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On The Over-Saturation Of MMO Games

Posted by simoniker on from the suspicious-dye-coloration-in-pool dept.

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?'"

1 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Why I don't play any MMOG's anymore by Mantrid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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 :)