Why don’t imported MMO do well?

[Daedius]

In Korea, MMO are Great. Why, then, do they fall flat on their faces when brought over to the US? Is it the anime art style? The pretty graphic intensity? The pay-to-won aspect? Why do imports fail in the west?

Because Asian MMOs are grind-fests which absolutely SUCK!!!!

[Celvira]

I delight in the irony about people harping on the weeb visuals of other MMO's when WoW still has anime-level armor design (looking at you shoulder pieces) and a storyline that resembles a cheesy early 2000's anime.

[ryanmahaffe]

Pretty simple, they suck.

None of them have a world as interesting as Azeroth.

None of them have dungeons as good as WoW.

None of them have raids as good as Wow.

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No they are not, we just a lack a good one outside of WoW. Classic is a huge success, as will Shadowlands be (even if it sucks) MMOs are not dying at all, go fuck off and play your battle royal, kid.

We just lack a good one outside of WoW? Lmao only true to the core WoW only players think that.
Gw2, ESO, FFXIV, Runescape, are all very high quality for what they try to be and are all very successful.


@OP Because they all turn into grind grind grind to enhance your gear +1 through an RNG system that cripples fun progression, also p2w.

[Milfshaked]

I think marketing is the biggest reason. While artstyle and pay2win features may be contributors, nobody is gonna play something that they dont know about.

[Fahrenheit]

Grind fest, pay 2 win, garbage anime style, lack of content.

[unbound]

In Korea, MMO are Great. Why, then, do they fall flat on their faces when brought over to the US? Is it the anime art style? The pretty graphic intensity? The pay-to-won aspect? Why do imports fail in the west?

I would say advertising is likely the number 1 issue overall. Most ads that I see tend to be for mobile games anymore.

I think the number 2 issue in the US is that MMORPGs are not heavily favored. Most of the US audience isn't interested in something that involves long-term investments and slow growth...i.e. most of the US audience actually doesn't like RPGs. They tend to favor sports games, FPS, MOBAs, etc - all of which involve very little long-term investment and quick 15 min to 30 min of heart-pumping action.

Finally, you have simple inertia. While WoW maintains a fraction of their peak, what they maintain is largely due to familiarity, not actual greatness. WoW is objectively not that great anymore...there are at least a half dozen better MMORPGs on the market, but few here will even give them a serious chance because they, usually unwittingly, prefer the constant that is WoW.

[Neuroticaine]

Yeah and someone more interested arguing could put up ten videos of catgirls or bunnygirls or some other bullshit for every decent video of FF. I mean I play it time to time too but come on just don't be deluded.

As a opposed to 20 flavors of Elf?

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Its mostly to do with what is in the game not because the west hates MMOs. I mean we've been told some types of genres aren't liked and one randomly comes out and its loved. It just takes time for a new game to show its still desired.

MMOs in the West general fail to grab the attention of newer generations of gamers. Most of us who still play MMOs started 10-15 or even 20+ years ago, and mostly have just been continuing to play what we were into that long ago.

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Finally, you have simple inertia. While WoW maintains a fraction of their peak, what they maintain is largely due to familiarity, not actual greatness. WoW is objectively not that great anymore...there are at least a half dozen better MMORPGs on the market, but few here will even give them a serious chance because they, usually unwittingly, prefer the constant that is WoW.

I would argue against your claim of half a dozen better MMORPGs. As a whole package, I think the only one that can genuinely compete would be FFXIV. There are, however, plenty of games that do certain aspects better than WoW. Combat in TERA and Black Desert Online are leaps and bounds better than WoW, but the end-game content for both is absolute garbage. Additionally, I think the leveling experience in TERA is the absolute best - You can follow the actual main story of the original game up to level cap, or you can teleport around to your hearts content, all over the world, doing adventures, focusing on mostly combat encounters versus fetch quests and long exposition segments - essentially the best of both worlds with little restrictions on which ones you can do (there's a daily "limit" to the adventures, but you can keep doing them afterwards for less XP and rewards, if I remember correctly).

Any number of games has better graphics

I've heard great things about the leveling experience for story-focused players in Knights of the Old Republic (I wouldn't know, I generally skip the story in MMOs while leveling), but the actual combat lacks the same level of responsiveness and precision as WoW's.

I could go on, but you get my point. WoW's biggest problem is that the developers think that the players just want a bunch of bullshit systems on top of bullshit systems, when most of us would be perfectly fine with set bonuses, fun trinkets and the occasional legendary. Also the devs aren't as good as they used to be making sure things like enemies falling through the terrain or getting stuck behind some invisible wall that blocks LoS from you, and stuff like that.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

MMOs in the West general fail to grab the attention of newer generations of gamers. Most of us who still play MMOs started 10-15 or even 20+ years ago, and mostly have just been continuing to play what we were into that long ago.

Doesn't really change my point, not that many super good MMOs and XIV I argue is mostly the biggest competition.

[Beet]

Yeah and someone more interested arguing could put up ten videos of catgirls or bunnygirls or some other bullshit for every decent video of FF. I mean I play it time to time too but come on just don't be deluded.

This is why I have a hard time even considering Asian MMOs.

My buddy got me to try the game tera out ages ago when it was new. I thought it sounded awesome. But he told me if I didn’t play a specific race I wouldn’t be able to hang with his guild which made me laugh. I assumed they were role players. But no I found out the majority of people playing that game all play a creepy as fuck prepubescent girl/rabbit-fox person named Elin. And of course all the gear on them is hyper sexual so there’s basically nothing but 7 year old little girls running around half naked with bunny ears and fox tails.

If that wasn’t weird enough when I was playing they had a RMT sale on for swimsuits and so everyone was playing their elin in a child’s bathing suit.


It just felt off and creepy to me especially when over half the game was Elin. I got to experience a bit of the end game but just realized this game isn’t for me.

[Hyral]

I delight in the irony about people harping on the weeb visuals of other MMO's when WoW still has anime-level armor design (looking at you shoulder pieces) and a storyline that resembles a cheesy early 2000's anime.

I mean WoW's ongoing popularity has been grandfathered by the early success it had, and that was on Wrath and earlier where the artstyle was more general fantasy than the current nonsense with laser beams coming out of pendants and whatnot. Look at Samwise's and Metzen's art for example.

Still you can't compare WoW's style with it's main competitor FFXIV. One obviously looks like a weeb game and it is not WoW.

[Duravian]

In my experience asian mmo-s are bloated to the max with UI clutter and tiny little mechanics to do here and there and yet all of it ends up being a total endless grindfest. That and for me personally I just have very strong feelings against anime because of the kind of people i know who have let anime consume their lives until they are nothing but a weaby husk but again, thats a personal issue lol.

[Nefarious Tea]

Imagine playing FFXIV and calling anime style "weebshit".

Literally the opening splash screen is a fucking child with elf ears. It SCREAMS weeb.

[Bigcountry11782]

For me i am big on story.Especially a story i can follow.I can never seem to follow or care about the weird stories in imported mmo's.Also The very anime style human with ears and bunny people and the list goes on is just not for me.The huge pay to win or just micro transaction mess that most of them are is just not for me.I love Final fantasy games,well the old Turn based ones but i tried the ffmmo and i couldn't get past the first area.I just lost interest.I think its just that the main mmo's i have played and liked were WoW and Swtor.

[Kokolums]

MMO devs can be extremely dumb.

Wildstar had an elaborate end game raiding system. You put in lots of hours to clear content and get loot. Unfortunately, PvP was super easy by comparison and awarded better loot. The Wildstar devs absolutely refused to fix the problem, so the raiding scene died, then the MMO died.

Blizzard at least understands to put the best loot in mythic raiding. Amazing as it sounds, that is quite a difficult concept to grasp.

Now, if Blizzard would just take a very healthy interest in rebuilding the in-game community, they could become a giant again. But they don't. And from past experience, it most likely means the Blizzard devs are dumb in this regard and won't fix it.

A lot of the "imported MMO" devs utterly fail to realize that weeb style severely limits appeal. They fail to understand tons of grinding severely limits their appeal. But like all other devs, they are stubborn and won't change.

Can someone come along and kill WoW with a new MMO? Sure. But they need to have all of these sorts of issues fixed. Which apparently takes mega genius level intellect.

[Majestic12]

Grind fest, pay 2 win, garbage anime style, lack of content.

This sums it up well.

Asian MMOs in particular are made for a completely separate target audience. It doesn't mesh well with the average Western gamer. There are a few weebs and what not ferociously defending the games, but they always fail.

[Lex Icon]

I delight in the irony about people harping on the weeb visuals of other MMO's when WoW still has anime-level armor design (looking at you shoulder pieces) and a storyline that resembles a cheesy early 2000's anime.

i think when people refer to it as weeb shit they mostly think of the creepy over sexualized child/teen characters and childish humor etc. not the cartoony style.
at least that's it for me.

[Hyral]

i think when people refer to it as weeb shit they mostly think of the creepy over sexualized child/teen characters and childish humor etc. not the cartoony style.
at least that's it for me.

Yeah. The way I see it an anime artstyle is one thing, it can be appealing to weebs or just be the style they wanted, but the game is riding on more than that. There's actually a game or a decent story in there somewhere.

Weebshit is a game that compromises other aspects of it to focus on typical anime bullshit to make its money. Like gacha games where people spend tons of cash to get their waifus.

[XDurionX]

It all sums up to "it's a cultural thing" and "different strokes for different folks". Many of the aspects have been mentioned in this thread.

[schwarzkopf]

WWO does very well, and it is imported into a lot of places.

FF-IV does pretty well, and it is imported into a lot of places.

[Malix Farwin]

Pretty simple, they suck.

None of them have a world as interesting as Azeroth.

None of them have dungeons as good as WoW.

None of them have raids as good as Wow.

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No they are not, we just a lack a good one outside of WoW. Classic is a huge success, as will Shadowlands be (even if it sucks) MMOs are not dying at all, go fuck off and play your battle royal, kid.

WoW hasnt had an interesting world in a while. The story has gotten very lazy and stale.

I beg to differ. Ive seen some with more interesting dungeons its usually other systems that fall flat

I disagree ive seen interesting raids come out from other games that arent WoW(in fact wow raid tiers are hit or miss most of the time, i mean look at the final encounter of BFA, boring).

Bottom line is that don't necessarily suck but instead are not suited for the general population of NA MMO players by today's standards.

90% of them either use an recycled system or are too grindy. FFXIV is probably the best example of something that can be successful and not be made in NA.

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It all sums up to "it's a cultural thing" and "different strokes for different folks". Many of the aspects have been mentioned in this thread.

I would say this but mostly that the market has been flooded with too many similar products in such a short time frame. This is also mixed with the fact that the quality of said games and budgets have been quite small when you compare them to FFXIV and WoW.

Lastly, its not just imported MMOs thats failed its been local ones as well(SWTOR and Wildstar comes to mind).