What is the threshold for a "successful" MMORPG?

[Jamie081]

Access to playable classes/professions that are unique, not homogenized. Then the usual profits etc.

[RoninaThorstone]

Right I don't see the huge difference in the time in between. In fact between the launch and the first patch rakghouls the gap is pretty small. Subsequent patches are about the same. Their is no huge difference. The criteria the game wasn't being supported as well before is simple not true.

After patch 1.2 we had no content for, practically ever. We got a 2 hour easter egg hunt for cross bows. That was... neat.

Then F2P hit and we got a ton of QOL improvements, the expansion, new raids, new battlegrounds, and we have a ton more on the way. The next patch is going to be huge for swtors pvp community.

Being a subscriber over the summer of 2012 was a huge mistake. You literally got nothing.

[inboundpaper]

Enough to keep online and some updates flowing. WoW has skewed peoples threshold of success hardcore.

[Afrospinach]

As long as it is profitable it is a success.

This definition is probably a little narrow, if you can take a titanic IP like warhammer or starwars and barely produce a splash, even if you make a profit quite frankly that is a failure.

Imagine if one year, all apple did was break even...

[Kalyyn]

This definition is probably a little narrow, if you can take a titanic IP like warhammer or starwars and barely produce a splash, even if you make a profit quite frankly that is a failure.

Imagine if one year, all apple did was break even...

How about this then: When a company plans a new game, one of the earliest steps of that planning is setting goals for that game.

If the game meets or exceeds most of its critical goals, then it is a success. Even if that goal was just to break even.

[YouAreAllWrong]

Everyone has their own definition of success. Businesses consider a product as a success when it reaches their goals. Now, their goal may be from simply making profit by time X or achieving Y market share etc.

Players are a different story. Many consider a game successful if they simply like it and continue playing it or if it's bigger than the game they play right now.

At the end of the day, there are different sized companies, working in different economic environments, with different people and different mindsets, what matters is if you enjoy their product and you are willing to continue playing. I've seen gamers trying to shit on a game or force their selves to not like it because it doesn't have the number that they in their mind consider as a suscess, which is totally stupid, we're talking about video games after all.

[Jaxxsonp]

While it's not the case for all mmos, the FFXIV director guy said that if they had at least 600,000 subscribers they will be able to sustain the game and make new content.

[Afrospinach]

How about this then: When a company plans a new game, one of the earliest steps of that planning is setting goals for that game.

If the game meets or exceeds most of its critical goals, then it is a success. Even if that goal was just to break even.

Well indeed, I just have a peeve (even though I am a lover of short and insightful quotes) about "thought replacement" catchphrases such as "profit = success". There is a whole context happening here, eg I consider mojang shifting a couple of million units of minecraft more of an achievement that call of duty 15 going 10 times platinum in its first year or whatever.

[Deleted]

The threshold for a successful MMO? Annual/monthly income exceeding the cost to host servers and the cost of development.

This so very much.
A game going F2P is not a mark of not successful, its a mark that the developers is not satisfied with its income.
With that in mind, SWTOR, RIFT and TERA is all successful games. Maybe not as much as they where hoping during development..

[Kalyyn]

Players are a different story. Many consider a game successful if they simply like it and continue playing it or if it's bigger than the game they play right now.

"Players" as a group are irritating, in that they have no idea what they actually want. They want a game which is exactly like World of Warcraft but not a WoW clone, it has to have over 8 million subscribers, and it absolutely must be centered around 25 man raids, because as somebody put it earlier in the thread, "anything else isn't real content".

So basically they are mad because nothing is successful besides WoW, but their definition of success is "The game has to be World of Warcraft".

And then they had the audacity to call Rift, GW2, Aion, and TOR failures.
"But they're literally printing money!"
"Well I don't like it, so everybody else is required to hate it too!"