Is it still a good idea nowadays to develop MMORPGs?

Badum-Tz.

 

I'm not stating otherwise. Hell, I played the Sims when I was young too but that doesn't mean that I was part of the dominant player-base.

If you've ever done marketing research (or work for a dev team that has a marketing team), you get access a lot of data pertaining player purchases, sex, age group, etc. I'm sure you can find some data somewhere while Googling, too. The numbers would surprise you. Whenever or not you believe the data is a fair representation is irrelevant; Publishers live with that stuff.

 

But let me give you a serious answer.
I see where you are coming from. And yes, I think kids are willing and able to spend the money. It's their parents money of course. But what does that change? Kids today have a lot more money than kids Back in the days'.
And about Fred. Fred doesn't buy the 2 bucks potion. Fred buys the 6.000$ Titan in eve online and the 200$ account to fly it.

 

I've had to learn the basics about marketing as a film/tv major and while I haven't looked into the marketing numbers of video games, I wasn't objecting to you saying who was the dominant player-base of The Sims. Just the part where you claimed Little Timmy wouldn't play Call of Duty and The Sims. As for marketing data, I'm interested if it takes into account who actually played the game after it was purchased. Sure, housewives might have bought the game and played it too but does the data account for the other members of the family who used the same copy?

And does it take into account when a housewife buys The Sims for her son and not for herself? This isn't World of Warcraft where they CAN get more accurate data because it involves player accounts. They can tell more easily thus who is playing their game.

 

@Gix,

Its not even clear to me that the majority of any demographic wants instant/constant gratification. Its just the easiest type of game to produce with the least complaints. Lowest common denominator. But in the end I think most people just want good games.

Btw, yes, a lot of social games are marketed to teens. Though some of them have ways to earn credits other than by cash, like by doing offers from marketers. The company then has an alternate way to get money off of them.

 

Usually if I play a mobile game it's because I have 15 minutes to kill. But if I have hours? I'll play a game with more substance.

 

The magic number in game design is roughly 20 minutes. How long a match lasts, when should you change a tile-set or color palette, how long a gap should you have between long dialogue. Not everyone follows this but it's generally accepted among many developers. Sometimes it's not even intentional; it just feels right.

Even in high-investment games like Skyrim, you look at how they treat their environments and how long a dungeon will last and, while you can lose hours in a specific area, 20 minutes (or less) is when you should see the boss or a change of scenery.

Blizzard Entertainment has closed it to 15 minutes now. Greater Rifts in Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 (average) matches, Overwatch rounds. etc. Not sure about WoW dungeons and Raids.

The way I understand it, the instant-gratification thing is something else all together.

Actually, I was stating that little Timmy wasn't the one responsible for the Sims' rise to popularity; not that he wouldn't play it.

The data was something I've read years ago (somewhere around 2005) so I wouldn't be able pull it out and answer specifics. I think it was based off subscriptions for online games and surveys. To be honest, I was more interested in the data than how they did their job.

When I was referring to mobile games, I was talking specifically about the business model. The teen is more likely to play through despite the "disadvantage".

 

This seems to be a worldwide trend. My nephew is totally into tabletop games now. He says the experience is more personal and he gets to see his friends in the flesh more often. We seem to have come full circle Maybe the breakthrough for MMOs will come once someone combines the virtual reality of the gameworld over the physical one. I think the term is VR MMO.

 

In this you may be right. I think that the "next big thing" may indeed be Virtual Reality. And with this, MMOs could soar again - but right now, I'm not so sure...

 

Ahh, yes cherry picking, my favorite American political tactic right here in the SoTA forums

Blizzard has handled WoW absolutely atrociously, but even if it had amazing expansions, maintaining 11 million subscribers in a 10 year old game is stupid hard. So this isnt exactly earth shattering news. NCsoft is garbage, but they made all their moves during Q4 like the GW2 expansion and the Wildstar F2P conversion, and AION and Lineage II moving to steam. All this will have a significant boost their next earnings report. And many MMOs continue strong growth. FFXIV recently past 4 million subs. SWTOR just realised a huge expansion with subs increasing by a third and the game being hugley profitable.

10 years ago there were only a handful of MMORPGs to choose from, so we all crammed into whatever our friends played or our computers could handle. Now there are hundreds of them from all around the world, from dozens of different developers from tiny indie crowd funded projects to AAA studios. MMOs that cover every type of player preference from hardcore PvP sandbox, to ultra anime ******** PvE themepark and every shade in between. With so many successfully funded on Kickstarter And dozens more currently in development.

Sure, Its an industry in growing pains, but honestly it always been that way, WoW just threw the whole genre upside down for so long. But sorry Lord_Darkmoon MMORPGs arent going anywhere. Ive played dozens upon dozens of MMOs over the past 18 years, and SoTA is just as much an MMO as any of them and in some ways even more so.

 

Maybe they open up the games workshop Germany HQ again. I would apply to get my account manager job back. /bittervet