Why the MMORPG genre failed and how to fix it

[tankbug]

I don't know if the MMORPG genre has failed, but when WoW was on the rise, it appeared to be the future of gaming, yet now we see it's slowly creeping back into the niche, or at least is given a lot less attention than before.

[Edge-]

WoW has 5million+ active. FFXIV has around the same number but hard to know because like Blizzard they twist the numbers a little.

FFXIV has that many accounts, not active subs. Most data people can find point towards subs being at or under 1M, which is still a hell of a lot of subs and has allowed them to put out content at a very rapid, steady pace for the past few years. It's the usual marketing wordplay to hype up whatever big number they can rather than the most informative one : )

Few games other than MMOs can say they can be around for a decade while pulling in money every month from hundreds of thousands or even millions.... and they can do it for over 10 years.

Yup, this really hard. EQ1 and Ultima Online are both still alive and supported, with both getting expansions this year, and they're 16 and 18 years old respectively. They may not be the comparatively massive powerhouses they were in their heyday, but shit son. Almost 2 decades of continued support and active development, that's bonkers.

[kail]

Wow had a amazing sub base before it started catering to the slobbering mass's. Back with attunements and one raid difficulty and no LFR. So i dont see why that couldnt have kept going, becuase all i see after these optimizations to make it easier is lower sub counts. So it couldnt have gone correctly.

WoW catered to the masses since the beginning. It was always the more casual friendly compared to the competition. If people wanted harder progression, WoW would not have achieved the 12 million peak.

[Zeta333]

WoW catered to the masses since the beginning. It was always the more casual friendly compared to the competition. If people wanted harder progression, WoW would not have achieved the 12 million peak.

Yes wow did cater somewhat, but it wasnt untill the obvious idiot modes showed up that the subs took a massive dive.

[Endus]

Yes wow did cater somewhat, but it wasnt untill the obvious idiot modes showed up that the subs took a massive dive.

There's absolutely no evidence that this was the case. I played from Vanilla through to WoD, and the complaints that WoW was appealing to "casuals" and it would "ruin the game" started to come out well before TBC even launched, with some of the patches during Vanilla. It's a refrain that continued despite the climbing subscriptions. If you look at any graph, the subscription rate for WoW grew steadily, tapered off during WotLK, and has slowly declined from there. There has been no precipitous moment that heralded a shift in this pattern, outside of the normal blips that you see at the launch of any expansion, where subs would spike for 1-3 months and then slip back down again. It's just a normal lifecycle of a game with a lifespan as long as WoW, with as little true innovation in its gameplay model, would see. And that's not an attack on WoW or Blizzard; any such significant innovation would put the existing subscribers at great risk, since you're changing the gameplay they've already paid to access; I'm just commenting on player fatigue after years of much the same gameplay.

[lawow74]

Yes wow did cater somewhat, but it wasnt untill the obvious idiot modes showed up that the subs took a massive dive.

This is what's known as cognitive bias. You take a single correlation(addition of your so-called 'idiot modes' and the drop in sub rates)and make it the reason everything happened as it did, because you don't like the change that they made.

Example: I don't like Death Knights. They added Death Knights in WotLK. After WotLK subs tanked. Therefore, Death Knights are why the subs tanked.

See how silly that is? Your argument is the same. Now it might have been a factor for a demographic of the game. But do not take the microcosmic view of people posting on the Internet as representative of the entire WoW playerbase.

There are many factors at play and to claim just one is the cause is incredibly short-sighted and shallow-minded. No matter how much you may hate that cause.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

Yes wow did cater somewhat, but it wasnt untill the obvious idiot modes showed up that the subs took a massive dive.

Subscribers took a nose dive after they started losing more players than they were gaining and a lot of factors came into to play not just casualization. Vanilla and other earlier expansions had some of the worst subscriber retention, but it was so popular in its time period. They had more players coming in than going. Most players didn't do that hardcore content. Most didn't even reach max level and to top that off if hardcore games drive the genre why did Wildstar tank? I hope your not immature enough think wow is dying for that one reason alone.

Wow catered heavily not somewhat. 90% of the bosses in wow were instanced rather than open world. So, nobody could gank/grief you while killing them. You get to keep all of your experience, gear, and items on death. You didn't need to group just to level and solo leveling wasn't a feature that made a class unique. Wow made mmos for the mainstream audience and took it away from the hardcore niche. Blizzard was the apple of the mmo genre for the first couple iterations of wow and fucked up someone where. I am not sure where but I can't stand people who want to pretend the fault lies with casualization alone or solely based on factor.

I think dead servers hurt the game way more then casualization .

[mehow2g]

There's absolutely no evidence that this was the case. I played from Vanilla through to WoD, and the complaints that WoW was appealing to "casuals" and it would "ruin the game" started to come out well before TBC even launched, with some of the patches during Vanilla. It's a refrain that continued despite the climbing subscriptions. If you look at any graph, the subscription rate for WoW grew steadily, tapered off during WotLK, and has slowly declined from there. There has been no precipitous moment that heralded a shift in this pattern, outside of the normal blips that you see at the launch of any expansion, where subs would spike for 1-3 months and then slip back down again. It's just a normal lifecycle of a game with a lifespan as long as WoW, with as little true innovation in its gameplay model, would see. And that's not an attack on WoW or Blizzard; any such significant innovation would put the existing subscribers at great risk, since you're changing the gameplay they've already paid to access; I'm just commenting on player fatigue after years of much the same gameplay.

Actually the highest growth was during the last months of vanilla then TBC came and the growth was less rapid and has steadied ever since, TBC looks successful on paper because it was riding the hype train that vanilla had, I was there also in vanilla I know for a fact that 80-90% of my friends list quit WoW during TBC expansion, my guild disbanded as well as many other, however there were more people joining WoW than there was quitting.

I know why blizzard caters for casuals more so than ever is because they joined activison blizzard, activison is the company who is renown for quick easy annual releases reusing content and art and blizzard has been doing that ever since TBC.

I personally believe Vanilla had 2-4 more years left with a few content patches I just wish Blizzard never joined activison and waited to see when Vanilla started to steady.

[Sj]

Actually the highest growth was during the last months of vanilla then TBC came and the growth was less rapid and has steadied ever since, TBC looks successful on paper because it was riding the hype train that vanilla had, I was there also in vanilla I know for a fact that 80-90% of my friends list quit WoW during TBC expansion, my guild disbanded as well as many other, however there were more people joining WoW than there was quitting.

I know why blizzard caters for casuals more so than ever is because they joined activison blizzard, activison is the company who is renown for quick easy annual releases reusing content and art and blizzard has been doing that ever since TBC.

I personally believe Vanilla had 2-4 more years left with a few content patches I just wish Blizzard never joined activison and waited to see when Vanilla started to steady.

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. My raiding guild grew and became incredibly successful during TBC despite losing quite a few people during ZG, AQ, and Naxx40. Are you saying TBC raiding was easier than what came before? Also, I don't think another 2-4 years of Vanilla would've brought anything good to the game. They timed TBC just right and the continuing climb in subscribers through the expansion definitely supports that decision.

You could argue that they cut Naxx40 a little short, but honestly it was seen by so few people and was hardly accessible to even "average" guilds that saw any success in previous tiers. Personally speaking, out of all my years of raiding (tier 1 all the way through the beginning of MoP) my time spent raiding Naxxramas was the least enjoyable and I know most of my guildmates felt the same. I remember the raid not being very popular in general after the new wore off.

[Zeta333]

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. My raiding guild grew and became incredibly successful during TBC despite losing quite a few people during ZG, AQ, and Naxx40. Are you saying TBC raiding was easier than what came before? Also, I don't think another 2-4 years of Vanilla would've brought anything good to the game. They timed TBC just right and the continuing climb in subscribers through the expansion definitely supports that decision.

You could argue that they cut Naxx40 a little short, but honestly it was seen by so few people and was hardly accessible to even "average" guilds that saw any success in previous tiers. Personally speaking, out of all my years of raiding (tier 1 all the way through the beginning of MoP) my time spent raiding Naxxramas was the least enjoyable and I know most of my guildmates felt the same. I remember the raid not being very popular in general after the new wore off.

I think the fact that they are trying to pound through expansions so fucking fast is killing it alot for people. They should refine each expansion and push out imo at least 6 tiers an expansion, so much of the landmass in these xpacs gets ignored. More massive events, We shouldnt look back on the aq gates as WoW what a fucking cool thing like 10 years ago. We should look at one each xpac. Thier lack of wanting to be dedicated to what they made just astounds me. Soon as one xpac drops they are working on the next instead of working on the game and just shelving an xpac for a while, we should see xpacs maby every 4 years if done correctly, not every other year.

[Edge-]

I think the fact that they are trying to pound through expansions so fucking fast is killing it alot for people.

Wut. The cadence for expansion hasn't changed in years. 3 years for BC, 1 for LK, 2 for Cata, 2 for MoP, 2 for WoD, and will be 2 for Legion.

They should refine each expansion and push out imo at least 6 tiers an expansion, so much of the landmass in these xpacs gets ignored.

6? Even classic had only 3 proper tiers, 4 if you include BC (which was 2.5), but again, that was with an extra year. BC had 2, LK had 3, and I'm not sure how many from there (I think 2 per?).

More massive events, We shouldnt look back on the aq gates as WoW what a fucking cool thing like 10 years ago.

I'd love to those return as well, the LK event during BC was fantastic. But those are extremely time consuming to create for a very limited return in terms of player time. Not to mention that there's little evidence that they provide any kind of significant or meaningful impact on player retention/growth on their own.

Soon as one xpac drops they are working on the next instead of working on the game and just shelving an xpac for a while,

While I have personal issues with the lack of content provided within an expansion (I think how little post launch content that has been added to WoD is disgraceful, for example), this is now how development works.

There are teams that work on live content and teams that immediately start on work for the next expansion. FFXIV and Rift, for example (two games that have put out expansions without huge gaps between the final content updates and the expansion launches) function in such a manner. To not start on expansion work until after content for the current expansion has been finished would lead to even longer gaps, which would cause more problems.

we should see xpacs maby every 4 years if done correctly, not every other year.

The only MMO that I can think of that functions even remotely like this (at least for subs) is EVE. EQ1/2 release annual expansions/adventure packs, and most other major MMO's I'm thinking of off the top of my head have some form of expansion (either paid or unpaid) launching roughly once every few years.

What would be the benefit to the developer from a financial perspective to delay expansions so long, both in terms of raw sales (assuming it's a paid expansion) and in terms of player growth/retention, as expansions have proven to be very successful for reengaging lapsed players and garnering new players.

[Sj]

I think the fact that they are trying to pound through expansions so fucking fast is killing it alot for people. They should refine each expansion and push out imo at least 6 tiers an expansion, so much of the landmass in these xpacs gets ignored. More massive events, We shouldnt look back on the aq gates as WoW what a fucking cool thing like 10 years ago. We should look at one each xpac. Thier lack of wanting to be dedicated to what they made just astounds me. Soon as one xpac drops they are working on the next instead of working on the game and just shelving an xpac for a while, we should see xpacs maby every 4 years if done correctly, not every other year.

I agree with this sentiment, to an extent. I do think they're trying to push content out too quickly, though not necessarily rushing it. It's been mentioned a few times before, but I think horizontal expansion on the game would be a boon. What do you do when you run out of shit to do? You chat, troll trade, AFK on your mount, or run around aimlessly while destroying your space bar. Why not add things to do not just instead of the aforementioned idle-time-killers, but something to do while doing some of these things. Enhance the social aspect of the game (it's why many people play in the first place). Not everything in an MMO has to be about raiding, farming, or collecting. Unfortunately, Blizzard has kind of conditioned their players into expecting a reward from everything little thing they do, rather than just doing things for fun. I blame the new dungeon finder coming with the Emblems of Frost bribe to get people to use it.

As far as events like AQ... eh. The game and the player base were very different at the time; I doubt very seriously that that sort of thing could ever be replicated. Honestly, a lot of the reverence for the AQ gates is nostalgia. I remember on Cho'gall, there was more of a collective sigh of relief that it was over and a feeling of accomplishment over our participation than there was awe over the event itself. The server became incredible unstable as the zone became more and more crowded, and even with hardware and network improvements, piling that many people all in one place could lead to both client- and server-side problems.

I like the idea of taking more time with expansions to flesh out more diverse content, but what do players want? They've tried adding new things into the game, but players have shown they want more of the same and at a quicker pace.

- - - Updated - - -

What would be the benefit to the developer from a financial perspective to delay expansions so long, both in terms of raw sales (assuming it's a paid expansion) and in terms of player growth/retention, as expansions have proven to be very successful for reengaging lapsed players and garnering new players.

They could adapt the TSW avenue of horizontal expansion, but the huge difference in the quality of storytelling likely wouldn't sell anything for Blizzard.

[Edge-]

They could adapt the TSW avenue of horizontal expansion, but the huge difference in the quality of storytelling likely wouldn't sell anything for Blizzard.

Well, that's because Funcom sells their content updates, fundamentally different model that would be a massive change for Blizzard. And considering they're now on what, QL11 now? They're not so horizontal anymore.

But that's ignoring all Funcom's financial difficulties that came out of very poor planning and unrealistic expectations for their products, even if AoC and TSW are somehow (thankfully) continuing to be profitable for them.

[therealbowser]

Greetings,

Since I play LOTRO quite a lot, I came across a thread on the local forum about the MMORPG market in general. This thread explains a lot why MMORPG genre failed.

The link is below this post, but since it's TLR for some of you, here are the main points:

1. Theme park as a model is too overused and boring. You go and kill a boar, then return back, then you go to another place and so on...

No offense, but I stopped reading here.

"Theme Park" MMORPGs are the reason MMORPGs are as popular as they are now. Sandbox MMORPGs are only appealing to a very specific, relatively small crowd of players. It's almost always too big a risk to make MMORPGs that cater to this group of people.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, I am among that crowd of people I'd like to think. It's just not viable and I understand why.

It shows me, though, that you almost certainly have no clue what you're talking about. Theme Park MMORPGs are the future, the key is refining them in such a way that is appealing to players, not dropping the successes of the genre and pretending mixing things around will magically make it popular.

You want to know why the MMORPG genre failed? Because WoW is on top and actively goes out of their way to hold back any efforts any other MMORPG attempts to make (often in seemingly subtle ways, another MMORPG will prep a big launch and Blizzard will 'coincidentally' release a major expansion or patch during that time), and since WoW has stopped being a quality MMORPG (not going to go into details on that here, find any number of threads for various opinions as to why it's the case), there really aren't any great MMORPGs on the market.

Until WoW dies or WoW turns itself around, the MMORPG genre is going to suffer. Personally, I'd prefer the former since it would free the rest of the genre, but if the latter happens, at least we'd have one.

All this said, there are a few promising MMORPGs that are still growing out there. It's not like it's a barren wasteland of gaming.

[PACOX]

When has the genre failed?

The market might be as good as its ever been with multiple healthy games to choose from. If you really want to think about it, look at all the stable MMORPGs that have released an expansion this year.

WoW, FFXIV, GW2, SWTOR, Archeage, Tera, TSW, Rift, Wildstar, ESO - those are just major ones that I can name off the top of my head. What the genre done was not hasn't had another WoW (vanilla/BC era), which is good for the genre IMO. Look at how many games from that era that crashed and burned compared to how long MMORPGs last now.

[Zeta333]

Wut. The cadence for expansion hasn't changed in years. 3 years for BC, 1 for LK, 2 for Cata, 2 for MoP, 2 for WoD, and will be 2 for Legion.

yes but one thing since the last tier of LK was every expansion got updates and new tiers untill around the last year of the expansion and then it was the same drawn out overfarmed tier the entire time, maby a token raid like ony thrown in but the same fucking shit. Wrath was fucking huge, i dont see why they couldnt have goten a proper nother 2 tiers out of it and not tocisk at that. Look at cata, could have had a deepholm raid, could have had somthing going on over in the retooled aq area rather than just space that was done but nothing added. Cant speak for panda land cus i didnt play it.

I'd love to those return as well, the LK event during BC was fantastic. But those are extremely time consuming to create for a very limited return in terms of player time. Not to mention that there's little evidence that they provide any kind of significant or meaningful impact on player retention/growth on their own.

Blizzard makes heaps of fucking money, has a massive fucking staff and campus, so everytime someone says time consuming it makes me roll my eyes, this isnt even remotly the same sized company as back then and they pulled it off perfectly. The hardware wasnt there back then but it is now or should be now. Id come back if they had server wide shit like this again.

There are teams that work on live content and teams that immediately start on work for the next expansion.

And i know full well that artists, programers and level designers can be retooled from working on the next expansion for 6-12 months to work on the one they just released. Just becuase they have the teams do that doesnt mean they have to or should.

The only MMO that I can think of that functions even remotely like this (at least for subs) is EVE.

Eve was just doing about 1.5month release cycules that they are backing off from now becuase they realized how bad it was to rush shit. Eve not in a good place atm to quote as working.

Regardless of what they are doing they are doing somthing wrong becuase look at the numbers, no matter how much you dice it the numbers for this game fucking dropped like a rock and its not just cus the times are changing and people get bored, people have been driven away. I was raiding my entire time in wow and id like to think i saw what triggered people to be driven away and fractured.

[Orby]

MMO's were so popular from around 2004 - 2011 I think its just one of those things that has run its course.

I think it just need to be reinvented again thats all. I wouldnt know how to do it, but who knows maybe we'll see something great

[RoninaThorstone]

MMO's were so popular from around 2004 - 2011 I think its just one of those things that has run its course.

I think it just need to be reinvented again thats all. I wouldnt know how to do it, but who knows maybe we'll see something great

They haven't "run their course", they are more popular than ever in terms of player base.
It's just that they don't have the glow of novelty and hype anymore.

It's like pokemon. In 1995 it was what everyone talked about. Heck, for some people the term video game and pokemon were interchangeable.

20 years later, people are still buying and playing the game in massive numbers. It's certainly not "over", it's just normal now.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

I think the fact that they are trying to pound through expansions so fucking fast is killing it alot for people. They should refine each expansion and push out imo at least 6 tiers an expansion, so much of the landmass in these xpacs gets ignored. More massive events, We shouldnt look back on the aq gates as WoW what a fucking cool thing like 10 years ago. We should look at one each xpac. Thier lack of wanting to be dedicated to what they made just astounds me. Soon as one xpac drops they are working on the next instead of working on the game and just shelving an xpac for a while, we should see xpacs maby every 4 years if done correctly, not every other year.

They get a subscribe boost at the launch of each expansion. They lose subscribers every quarter... Which means prolonged expansion lose them subscribers. They can cram all of that content into one year expansions and just reap the benefits of the subscriber boost.

[lawow74]

What the genre done was not hasn't had another WoW (vanilla/BC era), which is good for the genre IMO. Look at how many games from that era that crashed and burned compared to how long MMORPGs last now.

Awkward grammar aside, there's some truth to this. The genre contenders have stopped trying to be David taking down Goliath. Instead, they've set up their own mini-Goliaths nearby that draw away attention from OG Goliath. Everyone tries to be different in some way to appeal to different types of players while also retaining some similar features.

This leads to many successful(if not money-faucet profitable)games. Diversification is a good thing. Eventually, it will lead to more innovation as people try to come up with some new thing to get people over to their game instead of others. You may not like the changes that get made, but without competition, there would be even less change than there is now. And while some people are fine with stagnation in gameplay, most want new things to do and new ways to do them.