[MUD-Dev2] [Design] Dinosaurs evolve to chickens, MMOs evolve to massively single-player games

[Jeffrey Kesselman]

On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 11:30 PM, Mike Sellers <mike at onlinealchemy.com>wrote:

> Mike Rozak wrote:
> > But my point is that MMOs have a new USP to add: Players not
> > only don't have to buy the game from a store, they DON'T have
> > to download the entire game before they start playing. And,
> > all game updates (to content and code) are automagically
> > installed.)And, to top it off, players DON'T even have to pay
> > for the game.
>
> All of those are operative in browser-based games, some of which are MMOs
> or
> their descendants (mammals, not chickens).  These games are phenomenally
> successful --


Uh... how do you define "phenomenally successful"?

Most of these games are NOT giving out actual earnings figures.  And we
learned back in the days of the web-book that user account count ona  free
service is totally meaningless. It means they visited you once, and ptu in
their email, and thats about it.  (And in some cases, not even email is
required to initially register.)

There is a LOT of smoke and mirrors in this space.  Prediction: When it
blows away there will be very few companies left that are even positive
cash-flow.

>
>
> > ...
> > Most people on this mailing list think that single-player
> > games are missing the social aspect of gaming, which is why
> > people on this list are attracted to MMOs in the first place.
> > This is a self-selecting community.
> > To repeat: More people like rap than mozart... Most people
> > play games alone (they like rap). Most have tried MMOs
> > briefly, but returned to single-player games for various
> > reasons (like griefing, inability to change the world, not
> > enought time to keep up with friends, etc.).
>

Well, I'm certainly guilty as a member of that community.

But I don't think online games are "evolving' towards single player
experiences.  In fact I would sugegst that they are DEvovling towards single
player experiences.  What this represents is the outright failure of the
game development community to solve the core problems of online multi-player
play.

Its "giving up."




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