2011- 2013 MMO Prediction

[Cleverbot]

WoW drops to 7.5M subscribers
GW2 sells 7M copies (slow build)
SWTOR builds 6M subscribers before relatively quickly dropping to 4.5-5M and stabilizing around that point for its lifetime.

and finally... a Mass Effect MMO is announced to be in development.

Thoughts?

[Spl4sh3r]

No, just no also where is Titan? ;P

[Sapho]

Tera also seems to be getting some hype. And it is too early to tell precisely how successful Rift will be. And any prediction for the next 2 years that ignores those two is probably going to be a bit dodgey

[Clay]

Indie companies with their MMO's will never be able to compete with Blizzard and WoW. Let's hope D3 makes it big!

[Patchwerk]

D3 and WoW aren't in the same competitive group ^
I think predicting these things are pretty pointless. There are too many factors involved for anyone to know what's gonna happen. Okay, it's fun guessing and then see who's right, I'll leave it at that and stop being negative

[Dembai]

(end of) 2011

- WoW drops to 9 million subscribers.
- Rift stabilizes at less than a million subscribers.
- SWTOR starts with 3 million subscribers, is now down to less than 1.5 million people who still play.
- Tera starts with 1 million subscribers - is now up to 4.5 million.
- GW2 starts with 1 million suubscribers, and maintains them.
- WAR dies.

2012

- WoW goes back up to 10 million subscribers.
- Rift has less than 500k subscribers, switching to F2P.
- SWTOR drops to under 1 million subscribers.
- Tera is up to 5 million subscribers.
- GW2 maintains its 1 million.
- Warhammer 40k MMO starts with under a million subscribers. Considered a flop despite it being a very playable game.
- Most F2P games are now considered "dead".

2013

- WoW drops to 7 million subscribers - new content is largely being ignored.
- Rift is dead.
- SWTOR attempts to "remake" itself. It becomes unplayable. Dies.
- Tera maintains 5 million subscribers.
- GW2 is up to 1.5 million subscribers.
- Titan is launched. 10 million purchases. 2 million people playing it the month after.
- Warhammer 40k MMO maintains its 500k players, refuses to go to F2P and "die like the rest".

2014

- WoW is down to 5 million subscribers. "Old Expansion Servers" are launched. Ignored.
- Tera is up to 6 million subscribers, and is hailed as the WoW killer - however, the company that makes it isn't supporting it anymore because it's no longer popular in Korea.
- GW3 in production. GW2 is down to under 1 million subscribers.
- Titan releases new content, up to 2 million subscribers.
- Warhammer 40k dies (and it makes me sad!).

2015

- WoW is down to 3 million subscribers. Most of these are gold sellers or bots.
- Tera dies despite much raging from the crowd.


(This is a fun game. I wonder if people will look back on this post and say "how did she KNOW?!")

[Deleted]

As fun as it looks to pull numbers out of our arses I can't see Bioware attempting to juggle both SWTOR and an MMO Mass Effect at the same time ... just yet! And as for WoW dropping that low on subs, can't see that happening untill it's days are limited and/or Titan turns out to be the sort of game that WoW users will enjoy so alot just transition to that.

[Talorh]

@Dembai

The only thing that makes no sense is:

- Tera is up to 6 million subscribers, and is hailed as the WoW killer - however, the company that makes it isn't supporting it anymore because it's no longer popular in Korea.

If something that has 6 million subscribers is no longer popular in Korea all that means is that the development focus will switch to the West.

Also people are forgetting the Secret World in their "predictions".

[Dembai]

@Dembai

The only thing that makes no sense is:



If something that has 6 million subscribers is no longer popular in Korea all that means is that the development focus will switch to the West.

Also people are forgetting the Secret World in their "predictions".

Hmm, true enough. I just have this feeling about Tera that even though it'll be a backdoor sleeper, once it's no longer popular in Korea it'll be off the shelves shortly afterwards. I don't know if the localization team they have in the West will really be enough to handle development if they lose support from the publishing company. But maybe they'll be prepared for it.

[Talorh]

Hmm, true enough. I just have this feeling about Tera that even though it'll be a backdoor sleeper, once it's no longer popular in Korea it'll be off the shelves shortly afterwards. I don't know if the localization team they have in the West will really be enough to handle development if they lose support from the publishing company. But maybe they'll be prepared for it.

Think it from business point of view... no way they going to stop developing in Korea when they have millions of money coming in, even if it's not popular in Korea itself.

[JustintimeSS]

Even Blizzard has gone on record in an interview saying that SWTOR will be amazing and a welcomed competition/innovation in the MMO community.

That says something. I think SWTOR will be pretty damn big. WoW won't go away ever, hell people still play EQ. And as long as Blizz creates updates, patches and content, WoW will stay a long while.

Titan might be good but who knows. That's like shooting in the dark. The Company track record make it seem like it wont fail though.

ME mmo would be great, sure. But how many MMO's do they expect us to play and pay for? These guys need to start realizing that MMO may be the style right now and bring in heaps of cash but they are behind a power curve and it will be hard to steal peoples attention from the growing list of options. If I was a company looking to make a new game, I surely wouldn't consider MMO unless I had something revolutionary to break out... and even then, there are so many fanbois of each specific game, my revolution wouldn't stand a chance.

My predictions:

SWTOR. WoW. GW2. TITAN(?). Those are the ones that will be taking the most money from us and in return we will be entertained... for a while at least.

[dragoncore]

Need to start looking at Kingdoms of amalur ppl this is starting with a basic rpg to set the ground for an mmo. A mmo from the minds of Rolsten(lead developer of elder scrolls: oblivion) Salvatore(amaziang fantasy author and is the writer for this game) and artist Todd Mcfarlane(hopefully you all know who he is). all owned by 38 games which is a company Curt Schilling started after he retired from baseball.

to many great minds to not give it some thought

[StendhalSyndrom]

WoW drops to 7.5M subscribers
GW2 sells 7M copies (slow build)
SWTOR builds 6M subscribers before relatively quickly dropping to 4.5-5M and stabilizing around that point for its lifetime.

and finally... a Mass Effect MMO is announced to be in development.

Thoughts?

DOOOOD I would love some of what you are smoking. OT Noway no chance nuh uh. I dont see WoW dropping under 10m anytime soon HatWars2 wont breach 1-2 million same for SWTOR. The biggest thing you are forgetting is many people will play BOTH WoW and something else...that does NOT mean WoW lost accounts... What no Rift lulz...

[Myranda1]

Wow is eternal I think, it will always be in the background

[Deleted]

Your prediction are flawed ofc... the Mayan calendar has already foreseen your predictions and invalidated them in 2012.

[Dembai]

Think it from business point of view... no way they going to stop developing in Korea when they have millions of money coming in, even if it's not popular in Korea itself.

True enough - but while I didn't put it there, I'm also thinking that the publishing company would be developing other Tera-clones with different settings so that they can have a bigger bite of the market (and put up with the very fickle asian mmo market) that by the time they yank support from Tera, there will be Tera2, Tera:Scifi, Tera:Magical girls, Tera:Horror and so forth.

While the original would be gaining steam outside of Asia, the clones would not be launched with much success, and when support from Tera is yanked (on behalf of these other games that are making money!), there will be a vacuum in the US that those clones won't fill. The Westernization team may take Tera and attempt to facelift it and keep it moving forward, once a game is severed from its prodction team, it loses steam really fast.

I didn't want to go too far into predictions about what companies will be making new products, but I suspect that EA will probably launch a DarkSpore-based mmo, Sony/Squeenix will try yet another FF MMO (with Tera-style combat, and it will be sucessful in it's own way), there will be a Forgotten Realms-based MMO that probably won't go anywhere due to being based in Fourth Ed, and there will be a Marvel Online, which will flop even as it gets going.

I also think that by 2015 that Nintendo will have put pokemon into a more MMO-based format - because they won't be able to resist it. They're trying really hard to deny that's where it's heading...but they're being drawn more and more towards the format.

[moaradin]

Lol this thread i filled with so many fanboys with their biased predictions. Quite a laugh, thanks.

[Dembai]

Lol this thread i filled with so many fanboys with their biased predictions. Quite a laugh, thanks.

So give us your non-biased timeline of what's to come.

It's just for fun. Also - while I intend on playing Tera, I suspect I will not be good enough at it to really get into it. I'll probably be with WoW until it drops under 1 million subscribers or goes to free to play.

[Pendulous]

-Grandia Online is finally cancelled. A moogle somewhere sheds a tear.

[bigjenk]

In that time i think gw2 swtor and wow(at least non china side) will be relatively similar in numbers. If i had to guess i would say in the 3-4 million range as it is not out of the picture to see another 1.5 mill drop from wow in the next2 years and it will clearly become a low priority title for blizzard(already seems like it tbh). However blizzard will own the hype market with titan which will once again look to corner the market for blizzard. I expect those numbers to all be bigger at first but for people to finally settle into one of those mmos or maybe 2, I have little doubt many serious wow players will get both though.

This is obviously best case for the market as if wow as a dying franchise that hasn't even improved anything in 2 years is still king it says sad things about the mmo market. Competition is good for the consumer.