Will the MMORPG market be flooded?

[Pythagoras]

So there's a gazillion MMORPG games coming out. On CNN newsnight they cite costs of millions of dollars. That sounds like a lot for a PC game. The fact that they require such continued support with servers content etc.

So
Tons of MMORPGS
and tons of cost each
=
loss of money on each MMORPG cause there are too many.
=
bad for already beleagured gaming comps

This is assuming demand stays/grows relatively stable.

[Dis]

this bothers me because the market for stand alone RPG's might dwindle. But so far it is doing good, and I think Icewind Dale 2 is going to sell decently.

But then you wonder if the companies would release a game with a editor/toolset or just make a mmorpg. So far the case with NWN seems promising. Sure it costs $60 on average, but at least that is the only cost we have to endure. The same with Diablo2.

I don't like the thought of paying monthly fees. I can't get that much playtime in a month to make it worthwhile.

But so far, so good. There are still plenty of regular games in development.

[Tuberski]

I think for a lot of games to survive, they will HAVE to have single player capability. And they ability to edit or modify the game.

[Zkribbler]

There are only a certain number of people who have the inclination to play MMORPGS. That number is further limited because players also need to have lots of free time and lots of extra money--both of which are rarities.

I think the MMORPGS market has already been sufficiently saturated. Except for games like Star Wars Galaxies which bring their own unique audience, for most part, MMORPGS will just end up stealing players from each other.

[Urban Ranger]

Depends on the region. MMORPG's are strong in some countries such as South Korea, maybe Japan and Taiwan. I am not sure about the US though.

[General Ludd]

The majority of the MMORPGs are all clones of each other, anyways - it's just the latest fad... like all of the C&C/Warcraft clones we where getting a little while ago.

I bet they will shoot themselves in the foot this time around, though. MMORPGs require them to actually keep a player base - they can't get away with making some shitty clone and conning people into buying it to make a quick buck... atleast, not aswell as they could with 'standard' games.

[tniem]

Originally posted by Osweld
they can't get away with making some shitty clone and conning people into buying it to make a quick buck... atleast, not aswell as they could with 'standard' games.

Well why not?

They are still charging for the game. Then on top of that they are charging a monthly fee. That is why these games are the fad in the industry.

You get someone to spend $50 on the game which fules your production costs just like any other game and then your subscription cost is all profit. So lets say as a producer it costs four million to produce a game. Now, if you make 40 a copy and you can sell 100,000 copies you have broken even on what you paid the developer. Any more on subscription is profit. So even if you can con people into buying the game and then playing an average of three months before deciding its not worth the money, you have made 3 million. If the game succeeds - even more.

Now of course I am not saying that these are the actual numbers, but what I am saying is that even if the MMORPG market is not that large long term, it may be apealing enough to producers because they believe they can cover costs with sales and that any subscriptions will fund profit. That seems to me why it is such a good bet right now in the industry.

[Pythagoras]

I think its a viable market, just with slow and gradual growth. I dont think people are going to be jumping into this in droves right away. Even the average serious computer gamer I think has second thoughts about diving into an MMORPG. Civ 3 sucks enough of my life away. There also exists a prevaling prejudice towards these games that they take over your lives (hence the monicor Evercrack). Also, how many gamers under 18 are going to be able to pay (or convince there parents to pay) the subscription fee? Isnt that sector a big part of the PC gaming market?

This saturation is bad. Think of all the money being thrown into the toilet from sometimes already beleagured gaming companies. It certainly cant bode well for other developers. And we've seen some of the "WE NEED THIS GAME OUT NOW OR WE WILL BE BANKRUPT!!" mentality increasingly. I would hate to have that become a regular feature of the industry because gaming companies were dumping their money into these MMORPGs.

[Pythagoras]

Originally posted by Tuberski
I think for a lot of games to survive, they will HAVE to have single player capability. And they ability to edit or modify the game.

Replayability is a key feature of PC gaming. Civilization (especially Civ2) being the ultimate example in strategy, and perhaps Half Life in the FPS world. Games that have large fan bases thrive, and more players will become attracted to that fan base and its resources to enhance the replayability of a game (through mods, humans to play, encouraging new XP). Nothing is more 'replayable' than opposing another sentient human being.

However this has a downside. As semi serious to serious PC gamers, most of us will buy a handful of games a year. Maybe no more than one a month for those of us that are hardcore enough. The console gamer will need more games to get the same amount of play time, and hence will spend more dough at the store. Hence the PC gaming industry tends to make fewer bucks, but makes the most on the most replayable and popular games.

I think that a gradual shift toward complete replayabitily at a subscription fee is best for the gaming industry.(where developers are paid a fee to continually enhance a single game constantly). Hence civ4 would be the last and only civ and every patch and expansion would be released continously by Firaxis who got paid monthly by millions of loyal fans. Hence I am fairly interested in the business model that the MMORPGs implement. But its going to ruin such progress in that direction if the market for MMORPGs are saturated and fail. So in a time when the economy is down and demand for these games is constant, keep it steady and dont jeopardize the progressive evolution of the gaming industry.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by tniem

Well why not?

They are still charging for the game. Then on top of that they are charging a monthly fee.

Exactly. When they flood the market with MMORPGs, and there are a hundred different ones to choose from, each one of them is going to have a hell of a hard time keeping anyone subscribed.

[Victor Galis]

But this is good. The crap games will die, and we will be left with the best MMORPGs

[tniem]

Originally posted by Osweld
Exactly. When they flood the market with MMORPGs, and there are a hundred different ones to choose from, each one of them is going to have a hell of a hard time keeping anyone subscribed.

Read my entire post, not just the first sentence. I argue that the market will be able to handle it because they are charging a game's full price up front in box. That can make the money back off the game easily. Then subscription will mostly be profit. Now, if they gave away the game for free and then charged subscription, I would agree that they might not be able to make it but they do not and herein lays how they feel they can make money out of it and have the market support it.

[Victor Galis]

Read my entire post, not just the first sentence. I argue that the market will be able to handle it because they are charging a game's full price up front in box.

-The $25 or so I paid for Dark Age of Camelot is hardly a full price, not to mention it included the first month of subscription. Additionally, there 's people selling their copies of these games on eBay, which the company is not trying to stop.

Then subscription will mostly be profit.

- They won't keep their customers that way. DAoC has nearly a full team of programmers making almost biweekly patches to the game. These don't only fix bugs and correct imbalances in different classes, they also add new features to the game that weren't there before. At least DAoC is expanding dramatically, and that combined with server maintenence can't be too cheap.

Now, if they gave away the game for free and then charged subscription, I would agree that they might not be able to make it but they do not and herein lays how they feel they can make money out of it and have the market support it.

-If they just made the game available for download and didn't put out a physical copy, then made the download free, I don't think this would impact their profitability at all.

[FrustratedPoet]

tniem:
But if you are already subscribed to a couple of MMORPG's (in a flooded market), why would you even bother to purchase the box of another one?

The company will make no money if the market is dominated by a couple of big games (for next year probably Everquest 2 and Star Wars Galaxies) and most people are already paying a subscription for a game they enjoy.

If I'm addicted to EQ2 and SWG, why would I want to pay more money to buy another MMORPG?
I know up front that in order to play the game properly I will have to buy a 6 month subscription, so I would be aware that the price of the box and CD is only the beginning.
I might be interested in the game, but not want to give up the time, friends, and invested effort I have in the other games I play in order to experiment with something else.

[Victor Galis]

I know up front that in order to play the game properly I will have to buy a 6 month subscription, so I would be aware that the price of the box and CD is only the beginning.

-Some games like DAoC also have monthly and 3 month subscriptions.

[Grumbold]

So far the emergence of each new MMORPG has impacted remarkably little on the survivability of the previous ones. Eventually there has to be a saturation point at which they are no longer attracting new customers to the genre or persuading an existing player to open an new game account wjile retaining all their existing ones. So far though all the predictions have proved wrong. I expect to see a large number of the developing MMORPG's cancelled before they go live, but there will still be a considerable number released that will find an audience. When you think of all the countries only now starting to get connected to the web, the potential market is huge by comparison to today.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by Grumbold
When you think of all the countries only now starting to get connected to the web, the potential market is huge by comparison to today.

Very good point.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Grumbold
When you think of all the countries only now starting to get connected to the web, the potential market is huge by comparison to today.

While this is theoretically true, this has done little for Web-based economy so far.

Consider that a player probably want broadband for online gaming, this won't help in the next few years. Maybe in a couple of decades.

[Victor Galis]

So far the emergence of each new MMORPG has impacted remarkably little on the survivability of the previous ones.

-This is because the potential market (those with broadband, and/or patience and reliable dialup connections) has been increasing dramatically.

Eventually there has to be a saturation point at which they are no longer attracting new customers to the genre or persuading an existing player to open an new game account wjile retaining all their existing ones.

-I'm thinking all of these games will fall apart eventually and be at the very least replaced by a new version.

On a side note, only the lone Hibernian outpost of Caer Berkstead is holding out against the hordes of invading Midgardian warriors (I love the fact that you can check up on the status of the game without logging in)

[tniem]

Originally posted by Grumbold
Eventually there has to be a saturation point at which they are no longer attracting new customers to the genre or persuading an existing player to open an new game account wjile retaining all their existing ones.

One thing is that when it reaches that saturation point, there is a chance, maybe a good chance, that players of old games will move on to newer ones. The older games that have already made back production costs lose customers but it does not matter to them. Because they already made their money and so it does not matter that gamers are leaving. Meanwhile the new games need the old customers to fund their developement. So it works for them as well.

I am just advocating that there is a chance that the market can sustain the games being produced without the catsotrophe that everyone is predicting.

[Sarxis]

It is still true that Singleplayer PC games still out-populate MP games by a wide margin.

And that analysis doesn't even include The Sims.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by tniem
I am just advocating that there is a chance that the market can sustain the games being produced without the catsotrophe that everyone is predicting.

I agree. Some of the less well thought out attempts to jump on the bandwagon are disappearing before being released to the public but every game launched so far (that I am aware of) has proven attractive enough to support several servers and keep the company in business.

I'm a serial MMORPG hopper, having played nothing for more than 12 months before going on to another game or perhaps hopping back to play an old one for a bit of nostalgia. I have met very few players who have solidly commited to a single game for years - those that have I normally find have played every class combination under the sun and kept things fresh like that. We will know the market has got cutthroat when the first of the old games draws the curtains and shuts down for good. The earliest might even be AC, since it is likely to be the first one to release its second version.

[Victor Galis]

The earliest might even be AC, since it is likely to be the first one to release its second version.

-AC?

[RonHiler]

Originally posted by Victor Galis
-AC?

Asheron's Call. Which is by far the best MMO game in existance, old or new, but which has been so badly mis-managed by MicroSoft marketing that it's always at the bottom of the list of the "big three".

I'll be interested to see what happens to the server populations when AC2 arrives, not to mention SWG.

I'm a little wary of the hype around SWG. Its very reminiscent of the hype that existed around AO and DAoC, both of which started out as *terrible* games (especially AO, in terms of buggyness), and haven't really gotten much better since. I revisited AO not too long ago, and there is *still* nothing to do. It's like a glorified chat room.

The stregth of AC is that there is a *ton* of content built up over years of free monthly "patches" which add new quests, functionality, etc to the game every month. A new MMO cannot compete with that. And the EQ and UO model of releasing expansion packs every six months or so doesn't keep up (though it makes a lot more money for the design house, heh). It's the monthly updates that make AC such a great MMO, and (assuming they use the same model) will also make AC2 very strong (after you give them a few months to add content and fix the inevitable major problems).

If the double punch of AC2 and SWG doesn't kill AC (and IMO it won't), it still has a long life ahead of it. UO is the one that's in trouble right now, if you ask me

[Victor Galis]

DAoC used to have weekly patches, but they seem to have slowed down now. Still the game is a lot better than when I got it, and there's a lot of promise to this new PvP server.

Any idea of what the server populations are like right now for the big games?

[Grumbold]

Its a question of personal taste. The principle thing I disliked about Asherons Call was the dynamic content because unless you were riding the crest of the player population and playing constantly much of the new plot related content would open, run and then close without you getting a look in. All too often I would log on during prime UK playing time to find that the big event had showed up and been killed/solved/looted during peak US time while I was sleeping like a baby.

[RonHiler]

Originally posted by Victor Galis
DAoC used to have weekly patches, but they seem to have slowed down now. Still the game is a lot better than when I got it, and there's a lot of promise to this new PvP server.

Yeah, but the patches there were bug fixes, while ACs are content adders. Not the same thing I played DAoC when it first came out. I stopped after a couple of weeks because the cities were slide shows for me. Nothing will make me stop playing a game faster than it going all unresponsive and slide-showy Is it better now?

Any idea of what the server populations are like right now for the big games?

No idea. They don't, in general, publish them. AC does, and they tend to run about 12,000 people at a time at peak times (on seven (IIRC) servers).

EQ runs much higher than that, from what I understand, while UO runs a bit less.

As for DAoC and AO, your guess is as good as mine. AO shows server pops when you log in (or they did a few months ago when I was there last), but the numbers always seemed totally absurd, so I'm not sure if they're right (if they are, they're beating EQ by a lot, which I'm pretty sure is not true).

Originally posted by Grumbold
Its a question of personal taste. The principle thing I disliked about Asherons Call was the dynamic content because unless you were riding the crest of the player population and playing constantly much of the new plot related content would open, run and then close without you getting a look in. All too often I would log on during prime UK playing time to find that the big event had showed up and been killed/solved/looted during peak US time while I was sleeping like a baby.

Hmmm, not sure I follow that, Grumbold. Content doesn't, in general, close in AC. They've retired a *very* few quests (four or five total), but, unless you have some hangup about being the *first* to run a quest , you can always do the quests whenever you feel like it. The first large quest, "The Sword of Lost Light" was introduced in Beta testing, and it's still there for anyone who wants to do it. Almost all of the other quests are the same way.

But you're right. It is a matter of taste. A lot of people really like EQ. I hated it Still, I think AC deserves a lot more recognition than it gets, although to be sure, it has its share of problems *cough*macroers*cough*

[Victor Galis]

The principle thing I disliked about Asherons Call was the dynamic content because unless you were riding the crest of the player population and playing constantly much of the new plot related content would open, run and then close without you getting a look in. All too often I would log on during prime UK playing time to find that the big event had showed up and been killed/solved/looted during peak US time while I was sleeping like a baby.

-Hurray for 3am relic raids

Yeah, but the patches there were bug fixes, while ACs are content adders. Not the same thing I played DAoC when it first came out. I stopped after a couple of weeks because the cities were slide shows for me. Nothing will make me stop playing a game faster than it going all unresponsive and slide-showy Is it better now?

-They've added plenty of content. Indeed, they went through a content-adding phase before they started messing around with the concept of a PvP server and that ate up all of their time.

No idea. They don't, in general, publish them. AC does, and they tend to run about 12,000 people at a time at peak times (on seven (IIRC) servers).

EQ runs much higher than that, from what I understand, while UO runs a bit less.

As for DAoC and AO, your guess is as good as mine. AO shows server pops when you log in (or they did a few months ago when I was there last), but the numbers always seemed totally absurd, so I'm not sure if they're right (if they are, they're beating EQ by a lot, which I'm pretty sure is not true).

-Current server population for DAoC is 5338 (mind you it's 6:40am EDT on a Tuesday). I've seen total server populations in the US hit about 25,000 before. 18 total servers.

[faded glory]

Well most MMORPG's unfortunately are time consuming and addictive. The whole MMORPG stage is more of a lifestyle then an actual game. Alot of people will spend 20 hours a day on those things.


I agree, there seem to be lots of MMORPG's and not enough playerbase.

But there are really good normal games out there.

[Victor Galis]

Well most MMORPG's unfortunately are time consuming and addictive. The whole MMORPG stage is more of a lifestyle then an actual game. Alot of people will spend 20 hours a day on those things.

-I know all about that Oy... being away from computer games for 2 months hurts.