5 ms·

> MMOs have been very viable from both a business Really? Everything that's not named World of Warcraft seems to die out, usually in less than a year. It's a g

> MMOs have been very viable from both a business Really? Everything that's not named World of Warcraft seems to die out, usually in less than a year. It's a genre that's been a notorious recipe for failure for most companies not named Blizzard.

Kevin_S 5y ago
Don't disrespect my boi Runescape like that.
tazjin 5y ago
I don't know what the situation is now that Blizzard is no longer really Blizzard, but back in the early years of WoW this was - in large part - because almost every other MMO that launched just plain sucked. Blizzard was to the gaming industry what people often believe Apple is to the hardware industry. They were the only ones that invested in polished UI, coherent UX, etc. and it was so incredibly noticeable. I'm sure a lot of this was pressure to get something out quickly to make a "WoW killer", which is what gaming media branded basically every MMO that launched after WoW.
neartheplain 5y ago
World of Warcraft is actually on the wane, and has been since 2015 when Blizzard stopped reporting subscriber numbers [0]. Big WoW streamers like Amsongold have recently switched to other MMOS, mainly Final Fantasy 14 [1], in the wake of Blizzard's sex abuse scandal and many lukewarm WoW expansions. Final Fantasy 14 has over 4 million monthly subscribers, and that number seems to be growing [2]. Amazon's MMO "New World" also had nearly 1 million concurrent users in the weeks after its recent release [3]. MMOs aren't eating the world like in 2005, but they're a solidly-established genre that looks here to stay. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/276601/number-of-world-of-warcraft-subscribers-by-quarter/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/276601/number-of-world-o... [1] https://kotaku.com/wow-disappointment-plus-twitch-start-mass-exodus-into-1847283978 https://kotaku.com/wow-disappointment-plus-twitch-start-mass... [2] https://www.ign.com/articles/2015/06/05/meet-the-man-who-redeemed-final-fantasy https://www.ign.com/articles/2015/06/05/meet-the-man-who-red... [3] https://tech4gamers.com/amazon-mmo-new-world-registered-a-peak-of-almost-a-million-simultaneous-users-on-steam/ https://tech4gamers.com/amazon-mmo-new-world-registered-a-pe...
slightwinder 5y ago
World of Warcraft is RPG. Not all MMO are MMORPGs. And there are now many MMORPGs which are similar size or even bigger than WoW is now, for years already. Though, it's true that outside asia no RPG seems to be as big as WoW was at it's peak. But MMO in general today are massive, far bigger than WoW ever was. Though, there is also far more diversity regarding world-sizes. From smaller worlds for some dozen to hundred users, to bigger world with thousands and ten thousands, to the big massive virtual continents that WoWs era defined, we have them all now.
- debaserab2 5y ago
  Just curious - what's a popular non-RPG MMO?
  - slightwinder 5y ago
    Minecraft, Roblox, Second Life (probably, not sure whether this counts as game). Pretty much every Multiplayer Sandbox-World nowadays is able to scale up to MMO. At usually out of the box they are not RPG, even though they can be modded to be RPG. Similar things happening at GTA5 or RDR2, where the basegame is not RPG on a technical, but RPG by world-setting and gaming-style. Then we have the endless amounts of wargames[1], shoots[2] and old browser-games[3]. Or the newer genre of battle royale, where we have hundreds of players per session in some game. Though, there is not much richful interaction between the players outside the game, it's all just simple chat or even none at all. Though, I heard Fortnite has gained some persistent world-aspects outside the game-sessions? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massively_multiplayer_online_real-time_strategy_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massively_multiplayer_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massively_multiplayer_online_first-person_shooter_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massively_multiplayer_... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massively_multiplayer_online_turn-based_strategy_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massively_multiplayer_...
    - bduerst 5y ago
      Other than Second Life, those aren't really persistent virtual worlds. Video game worlds, sure, but do you really see Facebook creating video games for it's blue site and instagram audience?
matty22 5y ago
FFXIV has something like 24 million subs right now and growing.

Kevin_S 5y ago

Don't disrespect my boi Runescape like that.

tazjin 5y ago

I don't know what the situation is now that Blizzard is no longer really Blizzard, but back in the early years of WoW this was - in large part - because almost every other MMO that launched just plain sucked. Blizzard was to the gaming industry what people often believe Apple is to the hardware industry. They were the only ones that invested in polished UI, coherent UX, etc. and it was so incredibly noticeable. I'm sure a lot of this was pressure to get something out quickly to make a "WoW killer", which is what gaming media branded basically every MMO that launched after WoW.

neartheplain 5y ago

World of Warcraft is actually on the wane, and has been since 2015 when Blizzard stopped reporting subscriber numbers [0]. Big WoW streamers like Amsongold have recently switched to other MMOS, mainly Final Fantasy 14 [1], in the wake of Blizzard's sex abuse scandal and many lukewarm WoW expansions. Final Fantasy 14 has over 4 million monthly subscribers, and that number seems to be growing [2]. Amazon's MMO "New World" also had nearly 1 million concurrent users in the weeks after its recent release [3]. MMOs aren't eating the world like in 2005, but they're a solidly-established genre that looks here to stay. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/276601/number-of-world-of-warcraft-subscribers-by-quarter/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/276601/number-of-world-o... [1] https://kotaku.com/wow-disappointment-plus-twitch-start-mass-exodus-into-1847283978 https://kotaku.com/wow-disappointment-plus-twitch-start-mass... [2] https://www.ign.com/articles/2015/06/05/meet-the-man-who-redeemed-final-fantasy https://www.ign.com/articles/2015/06/05/meet-the-man-who-red... [3] https://tech4gamers.com/amazon-mmo-new-world-registered-a-peak-of-almost-a-million-simultaneous-users-on-steam/ https://tech4gamers.com/amazon-mmo-new-world-registered-a-pe...

slightwinder 5y ago

World of Warcraft is RPG. Not all MMO are MMORPGs. And there are now many MMORPGs which are similar size or even bigger than WoW is now, for years already. Though, it's true that outside asia no RPG seems to be as big as WoW was at it's peak. But MMO in general today are massive, far bigger than WoW ever was. Though, there is also far more diversity regarding world-sizes. From smaller worlds for some dozen to hundred users, to bigger world with thousands and ten thousands, to the big massive virtual continents that WoWs era defined, we have them all now.

debaserab2 5y ago
Just curious - what's a popular non-RPG MMO?
- slightwinder 5y ago
  Minecraft, Roblox, Second Life (probably, not sure whether this counts as game). Pretty much every Multiplayer Sandbox-World nowadays is able to scale up to MMO. At usually out of the box they are not RPG, even though they can be modded to be RPG. Similar things happening at GTA5 or RDR2, where the basegame is not RPG on a technical, but RPG by world-setting and gaming-style. Then we have the endless amounts of wargames[1], shoots[2] and old browser-games[3]. Or the newer genre of battle royale, where we have hundreds of players per session in some game. Though, there is not much richful interaction between the players outside the game, it's all just simple chat or even none at all. Though, I heard Fortnite has gained some persistent world-aspects outside the game-sessions? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massively_multiplayer_online_real-time_strategy_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massively_multiplayer_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massively_multiplayer_online_first-person_shooter_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massively_multiplayer_... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massively_multiplayer_online_turn-based_strategy_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massively_multiplayer_...
  - bduerst 5y ago
    Other than Second Life, those aren't really persistent virtual worlds. Video game worlds, sure, but do you really see Facebook creating video games for it's blue site and instagram audience?

matty22 5y ago

FFXIV has something like 24 million subs right now and growing.