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[Bragr]

When World of Warcraft came out in 2004, everyone was talking about how MMOs are gonna take over everything, how you will see massive MMOs on every console, and how every franchise will dip its toes into the genre, but that never happened.

A lot of this predicted push for MMOs seemed to stem from how much money World of Warcraft and subscriptions-based models generated and the extreme time engagement players put into the product. But the MMOs after World of Warcraft not only struggled to reproduce the same success or quality but MMO fans stuck around with World of Warcraft and no other MMO reached the same heights (in the west) and the genre didn't evolve much.

But why did publishers and developers stop chasing MMOs? was it too expensive? did they struggle to retro-fit their existing franchises into an MMO genre? was the internet demands too high for most consumers? did micro-transactions and DLC prove more lucrative? were MMOs too PC-centric? did all the mediocre free-to-play MMOs oversaturate and hurt the genre?

This is very much based on the Western market, as in Asia, MMOs are a different beast. And you could argue FFXIV might invigorate MMOs and might have pushed the genre forward recently, especially since it's popular on consoles.

 

[Trimesh]

I don't think it was that developers were really that interested in them - they just saw them as having a potential to make a lot of money.
When it became obvious that in practice you were more likely to lose a lot of money the interest largely evaporated.

 

[STARSBarry]

Because quite frankly most people who entered the arena made games that where online, but they didn't foster the community required to let the game survive, in alot of ways WoW's current design is now emulating this which is why there playerbase is decreasing.

Simply put when you make an MMO you are creating a world, and that world needs to feel alive, even without you and other players.

All the MMO's iv played feature tiny quest hubs that are empty apart from the quest giver and shop sellers, you dont have NPC going on patrol, or random children running around the streets etc. Most games uses tiny instances for the overworld rather than WoW that had them for continents, it breaks the world and make it feel fake when it's so tiny with borders.

Those two things, lack of community and an empty world that feels devoid of thought and care are what I feel killed the MMO market.

Essentially you need to craft a singleplayer RPG that allows for more freedom in how to progress and more importantly, other people who care about this world you have built to experience it along with you.

 

[Inviusx]

I dont think we have the network infrastructure to support the next big leap in MMOs. The MMOs of today are just the same as 2005 WoW but with nicer graphics.

IMHO the future of MMOs will be hosted on a Streaming platform like Stadia, where players connect to a centralised network that has enough combined computing power on the hosts end to be able to handle far more people connected at once and perform far more complex routines.

Google talked about a project like this being possible on Stadia, then they killed their internal development. GG.

 

[mcjmetroid]

I'm no expert at all on the subject but my gut feeling is that as successful as some MMOs were I feel like main publishers don't see them as mainstream anymore. Whereas Battle Royales? Any dumbass will understand how to play this. Battle Royale's are an easier sell because they're far more casual.

Also it's a different landscape now as well. Gaming is even more casual than it was in 2004.

 

[greencoder]

[del]

 

[wipeout364]

Probably because they have boring gameplay mechanics that are not conducive to sitting down for 15 to 45 minutes sessions. There are a minority of players over 30 who can devote time to these games compared to Warzone, Fortnite, COD, FIFA. If people want the MMO experience then to me league of legends or DOTA are much faster and in many ways more satisfying experience.

 

[AJUMP23]

I don't think that financially they are a dud. Isn't outlanders a new MMO?

Also there is a thing called diminishing returns, market saturation. Any company before creating a product will look at the market and how much of it can they capture. If the numbers don't work, you don't build it.

I wish WoW would go away so we could get new and different warcraft content.

 

[jigglet]

It didn't turn out to be a dud. It's just that it took the industry 20 years to realise there was only room for one, ala Google Search.

 

[Cert.in.Death]

My argument: time commitment.

MMOs are specifically designed to keep you coming back and playing and there’s only so many games you can keep on your plate at one time.

The main reason I don’t play more MMOs, outside of the aforementioned, is the subscription model. It becomes too costly, so you end up not having a larger cross-section of players into the genre.

 

[SCB3]

MMO's past WoW were all trying to emulate WoW, the ones that have survived are ones of established IP's (FF XiV, ESO and Star Wars) or are older than WoW with a big fanbase (like Runscape) these days we're sold more MMO-lite experiences like Destiny, Fallout 76 and the like, smaller, more focused efforts that can make money quicker than WoW does

 

[GreenAlien]

I don't think that financially they are a dud. Isn't outlanders a new MMO?

You mean Outriders? That one is pretty much a single player game with optional coop, like Borderlands.

 

[thief183]

Nice coincidence to see thi thread now that I'm looking for a MMO to play

Actally the only MMO that looks alive is ESO, WOW, or some Korean one, and it pisses me off... I'm thinking of going back to Age of Conan....

EDIT: actually there is a new coming soon that I will be playing MORTAL ONLINE 2, full loot full pvp. Can't wait.

 

[harmny]

they turned into survival games. wow is still the best by a mile and it's 17 years old

 

[DGrayson]

I wish WoW would go away so we could get new and different warcraft content.

did you already forget the critically acclaimed WC3 remake???

 

[Batiman]

Because people realize they consume you. I’ve had friends disappear because WOW.

 

[AJUMP23]

did you already forget the critically acclaimed WC3 remake???

WE are all trying to forget it.

 

[Sethbacca]

Because they stopped evolving as soon as everything decided to become WoW like, and it's telling that WoW is still the biggest game in the genre over a decade later.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

A lot of them are just kinda boring and time consuming. In 60 minutes of play time, how many of those minutes are you doing something fun and exciting? How many are you just doing some bullshit filler? How many are you doing something that isn’t really fun in order to earn some reward later?

Man, I have a zillion options for entertainment. If you’re asking me to spend hundreds of hours in your game and pay a subscription for that privilege, you better be offering something damn good.

 

[iHaunter]

WoW's crazy success made other companies emulate it. Very few companies took risks (Outside of shitty KMMOs) to try something new that was executed successfully. TBC Classic which is an old MMO is going to be more successful than any MMO that's come out in the last 10 years. We'll see how Amazons' New World does. The only MMO I'm excited for is Ashes of Creation but it's ~3+ years away.

 

[KingT731]

You see how everyone in the thread keeps saying World of Warcraft? There's your problem. WoW was successful because it was super duper casual friendly and 80% of the MMOs coming out just tried to copy it.

 

[TheMan]

A lot of them are just kinda boring and time consuming. In 60 minutes of play time, how many of those minutes are you doing something fun and exciting? How many are you just doing some bullshit filler? How many are you doing something that isn’t really fun in order to earn some reward later?

Man, I have a zillion options for entertainment. If you’re asking me to spend hundreds of hours in your game and pay a subscription for that privilege, you better be offering something damn good.

Yeah this is a big part of it. Some people are really into the repetition and grind, but for a lot of us the filler content is not really enjoyable. And its hard to avoid making lots of filler content for these games when the expectation is that one can play for thousands of hours, not just 30 or 40.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Not sure why OP completely ignored the Battle Royale boom, which pretty clearly illustrates an important evolution of the genre.

We're still about 12+ months away from the industry taking the PUBG, Fortnite model and taking it to more interesting places. We won't be waiting too much longer.

 

[TexMex]

Because the first MMO, Ultima Online, is the best game ever made and every subsequent one could only disappoint.

 

[pr0cs]

It's really difficult balance of gameplay when you have some people who play a couple of hours a week and make it feel for them like they're making progress and having fun when you have the basement dwelling neckbeards who have 8-10+ hours a day to play, how do you keep them engaged and still playing and paying?
Content is king but you need so much of it to keep both camps engaged.

Until someone can come up with a system where time entered doesn't impact gameplay or resources MMOs will always feel and play like shit. It's a very difficult problem to solve because without that time factor most gameplay turns to shit and becomes boring.

 

[sackings]

MMOs are fine, its people that are the problem lol...I'd still be raiding FFXIV right now but its just not worth the hassle dealing with shitty players who still cant do things right after 100 attempts

 

[Thabass]

*laughs in FFXIV*

 

[zeorhymer]

Probably because each dev kept saying theirs was the "WoW killer" and it never happened. Also, you can't just expect people to stop playing WoW who have invested hundreds/thousands of hours of their lives to a brand new one to start over. It's a different era now in gaming. People aren't going to sit and play that long while there are thousands of games out there to play.

 

[Captain Toad]

Final Fantasy XIV

 

[Krappadizzle]

WoW clones galore, and publishers foolishly feeling that if they can't get WoW levels of money it's probably not worth attempting at all.

There's so much room and money to be made from interesting and unique MMO's across multiple different intellectual properties and still publishers don't want to go for it if it won't make WoW levels of money. I'd love to see more action tps/fps MMO's and we've still yet to get one that is interesting or unique.

 

[reinking]

I think devs/pubs started chasing the dollars instead of the experience. I also believe that since we have all had those experiences now it is not as big of a driving force as it once was. End game for most MMOs takes up way too much commitment too. I believe a lot of people just got tired of chasing the carrots at the end of the stick only to have the next round of DLC make the gear worthless.

 

[Kumomeme]

was it too expensive?

basically yes. the risk and loss over failure is higher than making single player game. it is not merely simply about making good gameplay. the tons of stuff need to balance in the game not just combat but also the economy for example, and unlike single player game that once done the devs can move on on other game or sequel, for mmo after years of development they need continuous support, server maintenance, patch, content update etc. it is important to keep player playing. all of this need money so thats why there tons of bussiness model exist. nothing is free. even f2p game has microtransaction because devs need to resort to that to cover their operation.

in an interview Naoki Yoshida highlight certain stuff regarding this matter:


Are MMORPGs dead?

• The “MMORPG genre is dead” is a common topic in the West.
• There aren’t that many companies around the world willing to make new MMORPGs.
• Games are usually made after receiving an investment, but since MMORPGs come with high business risks, investors have begun thinking that their invested money would be difficult to recover.
• MMORPGs nowadays can’t be as successful unless they’re large-scale games.
• Some companies want to make MMORPGs but they can’t afford it. The companies that try making MMORPGs are told by investors to just work on different genres instead.
• We’re currently in a state where those who want to make MMORPGs really can’t because of this.
• Yoshi-P’s personal opinion is that MMORPGs aren’t dead, but rather, they’re just taking a break.
• He feels that it’ll be another 10~15 years until they become big again.
• Yoshida is turning 44-years-old next year(by date of the interview), but he feels that he won’t be able to make high-tempo action games when he hits around 60. That said, an MMORPG that you can relax and enjoy would be perfect
• Yoshi-P says that playing video games is more common with his generation than the previous generation. He believes that when he gets old, we’ll be in an era where playing games will become a completely normal thing.

worth to mention during 2014 GDC presentation he said this:

Running an MMORPG is like running a country

If a dev team is the government, then players are the citizens.
→If citizens disapprove of your policies, they’ll move to Canada

 

[Spukc]

because their payment structure depends on time spend.
so they turn into a fucking drag

same as GaaS shit.
heck even battlepass it fucking sucks

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

When most MMOs launched or pivoted to F2P, it was pretty much the end. Even longer grinds, P2W, way too many currencies, etc

 

[yugoluke]

I think it is helpful to take a long view on this topic.

Why was it popular? Novelty. It was new, exciting, and uncharted territory. It leaned into a combination of concepts better than many before it. It made players feel invested in their sense of progression over time. Social gaming also started to become more mainstream at the time. There were many headwinds working in its favour.

Like the "Battle Royale" genre, with its massive success, other companies tried to capitalize on the zeitgeist. This just flooded the market is mostly bad, MMO's trying to make a buck off of the back of WOW. This muddied the reputation of the genre.

It had mechanics that were not very well understood at the time to drive engagement. As we transitioned into the social media age and became more aware of how our psychology was being manipulated to drive engagement, many just decided to not engage with this in gaming. We started to gain an understanding of how games in this genre would design all aspects of the game to increase time played, and it started to feel manipulative. And in the pyramid of manipulative and grindy gaming genres, MMO's are the pinnacle. The enjoyment per unit time felt less and less compared to other options on the market.

With f2p becoming the default business model (for multiplayer games), subscriptions to specific games looked less and less appealing. And there are a large variety of f2p games crossing multiple genres that offer more fun with less commitment. While aspects of the MMO genres have made their way into many other genre of game (loot and shoot as an example). It would seem that the best aspects of MMO's have been integrated into other genres and the not so great stuff has been left by the wayside.

 

[Bonsaibäumchen]

I've grown up playing Ultima Online as an MMORPG on a RPG freeshard.
This was actually fun.
Common MMORPG suck major balls, everyone copying WoW and Lineage.
Way to many Asian MMORPG clones.
Even those that tried to be different were bad and tedious.

I enjoyed the hardcore MMOs more though, the ones where you loose your stuff when you die and so on.
Overall though MMOS just cost to much time and they can feel like additional work. I'm not a student anymore, I've got a family.
Can't spend so much time on mmos and their social systems anymore.

 

[SupremeHoodie]

MMO’s involve a lot of coop PVE elements right? I think the formula is clear for multiplayer games now. Most people want to play against other people.

The percentage of the gaming population that wants to play against the computer is small.

 

[kunonabi]

My issue with MMOs has always been how much preconstructed stuff there is. Like if there is a castle with king and an army those should all be actual player characters. The stories should all be result of player choices not predetermined stuff with quest givers being surrounded by dozens of other players at the same time. It's all so static and inorganic. It's even worse in FFXIV where you can't actually play story missions with friends.

 

[dcx4610]

I played EverQuest and World of Warcraft for 10 years each or so. It basically comes down to one major flaw for me - You spend all of this time leveling up, getting equipment, raiding, getting more powerful and then... ????

Basically you get leveled up and powerful only for there to be nothing really to do with it. The journey is the fun in most MMOs I've played. Once you level and max out your equipment, it's like arriving to your destination and there being nothing there.

A new expansion comes out and the cycle repeats. I have no idea how you fix that problem.

 

[fart town usa]

Best thing that MMOs gave us was Leroy Jenkins.

 

[megreotsugua]

in an interview Naoki Yoshida highlight certain stuff regarding this matter:


Are MMORPGs dead?

• That said, an MMORPG that you can relax and enjoy would be perfect

Playstation Home needs a return. They might increase PS engagement through the casual players.

Will Playstation Home with Discord integration make sense?

 

[Amory]

Maintaining a quality MMO costs a shit ton of money, I'd imagine.

Seems like publishers moved to microtransactions and never looked back at the subscription model

 

[Yamisan]

What? Wow and FFXIV are still destroying sales.

 

[Griffon]

The theme-park MMO paradigm is the problem. Everyone tried to copy WoW when the concept of MMO games could offer so much more.

I'm shocked that Eve is still the only real MMO game. That game is damn old.

 

[Raven117]

I mean, there are only so many hours in a day to dedicate to something like an MMO. Over saturation is going to happen alot more quickly as there just isn't enough gamers out there that will continue to dedicate so much time to each new game. Essentially, each MMO needs to appeal to a completely new player base. (unlike something like Call of Duty, Battlefield, where you have time to play all of them and there is alot of overlap).

Sure, some hardcore play more than one, but still, only so many hours in a day.

FFXIV I think works as well as it does because of the outstanding single player content. You can play that like a single player experience up to the end of the MSQ and get alot of bang for your buck. The endgame is just gravy (even though it is robust).

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Because they can't seem to stay away from shit controls, UI overload and the ridiculous amount of time investment you need to put it to do anything; they honestly feel more like work than a videogame.
They all just turn out to be dumb timesinks.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

I don't think it was that developers were really that interested in them - they just saw them as having a potential to make a lot of money.
When it became obvious that in practice you were more likely to lose a lot of money the interest largely evaporated.

Most entertainment media is like that, how many failed COD like games? or Fortnite like games? or clones of bejewelled on mobile?

That being said, WoW and a couple of others made tons of money for their publishers, even an older game like everquest has 66 000 registered users that spend $9.99 a month on the yearly plan (that's almost 8million $ a year for a 20+ years old title, down from 3 millions)... WoW still had over 5 million subscribers not too long ago.

This does not even count the Steam / f2p players.

 

[Sygma]

When World of Warcraft came out in 2004, everyone was talking about how MMOs are gonna take over everything, how you will see massive MMOs on every console, and how every franchise will dip its toes into the genre, but that never happened.

A lot of this predicted push for MMOs seemed to stem from how much money World of Warcraft and subscriptions-based models generated and the extreme time engagement players put into the product. But the MMOs after World of Warcraft not only struggled to reproduce the same success or quality but MMO fans stuck around with World of Warcraft and no other MMO reached the same heights (in the west) and the genre didn't evolve much.

But why did publishers and developers stop chasing MMOs? was it too expensive? did they struggle to retro-fit their existing franchises into an MMO genre? was the internet demands too high for most consumers? did micro-transactions and DLC prove more lucrative? were MMOs too PC-centric? did all the mediocre free-to-play MMOs oversaturate and hurt the genre?

This is very much based on the Western market, as in Asia, MMOs are a different beast. And you could argue FFXIV might invigorate MMOs and might have pushed the genre forward recently, especially since it's popular on consoles.

There are multiple reasons for that

First off, WoW has never been the only successful MMO. Sure it made it popular on a broader perspective but Lineage 2, Guild Wars, Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot were a thing. Same for Anarchy Online. There's also an absolutely different demographic / popularity playing it in the east

Second, and this is really a mmo thing, having really good beta numbers for a mmo didn't necessarily translate to having a good launch. One of the major mmo makers in the west, Funcom, experienced that with The Secret World

Third, not all the insanely popular mmos in asia remained popular elsewhere. You just gotta have a look to NCsoft's output and look at the numbers by yourself. There's an absolutely massive difference in terms of expectation between what is tolerable for asian and the western world

Many hyper successful mmos in the east all have pay to win elements and beyond insane grind, which is something that is accepted because putting money and whatnot to have power shows some status. The absolutely beyond ludicrous amount of threads and discussions we had about that very same mentality in the west shows that pay 2 win is not something desirable at any point in time

And here's the kicker : majority of the most played f2p mmos all have the same systems when it comes down to that element. Some of the most nefarious examples are games made by Allods team (allods and Skyforge) which literally almost entirely were built around exploiting whales, while having the game built on pure f2p.

Worse, releases like blade and soul in the west showed that all the experience NCsoft had prior with guild wars didnt carry over in terms of mentality. Blade and Soul was meant to be a hardcore pvp experience but the pve grind was utterly crazy in order to unlock, you guessed it, the best spells to have to compete in pvp

In short, the niche and promising titles failed. Funcom stopped doing mmos entirely, and after what happened to Wildstar and co, most of publishers became cold feet.

Most of f2p games were released around pay 2 win components, which attracted some players who wanted to play the game and then left, leaving the game with a horrendous retention rate. Inbetween that you got the oddities, which are a bunch of sub based mmos somehow still working well


I believe the genre needs to properly adapt to the market and the demographic they're trying to attract. Looter shooters such as Destiny and Warframe managed to grab mmo players, same for Path of Exile. One of the last big big name is Lost Ark, and it might be a surprise in the west because of its brilliant PVP component (pve is plan average, but the pvp is fucking good)

I'm really not convinced that the genre is dead or something, its just that theres much more competition than before in online games with a grind component

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Because they can't seem to stay away from shit controls, UI overload and the ridiculous amount of time investment you need to put it to do anything; they honestly feel more like work than a videogame.
They all just turn out to be dumb timesinks.

Amen to that. I dont care about playing MMO games anyway, but I guess with the online party theme and need to efficiently clear raids, the UI has a shit ton of icon boxes, chat box, numbers everywhere etc... What other genre has so much clutter on the screen?

It's like a spreadsheet but with more colours.

Another reason I don;t get into them. They all look really rainbowy. Probably because they want to max out the user base making it family friendly so even a 12 year olds join in using dad's credit card.

 

[Pinktaco]

Because MMOs Arent fun-fun, however, when WoW came out it was a very unique experience, i.e. you got to play around in this well known fantasy setting, it was kind of like a dream coming true for many. Back then everything felt more alive and interactive, now the magical feeling is long gone and you mostly see veterans who get back with every new expansion and update.

Why would anyone care to go through the tiresome leveling up process, if you dont care for the world enough?

If star wars was made into an actual good MMO they would likely sell a fvck ton. You need the right IP for this.