Making An MMOG For The Masses

Posted by simoniker on Friday October 10, 2003 @03:29AM from the weighty-problem dept.

Thanks to GameSpy for their article exploring whether massively multiplayer games can ever break into the mainstream. The piece starts by contrasting EverQuest's 460,000 subscribers with other media, saying: "What EverQuest is not, however, is a mass-market success. J.K. Rowling sold over nine million copies of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix this summer. Michael Jackson sold 25 million copies of 'Thriller.'" It goes on to analyze mass-market MMOG attempts such as the still-profitable, but disappointing The Sims Online, which Sims creator Will Wright says "...was the poster child for massively multiplayer games going wrong with the mass market", and Richard Garriott also comments: "...though the high concept was fabulous, [The Sims Online] suffocated under its own development weight."

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Re:BattleMaster by Anonymous Coward · 2003-10-10 05:18 · Score: 1, Funny

Yeah, that looks like a lot of fun. Except for the fact that the realms are all saying things like "we are closed and eagerly kicking out newcomers" and "there's no important positions available".

Sounds like a friendly bunch.