[MUD-Dev] MMORPG Cancellations: The sky is falling?

[Michael Sellers]

Michael Hartman wrote:

> The discussion on TerraNova about UOX's cancellation prompted
> this, but I'm interested to hear the opinions of the folks here on
> whether or not the recent series of MMORPG cancellations is really
> anything to worry about.

For many people working on MMOs today, I'd say "almost certainly."
But this conclusion depends on what you're using to sell your MMO.
As someone else has said, this relates to the idea of USPs for MMOs
-- if what you're selling is based pretty much on what everyone else
is selling, then it's hardly unique (and thus, not likely to be more
than marginally valuable to large numbers of customers who already
have that feature in their current game(s)).  What's becoming clear
is that while there is a growing market for MMOs, it's not an
infinite market.  In particular, while the online games market is
growing fast, the hard-core MMOG market is growing slowly if at all.
As with most other kinds of products, you can fail spectacularly by
being too far ahead or outside of that market (MCO, There.com),
being an undistinguished also-ran (many current games including UXO,
maybe CoH and WoW), or just not providing sufficient gameplay (TSO).

The safe course for any MMOG is to offer familiar gameplay.  AC2,
E&B, SWG, UXO, EQ2, WoW, CoH, and others have gone or are going down
this path, albeit with minor tweaks for each.  Will putting fantasy
heroes in superhero clothes make a significant difference to a
sufficient number of people, such that enough of them are attracted
and retained by the game?  The jury's still out.  Will having a
Warcraft-themed environment or a "really pretty EQ" be enough to
justify the developer/publisher investment required in these games?
Possibly, but it seems less likely to me day by day.  AC2 tried the
"great graphics" route without success; SWG tried that with the
world's best license, and yet it hasn't blown the top off the market
as we all hoped it would.  Does EQ2 have a strong chance of
attracting non-EQ players to it?  Could be, and I hope so, but I
don't see how.

So the question becomes, has *ANY* MMOG since DAoC succeeded
(defined as: not just being cash-positive, but providing sufficient
ROI for the company and/or investors) by going the typical
fight/craft/social/treadmill route?  Probably you could say FFXI
has, but I don't know how it's been doing lately.  I haven't heard
anything about Lineage II's numbers either -- maybe someone else
here knows.  Despite its good press I suspect even SWG will take 3-4
years minimum to be profitable (factoring in high development
costs), and still won't be a huge hit from the spreadsheet POV.

But even if those games (and a number of games in the distinctive
Asian market, still almost entirely separate from the Americas and
Europe) do manage to succeed using this gameplay model, I think
anyone looking at this for their product has to seriously ask
whether they can buck the clear trend of lackluster commercial
performance, and if so, how.  The "if you build it they will come"
hope/myth is dead.  How a MMOG truly differentiates itself enough to
attract paying customers is a very difficult question that I think
gets too little attention (caveat: too much attention to this
question isn't necessarily a good thing either -- it's easy to
convince yourself that no new product has a reasonably good chance
of success this way!).

IMO, the new successes we're going to see in the next 2-4 years are
going to come from something with a new gameplay model.  There.com
may have not done sufficiently well in the consumer arena, but it
has some very interesting successes that are worth considering.
Second Life is sitting at around 10K subscribers, but with its
pay-for-land model it's difficult to say whether it's a commercial
success or not (my guess: close or barely but not soundly
successful).  I think the fantasy and science-fiction settings are
going to be fertile for years, but not the way we think now.  My
suspicion is that the next really successful fantasy MMOG will feel
and play almost nothing like what's out there now.  How long until
we see this is anyone's guess.  But personally I can't imagine
taking a bet in the range of multiple millions of dollars that
another MMOG substantially similar to many that have come before it
is going to be an unexpected breakout hit.

They say that doing the same thing over and over and expecting
different results is the definition of insanity.  With all due
respect to the many very talented and creative people working at the
larger game houses, I believe this is the primary lesson we can take
from their experiences in the development of MMOGs.

Mike Sellers
Online Alchemy
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