On The Over-Saturation Of MMO Games

An anonymous reader writes "Stratics has an editorial discussing MMO market saturation, specifically triggered by the recent closure of Microsoft's massively multiplayer PC game, Mythica. The piece argues: 'But there is a dark realization that is now being considered, just when does it end? When does the genre hit the ceiling and all that ends up happening is [that] companies resort to passing around subscriptions with no real growth. This is a question that is haunting corporations who have potential products laid before senior management - just how long can it continue? When does the opportunity cost grow larger than any potential earning?'"

Comments

time

[h0mer]

I could be totally wrong, but whoever puts out the first MMO that's fun to play without investing ludicrous amounts of time in it will make a pretty penny. Something along the lines of online PS2 game My Street, except, you know, good. Problem is, it's a lot easier to make some more shitty monster models and yet another barren wasteland in EQ than to make some interesting content.

So far all I've seen is leveling with swords, leveling with light sabers, etc. Who is going to innovate first?

Why I don't play any MMOG's anymore

[Mantrid]

The main problem for me with these games - except for this I could probably see pitching in for maybe two a month - is the absolute time suckers these games are. Now some games I can spend a lot of time on don't get me wrong, but the problem with a MMOG is that you can't just hit "pause" or save and quit when something IRL comes up. There's always a battle to finish or a safe spot to find. The publishers are so worried about the cheaters that they place ever more demanding conditions on the player exiting the game.

Now clearly if my son starts crying or something like that I can just pull the plug and attend to my RL responsibilities, these are after all, only games. But what fun is it to return at a later time, stripped naked, missing hard earned XP, and with a corpse to find?

Ironically Mythica might've been a bit better - as I understood it, it revolved around shorter, pocket dungeons, making it easier to pick up and play and leave.

Ah well back to X2 :)

Great for career gamers but..

[mwheeler01]

I was never very attracted to MMO gaming because of my ego I guess. For the same reasons online FPSs aren't very fun to me unless it's with people I know. It's the little fish, big pond story. IMHO MMO games need to have some sort of mechanism besides keeping track of kills, experience and money that lets you know you've made a difference in the world.

Re:Great for career gamers but..

[Ayaress]

This is exactly why MMOGs with small player bases are more fun. Ashem Empires has probably about 10,000 players (if that), split onto five different servers. It's small enough that a newcommer can gain some level of notoriety among the active members of the community. Just about everywhere you go, you'll usually see somebody saying, "OMG IT'S _______!" about another player like they're celebrities. On games with hundreds of thousands or millions of players, it might as well be the line at the DMV, because nobody knows anybody.

To talk about point B, you have to reach point A

[MMaestro]

MMO games are in a horrible, horrible rut as it is. With Second Life really being the only one thats experimenting with user made content, the majority of MMO games are stuck using the same ol kill rats, level up, get phat l3wt, sell for real money, repeat. Hell we can't even get more creative characters. We're still using the basic humans, elves, and dwarves combination with a few variants (orcs, trolls, and maybe some cat/lizard race). Even the classes are relatively the same. Healer, close fighter, ranged fighter, wizard, thief..

Companies need to pitch something totally different that'll set them apart from the others. Having weekly events. Set up contests. Have the dev team make their presence known in the game and then give the players a chance to kill them (a la Ultima Online). Come up with a totally different cast of races to play as (humans, elves and dwarves are overdone. Get over it.) Let monsters be proactive, instead of being reactive. Maybe even let monsters roam into town and destroy if players don't kill it. TRY SOMETHING NEW.

MMO games are changing IMO. The problem is by the time they become good enough to earn my money, chances are I'll be playing CS2 and Quake 4.

Costs of entry getting higher

[Randar the Lava Liza]

One real problem is that as newer MMO's come out, the cost of entry is getting very high. Not in dollars, but time.

My cousin used to be a pretty fanatical Everquest player. As new expansion packs would come out, he'd have to spend hundreds of hours leveling his character up just so he'd be strong enough to try out the Planes of Power, or whatever the new hotness was. All his friends played, and played a lot too, so if he wants to quest with them he has to be fairly close in levels or he'll be pasted in any combat.

So with any new MMO people have to start over. They have a new character, no skills, and lose all their previous investment of time. If their friends don't switch, then it's another reason not to embrace a new MMO. Why go play if all your friends are still playing EQ?

The only MMO coming out that says they plan to address this is World of Warcraft. According to early interviews and alpha impressions at Gamespy, it seems that Blizzard wants you to be able to jump right in and have fun, regardless of what level you are. No more spending a few hundred hours killing giant rats and spiders so you can be tough enough to actually try doing something FUN.

So I don't know if MMO's will be inherently limited if they have proper design. The current crop of MMO's is getting very saturated however. Lowering the cost of entry (level treadmills, money, in-game loot) will certainly allow newer MMO's to compete however.
--
"Hands and feet are rarely discovered from these periods because they are usually the first thing carnivores eat. They make a tasty snack and are easy to eat."
- Dr. Graham Baker, South African Journal of Science

Re:Costs of entry getting higher

[Ayaress]

There are other games that try to address that. The one I play is set up to put a greater emphasis on equipment than levels. I've only put in about 50 hours of work into my current character to get to level 30 (after deleting probably 5,000 hours of work for no good reason except I didn't like his stat distribution), and with good equipment, I can go with my guildmates into all but the very few most dangerous areas of the game - and those are mainly because my guildmates can barely handle them without having somebody thirty levels below them tagging along and pissing off the hell hounds.

I agree on content.

[b0r0din]

No games exist that yet have the variables to account for everything. There are several factors influencing the growth of MMORPGs:

1) Built-in console gaming. Many more people play on consoles than PCs. Sure, there are console MMORPGs and the Xbox has built-in ethernet, but the PS2 and GameCube require adapters and the Xbox charges a yearly fee for access. You won't see true growth until a huge penetration in this market takes place. I'm thinking the next gen stuff will begin to do this.

2) Undeveloped/underdeveloped worlds. There is no server farm currently available that has the ability to create an entire world not bound by limits, and it may never happen, although I think it may happen in the next twenty years. MMORPGs have bought into the expansion pack mentality, which means you not only pay a monthly fee but you have to pay more now so you can access more? It's a ripoff. Of course, let's be realistic, no one can spend 7 years *cough* Doom 3 *cough* working on one project without releasing it, but most of the MMORPGs I've seen are released with tons and tons of buggy code.

3) Realistic worlds. Can we please cut down that tree with an axe, or set fire to a village, or smash that city wall? Can players then be set on fire when in a burning building? Can they be strangled to death? I think we're heading more and more toward VR but no one has yet managed to make a leap to it.

4) Boring leveling. Why is every game so hardcore on what level you are at? Why can't games be skill-based? You play a game long enough and you become skilled, in the same way you play a fighting game long enough and you can beat the button-smashers. Currently there is nothing like that, the 'skill' involves playing for months on end and killing boring creatures.

5) Player-built material. When will it finally move away from big companies supplying these, and go into open source type of framework like neverwinter nights? Maybe never, unless you want to allow anyone to release a console gaming title. And for that matter, why can't anyone release a console gaming title? Why do they have to pay Nintendo and Sony rediculous licensing fees? I have no answer to this, but it seems worlds would be much more interesting if you built a skeleton and allowed people to build on it. Playing a MMORPG game is like an amusement park ride. You ride it a few times, you enjoy it some, eventually it loses interest. Games that allow for player creativity do more for players. Games that allow for object building will the new norm, if you ask me. The more a person can do with a world, the more immersion, the longer the person will stay.

Good...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope the market becomes hyper-competitive where weak projects are snuffed out with little notice and warning.

Maybe then, the genre could actually have some quality control. Anyone remember the last MMO release that didn't require excessive patching?

It's not just a event-play issue. These games just aren't DONE. I cannot think of a single release that came out feature-complete, let alone balanced and finished.

MMO developers and marketers need to learn to finish their projects and deliver what they promise. I can think of no greater justice then having them prey upon each other for customers/development fees.

The market is Over-Saturated

[JavaLord]

But not because MMO's have hit their peak. It's that all of the MMO's are the same. As another poster pointed out, they all have the same classes. But on top of that, they pretty much all have the same rules. No, or very limited PKing. Horrid point and click combat systems which don't appeal to the mainstream gamer. I think MMO's will really take off when they are blended correctly with fps games. Picture a MMO where combat is like Quake or Unreal but you can gain experence and new items/powers/gold from killing people/NPC's ala a RPG. Sure your level 60 character might be able to kill that level 1 guy, unless level 1 guy happens to be thresh.

Most of the MMO's now cater to the care bears, have too many rules, are overly complex, have poor combat systems,and are a time sink. Once this stuff goes, MMO's will really go mainstream.

MMO makers need to get off their high horse of "Creating Virtual Worlds" and focus on the fact that they are creating games. The thing to remember when making games is "Easy to play/learn, difficult to master". The current MMO's are "Difficult to learn, easy to master" (as long as you are willing to spend the time)

Re:The market is Over-Saturated

[Trent_Alkaline]

I think this is a great response. I've been around the MMO scene since about 98' now, started with oldschool Ultima Online and played just about every flavor of the month since. The main argument you see on the subject of PVP/PK is a small minority of players for PVP, and a larger majority for PVE (player vs enviroment also known as "carebear"). Now that always wins the debate in the developers eyes, so they tend to swing the game in favor of the majority of their playerbase. The point you bring to the table, is that in the more mainstream gamer world, the FPS tends to dominate the RPG. I don't have hard numbers off hand, and correct me if i'm wrong, but I seem to recall counter-strike having a playerbase of something around 1-2 million, whereas the top (US) mmo's cap out at around 100,000-400,000 subscribers. This brings a whole new angle on the dead horse debate of whether the majority of gamers are for pvp or against it, really I think there is a large untapped resource waiting. Although I still think it will be a few years til they get the formula right, as we saw with planetside just merging RPG and FPS doesn't work. Games like Savage come to mind also, but I don't think that will ever reach the level of games like Unreal, Quake, Counter-Strike or Battlefield 1942. I think the largest factor that holds MMO's back is the monthly cost. A lot of gamers see that 11-14$ a month and are scared off immediatly. Over the next few years as bandwith increases in availability possibly those prices can be brought down. That doesnt solve the problem of paying the staff for support and continued developement though. I would really like to see an open-source type MMO to come out, Neverwinter Nights kinda took that approach with being able to "link" worlds together , but that never really launched into "mmo" proportions to my knowledge. If we could get a game like planetside, but without the monthly costs I could really see it being the next "big" thing.

Re:The market is Over-Saturated

[JavaLord]

The main argument you see on the subject of PVP/PK is a small minority of players for PVP, and a larger majority for PVE (player vs enviroment also known as "carebear"). Now that always wins the debate in the developers eyes, so they tend to swing the game in favor of the majority of their playerbase. The point you bring to the table, is that in the more mainstream gamer world, the FPS tends to dominate the RPG. I don't have hard numbers off hand, and correct me if i'm wrong, but I seem to recall counter-strike having a playerbase of something around 1-2 million

CS has a huge player base, I'm not sure what it is, but the game is at least 6-7 years old and it is the most played FPS.

whereas the top (US) mmo's cap out at around 100,000-400,000 subscribers. This brings a whole new angle on the dead horse debate of whether the majority of gamers are for pvp or against it, really I think there is a large untapped resource waiting.

I think most casual players would actually be for it. Look at how many online games involve some sort of killing.

Although I still think it will be a few years til they get the formula right, as we saw with planetside just merging RPG and FPS doesn't work.

I think planetside was a first attempt, but not a very good one from what I've heard. There is actually a Counter Strike mod out there where you gain experence per kill and can gain all sorts of special powers by your experence. The server remembers who you are, so you can come back and still have everything you have earned.

Games like Savage come to mind also, but I don't think that will ever reach the level of games like Unreal, Quake, Counter-Strike or Battlefield 1942.

I think it could, but the games that have tried have been kludgy. There was a cyberpunk game that tried to be a fps/mmo but it didn't workout too well either. First tries aren't always successful like UO was though. The problem is, except for sony most of the gaming companies who would try this sort of thing would be start ups. Established companies don't want to risk anything on a "new" game. Especially a MMO which takes up so much in resources to make.

I think the largest factor that holds MMO's back is the monthly cost. A lot of gamers see that 11-14$ a month and are scared off immediatly.

I think it's cost per month, plus the cost of software. The best thing MMO's could do is realize they are selling the service and give away the software for free over the net with a free 2 week trial period. Most MMO's do this after being on the market for a year or two. But by then not as many people care.

Over the next few years as bandwith increases in availability possibly those prices can be brought down. That doesnt solve the problem of paying the staff for support and continued developement though.

As a player, I wouldn't mind the $10-$15 a month, but $10-$15 a month on top of 50 up front kinda sucks.

I would really like to see an open-source type MMO to come out, Neverwinter Nights kinda took that approach with being able to "link" worlds together , but that never really launched into "mmo" proportions to my knowledge. If we could get a game like planetside, but without the monthly costs I could really see it being the next "big" thing.

It's funny that MMO's haven't caught on with the open source community. I see so many people saying "I want to write my own MMO!" but it's nearly impossible for one person to code something like that. It seems like the perfect project to do open source if you could get 25-50 programmers to put in the time to code small pieces of it.

Re:MMO is just starting.

[@madeus]

Though I wish it were so I don't think this is what's like to happen (certainly not any time in the next few decades). If this approached worked as well in practice as it did in principle all the software we would use would be done using very high level tools (that is everyone would use Visual Basic for development of all Window applications). I think the specific requirements of each time of game will mean that developers will need fined grained access to tweak and alter the behavior at a low level.

I that in truth specific requirements mean that developers will continue to hammer out their own engines, I do agree that there will be consolidation in this - I think we'll see more an more people use 'off the shelf' 3D licences like Epic's Unreal engine (and ultimately, free open source equivolents) and I think those engines will either develop a net code base of their own suitble for a MM environment, or companies will set a netcode client & server engine which plugs in to a client side graphics engine (in the same way that some companies specialise in selling physics engines for games).

I can't see much in they way of a 'standard' being developed as it's not actually particularly nesseary for different games to talk to each other (the most they would need to do is talk to a central database to access a players auth details and profile, which is very straight forward). I think games will continue to be developed in the way SOE have done with EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies and PlanetSide - where they _appear_ to share code bases/ideas to some extent (there are certainly quite a few common elements between the games and almost certainly between the servers I should think), but the developers have actually built their own unique products on top of those ideas.

While of course it's certainly possible to build an extensible system that allowed fine granied control, the same practicle issues that have fragmented other systems over the years - from 3D libraries (Direct X, Open GL) to desktop display systems (Display PDF/PS, Windows/Direct Draw, the X Windowing System, etc) - will mean we are likely to just bumble on as before for quite some time IMO.

I can see us having a singular environment with my life time, but I would think we would need to at least all agree on a common standard for 3D rendering first, and a common (but customisable) physics engine to use, and a common client netcode model and world server engine. I think that this means practically this software would have to come from the open source community (or at least the standards would have to come from an independant body, like the W3C, just to give an example of the type of organisation), and wouldn't expect to see this sort of technology around and publically avalible for 20 years or so at best (HHOS: look how long we've had the X Window System and it _still_ isn't as good as NeXT's origional Display Postscript (no flame intended) and we are _still_ fighting over what do to about it).

I'd also disagree that small/niche worlds would be viable, as not only does it take a massive amount of work to create unique content for a game but critically you need quite a volume of players to keep a game feeling interesting and to feel anything other than barren and empty. If you have a large world then it takes a lot of players to do this (and of course, if you have a small world, then players will get board easily). I do realise this point is blown away somewhat in that there a _lot_ of older games out their with a small userbase that have been ticking over for many years now, but I think that's due to a rather special type of user and I don't think many people would be happy with smaller communities like that (but then again, I maybe wrong?). I find judging what other people like harder than judging what I think is likely to happen technologically :-)

Does anyone know any companies that specialise in providing terran / environment generation systems? I think something with the power of Sim City 3000's