Garriotts See Shakeup To MMOG Industry Coming

Next Generation is reporting from the annual DICE event, and has the gist of the presentation given by Robert and Richard Garriott about the future of the MMOG industry. From the article: "Richard Garriott, father of the Ultima series said, "After a period of growth, opportunities are closing, budgets are increasing to tens of millions of dollars, and companies need global infrastructure in order to publish. My guess is that over the next 3-5 years, only five companies will operate in this business, and unfortunately, many of the startups will be gone.""

Comments

Re:Five companies?

[MarkChovain]

There's a good site that tracks subscription numbers on lots of different MMOGs here. It has dozens of games, and has been tracking subscription stats since 1997.

There is also regarded as a immune system copy, which is very comfortable usable. It does take a couple of years from now.

Up to a point.

[vertinox]

After a period of growth, opportunities are closing, budgets are increasing to tens of millions of dollars, and companies need global infrastructure in order to publish.

I think this is because in order to maximize profit, you must have the best product which requires teams of coders, hordes of graphic designers, and armies of network admins to roll out WoW, EQ, and whatever other blockbuster game comes out.

So this is what is done...

However, larger companies tend to not take risks on unproven ground so there still will be room for startups to nudge their way, but they won't be blockbusters with 100,000 players.

Eventually, after technology and bandwidth costs aren't prohibitive or a factor and the game engines have gotten as realistic as they can so there isn't anything left but to create game content, then perhaps it will be more mom and pop shops again. But this might be a while...