isn't dying in a landscape where many games old and new are still going strong and there is the whole private WoW servers that poach some of the population too.
Gamers also keep hopping from one game to another. I have seen posts on Reddit about people that rotate a few MMORPGs a year and habits have changed. Loyalty to one game isn't much of a thing any more. Thank heavens for that as it allows for a more varied landscape of titles and survival games have also eaten into that pie.
Pretty much it. World of Warcraft was an anomaly and attracted a host of people who were more casual with their mmorpg playing and don't really stay with one game for years and years and years.
Now those people try out mmorpg's but go from one to another. The original adopters probably want something similar though as they've gotten older they might also want to spend their time doing other things.
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The original design of games, has changed, the original players have expanded choices and tastes. You've got more co-op, multiplayer, lobby, mobile, and truly MMORPG choices out there. I hesitate to say something for everyone, but you get my drift. The genre has adapted. It didn't want to become extinct like dinosaurs, it just evolved into what it is today. A reflection of the varied tastes of it's players.
Comments
In 2004, when World of Warcraft took off, and even in the 2007-2010 years of Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, gaming was still considered niche in a lot of circles—especially MMOs. Despite WoW’s meteoric rise to the pinnacle of gaming, forever altering the genre, it was still a new experience for so many. Everything felt fresh and uncharted. World of Warcraft pulled in scores of casual players, many of whom had never touched an MMO before. There was almost nothing to compare it to, no frame of reference for what an online world could be.
Today, players encounter more intricate and challenging mechanics in single-player games than in the hardest raids of those early WoW days. The same goes for other MMOs now. Most players have an innate sense that fire on the ground is bad news, that bosses have visual cues signaling deadly abilities. They "get it" because they’ve seen it before. It’s familiar now—a language everyone understands, thanks to years of experience with the same core ideas.
The sense of exploration is dead, it's not like it used to be. New MMOs that launch even if they have cool worlds to explore, never and will never capture the same feelings that I had back when WoW first launched. Even though I had played games like the Realm Online before jumping into WoW or EQ, it was just such a new experience. It was exciting. It's all kind of just old hat now.
As for the genre dying? I don't think it's dead, I certainly don't think it's going to die. I do think that it's incredibly stagnant and people are waiting for something to happen. There needs to be another big MMO to push the genre forward. The Baldur's Gate 3 or Red Dead Redemption 2 of the genre. One that pays attention to details, one that focuses on expanding the world, and creating new things that people haven't explored or interacted with before.
Crappy korean grinders and low effort ports are going to (and do continue) to lose player interest. It's why World of Warcraft is still top dog. It's hands down the best MMO on the market for a vast majority of people still playing MMOs.
pay to win
same design basically since EQ, no new innovation and all the games feel exactly the same
grouping/raiding is boring to most people. The hardcore and those with alot of time love it, but the majority don't want to keep running the same content for one piece of gear every 2-3 weeks.
rep grinds
cash shops
quest design is boring
the worlds are too small! the original EQ felt big and full of danger. New mmo's feel small with quest hubs every 200ft and no danger. The maps might be bigger but the sense of exploration and not being 50ft from a town is gone.
Right now :
Owner estimations
- ~6.02 M by VG Insights
- ~7.24 M by PlayTracker
- ~15.15 M by Gamalytic
..which I believe the majority was in the first 6 months. That is a very good number for a MMO.But two years later, yes .. it lost a lot of players, but not because "genre is dying", but because the game's fault. The interest was/is there.
If WoW had almost 1.3 mil concurrent users on the release day, they would have had an heart attack. They said they were happy with 150k subscribers monthly. So 1.3 mil is a HUGE number because if the game is good it can grow, if not..well .. look at Lost Ark.
But yea! The genre is not the same like it used to be, but again, not because whatever reason you gave, but because of the devs.
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
So - MMO genre is dying because community is not what author remembers and likes. Back again to "sun was warmer when I was young".
Then we have social media. I may not know my neighbour John, but I may know some John_Cat_Dad lives nearby to me and posts really cool photos of cats. Or neighbour Juliette has 13 kids and posts on her facebook "Proud_Mom" account, yet her posts are...lame, unfortunately. My clan may be really active on Discord, engaging in strategy how to flank Stinky Bog Daemoness and which skill rotation our off-tank should use.
Then we have natural (horrible dictu!) wish of any individual to be self-sufficient. If I can mine ore, craft sword and armour - I do not need 2 crafters to do it.
Communities do exist, feel free to visit famous Lotro events. Bands playing, people marching etc. Somehow Lotro is not dying...
http://www.mmoblogg.wordpress.com
Welcome to the forums!
I don't think the problem with only making MMOs to the "MMO formula" was sufficiently emphasised but that's a problem for every genre of gaming except in indie.
The effect of "what else we were doing" is mentioned by other posters, the likes of XTwitter and You Tube and other online games changed what people thought their online experience should be. We used to play MMOs like they were 3 1/2 hour films and think nothing of sitting there through that time.
The way MMORPGs created a diaspora of genre's from MOBA to Survival. That pulled at the player base, diluting it away from MMORPGs.
Can we go back to the those days, no. But can we learn something from them to change todays MMOs for the better, most definitely. And a few developers are still trying to do that, it is not just "nostalgia" from old fans.
Principally I would look at two areas. Bringing in any gameplay which increases the social aspect. The likes of timeouts from player death that need recuperation in a tavern, anything that helps social.
Secondly, move away from "King Solo" and gameplay which needs little time investment like dailies. Yet as you do that give incentives for each step taken so those with less time still feel they are getting something.
Shit games.
Not inovating, copy paste, cant seem to understand player interests.
this reminds me of all the you tube videos from old farts(like myself) who are claim rock music is dead and that no new rock is being put out its just all the old bands....if you actually seek it out there are tons of great new rock/metal bands putting out music
every generation since our brains evolved to the point where we could think complex thoughts has cryed about the new generation not being as tough or cool as our generation, rose colored glasses are part of the human psyche
Godz of War I call Thee
Don't judge every game by the 12 million standard of WoW. Cannot achieve that now. It was a confluence of events and design that created those numbers.
Right now games do well if they can maintain about 200-300k numbers. That isn't dying in a landscape where many games old and new are still going strong and there is the whole private WoW servers that poach some of the population too.
Gamers also keep hopping from one game to another. I have seen posts on Reddit about people that rotate a few MMORPGs a year and habits have changed. Loyalty to one game isn't much of a thing any more. Thank heavens for that as it allows for a more varied landscape of titles and survival games have also eaten into that pie.
If you told my 12 year old runescape playing self that in 2024 there'd be nothing new to play and I would still be playing runescape.. idk. just crazy to think about.
hopefully chrono odyssey or brighter shores will be decent.
And to the author's point, that magic is missing and it just is. I cannot put my finger on it or really know why but modern MMOs just do not hook me the same way.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
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It's simply evolution.
The original design of games, has changed, the original players have expanded choices and tastes. You've got more co-op, multiplayer, lobby, mobile, and truly MMORPG choices out there. I hesitate to say something for everyone, but you get my drift. The genre has adapted. It didn't want to become extinct like dinosaurs, it just evolved into what it is today. A reflection of the varied tastes of it's players.
It's incredible how alive a game feels when people just stop thinking about nonsense and just play what they want to play; seems healthier.
Fishing on Gilgamesh since 2013
Fishing on Bronzebeard since 2005
Fishing in RL since 1992
Born with a fishing rod in my hand in 1979
or
Stars Reach
Either way, I see a pattern