Ginger

Why are they pumping out so Many MMOs (bit of a rant)

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Every 3rd game announced these days seems to be an MMO, and when u look at 75% of them you can tell they are going to flop instantly and of the 25% left most will just chug along barely retaining the player base to justify keeping the servers going. It seems to me to be the genre where it is only worth putting a game out if it is incredibly well made and polished. WoW's success didn't come by accident, one of the most respected games studios ran years over schedule making it the game it is, and then raised the bar even higher with all the updated features. Yet you still get a heap of these shoddily-made and unoriginal games thinking they can compete with it. I don't know if this is true throughout all consumers (but I assume it is a prevalent way of thinking from what I’ve seen of my peers) but I wouldn't invest in an MMO unless I had a very strong inclination that it was going to be amazing, as they are games which require a huge investment of time, and in most cases, a regular outgoing of money. I can't see many people playing one or two at any given time.

So I guess I'm asking why is the market so saturated with new MMOs (many of which seem to be licences at the moment). I don't want to stifle innovation and less-established game studios but it does strike me as a genre of an oligarchic nature, only room to support a few big games, as most of them are designed as games which require a lot of time and have great longevity (they have to be to justify the server charges).

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It's true Blizzard has the benefit of brand, essentially guaranteeing an initial player base of 1-2 million (at least) and can build from there. I can't imagine there are too many stray potential-MMO players anymore, seeing as they have been soaked up by large franchises like everquest, Wow, and final fantasy.

The only reason I can think of for this wave of MMO development is excited bean-counting departments have been ogling Blizzard's revenue sheet. I suppose they need to be burned before they'll learn.

Maybe some will succeed by some fluke, who knows?

EDIT: Our Benefactors links illustrate the bean counter effect quite well.

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I guess it is true what they say about a fool and his money. Stupid to invest in an industry that is alien to you.

Before I took the path of light at the crossroads of life, I was thinking of taking my skills with financial statistics and experience within the industry and specialising in games investment, alas I choose to teach instead, looking at my peers who went to the dark side and the peers of my father I made the right decision, sure they are all minted, but that money acts as an anchor that will always drag them down the path of acquiring more money. (bit off topic there)

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It's a fairly typical MMORPG adventure, with crafting, levels, races and classes. Humans will be able to chose from the classic Stargate team line-up; soldier, commando, scientist or achaeologist, whilst others races will have to pick more culture-specific options.

Honestly, I don't think the brand is strong enough, nor the fanbase broad enough for StarGate Worlds to be sustainable.

It's not entirely clear how the game mechanics will work right now either:

You'll be able to wander around the galaxy on your own, soloing until your heart's content, but bonuses to experience and squad-specific items will hopefully make the four-strong groups more desirable.

Guild Wars. In Egypt. With guns.

Mmmmeeeeehhhh.

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Guild Wars. In Egypt. With guns.

And subscription fees.

Extra meh.

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Heh, just as this thread appears I find out about the StarGate MMO.

Not sure what to think of that at all.

That news was the straw that broke the ginger's back and resulted in this post.

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Well, the reason I hear most often from PC developers these days is "You can't pirate an MMO." Ragnar insinuated as much on his blog, suggesting that all PC games will be at least partially online since single-player games always get pirated. Honestly, while I'm sure loads of piracy happens, I don't think it can possibly hurt the industry as much as they claim. But whatever.

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And then there're developers who claim that single-player is the gaming equivalent of masturbation, making multiplayer games superior.

Like sex.

I hate this sudden surge of MMOs as well. It seems like it came with the whole growing social aspect of the internet. Which isn't a bad thing, in itself. It just seems like these gamers are more keen on living some sort of virtual life than living their own. And that scares me.

That, and the fact that 90% of MMOs are crap.

So, I agree!

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I just hate the idea that you're paying a subscription fee after you've gone out and bought the damn game. If that's where PC gaming is headed, I'll go and chill with my consoles for a while and fondly recall the good old days of gaming on my computer.

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I don't care so much for the amount of MMOs. What I do dislike is the amount of FPS/shooters that comes out. I'm sure that more than half of the games on the shelves are some kind of shooter like that. For gods sake, it's been more than a decade since Doom came out now, aren't people getting tired of playing the same concept?

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Well, in all fairness at least a big portion of those FPSs are actually above mediocre. Back when FPSs still were 2D they released games like Redneck Rampage. :shifty:

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It's the whole faddiness of this industry I think. And because it's so young. Investors choke down hype and sales figures and then throw cash at a brand new "Genre of The Moment" endeavour thinking it's going to make them (more) rich.

FPSs have clung on in the wake of Doom because they're typically straight-forward to design and implement (progressive enhancements over time notwithstanding). Later on, RTS games were all the rage, but that genre has been dorment (in the Hype-o-sphere) for a while now because there were so many failures from big companies which, in turn, is because a worthwhile RTS is significantly more challenging to design and implement well than an FPS. And because people finally got sick of playing cheap, reskinned C&C knock-offs.

Coming back to MMOs: Let's not forget established franchises either. Look at Star Wars Galaxies for instance, ruined by a grossly ill-informed business decision which was intended to attract new players, but instead succeeded only in alienating the majority of the existing 2-year-strong subscriber base. I don't need to mention the concerted 6 months of embarassing press coverage before, during and after the event either.

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Don't underestimate the problems with piracy on the PC. People always say "it can't be that bad" but it actually is that bad. PC developers lose a shit-ton of sales through piracy.

It's not the reason everyone's doing MMOs though. It's that there was one rather succesful one (WoW) and now publishers and investors all want a piece of the pie. There were a lot of VCs walking around GDC looking to invest in anything that has MMO, WoW, Second Life, Web 2.0, YouTube or MySpace in its outline.

It's a sad reality that investors rarely check if the product would actually be good. I know of at least one case where investors put millions into a project without even glancing at the design document or team credentials because 'they had a good feeling about it'.

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Reading a book alone is like masturbation. Everyone should get some completely random person to breath down their neck and read the book over their shoulder.

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I just hate the idea that you're paying a subscription fee after you've gone out and bought the damn game. If that's where PC gaming is headed, I'll go and chill with my consoles for a while and fondly recall the good old days of gaming on my computer.

I don't mind paying a £9 subscription for a game I play at least 20 hours a month, remember they regularly bring out new content for it as well as maintaining servers. It's better than the micro-payment that exists in the console market, I remember seeing in oblivion that you would have to pay a few quid to get a new skin for a horse, despite being a rip off that's not so bad, but I can see it growing into micro-payments allowing people in a multiplayer environment to buy better equipment, I don't want to be reminded of my poverty in real life by some rich cunt splatting my brains out with his uber expensive rail gun while I'm running about with a pistol.

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And then there're developers who claim that single-player is the gaming equivalent of masturbation

Masturbation is fucking wicked and all of my most intense orgasms have come from it, in the same way PC single player games can be amazing and should not be ignored in this MMO revolution.

On a side note does anyone know how effective steam was at impeding piracy, I know it was eventually cracked, but did the extra effort people had to go through in order to pirate hl:2 reduce piracy?

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It's incredibly hard to tell either way. It's not as if the exact number of pirate installs can be measured against legit steam installs. Most of the figures quoted about piracy are decidedly hand-wavy, as private trackers and mates burning DVDs can't be counted at all. Also, claims over lost sales by media industries are typically exaggerated, with every instance of piracy counted as a lost sale. Given that the costs of pirating things are significantly lower (in time, energy, and money) that's not a reasonable assumption.

I'm not pretending it's not bad, because it is, or fair, because it's not, but content industries aren't doing themselves any favours by crawling back into the 20th century and failing to understand the problem.

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I can see it growing into micro-payments allowing people in a multiplayer environment to buy better equipment

As I understand it, this is exactly how some Far Eastern (and Acclaim's) MMOs operate; you get the software for nothing and you can play for free, but you must buy anything beyond the basic equipment you start out with.

As a business model I think (tentatively) this makes sense. Whether or not it's sustainable in the long term I haven't a clue, but I would summise that it's entirely dependent on player retention--and having a pivotal minimum number of regular players to validate continuing operations, obviously.

Does anyone know how effective steam was at impeding piracy, I know it was eventually cracked, but did the extra effort people had to go through in order to pirate hl:2 reduce piracy?

In this instance, it's an effecient barrier to entry if nothing else. Many people would just give up if they had to carry out anything too contrived. I think people are managing to get around Steam though all the same; Counter-Strike: Source was cracked and distributed within hours of it being officially "unlocked"/decrypted via the Steam client for example.

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Masturbation is fucking wicked and all of my most intense orgasms have come from it

...new QOTM please? Ginger, I may now have to count you among my heroes for your brilliantly honest defense of single player gaming. :grin:

As for micro-payments vs subscription, it would really depend on what I'm buying with micro-payments. I think I'd prefer them on the whole over subscription though. With a subscription, if they release something new every 5 or so months, I'm still paying for the other 4 months of the same game. With micro-payments I'm only buying what I want to play, and only having to pay when I can actually get it. As long as I'm not buying things that give me an unfair advantage over other players, fuck yeah. Side quests in a single player RPG, new songs for a rhythm game. These don't hurt anyone else's enjoyment of the game, but add to mine. The ideal micropayment situation.

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I don't mind paying a £9 subscription for a game I play at least 20 hours a month, remember they regularly bring out new content for it as well as maintaining servers. It's better than the micro-payment that exists in the console market, I remember seeing in oblivion that you would have to pay a few quid to get a new skin for a horse, despite being a rip off that's not so bad, but I can see it growing into micro-payments allowing people in a multiplayer environment to buy better equipment, I don't want to be reminded of my poverty in real life by some rich cunt splatting my brains out with his uber expensive rail gun while I'm running about with a pistol.

Can't happen, developers can't release content for sale that may give other players an unfair advantage whilst online (so far this means weapons and patches, but in some cases it is extended to online maps too). I know this to be true on the 360, not sure about the other two.

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