Warhammer Online PC MMO Cancelled

An anonymous reader writes "Another MMORPG bites the dust before it's out - the Games Workshop/Climax co-produced Warhammer Online PC MMO has just announced on the official website that the project is canned, apparently following 'a full review of the progress of the game, costs to date and future costs of the project.'" Over at the Warhammer Warcry fansite, there's an official FAQ with plenty of info on the allegedly near-completed ("the release date is currently penciled in for Summer 2004"), Sega-published title, which was shown at E3 this year without any hint of its grisly fate, shared by fellow PC MMO Mythica and by console MMORPG True Fantasy Live Online.

Comments

E3 report.

[will_die]

One of the E3 reports on WO reported that the devs said they had over 1 1/2 years left on development and that thier were a big disagreement on various design point.

Market Saturation

[Datasage]

MMO's have a disadvantage, they require a subscribtion. Thus limiting the potential audience of that type of game. MMO's are also the most expensive type of game to develop.

Where getting to a point, where we have many mmo games about to be released. These types of games need a certain amount of people subscribing to stay profitable. They are all try to grab at the same small audience. There are going to be alot more that will get canceled or not last long after release.

Re:Market Saturation

[*weasel]

MMO's have a disadvantage, they require a subscribtion.

Monthly fees are not a requirement.

Publishers need to add the option of hourly pricing; with daily, weekly and monthly caps. Structure it so the hardcore users fees cap at the going rate (~$15/mo), but make it possible for people to casually play a few hours a week at a buck an hour or so.

Give people the option of 'precharging' a sort of game-/publisher-specific debit card. Deduct costs from that as they play (instead of trying to charge them after the fact). When the debit card runs dry: they can recharge if they like. Have an option for a regular monthly recharge, but don't require it.

MMO's are also the most expensive type of game to develop

Perhaps true in certain instances, but pretty far from necessary. I'm certain that City of Heroes cost NCSoft less money to develop and launch than Valve has spent on Half-life2, for example.

These games can be made with titanic budgets, but by no means must they.

They are all try to grab at the same small audience.

When UO released, it didn't take any significant chunk of customers from M59. EQ didn't take any significant chunk of customers from UO. AC, AO, DAoC, et al -- they didn't steal customers from anyone else.

There is no reason to assume these games are fighting over the same customers. That sort of situation has not been born out by the data. These games attract their own audiences -- mostly made up of people who just weren't happy with any of the other offerings.

While the genre may run into a barrier at some point (particularly if they continue to insist on monthly fees), it isn't there yet.

There are going to be alot more that will get canceled or not last long after release.

Most games never make it. In the persistent world gaming niche, hyping games still well in development is even more egregiously done than anywhere else in gaming. Seeing more and more cancellations is inevitable. The cancelling of UO2, Hero's Journey, and MEO (the first time), was not indicative of any sort of audience cap or uncertainty in the genre. It was just a couple hyped worlds that got canned for various reasons. It was only indicative of game development being a long and difficult process that not many projects survive through.

Look at the games we're talking about here: Warhammer Online, and TFLO -- both projected to be somewhere around 18 months late if financed through completion. Cancelling a project that's a year and a half behind doesn't sound to me like the market dried up. It sounds to me like the momentum fell apart months ago, and they're cutting their losses.

Mythica might well have been on-time, but MS doesn't invest like NCSoft does. It spends big on everything, and it only needed one monolithic persistent world game -- and McQuaid and co draw more press, more fan-base, and more investor confidence.

Re:Market Saturation

[*weasel]

The whole point of this recounting is to say, again IMHO, that in fact, many players only play one of these games at a time.

I absolutely agree with that statement. Particularly since publishers clinging to the monthly subscription fees means most people simply can't justify the time nor monetary expense of more than one of these games.

However, my point is simply that statistically insignificant numbers of active subscriptions of existing games are cancelled and moved to A New Game. While anecdotal evidence is sure to exist, it is the rare exception, not the rule.

If there really is a total cap on the audience size, and there may well be, it simply hasn't been met.

No game yet has survived or failed based on its (in)ability to take even disgruntled active accounts from other games. They've succeeded or failed based on the merits of their CS, their launch, and a design that finds a new crowd.

There's no reason to think that anything short of a clone of an existing game would need to actually take subscribers to succeed.

I'm a Warhammer fan...

[jwdb]

... and I couldn't care less! Half the fun in WH is collecting the pieces and making the terrain, and it's a good way to waste some time in RL with friends.
There is nothing special about the game mechanics of WH. It has a cool story and some interesting units, but I think that the real appeal is that it's something physical instead of digital.

Jw

Re:I'm a Warhammer fan...

[jschmidt]

I disagree. I love the world of Warhammer (fantasy and 40k) for the rich possibilities for stories within them. I've played various WH tabletop games (Rogue Trader, 40k, Epic, Space Hulk, Tyrannid Attack) but the most fun I've ever had with the WH worlds is with roleplaying, in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and homebrew WH40k RPG settings.

The fantasy MMORPG market is poorer for this loss.

Chickening out of the MMORPG market

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of developers are losing their nerve where the MMORPG market is concerned at the moment. Can't say I blame them.

The potential benefits and risks of developing a MMORPG are higher than for any other type of game. Development costs are huge, a buggy release can ruin your reputation and once you've released, you need to continue paying for further development of the game. The flip side is that if it works, not only do you get decent sales (the MMORPG market is pretty big, compared to... say... the market for FPSes or RTSes), but you get a steady stream of cash from subscriptions, which cover your ongoing costs and provide an extra profit.

However, getting a MMORPG to work is incredibly difficult. Gamers who tend to play more of another genre will generally play quite a large number of games from that genre. Aside from the obsessive hardcore (who are never worth marketing to in non-MMO genres), you can generally rely on gamers in a particular genre to pick up a new title in that genre if it gets good critical and word-of-mouth publicity. This doesn't happen with MMORPGs. Players invest a lot of time and effort into MMORPG characters; starting out afresh every few months in a new game doesn't hold much appeal.

As such, the existing MMORPG market is always going to be extremely hard to prey upon. You'll get a few defections from the older games, as their technological obsolescence becomes even more strikingly obvious, but if you want to be a success, you need to bring a fresh influx of players to the genre. At the moment, this only seems possible through having a drastically different take on the genre (City of Heroes) or, more normally, through having a powerful license. Star Wars Galaxies has done fairly well, due to the Star Wars name, which has drawn in people who wouldn't normally have touched a MMORPG. Final Fantasy XI has done even better, as it managed to marry a very strong license to a game which wasn't horribly bugged and/or content deprived at the time of its US release. If Blizzard play their cards right, World of Warcraft should also be a success on this basis.

However, the result of this is that MMORPG development is currently looking like a really bad prospect for developers who don't have a big license or radical gameplay twist.

Re:Fist Sport!

[Zhirem]

Not certain what you are speaking about here. How can a game that has not been released and still has months of development left have any market share? Doesn't it have to be a product first? Or are you talking about 'buzz rating' or 'mind space'?

And what 'recent article' put EQ's marketshare at 80% of the MMORPG market?! I find that claim dubious.

Am I missing something here, or are you posting from the future?

- Zhirem