Do MMOs work in North America?

[Seefer]

Simple question really, this article here http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/30/438...-on-used-games has Take-two saying they don't work in North America, and I kind of have to agree with him based on the way North America is with their games and the "I want it now" where as you see most of the top raiding guilds are in Europe and the the "grinders" are in China/Korea.

Thoughts?

[loki504]

eu/us share the same i want it now and not next week/month thought. so i you ask me its bs.

[LTCrystallite]

Oh you mean entitlement and what not. I don't really think that applies to a majority of americans or canadians who play WoW though, and even if it does, there's LFR which is quite popular. MMO's can work in america/canada, but the journey to getting your best in slot gear should be the fun part, not just sitting on best gear and cancelling your subscription until you can upgrade more.

[Clockwork Pinkie]

Eh they're successful as long as you have an end-game that is user friendly not hey grind these heroics for 10 months to grind these raids for 10 months and also we plan to not release any more content for the rest of the game. Rift has hope, that's about it. Elder Scrolls may, if they have a plan for the future. And it may sound bad, but LFG and LFR features should be in most MMO's by now, no not because it's easy, but because of people that don't have time to spam chat or guild looking for people to dungeon with them at the times they are available. I wish TSW had a system like that. Still in my opinion, the best MMO out there, i just don't really have the time to get serious with the end game, just yet. Getting there though, is a road worth taking in itself.

Also Sub based mmo's are dieing, launching with them is a major turn off to pretty much anyone. The one thing keeping me from being sold on ES:O is not knowing if it's sub based or not.

[unholytestament]

I would like to know why anyone gives a flying fuck what anyone at Take-Two thinks about MMOs.

[wombinator04]

I wouldn't even pay attention to anything a console dev says.

[Deleted]

I would like to know why anyone gives a flying fuck what anyone at Take-Two thinks about MMOs.

I would like to know why anyone gives a flying fuck what you think about what Take-Two thinks about MMOs.

[Dezerte]

I don't know, they're right about the popularity of MMO's in Asia though.

[Edge-]

His barometer for success is massively fucked up if he thinks that WoW and EQ1 were the only successful MMO's. It's like he's only looking at the MMO's that topped the genre at one point or another (and he's ignoring Ultima Online then), and not those that have been around for quite some time and done well for themselves.

EVE has been a huge success for CCP since it launched. DDO/LOTRO have been doing well for Turbine since they went F2P. Most of SoE's library does well for SoE (excluding the odd duck games like Pox Nora and Wizardry Online...those are just small niche games that I have no clue wtf SoE is doing with them). Same goes for a number of other games in the West.

The only games that have actually failed in the West are those like Auto Assault, Global Agenda, Tabula Rasa, CoH (but only after an 8 year run of being quite successful), Warhammer (it's pretty much dead, and has been for quite some time), and to a lesser extend Champions Online (it walks the line of failure).

There's a reason that Western MMO's continue to come out with some regularity. Because there is a market for them to be quite successful in. Will the be as wildly successful as EQ1 was or WoW has been? Probably not. Those games were/are the height of the genre, and saw success that nobody else was/is able to replicate at the time, and probably will never be able to replicate.

On the whole, I think his viewpoint is extremely narrow and he lacks an understanding of the MMO market in the West. Pretty ignorant.

[Deleted]

What? Only 2 successful MMOs in the western market and those are WoW and EQ? Hmm... to be honest he just invalidated anything else he might say, as he's proven that he doesn't have the correct knowledge on the subject to make any reasonable predictions on "success".

[unholytestament]

CoH (but only after an 8 year run of being quite successful)

Is it really fair calling what happened there CoH's failure?

[barackopala]

Har har har, WoW/EQ are not the only successful MMO's, he's just quoting the top ones, but there are a fuckton more that are doing quite fine.

[Darksoldierr]

I would like to know why anyone gives a flying fuck what you think about what Take-Two thinks about MMOs.

We need to go deeper

[Edge-]

Is it really fair calling what happened there CoH's failure?

It closed, so it can be viewed as a "failure" given that MMO's like EVE, EQ1, Asherons Call and Ultima Online (others as well) have been around for longer and are still chugging along. I was just tossing in the MMO's that were either 100% stagnate or shut down, but I don't personally view it as a failure (it did spectacularly for a very long time and pioneered the superhero MMO genre).

[unholytestament]

It closed, so it can be viewed as a "failure" given that MMO's like EVE, EQ1, Asherons Call and Ultima Online (others as well) have been around for longer and are still chugging along. I was just tossing in the MMO's that were either 100% stagnate or shut down, but I don't personally view it as a failure (it did spectacularly for a very long time and pioneered the superhero MMO genre).

Fair enough. I'm just saddened to see it counted among more obvious failures.

[LonestarHero]

MMO's can work in North America.

The question should be, is it worth the effort?

If it was my money to risk I sure as hell wouldn't be investing in an MMO. Then again I'm rather lazy when it comes to investments.

[bbr]

World of warcraft seems to work fine.

I'm guessing they might be confusing MMO with F2PMMO ?

[Zogarth]

World of warcraft seems to work fine.

I'm guessing they might be confusing MMO with F2PMMO ?

WoW is in major decline, so i would not say that it is working fine.

[bbr]

WoW is in major decline, so i would not say that it is working fine.

Considering it's been making millions and millions of profits for blizzard for years, i'd say it's done quite fine.
Currently it's just coping with "bored players" because it's not innovating anymore.

It's in decline now due to changing markets. F2p is on the increase, and casual and mobile games are becoming more popular because more and more people are getting access to smartphones. Add to that the fact that mobile phones are becoming more and more powerful,. well.. the PC market won't disappear entirely, but i can see why some software studios are shifting their focus.

[unholytestament]

WoW is in major decline, so i would not say that it is working fine.

WoW has a long way to go before it's no longer profitable.