MMOs Don’t Die, They Just Fade to Grey

Since Syp from Bio Break was so kind as to piggyback on a post of mine regarding Star Wars: The Old Republic last week, I thought I’d do the same.

The Sypster (who still needs to follow PhoenixRed on Twitter) writes today about how Everquest has news of a new expansion coming down the line, something seemingly unheard of in a game so old. Not surprisingly, I have to share in Syp’s optimism for MMOs. Despite people’s need to be correct or right on the internets and make every attempt to declare any MMO that doesn’t meet expectations as “epic fail”, “dying”, or “dead”, the reality is that most MMOs out there rarely go the way of the dodo. I could count on one hand the number of pay-to-play titles that have been canned in the last 7 or 8 years I’ve been playing online games, and of those, only a couple got wrecked within the first year or so.

MMOs declared by player perception to be utter failures are still actually active, meaning either A)operating costs are lower than actual profit, making it worthwhile to keep going or B)there’s still a market for said game. The first popularly known graphical MMO, Ultima Online, is slated to get an expansion, and still runs. Games like FFXI and Ragnarok Online still draw in their target audiences. A re-design of Star Wars Galaxies still hasn’t stopped SOE from announcing a new quest creation system and housing details. Recent releases like Age of Conan and Warhammer Online have taken subscription hits but still soldier on.

In a way, MMOs sort of need players to leave them alone for a while, allowing developers to focus on core flaws that need fixing, new content, and keeping players who are loyal to them happy. Being pressured by immense marketing hype, sometimes scathing coverage of a patch gone wrong, and forum goers with little communication skill beyond the words “lol”, “stfu”, and “kin i haf ur stuff” can be grating and distracting to MMO developers. From a certain perspective, they need to fade into the background, allowing other titles to step into the hype limelight, while they work behind a grey fog of relative quiet to deal with things.

In some respects, an MMO that gets this kind of breathing room can have positive long-term effects. If you look at titles like EVE and LoTRO, who enjoyed high visibility releases followed by a period of malaise, post-hype, you can see that any decently designed game with a dedicated development team can become more agile and able to fix their issues. This leads to a curiosity and uptrend of subscriptions from non-MMO tourists (i.e. the “wait and see” crowd) and maybe, just maybe, a decent, successful product.

Post-World of Warcraft, MMOs have gone through curious roller coasters that have been steep in their ups and downs. But not many of them go to an early grave – they just shutter themselves indoors to roll up their sleeves and get to work. That can’t be a bad thing.

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