Dragon Empires Cancelled

Posted by michael on Friday September 3, 2004 @04:33AM from the everyone-knows-dragons-aren't-real dept.

Darniaq writes "Today, Codemasters announced they are discontinuing development of their massive online game Dragon Empires. They had this to say about it: 'The decision to close Dragon Empires' development does not impact on Codemasters' long-term ambitions in the massively multiplayer online gaming market and the company remains very active in evaluating future opportunities.' It appears yet another studio has realized a persistent virtual world requires more time and effort than they wish to expend. Regardless of the true reason, I applaud the move. The massive online gaming genre does not need more games from companies unwilling to focus themselves on them."

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Finite Pool by BartulaPrime · 2004-09-03 05:51 · Score: 5, Insightful

Unless you are breaking out into new territory (City of Heroes), I find that there are too many similar MMORPGs in the market. I believe CoH to be the only MMORPG since the original EQ that has been able to draw new players into the market.
It may just be me, but most of the people I know that play MMORPGs are the same ones who play the new games when they arrive. So, you have a nomadic tribe of people moving from EQ, to DAoC, then to Horizons, and most likely to EQ2. I've stopped playing them altogether due to the time committment of work and a new baby, however, I still only played one at a time.
So, until companies figure out how to maintain a user base and keep the game fresh, I think most MMORPGs will eventually tank due to people leaving to other games, which takes away the income necessary to making patches, updates, new content, etc.