Do MMORPG's Cause People to Buy Fewer Games at Retail?

Grimwell writes NPD reports that the video games industry isn't doing so hot in 2006. Information on a report found at GameSpot indicates that consoles are down, but PC titles are up, led by MMORPG sales. From the article: "Do MMORPG's benefit the industry by bringing in more actively involved gamers? Or do they bleed money away from other companies in the industry as MMORPG players spend their money on subscriptions and skip out on trying other games that hit the shelf because they already have something to go home to?"

Comments

Yes

[republican gourd]

Yes. Next?

In fact, several people I know (WOW addicts), are so amazed by the amount of extra money they save by not buying 3-4 games a month that they re-evaluate buying that many games even after they kick the WOW habit. So it isn't just a temporary loss... it could very well be a permanent one.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely. Halo 2 got old after a while, but once I jumped into Halo2 on Xbox Live I was hooked. Its been over 1 year and its still the best game I have ever played.

Re:Yes

[Cheapy]

If they were buying 3-4 video games a month, the video game industry might have more of a problem than MMORPGs taking money. If games are so short and unreplayable that people have to buy games that often, then something seriously needs to be rethought.

In the meantime, I'll just stick with Nethack and Battle for Wesnoth :)

Re:Yes

[Rogue974]

Yes, very true, fully agree. I recently broke the MMORPG addiction, for the 3rd time, and haven't bought many new games since. I am enjoying talking with people and going out of doors (although the sun did hurt for the first few weeks of trying to go out in it).

Re:Yes

[l3prador]

Yah, my friend was a serious addict (who just recently quit), and part of the way he justified it was that the $156/yr was much less that the 6-8 $50 games he would have bought otherwise.

Re:Yes

[Xzzy]

If games are so short and unreplayable that people have to buy games that often, then something seriously needs to be rethought.

Huh? From the perspective of the publisher, that sounds like an ideal situation. Maybe a starry-eyed idealist programmer would agree with you, but to the bean counters, expensive frequently purchased trinkets is exactly what should be done.

Re:Yes

[Cheapy]

Yeah, that's another reason why it needs to be rethought.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. It's purely a matter of free-time. MMORPG reward you for spending LOTS of time.

You buy Quake 17, you spend 40 hours of play time beating it, and then you go back to your MMORPG.
a) you are "wasting" your subscription payment by not spending time on your MMORPG
b) all your friends have now advanced by 40 hours, but you haven't moved. depending on the game, this can make it hard to group with your friends, until you can catch up.

Because the MMORPG lasts for years, any other game is viewed as "temporary". Why spend a month playing Quake 17, when you could play your MMORPG and grind out another level?

The game industry should HATE MMORPGs, since they suck up all available free time, leaving the gamer with no time to play 5 new games each month (or even 1). Only the MMORPGs benefit.

Re:Yes

[hurfy]

Ok, i know we just discussed recently....

yes and yes, it may well carry over past the orig game.

In fact, I saved money while paying for 2-3 monthly subscriptions :O

Re:Yes

[nofx_3]

The Sun? Never heard of it, what weird world do you live in with your fantasy realms called "out of doors". Man, Slashdot really does attract crazy people.
 
-kap

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been playing WoW since the release and have only purchased *one* game since then -- Battlefield 2. $15/month may "seem" expensive but it has definitely saved me money.

Tyler

Re:Yes

[ackthpt]

Yes. Next?

In fact, several people I know (WOW addicts), are so amazed by the amount of extra money they save by not buying 3-4 games a month that they re-evaluate buying that many games even after they kick the WOW habit. So it isn't just a temporary loss... it could very well be a permanent one.

Back when I first started playing online I had been spending a fair chunk of my monthly paycheck between arcade games and buying $49 titles for one of my home computers. In the 10+ years since playing online games I've probably spent less than $500 total on computer games/console games.

Re:Yes

[dino213b]

A real dad would be playing America's Army.

http://www.americasarmy.com/

Developed by uncle Sam, for the people.

Re:Yes

[Goblez]

Better than the cost of crack each month. And while meant as a joke, I know people that have switched from worse addictions like drugs or cigarettes to MMOGs. But I think it's more expensive than the 2-3 games I would personally buy in a year and fully play. Then again, I play WoW waaaaay to much, so the cost/time ratio feels about right.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

The Day Star! It burns me!

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

I will agree with you to a point. But don't you think that other factors may come into play? Such as rising fuel costs? I put $10-$15 more in gas every week than I did a couple years ago = $40-$60 less a month I have to spend on everything else. And I only have a 10 gallon tank!!! I can only imagine those with less economical vehicles trying to cope. Its not just mmorpgs its GAS!!!

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Do wives bleed time and money away from other girlfriends?

Re:Yes

[IAmTheDave]

Maybe a starry-eyed idealist programmer would agree with you, but to the bean counters, expensive frequently purchased trinkets is exactly what should be done.

I've got it for you - playing FPS and a lot of MMORG games are just so much easier with your keyboard and mouse. Ever tried to play one with a standard game controller?

Playing games with the keyboard and mouse increase your degree of acuracy, speed, and control exponentially over controller-based games. Maybe the consoles need to start coming with keyboard/mouse controllers... more games like WoW would translate over a lot easier.

Re:Yes

[sethstorm]

A real dad would be playing America's Army.
Dont you mean participating in the US Army?

Re:Yes

[L7_]

Its better than -$156/year. since I started playing games in 1999: played UO then moved onto AC in those years and there was no real "gold farmer" type professional operations, it was more single person to single person transactions when people wanted something they couldnt obtain in game. Seemingly, I made +$1.2k in 3 years selling 3 accounts on ebay... when I kicked my "addiction"'s and quit gaming for a time (it was a permanent way to stop as the entry barrier got real big). That $1.2k is way more than the subscription costs that I paid over those 3 years. In fact, if I would have sold my 60 mage last year when I quit WoW (the first time), I would have made $500... way more than the $50 box+$80 monthly fees that I spent leveling up and playing him! I choose to keep him though... hard to let go to the time investment nowadays.

So, take it from me, MMORPGs used to be +/- cashflow operations; now they seem to be all WoW eating up subscription fees! even so, the amount of money that you 'spend' on them doesnt have to be a lot!

Re:Yes

[Dmac1985]

Another issue is the one of time spent playing. Single player games have a maximum number of hours of play before you've done everything the game was programmed to do, which didn't get much above 60 hours and usually hovered around 30. With only 30 hours of gameplay per game you needed to go out and find new ones every now and then. Multiplayer games increased the number of playable hours by allowing mindless repetition of a scenario over and over with other people. Lots of fun, but it only raised the playable hours by an order of magnitude at best. MMOs have shattered this play-time boundary by requiring even more mindless repetition with even more people. Grinding up a fully epic equipped character on WoW takes literally weeks of play time.

The bottom line: forget money spent on games. If people were spending too much on MMOs, they would just pirate the games they wanted to play and declare themselves the winner over the EVAL CAPITALISM MONSTAR. The sad thing is that people who play MMOs can't even afford to pirate new games because they need to spend the time getting more nature resist gear for higher level instance runs.

In short, yes, MMOs mean less games being played.

Re:Yes

[laffer1]

You are absolutely correct. I bought my wife WoW the day it came out. It included a 10 day free trial for me. We both started at the same time. I couldn't find another copy to buy for 3 months. Her first character was already level 28 or something by the time I got the game. (i was level 9)

She started a new character with me. Since my first love is FPS games, it always ends up with her 20 or more levels ahead of me by the time I play Wow again. I only spend 5-10 hours a month playing WoW and 20-30 playing Enemy Territory. I can never keep up with her and I often need to play WoW to talk to her. :)

Another problem with the industry is that most people don't play games very long. Most of my friends don't stick with a game long enough to get more than one or two plays in with them online. Its costly keeping up. One minute battlefield 2 is hot and the next they are playing guildwars. I can't keep up anymore. I miss playing Doom or AOE2 for 5 hours with friends, etc. I've got literally hundreds of games collecting dust because no one else has them or wants to play them anymore.

Re:Yes

[zxnos]

i think these guys can explain the the sun. and 'out of doors' is what happens when places like home depot do not adequately track their sales of Disney Smooth 6 Panel 30 x 80 In. PH LH IS W/Tinkerbell 2 Theme doors.

Re:Yes

[aleksiel]

i've heard that there are bears outside...

Re:Yes

[strider2k]

A WoW addict pays a fixed subscription rate (I dunno, say $20). A hardcore gamer who buys 4 game a month pays ~$160 (assuming he/she beats 1 game a week and game price is $40 each). Now, compare $20 to $160.

When we say the games industry, what do we really mean? Blizzard is a company that is part of the games industry. It is benefitting from black marks in the payroll every single month (in the millions?). So, yes it is benefiting the games industry. But if it was $160, it would probably be $40 to four different companies. In a sense, it is benefiting 4 different companies. What I'm trying to say is that it all comes down to perspective.

But in my biased perspective, I'd say that MMORPGs are hurting the industry because it can possibly lead to less variety of games because the players will be fixed to 1 game (1 company) and the other companies lose out and may close out.

Re:Yes

[jim_v2000]

Why the hell is everything about making more money anyway? I for one don't feel bad or find it to be news that software companies find themselves making less. Why is always in the news when companies make less? I mean, wtf, did they think that they could continue to make perpetually increasing profits?

Re:Yes

[vimh42]

Yes, that is what the bean counters want. But that's not what the players want. So people realize they aren't getting good value for their money and buy less games. And the bean counters lose money. Give people more for their money & they just might buy more games.

Re:Yes

[stunt_penguin]

"but to the bean counters, expensive frequently purchased trinkets is exactly what should be done.

The bean counters need to worry solely about the quality of the game, and not the overall frequency of purchase for gamers in general. The games industry, like the movie industry has a long tail of shitty, not-worth-the-money games, and a gamer only sees about one or two games a month that is good enough to splash out €60 on and fits their taste in games.. The long tail of poo is not where the games industry makes it's money.

If this number of good games was zero as in your scenario, and the only thing that people were able to purchase were short, shit games that cost €60 and were immediately disposable then people wouldn't bother remaining gamers, they'd switch to movies or music, (and Jack Thomspson would have to get that which he needs so much, a real job).

The bottom line in the games industry is that quality sells and keeps the industry alive- other hangers-on are just there to make up the numbers, through accident or design. It's not like you can even release the games industry equivalent of the Adam Sandler movie (I see he has another steamer out this month) and expect to make a profit- games makers don't have much of the type of unaware-how-shit-this-thing-is audience that movie makers have.

In the TV world, the real sellers are 24, Lost, Sex in the City, The Sopranos, Desperate Housewives, CSI. No TV beancounter would dare say 'hey lets fund another 10 series of family fortune' instead of any of these shows no more than a games industry bencounter would say 'you know what, I think it's time we made another Sonic sequel' because he could be funding another Battlefield 2, World of Warcraft, Oblivion, Ghost Recon:Advanced Warfighter- projects that keep the games industry alive and make it worth it to be a gamer in the way that Lost and 24 makes it worth it to buy a TV and put up with advertising.

If you build it (and it's good) they will come.

Re:Yes

[ceoyoyo]

I know a WOW addict. I was telling her how I didn't have time to make paying a monthly fee for a MMPORG worthwhile. She told me, in all seriousness, "it actually saves me money. I don't have to pay to go out and do things anymore."

Re:Yes

[ostawookiee]

The above-mentioned trinkets drop from the Neverseen Dragon in Molten Core but they're BOP and the drop rate is really low so you're looking at about 5 days of farming.

Re:Yes

[cloudkiller]

I know what you are talking about man. I've never even heard of this "buying a game" concept. I thought everyone got their music and games as torrents. My philosophy has always been, if I can't eat it, I'm not buying it. I better go and finish eating my AMD now.

Re:Yes

[vimh42]

You should have gone to Zul'Furrak. It's sunny there.

Re:Yes

[AzsxQuii]

The wrong question. The correct question is how much money is being spent on games per month. With MMORPG there is usually a monthly fee assesed which, even if people are not spending the money on additional games, they are still spending the money on playing the game. So even though the game market claims to loose because of the one time purchase...I argue that the TCO is higher for these types of games. Plus, others may argue that once you put down a MMORPG the replay value drops down to zero. Forcing people to want to purchase an additional game.

Re:Yes

[flibuste]

I've heard that "SUN" is something that attracts people out of their computerized office. I am not sure exactly how it works but some say it casts "rays" of "sunshine" (I call it buzzword!) that are supposed to make you feel better. My educated guess is that it probably works by attracting people like lightbulbs do for insects at night.

It also has been reported that a few 'female' of the non-geek specy actually enjoy "sunshine" because it is supposed to make them prettier by a process they call "sun tan".

Crazy stuff if you ask me!

Re:Yes

[pilgrim23]

Could it be that after playing the Demo people shrug and say "its been done"? That was exactly my son's reaction the Prey demo having previously played Doom 3. It is not the imersive nature of games that is to blame, it is the copy-cat nature of current titles with out a "New Thing"(tm) to WoW people...

Re:Yes

[orielbean]

Word to that. It is less than a product, more like a biz model. Ask your cellphone provider how much your phone cost them from the manufacturer.

Re:Yes

[batmonkey]

Absolutely agree with you, Insightful Anonymous Coward, 100%.

The reason I don't "invest" in MMORPGs anymore is that I've got a fairly active and randomly scheduled life...to reap the benefit if a subscription, I'd have to give up on too many other things I want - and need - to do.

At some point, subscription-based gaming experiences should offer a "punchcard" option for those who don't want to waste money on time that doesn't get used.

Re:Yes

[colinbrash]

The bean counters need to worry solely about the quality of the game, and not the overall frequency of purchase for gamers in general.... If you build it (and it's good) they will come.

This is a lovely picture of how the world ought to be, but it is not an accurate one. As in pretty much every other area in the world, a high quality product is neither necessary nor sufficient to generate profit.

Quality costs money, and people are willing to sacrifice quality to save money. This is true in the game industry, just as it is true in all other aspects of life.

Re:Yes

[mrbooze]

If they were buying 3-4 video games a month, the video game industry might have more of a problem than MMORPGs taking money. If games are so short and unreplayable that people have to buy games that often, then something seriously needs to be rethought.

By that logic, movies would be better if they were 24 hours long, and novels should be 100,000 pages.

I love movies, and books, and games. That means I actually want to experience many of them, not buy one book and spend the next 5 months reading it, or reading it over and over again.

If I get 10-20 hours of *good* play out of a game then I'm perfectly happy with that. This is mostly with story-driven-type games though, which I tend to gravitate to. When I hear that some RPG has "100 hours of gameplay" I usually suspect that's bullshit and is padded out with half-assed reasons to replay the game. (Start over from the beginning, but *this* time as a *dark* elf! The story is pretty much the same, but we have different text at the ending! And a couple of the NPCs will be rude to you!)

Re:Yes

[DrXym]

Think of all the money they save on real life activities too :)

Re:Yes

[vertinox]

Huh? From the perspective of the publisher, that sounds like an ideal situation. Maybe a starry-eyed idealist programmer would agree with you, but to the bean counters, expensive frequently purchased trinkets is exactly what should be done.

At least until all your customers associates your corporate logo with a warning sign of the plague.

Re:Yes

[feepness]

d make it worth it to be a gamer in the way that Lost and 24 makes it worth it to buy a TV and put up with advertising.

They still have advertising on TV?

Re:Yes

[norman619]

LOL. I feel games like WOW are nothing new. Jsut more of the same. Chat and repetative quests. I feel paying full price THEN being required to pay a monthly subcription fee to play the game you just bought is a rip big time. Give me Halo 1,2,3 or HL1,2 any day. MMORPG's are a wind fall for the publishers for sure. Sony reps came to my Cg school and we asked them how much money they made from EQ. They grinned real big and said they pulled in from just subscriptions $3 million monthly easily. Kinda summed up the whole reason why publishers are trying to come up with their own. I fail to see the apeal of these games. The graphics aren't all that great. the game play becomes pretty blah after a week or two and you accomplish nothing in the game. It becomes more like Myspace.com with mini games and less like a real RPG videogame. I personally like to test drive a game before buying it. I hate the idea of spending over $50 on a game and having it suck more than a freaking blackhole. And lets face it, there aren't that many gems being produced by the industry as of late. Kinda reminds me of hollywood. Publishers should be making better games not looking to make the prettiest POS and charging an arm and a leg for it. Games like Halo and Halflife are great examples of games that were def worth the money you paid for them. Great game play and an engrossing story. So No MMORPG's are not getting any of my money. Most of the kids and adults I know say the same thing. Even about WoW.

Re:Yes

[DenDude]

Only when the damn scourge aren't attacking

Re:Yes

[ferat]

Not so much amazed. I feel it is in fact the point of playing an MMO.

Heck, even with me paying for 2-3 accounts on average, I still save money.

I don't buy games that I get bored with after a few hours at $50 a pop.
I don't go to many movies (aside for a select few I'm happy to wait for em to show up on cable/ppv)
I tend to eat in rather than getting takeout all the time

I save tons of money. And oddly talk to people far more often than I used to. All my friends play, we have a vent server, so we chat all night, and end up arranging more get togethers as a result of it than we used to.

MMORPGs were a bad idea for the entertainment industry ;p

Re:Yes

[stunt_penguin]

"a high quality product is neither necessary nor sufficient to generate profit."

At least some quality product is, however necessary for the games industry to even exist in ther first place, otherwise people would shy away from buying the gear necessary to get into gaming, or loose interest after they've been stung with a few expensive stinkers.

Also, it's a generally accepted fact in the industry that most games loose money> Those games that are successful in turning the profit are not those that make up the long fecal tail. They're the gems.

Re:Yes

[StarvingSE]

I've heard that Sun makes some kind of workstation hardware, and develops something called "Java"...

I've never heard of a sun ray casting anything, it just kinda sits on my desk...

Re:Yes

[stunt_penguin]

Yea, last time I checked..... I don;t see much of it either...

*pats Philips PVR on head*
Good boy!

Re:Yes

[groundround]

I enjoy games with replayability, obviously, hence the replayability. But, I also enjoy a good 1 time, play through game if it has a good story line.

An example of this is Half Life 2. It was a great story line, great concept, just not something I want to play again once I'm done because it's story based. Once I know the story I lose interest. Counter Strike, bundled with HL2 when I bought it, has huge replayability, but no story line and so may be of equivalent rank to me, but something I play much more.

I just don't think the amount of replay a game has is the determining factor as to how good it is. I've finished games in 3-4 days that I've loved, or spent 2 months slogging through another one only to be dissappointed when finished.

Re:Yes

[shadwstalkr]

I have to completely disagree with you. There are a lot of people that are more than willing to spend hundreds of dollars a month on crappy games, especially sequels. Even if they know the game is bad, they just have to own it, either because they're collectors or their friends have it. They're the same people that say things like, "Five hundred dollars is a lot for a PS3, but I know I'll buy it so I can have all three." These are the same people that not only went to the third Star Wars movie, but plan on buying the box set, even though they hated the movies, "just to finish the series."

We're never going to get back to quality games/music/movies until those millions and millions of people stop buying every little thing they see on TV.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard the word "Deathmatch"? Ive played quake/2/3/4 for 8 years, i can time items intuitively, have crazy hand-eye coordination. I try to read the playstyle of my enemy, while having no patterns in my game.

Ive spent about $200 for 8 years of fun and training , now compare this to a monthly $15 click-fest mmorpg-monkey. GG

Re:Yes

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

the way I always see it is, MMOs mean NO games are being played. . . From my MMO experience they aren't much as games go. . . remove all the graphics and they all look like this to me:

                        _--|
                  _--|
            _--|
      _--|
_--|

I mean, I don't want to pick a fight or anything, but give me a couple of those games that are ~30 hours where things happen and story progresses over a 90+ hour virtual stairmaster.
Hell, give me a stairmaster over a virtual one, then I could get in shape or something.

Re:Yes

[a_nonamiss]

You're all wrong. The "sun" is that round yellow circle that can be seen at certain times in certain parts of "Oblivion." I read that if you play as a vampire character, it can actually cause damage if you go out while it's up.

Re:Yes

[a_nonamiss]

wtf, did they think that they could continue to make perpetually increasing profits?

Apparently, you don't follow Wall Street much. :)

They actually look at "profit growth" when they are researching companies. If I ran a public company makes $100,000 profit, then my investors expect me to make $110,000 profit next quarter, and $120,000 the next quarter, and so on. When I worked at a large mega-company a while back, we made a profit of $37 million one quarter, and our stock tanked. Why? Becuase we had made $36 million the same quarter the year before, so people were expecting a higher profit. It's called "not meeting expectations."

It's really stupid, but it's how the world works. Companies can't afford to sit making a comfortable profit. They must keep increasing their profit to be viewed as successful. It's actually what caused some of the spectacular crashes of the early 21st century. (WorldCom, Enron, Tyco, Adelphia, etc.) Their investors wanted to see profit growth, but they had figuratively (and, in the case of Enron, literally) burned up all of their fuel. The CEO's had to create the illusion of profit growth to keep investors happy, (and earn their $300 million bonuses) which eventually caught up with them and brought down the house of cards they had constructed.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, how could you not heard of it? http://www.sun.com/
O_o

Re:Yes

[FST777]

Leave. Please leave... Insensitive clod! I have enough lives already, I can't handle anymore. Besides, I've heard that "out doors" is much harder to play than, say, RuneScape.

Really, just to insinuate that the people in your favorite game are more interesting than the demons I slay everyday... Bah!

Re:Yes

[aplusjimages]

consoles already have mouse and keyboards, some people use them.

Re:Yes

[cg0def]

Kick the habit??? ... I have hardly ever seen anyone that stopped playing MMORGs. It was EverQuest at first and then they switch over to something else and now most are playing WoW. Plus the whole premice of WoW is that you can play it forever. The development never stops and with incremental upgrades of the engine there is no reason why it wouldn't last for quite a while. As far as the game sales go ... well they are not that much down. You do spend less on games but the problem is that if you don't play MMORGs then you are likely to play several games and your money gets distributed amond several companies and quite a few titles. When you play a MMORG you don't really have time to play other games. Also all of your money goes in the same company as you end up paying for a subscription. The new games that come out really mean nothing to you. And in general it hurts the gaming industry as inovation and variety gets slowly killed off.

Re:Yes

[Excelsior]

Hmm, I don't know. 3-4 games per month sounds like an extreme. If I'm paying $300+ per year for a MMORPG subscription, that's more than I would spend on individually purchased games in a year. And I suspect this is true for the majority. Especially considering the rate of pirated games. With an MMORPG, game piracy is almost non-existant, whereas with the traditional PC game model, pirating of games is huge.

Re:Yes

[twistedsymphony]

I completely agree with you 12+ hours and I'm usually happy with a game. Though oblivion gave me well over 100 and it's nice to have other games where if you finish the solo play in the 12 or so hours it still offer a compelling multiplayer experience.

Despite the fact that I'm happy with games that only offer about 12 hours of play a lot of new games don't even offer that much and I don't feel any of THOSE titles are actually worth $60 (I'm speaking from a next gen console standpoint here). There are a number of titles that are definitely worth the 60: Oblivion, Ghost Recon, Project Gotham Racing 3 etc. but all of those offer substantial replay value be it through just massive single play or solid multiplayer.

I'm not an MMO player but I've started renting most of my games. $20 a month and I can get 4 or so games that last me the 5-10 hours a piece that most new games last. I can enjoy those games for what they're worth as opposed to dropping $60 when they come out and grumbling about wasted money after I blow through it in half a rainy saturday. It also beats waiting 6 months for it to drop to a price it's actually worth. I'll still buy the Oblivions and GRAWs because they do last much much longer then a rental.

I suppose even if MMOs arn't driving down retail game sales these rental my mail services might be. I'm paying slightly more then an MMO subscription and getting access to all the games I want without actually buying any of them.

Re:Yes

[tbannist]

Personally, I prefer this synopsis:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/04/30

Re:Yes

[aevans]

It's already been done: http://oldcomputers.net/atari400.html

Re:Yes

[Andrew Kismet]

I'd just like to mention Metroid Prime Hunters, on the DS, as the closest experience to WASD/Mouse. D-Pad/Stylus gives me all the control and accuracy I need.
Standard game controllers do have dual analogue now, but it's just not as intuitive as WASD/Mouse.
What's your opinion on the Wiimote, as an FPS player?

Re:Yes

[BeansBaxter]

Uhm no one kicks the WoW habit. That is why I won't play it.

Re:Yes

[Snowmit]

Until the bean-counters notice that games that are very replayable or that offer a tonne of content are selling really well and that subcriptions based MMOs are draining the quick-finish-buy-a-new-one customer base away not to mention rentals and used game sales. And at this point, the wise bean-counters start to look into making better, longer games with more content or episodic content or kickass multiplayer or whatever else.

And games get better.

Re:Yes

[MORB]

Games that are short, with low replay value and I might add, usually lacking originality and interest these days, and still sold at an expensive price are not going to sell that much. Despite what starry-eyed bean counters hope.

Re:Yes

[KDR_11k]

No TV beancounter would dare say 'hey lets fund another 10 series of family fortune' instead of any of these shows no more than a games industry bencounter would say 'you know what, I think it's time we made another Sonic sequel'

Except if said beancounter is working for Sega. His next two phrases will be "How about we give Sonic a gun and let him shoot hookers?" and "We have secured an exclusivity contract for the NGage".

Re:Yes

[npsimons]

By that logic, movies would be better if they were 24 hours long, and novels should be 100,000 pages.

You're exaggerating; by your exaggerations, games would be 1,000 hours long

I love movies, and books, and games. That means I actually want to experience many of them, not buy one book and spend the next 5 months reading it, or reading it over and over again.

Must suck to be you then, what with the ADD and all. Some of us *like* books that take more than a week to read. Why do you think there are so many series of books out there? Some of us also like our games to be a bit more involved and more attention spanning than "shoot this bad guy, complete this quest, level grind, a winner is you!" which seems to be the norm these days.

When I hear that some RPG has "100 hours of gameplay" I usually suspect that's bullshit and is padded out with half-assed reasons to replay the game.

I don't know what games you've been playing that pull this padding bullshit, but the last games I played with 60+ hour playtimes actually justified this by having a plot and very large and detailed worlds to explore (FF7 and NWN for examples), no replay required. It sounds like what you are really against is not long games, but shitty game quality which will show up in longer and shorter games no matter what. In shorter games, it's just easier to hide or gloss over over.

Re:Yes

[Syberghost]

If you see the benefit of a subscription as "must do at least 8 hours of play per month per dollar of subscription fee", then yes, you don't reap the benefit of a subscription.

However, if you see the benefit of a subscription as "my character is there whenever I'm ready to play, as are my online friends", then MMOs are a bargain whether you play them 10 hours a day or 10 hours a month.

However, there's always Guild Wars and Entropia Universe. In the former, you pay once, and that's it; no monthly fees. In the later, you don't strictly-speaking have to pay for anything, but you buy in-game money with real-world money and that's (to my limited knowledge) the most effective way of getting in-game money. (I don't play either game so I am easily capable of being wrong here.)

As for falling behind, try City of Heroes/City of Villains. Falling behind is less of an issue; you can still team with your friends all you like, no matter how far ahead they get, and still be a contributing part of the team.

Re:Yes

[Kouroth]

That or single player game company's need to consider the possibility of doing subscription based single player games. I would be if games like Oblivion or FPS games evolved over time people would be willing to pay a fee to get updates regularly. I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to make a single player game, then release updates on a regular schedule. You'd keep people interested if the environment evolved and changed as you played the game. I would guess that it would also be easer to implement than an MMORPG. You also have the added advantage that you know where the characters are going in the game. Each installment would just continue the story from where it left off. It'd be kind of like an interactive soap opera.

Re:Yes

[PingXao]

The bean counters need to worry solely about the quality of the game, and not the overall frequency of purchase for gamers in general. The games industry

This quote is wrong. Bean counters need to do 1 thing: count beans. It's the other people in control of the company that need to realize quality is a supremely important factor.

Let the beancounters do what they do best. The problem happens all too often when the beancounters are the other people that control the company. At that point the quote is 100% correct.

Re:Yes

[frickendevil]

Wow, i never watched any of the money maker shows you have mentioned. I tend to like the moreso indie shows, the real gems that are brilliant but don't have the huge budget backing them like other shows. Take for example Black Books. That is by far the funniest show in the history of mankind, it is funnier then the entire series of Monty Python's flying circus.

As far as a show with a bit of story, i watch funland, a british show about strip clubs and a corrupt town. Even though it has a horrid timeslot, i go out of my way to watch it.

The point i am trying to make is that amongst that pile of crud, you get your gems, Destroy All Humans for example, low budget, and when i first heard about it i thought "just another kiddie game" but i have played it several times through.

Also just as a note, they do fund those series of family fued because it is cheap, and it has a dedicated audience, any television station that doesn't fund their old gameshows is a very bad station.

Re:Yes

[Zordas]

100% Agreed ..Keyboard / Mouse combo beats a controller everytime.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

In the TV world, the real sellers are 24, Lost, Sex in the City, The Sopranos, Desperate Housewives, CSI. No TV beancounter would dare say 'hey lets fund another 10 series of family fortune' instead of any of these shows

Wow, where have you been? The beancounters will say: "hey these reality shows cost squat to make and the advertisers are going to pay about the same. Tell me again why we are wasting our money on "Arrested Development"?"

Re:Yes

[Mathonwy]

The game industry should HATE MMORPGs, since they suck up all available free time, leaving the gamer with no time to play 5 new games each month (or even 1). Only the MMORPGs benefit.

Of course, the above sentence is equally true if you replace "MMORPGs" with [television], [social life], [out-doors activities], [indoor activities that aren't games], [hobbies] or even just [games, but made by a company that isn't yours]

Of course on the other hand, game companies don't make money by having people play their games. They make money by having people BUY their games. EA doesn't care if you buy their game, play it for 5 minutes, and then go back to WOW. Because, you know, they ALREADY HAVE YOUR MONEY AT THAT POINT.

So I doubt they hate MMORPGs quite as much as you might think. As previous posters have mentioned, there are more than enough people who buy games faster than they can play them anyway, just to "complete the set", etc.

Re:Yes

[ChronosWS]

Not all MMORPGs have this particular style of grinding associated with them. Eve Online, for instance, allows your character to advance in real-time, whether you are logged in or not. As a result, you don't have to log in to keep up with your friends, nor grind for new levels (since there are no levels.) Interestingly, the people who play Eve are just as avid as those who play other games, but the game does not penalize those who want to go play Quake for a month. MMORPGs themselves are not the problem so much as the Skinner-box grinding that quite literally defines most of them. The game industry will find a balance eventually, assuming the gamers actually want such a thing. Keep buying WoW and maybe they won't bother.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

By that logic, movies would be better if they were 24 hours long, and novels should be 100,000 pages.

Not necessarily, that certainly makes them not short but it would still end eventually - the greatest similarity between the top selling games of all times I find is lack of story line...yes I know that sounds incorrect but consider, the most sold games in history include things like Counter-Strike, Quake, Starcraft (for the PvP mode), The Sims, Diablo II - and yes many of these games have successful single person modes, CS has HL, Starcraft has a wicked storyline, but people buy it to play against other people, MMO's have tons of story lines but no specific one, Diablo II has tons of individual content - but if I had to guess I'd say it's majority was playing on Battlenet.

Because of this I'd be sooner to conclude that the best selling games would be the ones that are 1 page long, but that people want to read 100 000+ times and become enthralled in the variation with each read. Also, after seeing Wikipedia's best selling games list it occurs to me that it also helps if the game is produced by Blizzard as of the top 15 by volume sold, 7 of them are Blizzard games (Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo and their addons).

I see another interesting pattern though, the best selling expansions in history all occur from games that initially sell extremely well, and this can be explained because so many people own copies of the original and enjoyed it - also, expansions never sell higher than their original (for obvious reasons, but it's useful in predicting the success of an expansion).

To return to the point of the article though, I think that MMO's are bringing more people to the genre, but that the benefit of an increased number of game players internationally is not going to be dramatically (it should already be occuring however) distinguishable for many years, where I predict new game players who are currently playing MMO's will begin to try other games is when they begin to associate with other gamers more, and if they do not - when their MMO begins to die and before they find a new one - there will be a time in there when they will consider other games. Personally I spent 7 years playing EQ, currently I am playing WoW, and the moment I get into Vanguard Beta I'll drop WoW (because WoW is just to fill my MMO fix until Vanguard is released). It would sound as though I left the other genres entirely the moment MMO's came out, yet I can tell you that what has actually happened is I now only stop playing my current MMO when I hear good things about other games I enjoy - I play Counter-Strike Source competitively currently (and did the same with Quake III and 1.6 while I was playing EverQuest). If I weren't writing this out I'd be currently playing Tomb Raider Legends, because I think it is a fantastic return to the original premise and I am thrilled to see the series revived. In essence, the way to sell non-MMO video games to the MMO crowd is to, instead of adopting episodic content as some idiot dreamt up, make good games instead of shitty ones that consume 5 hours time to beat, have 0 replay value, and cost $30 CDN, whereas after the initial payment the subscription fee for an MMO (assuming $14 a month, over the number of hours per month, because MMO's have near infinite replay value, most especcially those who are played for their community rather than content, unlike WoW, my biggest issue with it) is in the pennies per hour as opposed to episodic content which is more like $5 per hour, to a maximum of 5 hours - that's just stuipd - even if people don't consciously recognize the math of it, they do the math of it subconsciously and know what they'd rather do with their money - remember that if you are charging $30 for a game, that's 2-3 months of an MMO subscription, so if you want to stay competitive, provide a product that they will actually want to play for the next 2-3 months in replay value, anything less will not b

Re:Yes

[demonbug]

Wow, you managed to pick six shows that I've never seen more than one or two episodes of. But then, I've never been one to really watch a series (unless they are on DVD and I can watch large chunks at once).
A lot of the more financially successful shows/movies/games are utter crap. Madden? Survivor? Titanic? There are many shows/games/movies that I consider high quality that are also extremely successful, but I'm not sure there is really a good correlation between success of a product and quality. I realize this isn't exactly the point you were making (that they depend more on a few popular products versus the hundreds of "other" products that are put out), I just don't think that there is much evidence supporting a contention that higher quality (media) products = higher revenue.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I have over 200 hours logged in World of Warcraft and there are several major instances I have not made it into yet. This game is HUGE, complex, rich and interesting. Further Blizzard is continuouly adding new content: storylines, quests, areas etc.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

It's simpler than that. Console games suck. Take the current crop of fps games when they are ported from the consoles first you find you are limited to gamepad type control and menu systems eg. Oblivion and levels that are very linear Call of Duty etc.

Re:Yes

[db32]

I must disagree on point 1. The ONLY thing I use the keyboard for playing FFXI is to chat. I find it infinetly easier to use the controller rather than the keyboard. However, on the issue of FPS...Halo has been the only FPS that didn't make me want to break the controller after trying to play for more that a few minutes...unless of coarse you are using the original bigfoot xbox controller, but thats another story. I haven't played many other MMORPGs so I can't say for sure how many would be easier or not with a controller.

Re:Yes

[Nitar]

By that logic, movies would be better if they were 24 hours long, and novels should be 100,000 pages.

I love movies, and books, and games. That means I actually want to experience many of them, not buy one book and spend the next 5 months reading it, or reading it over and over again.

You make a GREAT point, but it only applies to certain types of games. Specifically, I'm referring to NON-competetive games.

You are correct in that you wouldn't want a 24 hour movie, that's what ongoing TV programs like Lost are for :). 100,000 page books aren't really feasible either, but Jordan's gotta be getting close if you sum up the Wheel of Time series.

In any case, one shot games, or at least the single player story line of games shouldn't take forever to play. Most RPGs that 'boast' a 100 hour gameplay duration turn me off. I'd like to get through the story in max 20 hours.

Competetive aspects of games are a different beast. Think of these more like a sport, where the more you practice, the better you get. My drug of choice in the competetive arena is the RTS genre. Sometimes the single player portion of an RTS is decent, but I don't spend a ton of time on them. I really enjoy the multiplayer aspect, and could easily spend 100 hours on it, as long as the gameplay is pretty tight.

This equates well to a sport that you might enjoy playing. I spend a lot of time trying to get a better tennis game. Other people spend hundreds of hours trying to improve their golf game (even playing the same course over and over). A multiplayer game doesn't have a 'built-in' longevity (i.e. playing through the story a bunch of times). It has longevity because it's just fun. Like tennis, golf, or any other activity that someone enjoys.

So, when you talk about a game as a story. I completely agree that a HUGE time commitment isn't necessarily a good thing. But for a multiplayer game, I think replayability is absolutely crucial. Counterstrike, Battlefield, Call of Duty, Warcraft 3, Age of Empires, etc... All of those had single player storylines. But what made them stand the test of time was how much fun they are to play with/against other people.

Re:Yes

[Keebler71]

Which ET server do you play on? I play on et.tjw.org

Re:Yes

[TheDreadSlashdotterD]

Oh come on. You know you love the dinner plate!

Re:Yes

[nude-fox]

moves should be 24 hours long and i wouldnt mind a good novel if it was 10,000 or so pages

Re:Yes

[thatguywhoiam]

I've got it for you - playing FPS and a lot of MMORG games are just so much easier with your keyboard and mouse. Ever tried to play one with a standard game controller? Playing games with the keyboard and mouse increase your degree of acuracy, speed, and control exponentially over controller-based games.

I agree that the mouse + keyboard is the superior control scheme (at the moment) for FPS, RTS and the vast majority of MMORGs.

But that's where the list ends.

Any other kind of game that I can think of is much better with a console-style controller. Racing? Yes, analog sticks. Flying, same. Action/twitchy games, much better suited for the console controller than a keyboard/mouse. Anything that involves a running 3rd-person character.

The mouse has precise aiming, and they keyboard has a lot of buttons... but dual analog sticks are fantastic for varying amounts of force in a particular (limitless) direction, and never having to look down to find a hotkey is quite advantageous as well.

Re:Yes

[7Prime]

At least some quality product is, however necessary for the games industry to even exist in ther first place, otherwise people would shy away from buying the gear necessary to get into gaming, or loose interest after they've been stung with a few expensive stinkers.

I think this is a pretty rosy picture of the gaming market. The fact is, most people are stupid, most people measure quantity over quality, and most people would rather buy 5 games to find one good one then take the small amount of times to do the research and find which games to buy. We at slashdot would like to think we're above that, and since slashdot has become somewhat of an informed consumer advocacy group, there is probably SOME truth to that, though you'd probably be surprised.

There is no doubt that a good quality title is more likely to sell more than a similarly marketted low quality title, but it may cost twice as much to make. A good investment for ANY company in the entertainment industry is to spread out their investments: make a bunch of smaller stinkers in order to make a few really quality titles. As long as those quality titles keep coming, and I can spot them, I, as a consumer, am not going to complain.

Currently, I am working as an advertisement producer at a local TV station. My goal is to raise the quality of our commercials. A lot of it is personal pride for making artistic work (yes, there is artistry, even in TV commercials). But to do so, I have to wade through a lot of crap. If I spent 8 hours on every commerical I editted, the station wouldn't be able to produce enough to keep in business, so I've excepted the fact that I have to produce a lot of crap along with it. I'll do the best I can with all of it, but I'll chose a few spots with potential promise, to really put all my artistic vision into.

Oh, and btw, the reason that 2006 console game sales have declined is because it's the final year of a generation, which is always a slump. People are sitting on the fence waiting for the Wii and PS3 before they run out and buy a bunch of titles. It's probably partially a subconcious thing, but because they know the end is neigh, people are becoming weary of this generation and are ready to move on.

Re:Yes

[srmalloy]

The Sun? Never heard of it, what weird world do you live in with your fantasy realms called "out of doors". Man, Slashdot really does attract crazy people.

I think that's the name they give to the bright light in the Big Room -- the one that has a ceiling that's sometimes blue with a bright light and sometimes black with lots of little lights.

Re:Yes

[ottothecow]

In the end it just starts to work out like it does in other industries (its car analogy time).

Quality certainly does cost money and there are people who are willing to pay that money since they wont settle for something that isnt high-quality but there are also people willing to take whatever shit gets thrown at them as long as the price is right.
Even without much of a price differential (or even with none), there are people who still want to buy the stuff with poor quality (compare the quality control of chevy with that of honda/vw/toyota). We will just end up with studios that are known for pushing out good things like valve and ID that will start to be known as the "luxury brands" where you can be sure you get a high quality product for your money but you pay more (compare the sticker price of halflife2 or doom 3 to the bargain bin which has new games for $15).

Re:Yes

[muindaur]

I spend most of my time in either Dark Age of Camelot or Reading. Most games out are crap that isn't worth my time. I've stopped to play F.E.A.R, Oblivion, Half-Life 2. So I would have to agree that part of the factor is MMO's, however, the poor quality and lack of decent storylines of some games is the problem. I could give half a rats arse about the visual quality of a game.

Re:Yes

[Mean Ass Troll]

lol well said. wow = 13 bucks a month-- very cheap night at the movies ie not even any boose in the theatre. game = ~50 bucks and an anti social dead end when you are done. 200 bucks a month in savings = leasing a car, a very nice vaction at the end of the year for 2, read tropical paradise for 2 weeks, all included, 5 star. look at it this way, those games you were buying for 200 a month probably gave you ~2 weeks total playin time over the year, where would u rather be? (unless you are unemplyed, and therefore not in the 200 / mo on games equation) even if you dont like cars and holidays, you can get a plasma or projection tv, a new wardrobe (so you dont have to goto those linux meetings in flip flops and a bedsheet). 2400 dollars will buy you a badass barbecue of the pimp persuasion. it will also buy you a decent hot tub. compare all of these thigs to a playstation 2 with 50 old games, and the stupidity of the investment really starts to show. why do you think so many are into making cames now? the profit margin is huge. companies do not invest millions into video games because the think they are cool, they do it to make billions, off any sucker that will pay. this is why they want to outlaw 2nd hand sales, to prevent cheap sales, and so that their stuff does not look like the worthless crap it really is, once stripped of the hype. even if you say that video games are your hobby it is no defense. if i had a hobby of collectign worthless software, i would wait till i could get it for cheap or free, l;ike buying that ps2 w 50 games for a couple hundred bucks tops. to rush out and pay tops dollar for every game when it comes out, just to feel like you are up to date or a part of soemthing screams luser. the only thing you are part of is yourself being ripped off.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Books cost $6, or are free at the library. Movies cost $10, or $3 for a rental, plus $100-200 every 6 or so years for a player. Games cost $50-$70, plus $1500 or so every 4 years for upgrades.

Ouch?

Re:Yes

[Machtyn]

If I find out that a game has very little replayability, no upgrade options, and no support for user mods, I'll refuse to buy it. An exception to my personal rule is Need for Speed: Underground 2 and Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3. I had loads of fun with them. Granted, they eventually did get old after awhile. I'm not buying another NFS or THPS game, or any other racing game, until it can be expanded by user mods or some other way. I've got the one, and the new releases don't add much.

/was nearly a pro gamer back in pro-gaming's infancy

Re:Yes

[sshutt]

She's right, doing things is expensive, you've just gave me another excuse to buy the game :)

Re:Yes

[Dmac1985]

You're preaching to the choir. Gimme a decent single player game and I'll get more fun out of it than every MMO I've ever played. Stairmasters are less fun but using them regularly keeps you from getting chest pains every time you get up for more chips.

Re:Yes

[batmonkey]

The last MMORPG I played? CoH. That's what made me decide that the value wasn't there for me. I confess I'm not sure what the bulk of your comment was intended to accomplish...I mean, if that's what makes shelling out worth it for you, go right ahead. It's not worth it for me. Personally, I'm in favour of a "docking fee" to store my character/stats/etc. and "$X = Xhrs", where the hours don't expire until I use them. They still make the ducats and there's a less grating payment option for the hyperextended market segment.

Re:Yes

[laffer1]

Usually my own server et.foolishgames.net. Sometimes I hit european servers.

Re:Yes

[Mal-2]

There are those of us who play games that don't cost money, too -- like Kingdom of Loathing. I have contributed a fair amount of money to get my Mr. Accessorys, but you don't have to just to play. Even though it is turn-based, optimizing your use of buffbots, items, and consumables can get you enough turns to literally last all day. If that's not enough, there is no rule against having multiple accounts (though there is a rule against one being a farmer for the other, or any other parasitic deal).

You can't get cheaper than free, so I'd have to say this could put a real dent in subscription based games as well as purchase-cost-only games.

Mal-2

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

"...unless of coarse you are using the original bigfoot xbox controller"

??? The original XBOX controller is the best controller for it, the others are really small in your hands and are uncomfortable to use, what is it with you Japanese people and your small hands that you need the Controller S?

Re:Yes

[Syberghost]

$X = X hours is a money-losing proposition with US gamers. If you price it low enough that the hardcore gamers can afford to play, you make no money at all on the casual players, who are the majority of the market. Works fine for Korean and Japanese gamers buying time in chunks at gaming cafes, but John Q. American doesn't swing that way.

With a monthly fee, you make a lot of money on the casual gamers, break even on the more serious gamers, and lose a little on the really hardcore players, which overall is a money-making proposition because there are more casual players than truly hardcore players. The hardcore guys get you your word-of-mouth advertising.

What was I trying to accomplish with my comment? Keep somebody reading this who hasn't played MMORPGs from going into it with the mindset "I paid $15 a month when I was playing this game 21 hours a week in the beginning, but now I'm only playing it 7 hours a week, so I'm only getting $5 worth of value out of it a month, so it's a ripoff." The vast majority of comments on Slashdot and most other forums aren't really intended to convince the person to whom they're addressed; they're to convince the silent majority of lurkers who aren't contributing to the discussion, but are reading it and forming opinions.

Re:Yes

[skreeech]

yep. Since asheron's call i've spent less time buying other games. It wasn't until I had a gigantic disposalable income that I bought more than a few games a year. Even still most, or at least half of mine or presents.

Re:Yes

[maxpublic]

The fact is, most people are stupid

If that's the case, then there's a high probability that you, too, belong to this subset of "stupid" people, making you part of the problem.

Currently, I am working as an advertisement producer at a local TV station

Ah, well. 'nuff said.

Max

Re:Yes

[maxpublic]

Lost and 24 makes it worth it to buy a TV and put up with advertising

This would explain why my TV currently resides in a storage unit, along with all the other crap I never use.

Max

Re:Yes

[maxpublic]

I thought Oblivion was a waste of time and energy, completely lackluster in every respect. Though it might have a hundred hours of gameplay, it's a hundred hours you'll wish you'd spent doing just about anything else. All of the worst parts of Morrowind wrapped in a (somewhat) upgraded graphical environment.

Max

Re:Yes

[Kagenin]

Big ol "ME TOO!" I played FFXI for two years, and considered that having my dual-analog ps-pad and USB converter made the game infinatly easier to master.

I played on Gilgamesh. I haven't played for about 6 months, although my account is still active...

Re:Yes

[maxpublic]

when I was playing this game 21 hours a week in the beginning, but now I'm only playing it 7 hours a week

Man, if you're playing computer games 21 hours a week it's time to seriously look into this thing called 'getting a life'. If you're really lucky you might even be able to snag this really cool gizmo called a 'girlfriend'. And that can lead to an activity called 'sex', which is even more satisfying than powering that dark-elf vampire wizard of yours to level 60! I know, I know, hard to believe, but trust me - it's true.

Max

Re:Yes

[KDR_11k]

That happens if you look only at FPS games. Try looking at more genres. Platformers, fighting games (duel and beat'em'up), shmups, racing games, sports games, completely weird stuff like Katamari, etc.

Re:Yes

[KDR_11k]

We have adapted our hands to the requirements set forth by tinkering with the insides of our computers. Try pulling a jumper with huge hands.

Re:Yes

[db32]

I played for about a year on gilgamesh, then quit, then got drug back in and I'm back on gilgamesh...so...gimme your stuff you quitter! :) lol

Re:Yes

[twistedsymphony]

Anyone can not like a game, there are lots of games that most other people love that I can't stand. The point is if you do happen to LIKE that sort of thing it definitely give you your money's worth.

Re:Yes

[AsbestosRush]

/me whips out a set of long needle nosed pliers

Next.

Re:Yes

[AsbestosRush]

There are some very nice reasons to have a TV:

My PS2 plays all of the interesting DVDs that I can find as well as A select few games that I deem worthy of time, such as GT4.

Cable or satellite on the other hand I completely agree with you on.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Analog sticks for racing? Maybe for cheesy games like NFSU, where precise control means squat, but for real racing sims like GTR or Nascar 2003, they can't compete with a FF wheel and pedal set. Even Gran Turismo was 1000% more enjoyable when the wheel came out for ps2. The same goes for flying sims, a yoke set is far more useful than analog sticks anyday.

I agree with the action/scroller part though.

Re:Yes

[amavida]

"Take for example Black Books. That is by far the funniest show in the history of mankind,..."

Let's not forget 'Father Ted' another delightfully quircky comedy about three misfit irish priests stuck on some crag in the irish sea someplace. :)

Re:Yes

[CrazyJim1]

You should try out doors sometime, it has better FPS than any computer can ever obtain. Of course, you can't ram your car into oncoming traffic for big rewards.

Re:Yes

[Syberghost]

Nice job taking that out of context to make it look like it was commentary, not an example created for illustration. My wife and children will get a nice laugh out of that tonight.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a currently active WoW player who bought 37 Xbox 1 games and now only own 5 Xbox 360 games. If I wasn't playing WoW I would have bought games like Moto GP and DLC like the maps for Perfect Dark Zero. But I'm spending $15 a month on a game and community that I look forward to playing with every day. Paying $60 to play Far Cry for a month or two is criminal compared to playing WoW for 4 months and having a more fullly developed character to show for it.

Re:Yes

[elrous0]

The Sun? Never heard of it

It's that light source in some games that provides global lighting in outdoor environments.

-Eric

Re:Yes

[PaganRitual]

I agree, and it's why I generally stick to a well made single player game. Unless you are constantly picking up the newest multiplayer online game, no one is playing online because they've all moved onto the next one. Sure, it's the same with single player games, but at least you're not forced to get the newest single player game all the time cause there is no one else to keep up with.

Also, why aren't people playing deathmatch anymore? Everyone wants to play stupid team based games that require either psuedo-strategy or teamspeak and hours to practice with idiots that treat it like life-or-death. Or endless griefers that think it's funny to mine your tank cause you to it before them (well, that IS funny, but that's not the point). I miss the old days of MOHHA and Quake2, where you just jumped into a server, shot anything that moved, and the second you died you got back up and got on with it. Fun times, and I miss them.

(note : I am kinda addicted to WoW atm, but I still drag myself away to play Hitman : BM and Castlevania DS etc. WoW is zero fun when no friends are online. my solution is to make sure I don't have many friends. having a girlfriend that is into is as well makes it a little harder though)

No.

[Ant P.]

I'd rather stick with that quaint and old-fashioned concept of paying for something once and having it.

Re:No.

[Chosen Reject]

So how do you make phone calls? What about your internet service? Cable TV? What do you do for haricuts? All of those are services. You pay for it, you get your service, then after some finite amount of time, the service you paid for is gone and you have to pay again to keep it.

MMORPGs are more of a service than a commodity.

But if you would rather think of it like a commodity item, think of it like this: you pay for it once and have it, it only lasts for a month though. Just like a haircut.

Re:No.

[Herkum01]

It maybe the old fashion concept of paying for it and having it, but how often are you buying it is the question. The game itself is irrelevant, it is the enjoyment of the game is what you are paying for. If I were spending $50 month to buy a game where I play once or twice and own the disk,, is that really better than paying $16/month for a game that I really don't own?

I admit, I have bought a lot of games (100~), and threw most of them out. I had not even looked at some of these games in years. I would probalbly saved some monye if I had played MMO instead, though I am sure I would had less time to do other things in my life...

Re:No.

[Oriumpor]

You mean like, MORPGs? Diablo I, Diablo II, Dungeon Siege I, Dungeon Siege II, Guild Wars etc? Not *exactly* the same experience as a pay by the month but certainly lots of replay value.

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

That works for some games. Not exactly a role playing game but the Battlefield series does not require a subscription to play online.
I picked up a complete original Battlefield 1942 collection for $29 before christmas (going for $19 now). It includes Battlefield 1942, Vietnam and some expansion packs.
I've been playing quite often online (5-12 hours a week). With the amount of homebrew levels and weapons, the game keeps getting better. One of the servers I use often was soliciting for money to keep the server public. I figured I am using that server, I am happy with it, the game play and lag is adequate, it has the levels I like and decent rules, why not send them $10. So I did. Even if they shutdown the server the very next day, I already got my $10 a fun from that server and I'll send them $10 more dollars in a few months if I am still using that server.
I did buy Battlefield 2 about a week after I bought Battlefield 1942 and only played it twice. When I get tired of the original, I'll start playing my copy BF2.

In conslusion.. I do not think that subscriptions are the problem forcing people to not spend money on other games, the problem is people are having at least enough fun playing an existing game they already have, they are not looking to buy anything else. Maybe if game makers made the games less fun, they would sell more ;)

Re:No.

[ElleyKitten]

I personally limit the monthly services I get to a minimum. I don't have cable, I don't have a cell phone, and certainly don't pay a monthly fee for games. It helps me keep track of my finances better to not have tons of different bills to keep track of, and when money's tight it's a lot easy to say that I won't buy a new game this month than try to figure out which bill I can skimp on.

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

And vastly in the minority. Diablo2 is one of the best games ever in terms or replay value. Add starcraft to this list. But those are a half-dozen games out of thousands. Diablo classic dates back to what? 1996 or so? How many trash titles have been put out (and bought) since then. More than half of the games I buy end up as shelfware within a day of purchase. If I find a game I truly enjoy, I don't mind paying monthly to maintain a subscription.

Re:No.

[geminidomino]

I'd give you that point, except your ignoring that most (if not all) of the major MMOs ALSO make you shell out $50 to GET the game, on top of the monthly fee.

(if there are any contemporary MMOs that don't, I'd honestly like to know. I kicked WoW just before 1.7, but don't want to pay to get into a new one without knowing if I'll like it)

Re:No.

[Oblio]

Buy an electric razor and enjoy your buzz? I don't lease cars either.

Hell, with games like "Guildwars" out there, you can play your MMORPG _AND_ enjoy a fixed up front fee.

There are many ways you can choose to frontload costs, and pushing costs from periodical to fixed. This tends to be a good idea as services push a premium onto you... it's not bad, but if you can avoid it and have the cash to do it- why not?

Of course, everyone faces different decision matrices, but it's not like I need periodic expenses to offset revenue. :)

Re:No.

[Have Blue]

I buy much less than one game per month, largely due to the replay value of the games I already own.

Re:No.

[Red Alastor]

So do I.

And am I the only one who slowed down on buying games because I'm waiting for the Wii ?

Re:No.

[ceoyoyo]

The problem with MMPORGs is they'd like to be commodities AND services.

Most of them you have the shell out a lump sum for the game. Yes, some come with free play time that offsets that. Then you have to pay by the month. Then, if there's an expansion, you have to pay another lump sum for that.

Not all MMPORGs, but enough of them.

Re:No.

[cowscows]

EVE Online is a free download, and you can even get a two-week trial. It's got a lot of complexity in it however, so you'd need well beyond two weeks to even start to explore it. But yeah, internet spaceships. Awesome.

Re:No.

[vertinox]

What do you do for haricuts?

This is slashdot. You shouldn't be asking such questions...

Unless you are very brave.

Re:No.

[Alexandra Erenhart]

And you're all still missing one point of the MMORPG industry. Ever heard about emulators? You can easily get the game for free (from a friend, download, etc), and instead of connecting to the "normal" server, you connect to an emulator server, where you can play that mmorpg. And it's usually FREE. I know thought that usually those emulators aren't as half as good as the official ones, but I spent a lot of time playing UO and RO on local server who were GREAT, and a lot of people don't play MMORPGs for the game itself, but because their friends play too. So that gives you free entertainment. Now, I'm not discussing the legality of those servers. I'm just pointing out a fact.

Re:No.

[HarvardAce]

Most of them you have the shell out a lump sum for the game. Yes, some come with free play time that offsets that. Then you have to pay by the month. Then, if there's an expansion, you have to pay another lump sum for that.

But this isn't much different from pretty much any other service. Do you have a cell phone? Depending on the deal at the time, you likely paid for the phone or an activation fee. Have cable? Well you probably bought a TV to watch it. Most services have some item that you need to buy before you can use the service. For online game services it's often the software to play the game

Re:No.

[ceoyoyo]

In all those cases the physical object you purchased has value, you can take it with you, and you can use it with another service provider if you choose. By the way, I won't buy a locked cell phone either. It's either free or I get an unlocked one somewhere else.

For an online game your initial (and upgrade) purchase is absolutely valueless without the service from that particular provider.

Re:No.

[geminidomino]

I was looking at that one, but I've heard it's so well-entrenched now that the newbie is essentially doomed. Still, I may give it a shot. Thanks.

Re:No.

[HarvardAce]

In all those cases the physical object you purchased has value, you can take it with you, and you can use it with another service provider if you choose. By the way, I won't buy a locked cell phone either. It's either free or I get an unlocked one somewhere else.

That is a good point, but a locked cell phone is nearly identical to an online MMORPG. Without the service from that provider the cell phone is mostly useless.

Re:No.

[SlartibartfastJunior]

For me, the monthly fees broke down like this: Cable TV (basic package): $45, and increasing by a few bucks every 2-3 months OR Netflix, 4 DVDs at a time, ordering my favorite TV shows: $25 World of Warcraft: $15 I have to admit, I play 30-40 hours of WoW a week, and when I'm not playing WoW I'm watching my Netflix shows. Being sick on my honeymoon a few weeks ago was kind of neat - I got to sit around in the hotel room all day and watch TV! Exciting! That said, I rarely buy new games that cost more than $20 anyway. I don't do the FPS genre, and I can very happily replay Pharaoh or SimCity or Sid Meyer's Pirates over and over if I don't feel like WoW.

Re:No.

[ceoyoyo]

I agree. Actually, I think locked telephones are considerably worse and I'd like to see a law against them. The pricing strategy of some MMORGs is a bit annoying but as others have pointed out it's usually not a bad deal anyway. The cell companies have all kinds of shady business practices that have no purpose other than to control their customers.

Re:No.

[cowscows]

It's all about getting in with a corporation that will help newbies out. If you do decide to try it out, my character in game in named Shawnaroo, look me up, and I'll help you get started a little easier.

Duh?

[keyne9]

Do MMORPG's Cause People to Buy Fewer Games at Retail?

Yes? How hard is it to realize that paying $15/mo for (similar) entertainment is a better option than shelling out $50 every few weeks?

Re:Duh?

[Cheapy]

Well, when you only buy 2 or 3 games a year like me, it's a lot better to buy the games themselves. That way, I don't have to pay $15/month for the same game. Even if all those individual games cost $60, it comes out ahead for me.

So I guess it'll take quite a long time for me to realize what you said. :)

Re:Duh?

[dsn1337]

Yes. How hard is it to realize that paying $15/mo for (similar) entertainment is a better option than shelling out $50 every few weeks? No. How hard is it to realize that paying $50 flat for (similar) entertainment is a better option than shelling out $15 every month? Although this isn't about flat vs monthly pricing... its about MMORPG's, and not all of them require monthly fees... i.e. Guild Wars. There are also plenty of other games out there that can entertain for a long time without monthly fees. i.e. RTS's like starcraft,warcraft or FPS's like counter-strike,battlefield... I think the drop in console sales is due more to the lack of quality console titles and people holding out for the next generation (yes, yes, i know 360 is here... but how many must-have games does it have?)

Re:Duh?

[b4jts]

Yes? How hard is it to realize that paying $15/mo for (similar) entertainment is a better option than shelling out $50 every few weeks?

Not really, you're comparing it with new games. Considering that most MMORPGs have been out for a while already, try comparing the price with a game that's been out for a few years already. $15/mo or 3 $5 games? I know I'm currently opting for the latter.

Re:Duh?

[ipfwadm]

Well, when you only buy 2 or 3 games a year like me, it's a lot better to buy the games themselves. That way, I don't have to pay $15/month for the same game. Even if all those individual games cost $60, it comes out ahead for me.

Better check your math. 3 games at $60 each is $180. 12 months at $15/month is... $180. So yes, if you buy only 2 a year you're coming out ahead, but if you buy 3... not so much.

Re:Duh?

[ThePelt]

But he got to play 3 different games in that year!

Re:Duh?

[ipfwadm]

Which is certainly a point for buying new games, but his post seemed to focus on the financial aspects.

Re:Duh?

[Chibi-Hikaru]

Try this on for size.

Buy your $50 game. Play it for a month. Sell it on ebay for $40. You just got to enjoy a $50 game for $10.

Now, when you think about that and that $180 figure, that means you can buy and play 18 games a year instead of one long tedious one in which heaven forbid you don't play one day and all your "friends" outlevel your ass and you never play with them again.

Oh, yeah. I recently quit WoW. To keep myself from reinstalling the monster I snapped all four installation discs then did the same thing to FFXI so I wouldn't be tempted to play that again as well.

Re:Duh?

[kabocox]

Do MMORPG's Cause People to Buy Fewer Games at Retail?

Yes? How hard is it to realize that paying $15/mo for (similar) entertainment is a better option than shelling out $50 every few weeks?

That comes out to $180 a year for MMORPGs. I may get 2 or 3 none current games a year for around $15-$20 each. I couldn't afford $180 a year for a MMORPG. Now, the nice thing about buying "older" games is that they are cheaper. I'd say that those that play MMORPGs for the long term social experience and enjoyment find the $180 a year money well spent and can't justify additional purchases of $40-$120 worth of games a year. Most kids or casual gamers do not buy/recieve a game a week, or a game a month. Think 1-2 at a birthday and 1-2 at Christmas.

Re:Duh?

[Cheapy]

I did check my math, and I suggest you check yours. You forgot to add the $50-60 into the initial cost of the MMO game. ;)

Re:Duh?

[ipfwadm]

That assumes you buy an MMO every year.

It's because.....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's because console gamers are too busy being buffled what MMORPG stands for!

Re:It's because.....

[Doc_Linux]

Or perhaps they are confused by the word buffled ;-)

draining the industry?

[darkchubs]

well , its less distributed... but I mean they spend 10-15 USD a month on these games... it's just voting with dollars. the Industry should respond acordingly

I buy fewer games....

[shinma]

I haven't bought nearly as many games in the time I've been playing World of Warcraft.

The time I have that can be allotted to video games is simply taken up. That doesn't mean I'm not spending just as much money on games now as I used to, just that all my money's going to Blizzard, rather than being spread out.

Re:I buy fewer games....

[flibuste]

Absolutely identical: thanks to Blizzard for saving us 50$ a month.

Re:I buy fewer games....

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here! I always hated buying games, especially brand new games, because I'd be done with them in a couple weekends of playing. An online game like WoW gives me so much to do it's insane. Every time I think I'm done they add something new for me to do or get. Plus the people you play with motivate you to keep coming back for more. :)

What server you play on? I got an epic'd out Rogue on Whisperwind named Raymer. I just got him this on Monday, YAY EPEEN! :P Had a white damage crit for 1100!

Re:I buy fewer games....

[Chibi-Hikaru]

I am glad to have quit WoW. I now have the time to play such games as Dragon Quest VIII, the Mega Man and Mega Man X series, various DS games, my old school Sierra games, Metroid Prime 2. All the games I've been putting off for the same mindless shit of: Send pet to attack/hunter's mark. Sting. Stare at the screen. Arcane shot. Stare. Sting. Arcane shot. Loot. Repeat. God I'm glad I quit that shit.

Re:I buy fewer games....

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Hunters are pretty boring. I mean, with auto-shot, I sometimes wonder how many of our hunters go AFK on boss fights. A Rogue is a very involved class. My guild has been clearing Molten Core for over a year now (There's very few things left in there that anyone needs, we mainly clear it to sell the Bind on Equip epics at the auction house to pay for guild expenses). Most people complain about how boring MC is the 50th time you've cleared it, but for a Rogue, it's always pretty fun. It's a challlenge to see how many big crits you can get while at the same time avoiding aggro (feint isn't really as effective as Feign Death). If you're running damage meters, it's even more fun to watch yourself climb to the top of the meters, passing everyone in damage by 3-4%. Some clears I've had almost 10% of the damage done, it really makes me feel like I'm helping us blaze through so everyone can log off at the end of the raid and pretend to lead normal lives. :)

The only other classes that interest me as much as Rogue would be Warrior (because they can dish out the damage AND take it), Mage (insane AOE damage, but little way to manage aggro... would keep me on my toes) or Priest (Shadow priests do insane damage, and Disc/Holy can too with Power Infusion, but they're also the best healers if played right).

All in all though, I'm in love with the Rogue class. When I make alts they never make it past lvl 20 or so before I go "This isn't a rogue. I'm done."

For all the anonymous cowards...

[GonzoTech]

... let's just queue up these lines before we get 23049823098423 of them.

Yes.. but does it run linux? and..
I, for one, welcome our MMORPG causing people to buy fewer game masters.

Stop regurgitating the same lines. Come up with something new.

Now to answer the question.. MMORPG's keeping people from buying games? How about keeping people from living life? I've noticed now that the MMORPG nerds are REALLY reclusive. Heh, I should know.. I one of them.

Re:For all the anonymous cowards...

[Eideewt]

Yes they do. I hate it when I ask, "Where's Steve?" and it turns out he's leveling. Of all the stupid reasons to stay home, that's one of the worst.

Re:For all the anonymous cowards...

[Alexandra Erenhart]

Maybe from "offline" people. But how many friends have you made on a MMORPG?

RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "beat"

[plasmacutter]

You can't just "beat" an mmo.

they take a long time to play.. they have very comprehensive worlds, thousands of items, quests, plot arcs.

a lot of the newer generation games are open "world" environments. They could potentially be played for a human's entire life because they are fully open ended.

I failed to bookmark the post, but the best case i've seen made on this was a post regarding EVE online.
The thing has 4,000 star systems and hundreds of thousands of players who carry on alliances and trade. There are even huge wars with massive armadas fighting it out for territory.. it's like an interactive version of babylon 5.

Heck.. there are still hardcore people playing the vintage 2001 release of gamecube PSO because they are hard core legits and want to find hard to find items without hacking them.

Meanwhile FPS games are generally very limited. They generally few enough maps to count on your hand, and similarly few weapons. Further an argument can be made that all games from the same generation are fairly the same save causmetics.

Weather youre shooting with a wwII era thompson or a covenant needler.. its pretty much the same experience either way..

this all leads to people getting bored quickly and moving on.

"Until the holidays"

[minginqunt]

The article assumes that, whatever is causing the current doldrums, will clear up by "the holidays".

It seems to me that these mythical "holidays", with the expense of buying a PS3 or Wii or 360, will merely exacerbate the problem. Not only are consumers not buying Madden 2016 or OMG Total Warfighters VII *now* on current-gen hardware, they are likely to be even less inclined having forked out $600 on which to see Teh New Shiny.

Also, if the XBOX 360 is riding a wave of indifference already, it must be extremely worrying to MS about what will happen when they square off against Wii and a newly-confident Nintendo.

Re:"Until the holidays"

[ChronosWS]

It's funny, I bought an XBox 360 well after they came out and had some decent games. And of all the games I have, the ones I play the most are the relatively simple ones that I get from XBox Live Arcade, such as Geometry Wars, Mutant Storm Reloaded and Marble Blast Ultra. For the XBox Live monthly fee and the $5 to download the game, these provide me much more enjoyment that my copies of Oblivion, PGR or Dead Or Alive. I'll shell out the dough, but the games have to be fun. Right now, the cheapies are doing a better job of being fun for me than the big dogs. And frankly, I think that's a good thing.

Retail is eventually going to suffer even more...

[popo]

Its not just MMORPG's that are going to bruise retail sales, its digital delivery.

People may not be talking about it so much yet, but the idea of selling digital
information 'burned into plastic' is already as archaic for GameStop as it is for
a record store.

Games fo the po.

[Anonymous Coward]

People still pay for games?

this is a good thing

[hypergreatthing]

Because finally games of quality will come out instead of games just pushed out the door that suck ass.

Re:this is a good thing

[randomforumposter178]

that would be assuming you live in a magical world where good games sell. sometimes they do, but let's face it, quality is no guarantee of commercial success these days.

It's an addiction

[Tyrsenus]

MMORPGs are essentially a black hole for the gaming industry.

WoW, for example, is an endless, time- and money-sink. In that respect it's very similar to gambling for some people. They are so involved with the game that they don't want to play anything else. They can't show off their e-peens in an FPS! And if they were to play another MMORPG, they would have to start over which not many are willing to do.

This is why I don't think Blizzard will make a Starcraft or Diablo MMORPG. Nobody would leave WoW to start over.

That's my $.02.

Re:It's an addiction

[Ignignot]

This is why I don't think Blizzard will make a Starcraft or Diablo MMORPG. Nobody would leave WoW to start over.

Of course they are going to make Starcraft or Diablo into an MMORPG. Their parent company, Vivendi, says "hey you guys are making a ton of money with this WoW thing. Can you do more of that sort of stuff?" Then Blizzard says, "well yes we can do more of it." Then Vivendi says "ok then do more of it right now - we will give you as much resources as you need just make us more profitable so our stock will go up"

Re:It's an addiction

[dave562]

Nobody would leave WoW to start over

This is a very good point. I don't play WoW but I know a whole slew of people who do. I would call them my friends, but to be friends with someone generally implies that you hang out with each other. =) Anyway, there is one group of people that pretty much doesn't talk to another group of people because they are on different WoW servers. These two groups of people have known each other for YEARS, almost a decade actually. But now they barely even talk to each other, or play games together anymore, simply because they are invested in high level characters on particular servers, and they don't want to start over again.

If the game is so crack-like that people won't even put down a character to play the same game at a lower level with their real life friends, then there is no way people are going to leave it to play something even remotely similar. The only way people would leave WoW is if they get bored with the concept / genre and want to try something different. But these are gamer geeks we're talking about. They aren't going to get tired of the fantasy world. 24/7 D&D is what people have been craving ever since the twenty sided dice was invented. Hell, if I hadn't stumbled across kung fu, I'd probably be a WoW addict too.

Re:It's an addiction

[BugDoomBug]

Yeah, because no one ever moved away from MUDs, or from Ever Quest, or from Dark Ages of Camelot, etc.

Of course this is coming from someone who only plays Star Craft online (kicked that nasty DAoC addiction).

Re:It's an addiction

[TheLinuxSRC]

This is why I don't think Blizzard will make a Starcraft or Diablo MMORPG.

Ummmm yea.

Re:It's an addiction

[Anonymous Coward]

UO died.
EQ1 died (and it is dead - go out to Nektulos Forest and see how many real n00bs you find!)
DAoC is on life support, outlook is grim.
A bunch of MMOGs that nobody ever heard of have died.
EQ2 is dying.

WoW can and will die. The idea that people 'don't want to start over' is a ridiculous myth. I've been through four MMOGs (and countless MUDs). I've seen guilds on all games break up, the players scattering to different MMOGs. Dwindling subscriptions for the games mentioned above can't be magically explained by, "Well, uh, people must've, uh, died IRL or something."

I can agree that Blizzard isn't about to create a Starcraft or Diablo MMOG, but not for the reason you gave. The truth is, they'd be splitting their customer base between two (or three) games, causing unnecessary additional expenses (need new servers, more dev staff, more CS staff, more content designers, et cetera)... And for what?

WoW has currently 'won' the MMOG market. Their subscriber base is absofrakkinglutely ridiculous. Starcraft and/or Diablo MMOGs will *not* achieve the same level unless it's at the peril of WoW itself.

Re:It's an addiction

[TrappedByMyself]

This is why I don't think Blizzard will make a Starcraft or Diablo MMORPG. Nobody would leave WoW to start over.

Sure they would. Just look at the endless cries for new servers in WoW. People are always starting new characters on new servers, and they can take NOTHING with them except for experience. (ignoring realm transfers here).
If Blizzard starts a new MMORPG, they will likely have a very large percentage of their customer base paying for both games. It's a bonus for Blizzard because the $$ can increase faster than the load, since the addicts cannot give much more time to the games, but the can always give more $$ for new games.

Re:It's an addiction

[cyber-vandal]

Nobody would leave WoW to start over.

I used to be heavily addicted to another MMORPG. I now play WoW. I had no problem starting over since the previous MMORPG had become stale. I had no problem starting over, I still speak to people from the other game so I haven't lost the social part of it and WoW is a much better game plus I'm making new friends. I'm also not so heavily addicted to WoW which is good for my restarted social life. If WoW ever became stale for me I'd be off and probably more easily.

Re:It's an addiction

[DarkBlackFox]

WoW was my first MMORPG. The thing that drew me in was the lore and consistant storyline from the Warcraft RTS series. It wasn't just a random game I had to learn about, rather, many of the characters in game I recognized right away from Warcrafts 1, 2, and 3. Prior to WoW, I played only RTS games, with a few first person shooters on the side. But once I saw people playing and saw the characters from the RTS games in a new context, I couldn't help but jump on. Just as the Warcraft line has persisted through the years, and it's almost a decade old now, as long as the content stays fresh, people will continue to play. Every few months, Blizzard adds in new content- new items, dungeons, quests, etc. to keep the higher level populace interested- with new twists and turns to the evolving plot. Just this past Tuesday, patch 1.11 came out, with the new Naxxramas 40 man instance. Come the expansion, there will be a whole new continent with new races and stories. So long as the content is kept new and fresh, people will continue to play, especially if the given content is part of an already decade long storyline.

Re:It's an addiction

[Anonymous Coward]

My advice is wait a year or two, and then see what condition WoW is in.

I have no doubt that Blizzard will go the distance with patches and new content - after all, look at Diablo. But the problem is, WoW follows the generic template of MMOGs: Shinies For Teh Win!(tm)

As new content is added, it has to be 'better' than prior content. We're talking in-game rewards, here - nobody really gives a damn about nice graphics when they're thinking of a) shelling out $20-$50 for an expansion or b) clearing a weekend out of their schedule to deal with Epic Champion Supreme Buzzword Mythical Quest #39283.

In addition to 'better', say, gear (or new abilities, spells, what have you), the content also has to be 'harder' - you can't just keep lumping on the statistics, my good man! A distinct lack of challenge is great for the first five minutes, but after about an hour, your players rapidly say, "What's the point, I can't wave my e-peen!" and leave.

The most obvious solution is to increase the difficulty of monsters, encounters, et cetera, which generally requires more people, which always requires more time - to coordinate, to fight, et cetera.

This continues a long trend of 'Keeping Up With the SirJoneses'. At some point, players will feel like they're working, rather than playing, just to keep up with the requisite UberGuild; that is, the folks who by some fortune can sit around playing the game for eight hours a day.

Eventually, players get tired of it and leave. Even if Blizzard somehow found a way out of this (which they have not!), players will eventually leave anyway. Something newer, brighter, shinier will appear on the scene, and people will head for the exits like rats from a sinking ship.

At which point, WoW, like so many other MMOGs, will remain on life support - it'll have its group of hardcore players who are too emotionally attached to their investment of time/et cetera, but the rest of the industry will move on, and WoW will become a memory.

Re:It's an addiction

[Derosian]

I played Counter-strike for 2 years, and I mean hardcore played, 10 hours a day.

You can show your E-penis off in FPS, its just that much easier to get pwned, and you feel it. In WoW, its level over long period of time, it takes hardly any skill, all you have to do is hit keys in rhythm, use certain keys in different situations, I still play WoW, but I feel it misses a lot of player skill. This way the 12 year olds can strut and say they own when they are 60 and go around ganking 50s.

But seriously, the minute something as good as WoW comes out that is an FPS, and on a massive scale like Planetside, I am switching over.

Re:It's an addiction

[14CharUsername]

The page you linked to says nothing about a starcraft MMOG. Just Starcraft, Brood War and Ghost. Oddly enough blizzard.com/ghost just redirescts to blizzard.com, so there isn't any information on it, which could mean its been cancelled, which wouldn't surprise me. It could also mean they are reworking ghost into a MMOG of some sort, but that's just speculation.

Re:It's an addiction

[Gulthek]

This is why I don't think Blizzard will make a Starcraft or Diablo MMORPG. Nobody would leave WoW to start over.

Maybe not, but I'd start playing if they made a Starcraft MMO. I wasn't at all intrigued by WOW, but a multiplanet scifi MMO featuring Zerg Rush Action(tm)? Sign me up.

Re:It's an addiction

[TheLinuxSRC]

You are absolutley right. I could have sworn that I recently read that there was going to be a World of Starcraft in the near future (I even seem to remember screenshots -- must be time for another cup of coffee)... the best I can find now is a /. article stating the opposite. I should have read what I linked a little closer. My apologies :)

Re:It's an addiction

[Tyrsenus]

I understand that Vivendi wants to make Starcraft and Diablo MMORPGs, but whether Blizz will go along with it is a different story. Until they run out Warcraft material, I won't happen. Here's why:

One of two things will happen:

-Everyone will stay with WoW because of the enourmous amount of time they've put into the game. The new SC/Diablo MMORPG will flop, and Blizzard becomes their own worst enemy.

-Everyone will migrate to the new SC/Diablo MMORPG, leaving the WoW realms nearly empty. Due to lack of subscribers, new content stops, and it becomes a liability just to keep the realms open. Blizzard becomes their own worst enemy.

Re:It's an addiction

[Aladrin]

"Nobody would leave WoW to start over"

Are you kidding?? Let's try that again.

"Nobody would leave The Realm to start over".
Nope, wasn't true.

"Nobody would leave Everquest to start over".
Nope.

"Nobody would leave Asheron's Call to start over".
Nope.

"Nobody would leave DAoC to start over".
Nope.

It's never been true in the past, and it never will be. There will ALWAYS be a better MMO on the horizon, right up until there's a better genre to replace it.

The biggest reason is that you aren't 'starting over.' You are playing a new game. You are starting fresh in a new world with new possibilities, intrigues, and adventures. Successful new games are not about starting over, they are about being new.

Re:It's an addiction

[Diss Champ]

Huh? Plenty leave WoW to start over elsewhere- because with WoW so much of the content is up front. Once you've leveled, there is not a lot left to do. To keep getting the fix, people head to other games where they can level again. Even Eve, which uses non-grind leveling and you have to play a month or so to even get a decent idea of what all is in there to do, and really could play for years, has a median paid subscription time of about 7-8 months IIRC (and yes, I do know that that implies half keep playing longer- but half have moved on). Personally, I've been hooked at a few games- and played them fairly avidly for a while- and it has cut down on playing non-multiplayer stuff. But they fade to occasional plays rather than frantic plays. CoH for example I'm perfectly satisfied these days to only play when they send me the occasional free weekend to try to lure me back. Eve on the other hand still gets several hours in a week. Qualitatively, MMOG is lot more like when I did a lot of PBEM Diplomacy than solo video games in playtime dynamic. So I can buy that there are some addictive qualities, but I think it's more to genre than to paritcular game, so long as the player makes that first step of trying another game in the genre when they start to burn out on the first one they try.

Re:It's an addiction

[rehtonAesoohC]

FYI - Starcraft: Ghost has been cancelled. That's the official word from Blizzard anyhow. I seriously doubt it will stay canceled forever though, because they have developed quite a bit of a world for it. My feeling is that once The Burning Crusader expansion comes out for WoW, Blizzard will be able to devote more time to other endeavors.

Re:It's an addiction

[Anonymous Coward]

UO still going fine. May not be the success that WoW is, but for its niche, doing well.
EQ1 still going fine. May not be the success that WoW is, but they are still going and doing new things.
DAoC still going fine. May not be the sucess that WoW is, but they have a solid base.
AC2 and Earth and Beyond are dead... never were very alive to begin with.
EQ2 is doing fine, and their best contributor to their ranks is WoW these days. Bored level 60s are flocking to EQ2 and finding out there is a much better end game here (and a much better game over all).

WoW is an MMO on training wheels. Everything is so dumbed down and easy. Plus the community is not very good. EQ2's game is more challenging, has more depth, more storyline, and a much better community. Plus the PvP servers are some of the best PvP rules out there for an MMO.

I know I am speaking heresy here and the WoWdiots will attack this, but try EQ2 and I guarantee if you really try it with an open mind, you will find a better game there.

WoW is great in that it has opened the doors to MMO's to a lot of people who wouldnt have tried them otherwise. But there is nothing innovative or original to it. They have created a great game for beginners... if you want a challenge, EQ2 is a better game.

Re:It's an addiction

[garylian]

It is hardly endless. Plenty of players gets bored and quit all the time. Personally, I found the max level game to be about as entertaining as braiding my navel lint, but that's just me.

MMOs tend to have a long play cycle, it is true. I played EQ for 5 years, and finally made the max level of 65 (with only about 12 AA's) just before they raised the roof to 70, and quit before it did to play WoW.

I was out of WoW after hitting max level in about 8 months of not really trying all that hard. My wife and I duoed just about everything but instances. She had 5 alts, I had 7. And we were out of the game at 9 months, because the PvP/Honor system was (imo) crappy, and I really didn't feel like farming boss mobs for set pieces and rares.

I thoroughly enjoyed those 8 months it took to hit 60. That was probably the most satisfying playing time a MMO has ever provided me. However, I felt empty when I was 60. Some people love that grind for items game, but I hate grind of any kind, so the wife and I bailed.

It will be intersting to see how well WoW holds up over the years. It's taking forever to get the expansion out, and if they keep it to a rate of one expansion every 2 years, I expect them to implode under their own weight.

Re:It's an addiction

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus the community is not very good.

Online game communities in general are bad, but the WoW community is terrible, I mean really awful. The game is so destructive to teamwork and socializing that guilds that successfully moved from other games wind up disintegrating in the toxic bath of the WoW community.

EQ2 has problems though. Hardware specs that put the game out of reach of a lot of players being a serious dealbreaker. Quite a few players that I knew went back to WoW because the performance of EQ2 was rotten on hardware that played WoW just fine. The other serious problem with EQ2 is SoE - after the heartbreak of SWG, I won't even consider buying into any SOE project.

WoW really is a very good game in a lot of ways, I may go back in a couple years when the masses have moved on.

Not enough time

[illumina us]

There simply isn't enough time to be actively involved in MMOs and play other games at more than a less than casual level. A lot of people who play WoW and are in raiding guilds easily spend 20-40 hours a week if not more playing WoW!

Largely concur...

[thebdj]

I haven't paid "full price" for games since I quit playing WoW (I might play when the expansion hits). Since then my game purchases have include, Tribes Vengeance, I love the series and at $5 at Microcenter there was no way not to get this. I picked up the Myst Collection (or whatever) for like $15. Since I never beat any of the games before, I figured why not. I also purchased NWN: Diamond Edition for around $30, so that is NWN + 2 expansions (or is it 3). The last game I got was HL2: Episode One. Once again, only $8 at Circuit City.

I just believe that there is no reason to spread out so much cash like I once did for games. Once I start playing WoW again, I probably won't buy anything at all until I stop again. I really think that this also goes beyond money. I think people who play an MMORPG, like WoW, get highly involved and play that one game and nothing else, or little else. This translates into a need for fewer games over all, since once they stop playing WoW, they can immerse themselves in their new games until they beat it before having to buy a new one.

Re:Largely concur...

[Anonymous Coward]

WOW, I do the same thing.

I decided to stop the video card arms race and missed playing alot of games.

Now I pick them up for less than $20, Like C&C Generals.

Re:Largely concur...

[Bamafan77]

I haven't paid "full price" for games since I quit playing WoW (I might play when the expansion hits). Since then my game purchases have include, Tribes Vengeance, I love the series and at $5 at Microcenter there was no way not to get this. I picked up the Myst Collection (or whatever) for like $15. Since I never beat any of the games before, I figured why not. I also purchased NWN: Diamond Edition for around $30, so that is NWN + 2 expansions (or is it 3). The last game I got was HL2: Episode One. Once again, only $8 at Circuit City.

Scott Miller discusses how aftermarket resells are killing developers and publishers in his blog. However, I wonder if he's considered the effect of MMO games?

But is the MMO phenomenon effect on the market new? A long time ago, I know I basically stopped buying any games that didn't offer interaction with other people online. Take Starcraft for instance - If Starcraft were an offline rts, it would have been an OK game. If it let you play against your buddy sitting next to you, it'd have been a much better game. However it let you play against anyone on the planet and that made it an incredible game. So even during my Starcraft days, my purchases of other games were greatly diminished. I wouldn't be suprised if there was an article from the late 90's about how online games in general were killing the industry.

Re:Largely concur...

[BigCheese]

I do the same thing. I pick up the Classic/Greatest Hits/Players Choice and used titles for $20 or less for the console.

I still like a good game of Guild Wars now and then too. It's my full price addiction.

Re:Largely concur...

[Horatio_Hellpop]

// The last game I got was HL2: Episode One. Once again, only $8 at Circuit City.//

Geez, where do you live? In Chicagoland, all Circuit City's are selling HL2:EP1 for $19.99.

Re:Largely concur...

[ZMech13]

I agree. These days a good game that offers good competitive online play can be just as much of a time sink as any MMO. I know years ago I picked up the Half-Life Platinum edition since I had heard great things about Half-Life and finally had a system that could handle it. After finishing it, I tried one of the other games it came with called Counter Strike. The next few months are nothing but a blur of work, sleep, and Counter Strike. It was the only game I played for a long time, and didn't buy any new games for a really long time. Fortunately my addiction was broken by all the lame hackers whose cheating made me get fed up with the game.

Now I play a lot of City of Heroes, but since keeping up with others isn't as big of a concern for me, I'll take time out to play other games as well (that and go have a life away from the computer).

YES!!

[robinthecandystore]

Yes, of course they do. I for one, haven't bought a single game since I started playing EVE-Online about 2 years ago now. I play on average 2-3 hours a day (I'd hardly say I'm an addict, because sometimes I don't play for days, even weeks). Since there is no 'finishing' an MMORPG, I have yet to feel those pangs of boredom that would move me to another game. Even after I finish playing EVE, when i Get bored or all my friends leave it, I highly doubt I'll be buying a lot of games in the future. More then likely I'll try to find another online game that I can get lost in. It's saved me so much money I've bought 2 new computers in the past 2 years and still had plenty of disposable income for the fun things in life :)

Re:YES!!

[LordPhantom]

At the risk of being off-topic, being a fellow Eve Player (who loves the LACK of a level grind (your charachter trains even if you're not playing)) - "can I have your stuff?" :D

Well obviously, buying x cause less money on y

[Duds]

If you have £50 a month for games, and you're spending £20 a month on the MMO. That's £20 a month less going on retail games.

Where's the surprise here? Most people have a fixed entertainment budget. Spending more on anything means spending less on something else. And given most people also have limited time if they're spending money and time on an MMO game they're going to have less time for any other game and less need to buy more.

Game purchases

[michrech]

There are very few games I like to play. Of the games I've purchased, the only ones I've played for more than a few hours are MMORPG's. Specifically, Asheron's Call and City of Heroes/Villains. I was involved in the last few months Beta test for Dungeons and Dragons, however, I've decided I'm tired of paying $50-ish for a game that I also have to pay monthly to play, so I've decided I will be switching from CoV/CoH, but only when DDO drops significantly in price for the client. Hell, they GIVE the client away when you do the free 7 day trial, so there is NO reason for the retail client to cost more than $15-ish. I've got the client (both from my beta days, and the 7 day trial). WHY can I not just start playing (paying the monthly fee, of course!)?!

The Second One

[Digital Vomit]

As long as MMORPGs like WoW continue to be outrageously overpriced, people will simply not afford to be able to spend money on other games. When you spend so much money on a single game, you want to get as much play out of it as possible. At least, that's been my gaming experience.

Re:The Second One

[thopkins]

What makes you think they are overpriced? They are actually priced very reasonably. If they were overpriced they would not have millions of subscribers.

Re:The Second One

[east coast]

Not to dispute some of your claim but look at it this way:

10 hours of Half Life 2: 50 usd
10 hours of WOW (if that's how much you play a week) : 4-5 usd

I don't know what the real average time is per player/per week for WOW or the other assorted MMORPGs but frankly it's your best entertainment value at this point unless you got a serious Freecell addiction going on.

Seriously, how many times can you replay a game and still find it entertaining when there is no social interaction and the game play is pretty much a formula of triggered events. I remember when I was playing a lot of Medal Of Honor online I would buy the expansion packs to get more maps/weapons choices. Normally I would only play about half way through the actual single player missions before it would become tedious to me and I'd go back to playing the multiplayer instead.

If you're one of the MMORPG players that only farms or grinds it's going to get old quick but if you really go out and scout around these worlds are very entertaining and if you have people you know who play you get the addition of competition and socialization. I think a lot of gamers like that kind of gaming.

Re:The Second One

[Anonymous Coward]

You've gotta be kidding me.

WoW is cheap, DIRT cheap.

I pay ~$13/month for between 20-80 hours of entertainment a month.

That's less than a buck an hour on my WORST month.

Movie & popcorn w/ girl: $30 for ~2 hours
Drinking at the bar: $100-150 for an evening
Dinner for two @ a nice restaurant: $50-80 for ~90 minutes
Single player game: $50 for ~15-40 hours, more than $1/hr

Re:The Second One

[Digital Vomit]

What makes you think they are overpriced?

I compare the cost of playing WoW versus the cost of all the other games I've played (and enjoyed roughly the same amount per hour). WoW is pretty far down the list in the dollars/hour of enjoyment (and I've clocked close to 500 hours in about 10 months on the game). Games like X-COM: Apocalypse and Civilization III blow WoW out of the water with respect to dollars/hour of enjoyment.

$5/month would be a much more reasonable price for WoW. And even then they'd still be making more money than almost any game in the history of video gaming.

Re:The Second One

[Jugalator]

Not to dispute some of your claim but look at it this way:

10 hours of Half Life 2: 50 usd
10 hours of WOW (if that's how much you play a week) : 4-5 usd

???

How did you come to this conclusion? Do you for example not even include the retail box cost for WoW, while you do for HL2? Also, what's saying someone purchased HL2 during these 10 hours you compare them with? You don't keep purchasing HL2 while you play it, but you do keep playing fixed monthly fees for WoW as long as you play it, regardless how much you play it.

A more fair comparison looks to me like this:
- Half-Life 2 played during two years => $36.
- WoW played during two years => $37 (box cost @ Newegg) + $12 * 12 * 2 = $325.

WoW about 9 times more expensive during this period.

Two years seem to me a pretty reasonable time before become bored over games better than average.

I believe both HL2 and WoW is played even longer by many.

Re:The Second One

[Jugalator]

Btw, it should maybe be added that with HL2 I refer to CS: Source gaming, which is often bundled, and in that $36 price too that I got from Newegg. I don't expect players to be nuts about its solo campaign for two years. ;-)

Re:The Second One

[rehtonAesoohC]

...unless you got a serious Freecell addiction going on.

Kind of offtopic, but I went to my grandmother's house to fix her computer and Freecell was up, so I hit F3 without even thinking twice. (F3 brings up the statistics page, with number of wins, losses, played games, winning streak, etc).

There's got to be a guinness world record about it somewhere... 15,324 games and counting.

Re:The Second One

[east coast]

Do you for example not even include the retail box cost for WoW, while you do for HL2?

Actually, I did. The cost of WOW is actually a bit less than 4-5 dollar a week costs when you go by subscription alone (it comes in around 3.50 a week).

Also, what's saying someone purchased HL2 during these 10 hours you compare them with?

Well, seeings as where it's a cost comparison my guess is that they purchased half life 2. If you're trying to hint at piracy I guess you're right, HL2 would be infinatly cheaper. I can't contend with piracy in this case.

You don't keep purchasing HL2 while you play it, but you do keep playing fixed monthly fees for WoW as long as you play it, regardless how much you play it.

OK, let me play devils advocate for the number of games people buy, that do not require subscription but never really play for more than an hour or two. I have several on my shelf. And frankly, if you're paying for a MMORPG and not using it than you're a moron. Stupidity is something I have no justification for either. But even moreso who's to say someone gets the full 10 hours out of HL2? You see, you're playing a word game here, I'm trying to go by a law of averages and yes, most players I've spoken to have told me that they got about 10 hours out of HL2. I got less out of the game. Where as I know players of MMORPGs who have gotten over 100 hours out of their 15 or so dollar investment (50 if you want to include the box price). So I can't make an excuse for every diviation of what a player does. I'm sorry.

Half-Life 2 played during two years => $36.

OK, here's somewhere where I HAVE to draw the line. Who, pray tell, is playing HL2 for two years? Are you trying to tell me that there are people who will play HL2 over and over and over again for two years without buying another game and still find the game worth playing? You're out of your mind, again, you're playing a word game. Let's be serious about this, most FPS players I know buy a game about once a month, most of the posts here confirm that. Most MMORPG players I know buy a new MMORPG every 2-3 years... Do you care to compare the costs again?

Two years seem to me a pretty reasonable time before become bored over games better than average.

Are you seriously telling me that you won't buy another game for two years from the point you bought half life 2? That means you are NOT an average gamer.

Re:The Second One

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got around 120 days /played in game on warcraft, I've been playing since Jan 1st 2005.

So 18 months of wow = 60 + (15*18) = $330

$330/120day = $2.75 per 24 hours of play

Re:The Second One

[Anonymous Coward]

- Half-Life 2 played during two years => $36.
- WoW played during two years => $37 (box cost @ Newegg) + $12 * 12 * 2 = $325.

How is that fair? HL2 has maybe a month of play in it. Even though WoW has better than average player retention it still doesn't have anything like a two year average - I'd guess 6 months.

Normal gamers spend 36/month with a new game every month. MMO players spend 36 + 15/month with a new game every 6 months.

Re:The Second One

[east coast]

But you expect them to play the same six maps of multiplayer action for two years without losing interest instead of the expansive worlds of MMORPGs? Get real. I have and play CSS. I have several dozen maps and I still find myself hard pressed to play for more than a couple hours a week anymore.

Perhaps it's "to each their own" but I still think it's nuts to claim that the average gamer would be happy with HL2 (and all it's mods) for two solid years without buying more games. Average gamers DO NOT do this. Perhaps you're the exception. Like I said, I can't make up a scenario where every player is going to make out with a MMORPG. My experience matches many of the experiences of other posters here; MMORPGs lessened my buying of other games. Multiplayer internet games, such as CSS, did the same but to a much lesser extent.

There's three sides to that fence...

[steveo777]

One is that you pay for your MMORPG and you love it and play it because, in the words of my cousin and I, it's freer than going out and buying a game. We pay in advance because it's cheaper.

The second is that some people don't like subscriptions and would rather just play their games when they want, and move on. If they want, they can alway go back to their old games and pick it up where they left of for free. They own it.

The thrid is them fence-riders. Or people with a lot of money and time. They pay for one or mor MMORPG and they buy games all the time. Single people with well-paying jobs, usually. Most people are on one side of the fence or the other as either side can just pick up the game when they want. It's all about how we/you/I view our money.

Personally, I play Wow and buy about as many games as I normally would (which isn't many). I rarely own two games that I haven't beaten, and MMORPGs don't really count. Couple that with the fact that there haven't been any games coming out that interest me and I'm saving up for a good Wii launch line up... No cash...

Not the only problem

[scrabbleguy]

I know that I've been buying less games due to lack of innovation. There's just too many sequels and not enough new ideas. Even Katamari. Playing the first Katamari was great. The sequel and the PSP version were really just more of the same.

That's one reason the DS is doing so well. A lot of things we're seeing for the first time and they're completely great. I'd much rather perform surgery with my touch screen then play something like Blinx 2.

Re:Not the only problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd much rather perform surgery with my touch screen then play something like Blinx 2.

Heck, I'd rather perform surgery on myself with a rusty fork than play Blinx 2.

MMORPG dont play consoles.

[BunnyClaws]

From what I have seen most guys (sorry girls too...) who are really into the MMORPG games tend to spend most of their time playing one game online. Now I know this is just anecdotal information I am going on but everyone I know who plays MMORPG gets obsessed with 1 game only (Evercrack, Dark Ages of Camelot, etc..) and usually won't play anything else until the next MMORPG comes out. I don't think these type of players will spend their time playing console games. They have no time they have to reach a higher level and find that Golden Axe. So I assume MMORPG players are not leaving the console market. I don't think they were ever really a part of it.

I Agree

[tehwebguy]

i ONLY played Half-Life and various mods from about 2001 until Half-Life 2 came out.

the 29.99 or whatever i orignally paid for it made for enough fun until the next version. i can only imagine how much MORE a mmorpg would hold onto a customer than something that doesn't really have the same sort of gameplay and object (such as HL)

Is this why games are getting shorter in play time

[east coast]

I remember back when companies like SSI were putting out titles that they rated as 50-60 hours of game play. These titles normally lived up to the claims too. But in today's gaming it seems like the game play is shorter. Just look at HalfLife2, HL2 episode one, the Hitman series, etc etc where these games could just be absolutely crushed in under 10 hours.

There are few "long term" games today and most of those are RPGs (NWN and TOE come to mind) and few first/third person "shooters". Personally I was a big fan of the Thief series of games and it would take about 30 hours for each installment if you did it "right". You don't find many games like that today.

But then again there is the somewhat recent increase in game modding too... How many people are still playing the original Counter Strike today? Where would that time have gone if the gamer didn't have CS? Granted, it helped to keep the original Half Life out of the bargin bin but the number of hours spent playing online (and not just MMORPGs) adds value to the original product. Perhaps that's another aspect of this issue that should be reviewed. I know I have about 200+ hours in on CSS at this point. That's more time than I've logged into EQ2 since I got HL2.

Thief also should be noted as having fan missions. There are just tons of them and some are even better than the original maps. It helped add more time to the game. So this too added value and took time away from a new game to devote to an old original.

At least for me

[Odin_Tiger]

At least in my case, yes, MMORPG's suck my dollars away from other games, but that's only part of the problem. Oblivion was the last game that really caught my interest as 'must-have', and Spore is the next one I'll be looking to buy. That's a really long gap between games, and it's not like I'm picky about genre, either. Console RPG like Final Fantasy and racing games like Gran Turismo, PC single player-focused FPS like F.E.A.R., online FPS like Day of Defeat: Source or UT2K4 or Battlefield, PC Strategy like Warcraft III or Civ IV, PC RPG like Oblivion...

There are lots of games types that I love and will happily pay for, but the fact of the matter is, there aren't very many quality games, regardless of platform or genre, being released lately. Oh, I'm sure I'll get a few replies to this pointing out people's personal favorites, but how many games have come out in '06 that really jump to the forefront of your mind as something that you heard about, planned to buy, -did- buy, and were very happy with -and- was widely popular? Let's see, TES IV: Oblivion, and...uhhhhm... ... ...see? Games companies are in the same boat as Hollywood last summer. Sure, there are some factors relating to changes in customer behavior that are hurting sales a bit, but when you get down to it, the industry simply is not releasing much, and what little they are releasing is, by and large, crap.

Re:At least for me

[bensode]

You are so right on top of it. The game companies are releasing CRAP. I bought "The Bard's Tale" (2005 remake) for $50 only because I *knew* it also had the three original Bard's Tale games bundled with it. It's sad, it's true ... but the "new" version of Bard's Tale gameplay is terrible, quirky and the dialog is a mess. I installed the original three 1980's releases of The Bards Tale and played each one for about 20-30 hours and was like WOW! I had forgotten how much fun those were for their time. I showed the games to my kids and they laughed at me it was really cute. My kids did to me what I did to my parents when they reminisced on the Atari 2600 ;)

Re:At least for me

[chicklet427]

I haven't purchased any new games since signing up for WoW. I promised myself I wouldn't spend any more on games until Diablo III comes out LOL

Yes MMORPG do do that.

[Boap]

I have noticed that me personally have gone from buying 2-3 games a month to 2-3 a year sence I have been playing MMORPG's as I do not have the time to play the standalone games that are so static in most cases. This has been going on for me for almost a decade (started in 1998 with UO)and I do not see this trend changing anytime soon for me.

ex-game junkie

[caffeinatedOnline]

I use to buy a new game every week or so, retail.

I started to question how much I was spending on games, and realized how much I was spending on *crappy* games. It had nothing to do with MMORPG's, as I would still go out and buy a game for a break from the level grinding. This is what has kept me from keeping up my previous purchasing habits, the quality of the games that are being released.

If the game industry would stop pumping out such shite titles, and actually take some time to create some games that would interest a person, they could get out of this 'sales slump'. MMORPG's can keep a persons interest in a game for a long time, where they aren't ready to go out and buy another game, true. But, if you go out and buy a crappy game, chances are you aren't going to turn around and buy another one, your going to stick with your current games that are fun.

an afterthought,

[tehwebguy]

i didn't even think about the subscription fee. i didn't buy any games and my HL only cost me 30$ once.

if i was paying a subscription fee, i would definitely not be wasting much time playing games that didn't squeeze the most out of the fee.

Re:RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "bea

[Cheapy]

a lot of the newer generation games are open "world" environments. They could potentially be played for a human's entire life because they are fully open ended.

Funny story about that. I've beaten Oblivion twice (which shows just how little a life I have...), yet yesterday I came upon a whole town that I had no clue exsisted. I didn't even rush through those previous games!

Maybe if there was anything to buy...

[Moraelin]

I mean, seriously, I don't know about the US releases, but looking on amazon.de is just disheartening. There are surprisingly a couple of games that are scheduled for the end of june, which is more than last summer had, but you can also see stuff released in February that's _still_ on their short "New Releases" list. It's just bloody sad.

Not to mention that a lot of stuff is just a clone of a clone of a clone of a clone. Yet another FPS coming up, yet another RTS coming up, and (now that's a big surprise;) yet another sports team manager game coming up. Whop-de-fucking-do. That's soo worth my money. I always wanted to play yet another BF clone, except this one is based on the old Unreal engine and themed around WW2. Oh, wait, the original BF1942 was WW2 themed too. And I sooo always wanted to play yet another Dune 2 clone, except this one has different unit sprites. Not.

Seriously, the games industry just needs to realize that selling last year's game with better graphics is becoming less and less of an incentive to buy new games. Getting the same FPS with 1000 polygons/char instead of 300 was a bloody huge step in visual quality. Getting it with 3000 instead of 1000 becomes a smaller step. Getting it with 10,000 instead of 3000 becomes just a tweak already. There are already games sporting 30,000 polygon characters. E.g., The Singles. Am I that excited of the next step to 100,000 polygons per char. Well, no, not really. It already looks good enough.

Ok, it's not yet _perfect_. There's room for graphics improvements, but what I'm saying is: last year's games aren't visually offensive either. It's less and less an incentive to think, "man, last year's game looks like shit. I must get the newest one with the absolute highest polygon count." (Not that it ever was that huge an incentive, since I prefer gameplay and plot anyway, but just saying.) We're at the point where getting a 2 year old game from the bargain bin is quite a viable choice, not just on account of often having the same (or even better) gameplay, but also on account of not even looking that much worse.

At any rate, to sum it up: there's just not much stuff to buy, and even less stuff that tempts me. It's not the MMOs. The MMOs are just some filler to pass the time while waiting for the next good game. I've been known to take a break from MMOs to play, say, Heroes Of Might And Magic 5, though even that proved to be just a verbatim rehash of HOMM 1 to 4 with a nice 3D engine, and just as repetitive as those. But, seriously, there just isn't much to tempt me away from MMOs, much as I'm available and willing to be tempted.

Price?

[djrosen]

Console games are $60 USD while their PC counterparts are 25% or better less. I am playing Oblivion on the Xbox360 and I am glad the game takes massive amounts of hours to complete becasue I am in no hurry to spend another $60 on what is basically a slightly better version of the game that they could easily put out on the original Xbox.

I still like the 360 but I have over 60 games for my Xbox, I dont think I will be getting close to that number with 360 games unless they get Much, Much better to justify the price tag and I really dont want to hear about how much money they are spending making these 'Next Gen games' Movies are still $8 and the special effects have increased 100 fold.

Re:Retail is eventually going to suffer even more.

[Cheapy]

A lot of people perfer to be able to have a physical copy of the data. What happens if Windows melts down and you lose your downloaded game?

Do you really think companies will just resend the game over without a charge? That bandwidth must be payed for somehow.

Duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer is quite obvious to this one, and it's yes.

MMOs are based on the pokemon philosophy (gotta catch it all). If you're not playing the MMO, you're "wasting time" and "falling behind".

The same holds true to any game that takes the "time investment" philosophy over the "skill" one. How many people that pre-ordered (indicating some level of excitement and involvement in the game series) FFX2 or Kingdom Hearts 2 played anything else besides that until the game was played start to finish?

Damn pirates!

[antonymous]

Where's the MMORPGAA when you need it?? Something must be done to boost sales, and it's clearly the fault of those who purchase the games!

Re:Damn pirates!

[jokerr]

That's right. We need more money! A monthly subscription fee to play a legally addictive game is not enough. We need to completely own their lives and money.

Tyco: "Your an f*cking addict."
Gabe: "I'm not playing right now."
Tyco: "Yes, you are."
Gabe: "I am?! Damit."
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/05/08

Yes.

[Soulflame_2]

I used to buy 2 or 3 retail games a month, right up until I started playing UO. Currently, I may buy three to six games a year, and they are for the most part big titles like Warcraft III or Civ 4. In fact, I'd say half of the games I have bought for the past couple years have been for the gamecube I bought "for the children".

The industry has no one to blame but themselves, unfortunately. The way that MMOGs are designed, in order to be "successful" in the game, one has to spend an extraordinary amount of time playing. This really cuts into your free time that might have been spent playing other games.

I'll also point to the pain that can be installing a new game. I recently received Half Life 2 as a gift. It took me a couple hours to get the whole thing working. First, I had to install, then patch. That took a good while. I launched HL2, and was told there may be issues with my video card, please update. So I update the video drivers, and reinstall activex on my machine. Then I discovered there was a conflict with my video drivers with an MMOG that I play, so I had to roll back the video drivers I had installed. Fortunately, both HL2 and DAoC now work on my machine quite happily, but it took, as I said, a couple of hours to get that right.

Many people who play video games are getting past the point in their lives where they want to spend a couple hours swearing at their computer. They'd rather come home and play with friends in an MMOG, or drop a disc into a console and have some fun.

Not only Games...

[bsytko]

... but other things as well, like food, rent, beer. I'm saving thousands!

Yes

[lmh2671772]

My kid plays WoW almost exclusively, and has limited his time on other games to the point where he won't play CS with dear ol' dad anymore. *sniff*

Some Are Cheap

[ggKimmieGal]

Not all MMORPGs have a monthly fee. My personal favorite, Guild Wars, has none. Think of all of the money I am saving! $40 for almost never ending fun. Why should I go out and buy more games when this one keeps me enetertained? There are numerous quests and missions, all of which are very entertaining. Plus, all of my reallife friends can play with me at the same time, and we're not spending any money on gas to do so.

So are these games sucking up the market? It hardly surprises me. Teenagers and young people such as myself do not have all of the money in the world for games, so it is much smarter to make a solid investment. Video game companies should invest into MMORPGs. I am sure the future of video games will be shaped by today's MMORPGs.

Absolutely

[Wind_Walker]

As a recently liberated WoW player (played since launch, endgame guild up to Twin Emps) I can say that my buying habits changed drastically when I started playing WoW. Before WoW, I would buy about 2 games a month for my various systems (PC, US and Japan PS2, GBA, DS, and modded Gamecube for US/Japan games). While I was playing WoW I bought exactly zero games.

Once my WoW addiction subsided and I tried to play "catch up" though, I found that I had no interest in 99% of the games which had come out during my 18-month game-buying drought. Guitar Hero, Battlefield 2, and Dragon Quest VIII are the only major titles which I felt were "must-haves" during the time I was out of the market. It's interesting though that there's dozens of DS games which I still have on my "want" list, when I figured that there would be zero.

I don't think it's WoW's fault, I think that the past year has just been really really crappy for video games in general. It's all "same game different title" for the most part. Battlefield 2 and DQ8 are basically just and FPS and a standard Japanese RPG. Guitar Hero is probably the only new idea out there for the consoles, while the DS has Nintendogs, the Brain series, as well as the new control schemes for Metroid Prime Hunters gives the DS new life from the jaded gamer market.

I, like thousands of other gamers, have "been there done that" with the current generation of consoles. It's all just FPS, sports, and stealth games it seems. The DS breaks that mold by introducing the revolutionary control scheme and backing it up with great games. I'm hoping the Wii will continue this and really give people new, innovative video games to play again, because I'm tired of the "same game different title" syndrome.

Re:RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "bea

[ClamIAm]

plot arcs

Hahaha, that's a good one. Seriously though, when Massive RPGs start allowing actual roleplaying, I'll sign up in a heartbeat. As of now, people who want to actually roleplay get nothing. All the quests are pre-defined, etc.

It depends on your experience

[zlogic]

Some people may get bored with a game pretty quickly. I cannot play the same strategy game for more than a month (even if I'm playing in multiplayer). My sister *still* plays Warcraft III since it was published. The main problem with strategies/RPGs is that your gaming experience stays pretty much the same. They don't have very good storylines (except for perhaps Starcraft) and in strategies you end up building units until the 5-minute final battle where you either lose your army and have or completely defeat your enemy. RPGs usually end up collecting stuff and increasing experience and level.
FPSs last less than strategies but they present you a good story (compared to strategies), interesting maps where you take advantage of the map itself etc. Compared to FPSs, RPGs have a "smoother" experience - they have simpler maps, simpler storylines and so they keep you interested by offering new weapons/units/upgraded.
I'd say that you can play an RPS for longer than an FPS but its replay ability is lower.
But playing a single game for months isn't much fun, no matter how good it is. You'll still be fighting Night Elves, Orcs and others - and after half a year they'll look all the same. It's like visiting only one website - Slashdot, MSDN, OSNews etc.

Honestly...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't really have the time or the inclination to play MMORPGs. As a full-time student and part-time employee who is involved in a leadership position as well, I simply don't have time to keep pace with the rest of the world in these games. I simply don't have 5 hours every day to devote to World of Warcraft. It always seems that MMOs expect you to spend more time in a marketplace trading for items items than actually going out and doing stuff. If I wanted to sit in a room trying to buy "OMG SUPERIOR RUNE OF SOULCRUSHING 5000 PLAT" I would go to the mall. I want to play a game - not shop.

I miss the days when going on Mephisto runs was the way to get items.

Re:Retail is eventually going to suffer even more.

[Dr. Eggman]

Couldn't agree more, I hardly can remember the last time I bought from a physical store (outside an impulse buys I happen upon.) I buy nearly everything online and even then I check for a full digital distribution first. And all my music comes from the games I buy so... yeah.

Now If I could only convince people that episodic content at $20 every 6 monthes for 4-6 hours is a better deal than Subscription patches at $90 over 6 monthes for *maybe* 9-10 hours (not including replay value for either, when I've played through the new dungeon once, I don't count the second run for more loot under the initial experience.)

It's the time, not the money

[bluesoul7s]

Think of the gamer's budget as being based on time.

MMORPGs involve a radical investment of the gamer's time. I know this full well - my roommate took six years to finish college because he was maintaining an epic character in Everquest.

It's not that the subscription fees are cutting the gamer's budget, it's that the gamer doesn't have time for the other games.

I'd say so. However ----

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends on the game. I recall when I used to play EverQuest like an addict, I was in one of the top guilds in the game. When certain games got released. ie: Diablo 2, Halo, etc, and a few other 'major blockbuster games' there would be a few weeks where guild attendance at events would drop considerably because of people playing new games.

I remember trying to raid North Temple of Veeshan after a big game got released, and a week before we would easily get 36+ people out, but after release it was a struggle to even get 18 people to show up.

But generally speaking (with a few titles being exceptions), most MMORPG players I knwo dont buy many other games these days.

Too much money

[Cleon]

Well, one thing with MMOs is that they really take you for a ride. First, you pay $50 for the actual software. Then, assuming there aren't any expansion packs available (which can easily cost just as much as the original software), you pay $15 a month for the privelege of playing.

I finally broke down and bought World of Warcraft last month. By the time a year goes by, if I manage to take advantage of all discounts and get the average monthly cost down to $12, I will have spent $182 on that game alone. It only goes up if you're playing several MMOs at once. If I decided to also get Star Wars: Galaxies and D&D Online, we're talking $550--for three games. After the first year, I would pay an annual cost of $430. For three games.

MMOs are expensive! There is no doubt in my mind that paying these kinds of fees are eating at gamers' budgets. Especially when you consider that these games are aimed at young people, who don't exactly have six-figure salaries. (And even the most spoiled kid's parents will eventually say "enough!")

I would much rather see a change in model--something where you get the initial software at low cost (or, better, free), and they charge mainly for the monthly service. That's where the bulk of their profits are coming from, anyway. Runescape also has a good thing going; you play for free, but if you want to get ALL the features, you upgrade to "member" at a very reasonable price ($5 a month). It may not have the quality of WoW, but A) that's mostly due to it being run from a browser and B) you can't argue with results--they make a ton of money. I see that model as being more desirable for the future of MMOs; otherwise, it's going to become more and more difficult to sell new games as people settle on just one or two MMO-style games.

Re:Too much money

[Moqui]

I easily spent that ($182 for WoW) going to see one movie a month with my wife last year ($10 per ticket, 2 tickets, 12 months) or around 24 hours of entertainment. For the same amount of money I had somewhere in the range of 1000 hours of game play in WoW (20 hours a week, 52 weeks).

Online gaming is AMAZINGLY cheap for the total entertainment value you can gain from it. Even if you played 1/10th as much as that, you are still getting 5x the value of seeing the newest Hollywood blockbuster once per month.

Re:Too much money

[Beltendu]

It depends on your metric. If you're thinking of dollars per game, then yeah, MMOs are expensive.

If you're thinking of dollars per year, then it depends on your gaming habits. If you're one of those people that would otherwise be buying 2 or more games a month, then MMOs are cheap - 50 or so bucks for the first month, 15 or less for the rest per MMO, as opposed to 50 bucks a month per regular game. So, even with the initial box price, it's still cheaper. Not that I would argue with lowering the box price, of course ... :)

If you were only going to buy a couple games over the year, then it's probably cheaper that way.

Depends entirely on your perspective. For me - if I wasn't playing MMOs, I'd be playing tons of other games. Maybe it'd be Counterstrike for years on end, in which case I wouldn't be spending more money - but it would just as easily be the next great CRPG every month. Even with three MMOs active for me right now, I'm spending the equivalent of buying ONE game box a month. If a server is down, I go play a different one. And I end up getting play time that's measured in weeks or months, not hours.

Re:Too much money

[Eideewt]

I suppose its value depends on how much entertainment you get out of it. I enjoy two hours of a good movie much more than grinding my way to the next level no matter how many hours I "get" to spend on it. So for me, it's a choice between a couple hours of fun or many hours of tedium. Not a hard choice at all. For you, four or five hours a day in a MMORPG is time well spent.

I blame Fallout for my disinterest in the RPG genre. My theory is that playing through Fallout is like an RPG orgasm -- with a very long refractory period.

Re:Too much money

[doughrama]

You're right, no doubt. There are certainly people out there pay for multiple subscriptions, but I highly suspect that that's the exception to the rule. I spent a lot of money on games, heck I'd buy 2-3 games a month. Usually though I'd just end up going back to the games I really like Civilization 3, AoE, maybe HL:2. At one point I had the best Mac you could buy and I had a nice higher end PC. The PC was for games only and my Mac was for everything else.

I bought WoW the day it came out, I knew full well I was going to enjoy the game. I installed it on my Mac and played it ever since. I decided to sell my PC after I realized I had moved and hadn't bothered to unpack it for 3 months. I hadn't purchased a PC games since long before I sold it.

But getting back to the point, sure like anything else, you can nickel and dime all your money away. I don't personally know anybody that plays more than 1 mmorpg at a time though. You could frame it like you did and want to have a subscription to multiple mmo's, for variety. But most people (myself included) tend to find their favorite and simply sink their time into that. Having a single subscription isn't a requirement, it's just usually the end result.

The same scenario holds true of everybody I've met who plays WoW (I don't know anybody who plays any of the others.)

Boring.

[EnsilZah]

I just haven't seen anything worth buying since Homeworld 2 came out.

For me there are three grades of games, the ones i would buy, the ones i might download and the ones i don't bother with.
The last two games i downloaded were Civ4, which was so buggy it was unplayable after a certain stage, and Oblivion, where the plot line seemed like an afterthought.
Now, i would buy a new Blizzard game or that new Fallout game Bethesda are working on, out of brand loyalty.
But i won't even bother downloading any of that EA-clone crap or the latest id-engine-demo.

I really wish there was more emphasis on original stories.

I play guild wars ;p

[thc4k]

So i dont exactly have less money ( Guild wars is free to play with an full price addon coming out every 6 month so areanet can pay for the servers ;-) but i sure spend alot less on other games, just because GW PVP keeps me busy. But on the other had, before GW i was playing WC3 for years without buying much other games, and before that it was Diablo2 Quake3 even or Ultima Online .. So, i've always been a heavy internet/multiplayer gamer, long before every kids on the planet got into WOW. The change is not MMORPGs per se, but simply the internet. Playing with/against humans keeps the replay value high, in any genre not just MMORPGs. But i guess, "Does the internet cause people to buy fewer Games?" would have not been exactly "news" ^^

My favorite

[Wind_Walker]

Guitar Hero Might not fall into the "wildly popular" category, but it's the best party game I've ever seen. Easily recognizable songs, intuitive gameplay, and "Let me try that" attitude make it a fantastic game. Brain Age/Academy It's one of the many Nintendo DS "nongames" but I've been playing it once a day for the past 2 weeks, and don't intend to stop anytime in the near future. That's something I can't say for a lot of other games (besides WoW) Nintendogs Another "nongame" which I haven't tried, but it is both wildly popular (among nongamers) and innovative New Super Mario Brothers and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow Classic old-school 2D scrolling goodness with enough little quirks thrown in to keep the game fresh and interesting.

Re:My favorite

[Odin_Tiger]

Interesting that you mention new takes on old games...just last weekend I dug out 'Final Fantasy Origins', which is a re-release of FF and FF2 on a single PSX disc, and burned about 30hrs on the original Final Fantasy (they changed some names and graphics a -tad-, but basically the same game...) I ordered some PSX mem cards off ebay (couldn't find mine...) and kept saving to the system memory until they arrived, hehe.
What really blows my mind, more than anything else, is that games are progressively becoming shorter, more expensive, and less replayable. I have, for the most part, memorized the location / timing / best approach method / best weapon for killing the majority of enemies in F.E.A.R. without getting shot or with barely getting shot. I have only beat this game once, but there is -zero- replay value, except for online play, because enemies do the EXACT SAME THING every time. Same thing goes for Splinter Cell and Raven Shield (and their sequels). Wolf3D (the original) has more replay value. Yeah, the enemies come straight for you, but at least they weave somewhat randomly. The worst part, though, is that my favorite games for NES or my old Tandy 2000 took about the same length of time OR MORE to beat as many of my favorite games on PSX / PS2 / PC last couple years. I would be WAY happier if the focus on graphics was put on the backburner to focus on duration and replay value instead.

Re:My favorite

[deinol]

games are progressively becoming shorter, more expensive, and less replayable

Funny, I watch my roommate play Mega Man or Super Mario World in less than an hour and I think, huh, games really were shorter back then.

Different types of games have different play times. RPGs tend to have many, many hours involved. Action and shooters tend to be much shorter in comparison. Stuff that is based on multi-player tends to last as long as you have people wanting to play them.

Myself personally, I'd rather have a shorter game that is all *fun* than a longer game that has some fun moments dragged out by a lot of boring stuff in between.

Re:My favorite

[Tyger]

The record for beating Super Mario Brothers 3 is something a little over 10 minutes.

I wouldn't really call it a short game though. There is a difference between expected play time and how quickly you can beat the game. The original Myst game is a darn good example. You spend hours solving puzzles looking at scenery and learning the story, just to find out that you could have beat the game from the start if you just knew what to do. See that? That's the key. If you just knew what to do.

The platform genre of games, especially those without saves, tend to be very short in actual gameplay. But you spend a lot of time learning what to do. It is the rare person that jumps in and beats a game the first time through in anything near the shortest possible time.

No...?

[Rob T Firefly]

I can't really be the only gamer who detests MMORPGs, can I? I love my PC and console RPGs to death (or at least, to ending credits roll) but I really can't stand anything more MMORPGish than Cyber Nations. Every so often I'll try a new one on the urging of some friend with an account, and every time beyond the initial character creation it just stops being fun for me.

Re:No...?

[Eideewt]

Same here. I see a breathtaking expanse of tedium awaiting me, and I just can't handle that.

Re:No...?

[MrPink2U]

You're not alone. My brother-in-law tried WoW on my trial coupon when I bought the game back in December and he didn't like it either.

To each his own.

Of Course

[umbrellasd]

The primary reason that I do play an online game is cost. Even if I am not keen on playing, I shell out the monthly fee deliberately because it leaves me with little motivation to purchase $50-a-pop titles at retail. Usually there are 1 or 2 really great games a year that come out. I may buy one of those, but that's about it.

The question of whether the online game is responsible for losses in the industry is stupid. If there were 15 incredible titles a year, sales would be just fine. If on the other hand there are 13 mediocre titles and 2 great ones (if even), well now, I'd say it's not that some online *cough*WoW*cough* game is so unbelievably amazing, but rather than it's an economical alternative amidst a field of mediocrity.

Re:Of Course

[JeTmAn81]

I've never really understood this justification for spending so much money on a single game. Nobody has to pay $50 for a game unless you absolutely have it right when it comes out. If you wait a year or so, games will drop to $20 or less. Just get on a cycle where you're getting everything when it's cheap, and you're golden. Used games are even better.

Re:Of Course

[geminidomino]

The only problem with that approach is the games that "disappear" instead of pricedrop.

You've got your Final Fantasies and Devil May Cries that will be around until the daystar goes out, but wait on something like Rhapsody or Stella Deus and you may end up paying WAY too much to play it later.

Re:Of Course

[spun]

Hmmm, I just wait until games hit the "$30 for the game and two expansion packs" level (1-2 years) or the $10 bargain bin level (3-4 years). Or if they are console games, I buy them used. So I don't get to play newer games, they are still new to me when I play them. Plus I can get by on with a cheaper computer. I played MUDs in college and Asheron's Call when it came out, and got fairly well hooked, but the problem for me has always been that I find it hard to suspend disbelief and really get into the story with a bunch of characters named "DildoBuggers4693" running around shouting "D00d! U totly pwnd that n00b!"

Re:Of Course

[CastrTroy]

I don't understand where is idea came from of paying a subscription fee to play a game online. Before we were just happy playing 1 on 1 over modem connections, or getting a few of our closest friends together and playing over the network. The guy with the fastest computer got to host the server. I don't really have any desire to play against people halfway around the world. Because of many reasons, Including:

A) A large proportion of the players spend way too much time playing, and are 10x better (by levels or actual skill) than I could ever hope to be.
B) A large proportion of players are jackasses because you don't know them, and can't slap them upside the head for doing so next time you see them.
C) The servers are always way too busy, and you spend more time trying to find a server with enough people to make it fun, but not too many that it's slow, and people in your skill level.

Even without a subscription based service, you can still play against people on the other side of the world. I have no desire to play in a game with 7000 other people. It doesn't make the game any more fun. Actually, it usually makes it less fun.

Re:Of Course

[cowscows]

There are MMO games that attempt solve some of those problems, with various degrees of success. But more than that, the MMO format provides for a lot of opportunities for designers and gamers. Everyone loves to bitch and moan about how the games are stagnant and more of the same, and for the most part that's true, but MMO's have been a bit of an exception, appearing in a lot of forms with a lot of ideas.

I like playing video games with a few of my good friends too. Sadly, most of my friends have fairly busy schedules, and it's not easy for us all to agree upon a time to play. But in a game with 15,000 people on it, it's not hard to find someone to talk to/cooperate with/compete against/etc. A game with 100,000+ people can get to the point where it can have a basically player run economy, an economy in which I can create for myself a place that I might not be able to obtain in the real world. And doing things we can't do in reality is one of the reasons we play games. The challenge of organizing large numbers of people, especially over something basically anonymous like the internet, that appeals to some people, and MMO's give them a way to try that out.

Not all MMO's are great, just like regular games. And maybe they don't appeal to you personally, that's fine. But if you look at them a little differently than you see more traditional games, you might see some really cool possibilities. And as time goes on and the developers figure more of it out, hopefully your reasons for staying away will become better solved problems.

Re:Of Course

[Lord_Dweomer]

" I shell out the monthly fee deliberately because it leaves me with little motivation to purchase $50-a-pop titles at retail."

You know, there are some better things you could do with that $15/mo that would also prevent you from spending it on a $50/pop title. Such as investing...and who knows, with enough of that you might not have to worry about spending $50/title.

Re:Of Course

[RobinH]

MMO's are a totally different type of experience than what you get playing with a few friends. I played Planetside for over a year, and there's no first person shooter that can compare to 3 factions with 133 players per faction on a single continent. It's not the best graphics but it's the best team based experience I've ever had online. There were a lot of outfits that were very organized, and it was a lot of fun to play with a good team, choosing your own objective, making a plan, and executing it. The fact that your team was 30 people scattered over two continents didn't matter - if you play with the same guys repeatedly using voice chat programs like TeamSpeak, you get to know their personalities, and they become your friends (just not as close as IRL).

Hello Occam....

[ClamIAm]

Speculation is great, but I think the answer for this question already exists. And I believe the answer is simply that as gamers age, they spend less money on games.

The average gamer is now 33 years old (according to the ESA). People at this age have kids and a mortgage. They aren't straight out of college with disposable income anymore. Blaming your problems on the hot new thing is always fashionable, but I believe the true answer is much simpler.

smells like trial

[stud9920]

why do I feel non non-MMORPG producers are soon going to sue MMORPG producers for the $150b losses they endure because of them ?

Re:RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "bea

[cyber-vandal]

Well WoW has RP servers so I guess you could go roleplay on one of them. I assume the server code is the same as for the PvE and PvP servers but roleplaying is up to you and your imagination in any case.

games suck

[a_greer2005]

What stops me from buying games at retail is that for the most part they suck, other than graphics nothing has improved in the last 10 years, and the controls have gotten too complex, I should not have to "learn a controller" it should be intuitive, I shouldnt need 1/2 dozen cheat codes to unlock the really fun stuff...I dont have hours to dedicate to gaming, but I would love to pick up a game and be able to use the coolest wepon/tool/car/player avalible...stop this "earned extras" crap and UNLOCK THE THING SO I CAN PLAY IT!

Wanna do some math?

[Anonymous Coward]

3 retail console games - ~$150
WoW for a year (6 mo. plan) - ~$150

1 yr of WoW = infinite yrs of 3 other games (or a DS Lite and New Super Mario Bros!)

This is why I don't play subscription based MMOs, because this system is RIDICULOUSLY STUPID. WoW is great, but NO game, and I mean NO game, is worth that. From where I stand, anybody who would pay that ludacris amount of money for a game is either insanely rich or just plain stupid. And yes, I just called about 10 million people idiots, and I stand by that statement. For that money there are so many more games you can get, and some are even BETTER. ::gasp:: IT'S JUST, PLAIN, STUPID.

For the price of a year of WoW, I can play my DS Lite and Guild Wars forever! I'm getting way more for my gaming dollar than any WoW junkie is.

Good games

[achacha]

Good games make you buy less. I would normally buy 4-5 games a month and almost always they suck until one month you get a great non-service game (planescape: torment, warcraft 2, ultima 2-6, neverwinter nights, starcraft, heroes of might and magic 2, might and magic 5-6, alternate reality, doom 1-3, quake, etc) and then I would play it for months and months and not buy games until I get tired of it (starcraft lasted 1.5 years, warcraft 2 about 1 year, quake was about a year). MMORPGs are in the same boat. I have played many great games (City Of Heroes 4, Everquest 4 years too much, WoW 1.5 years, etc..) and some I just bought and played for a few weeks and did not like (ultima online, anarchy online, horizons, dark ages of camelot, etc).

    The industry overall is so used to pumping out titles every month and base their revenue on projected sales, they do not anticipate the quality of their games inversely affect sales but directly affect repeat customers (Blizzard is one of the few exceptions to this). It doesn't matter if it is a MMORPG or not, good games will keep people busy for a much longer time, bad games will make people buy more. The marketing and sales people will interpret this as "you have to ship bad games to make more money" and they would be right if they had a chunk of the market but with so many countries putting out games the market has to provide both quality and try to get people to purchase more.

    This is where the whole issue of franchises comes in, to establish one you have to have a good game and every subsequent version must be good, if you fail once you will lose a lot of future sales even though you made money on a sequel (just like with movies).

    So the article is very shallow in trying to find a scapegoat to a much more complicated problem.

Waiting

[cabd]

People are just waiting for the newer consoles. I know that I have purchased far less games each month to save my "game cash" for the next gen console that is Wii. Wow contributes to the lower console game sales, but is not the PRIMARY cause of it.

MMORPGS, hell i buy GTA

[buttcheese]

and that lasts me till the next one comes out, I prefer to buy a well crafted game that fulfills my time, then take a break till the next one comes out. Screw FPS, i hate em they are boring and take little time to master, GTA now I can kill cops all day and have a blast.

MMOs are easy to get in to and hard to get out of

[onlysolution]

A long time friend of mine, who until just recently played WoW like a full-time job, pointed out his biggest gripe with WoW, and MMOs in general, is that you never win. A more accurate way of putting that is that when you win, by being the best etc, you generally un-win with each new patch which nicely robs you of accomplishment by adding incredibly rare bracers that grant +1 more agility than the previous best pair that you spent 40 300-man raids getting. This dangling carrot effect keeps alot of competitive people firmly reigned in and forces them to invest long hours in to the game. It is only natural that this would come at the expense of other games.
From another perspective, MMOs, WoW in particular, have another draw over other PC games in that they need not be run on the fastest system with the biggest graphics card to be fully enjoyed. I find myself unwilling to buy the newest, hottest games because I know they will not run that well on my computer. Upgrading is also not a great option because, like many people, I have an older machine with an AGP slot and a worthwhile upgrade would mean replacing the mainboard, processor and the graphics card at the same time, which is prohibitively expensive. This gives MMOs a sigificant draw to spendthrift as well.

Personally, I'm just going to keep playing Natural Selection and Metal Gear Online for my online fix and wait for the Wii to come out in a few months.

Yet another /. post masquerading as an article

[rsilvergun]

where's the market research (that isn't months old and already talked to death over)? EA, Square/Enix and the rest of the big publishiers must be looking at this trend, couldn't we hear a little from them? How about some hard stats on the # of games the average WoW player has bought in the months before and during play? We know sales are down, but the economy's in the toilet and it's pre-Christmas at the end of a console epoch. for God's sake, it's expected. I'm not saying MMORPGs are or aren't biting into the rest of the market, but then neither is the article.

Re:Is this why games are getting shorter in play t

[houghi]

Indeed. Compare that to some old games, like chess where you get about two hours woth of playtime.

Haven't bought a new game since WoW

[beowulfy]

Ever since I was old enough to get an allowance, I've been buying new video games every couple of months or so, starting around the time of Super Nintendo. That was until I started playing, you guessed it, World of Warcraft. A little over a year ago I bought WoW, have been playing it ever since, and haven't bought one single new game. I guess the key factor is that I haven't gotten bored of it yet. I love and still play many of my older games, but they just can't hold my attention like WoW can. A major part of it is the people that I've come to know in my guild that make it interesting. Another part is that since I'm not this uber hardcore player, there's ton's of content that I haven't even seen yet, even after a year of playing.

Re:RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "bea

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Make your own damn plot arcs.

Re:RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "bea

[Spinalcold]

Meanwhile FPS games are generally very limited. They generally few enough maps to count on your hand, and similarly few weapons.

I agree with all your post but this statement, or rather it could be right if you said most FPS games. The thing that balances out the limited maps and weapons is the human factor, people learn and so no two games are going to be the same. This is why people are still playing Counter Strike.

My drug, Natural Selection, is why I don't buy games. I would rather play Natural Selection than any other game on the market because the human interaction and competition is unbeatable by any other game I've seen. I've had just a repeat game because there are so many stradegies people can use in it. Hell, one match I played lasted 7 hours before we won! Now that was fun!

Re:RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "bea

[sethstorm]

With the goldfarmers, it's going to be a bit hard to explain why your neighbor dwarf is speaking in Mandarin(on an US server, at least keep to languages/IP's of European/American origin) why he has a ton of mages go around (with the GM's Heavenly Mandate) dropping raidmobs and screwing with the economy.

Re:RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "bea

[Cadallin]

Ah yes thousands of items, except, if you translated them into D&D terms they'd all be of the form Long Sword +0.001*K where K is and integer.

Price

[duffbeer703]

In the late 80's and early 90's, PC games were in the $30-40 range, most in the $30 range. They'd drop to $19.99 after a year and then on to the CompUSA bargain bin. Now you see games going for $60-70, and dropping down to about $30. Good games seem stay at $30 for a few years... Half-Life 1 was $24.99 at Target a few months ago!

That's alot of money... at that price point, video games are going either going to turn into a niche market or you'll have a 1984 scenario again where everything crashes.

Re:Price

[LordPhantom]

One word: Inflation. You can't compare costs in 1980 to costs today (25 years later) without talking in terms of either 1980 dollars OR 2006 dollars. They are not worth the same . A little education goes a long way - check out http://www.investopedia.com/university/inflation/ . A calculator that is useful - http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi In comparison to income, prices of games have gone down in a dramatic fashion - $40 in 1980 dollars is worth well over one hundred dollars a game today.

Re:Price

[fastgood]

late 80's and early 90's, PC games were in the $30-40 range, most in the $30 range. They'd drop to $19.99 after a year.

At that time, it also "made sense" to spend $30 on that Amiga500 or AtariST game that was nearly as good as its arcade counterpart which was taking $30 a month in quarters out of your pocket.

Re:Price

[duffbeer703]

You're skewing the effects of infation by picking 1980, which was a high inflation year. 40 1988 dollars is worth about 65 2005 dollars, which seems reasonable.

You also need to consider that the size of the video game market has grown substantially into a mass market. I believe there are 70 million home computers out there, and who knows how many playstations, xboxes, etc. Also consider that the costs of other media like music and video have actually dropped during that same timeframe.

The market doesn't produce games efficiently, and measures that the major game developers have taken to cut costs (homogenized games, sequels, etc) has made games less appealing compared to other forms of entertainment.

Girlfriends too...

[Anonymous Coward]

New Headlines:
    Do Girlfriends Cause People to Buy Fewer Games at Retail?
    Does Having Other Shit To Do Cause People to Buy Fewer Games at Retail?

Yes.

I haven't played a whole terrible lot of videogames (in fact, hardly touched 'em) now that I have a girlfriend eating a large slice of my time. And then there's college classes... social interaction... homework... a job... other hobbies... Basically, there's just no time any more for a pastime that 1) is a money sink, 2) eats my time, and 3) has no measurable payout (like, a useful skill, or a better relationship with a friend, or something).

So, yes, in summary, anything that siphons your time and money will detract from the amount of cash you spend on new videogames. Shocking news, this. Mmmmhm.

Well duh!

[jeremyp]

Since I started playing WoW just after Christmas, I've stopped buying other computer games, or going to the cinema or going out to the pub or seeing any of my friends, or eating or drinking except at survival levels. So I've saved a lot of money which is quite fortunate since i also lost my job...

No

[SphericalCrusher]

Because I'm a huge gamer. I love video games. I've been playing video games since I was 4 (I'm now 20) and I haven't stopped since. But as far as my WoW addiction... it's just a game. Just as when I'm playing Shenmue 2 (Dreamcast Import) and Crazy Taxi. It's just the game of my attention at the time and it does not stop me from buying other games.

Or Maybe.....

[CRiMSON]

It's cause majority of shit games companies are pushing out.. is well shit.. And not worth the .03 it prob costs to press the cd it's on.

If you want to worship Mises in MMO's...

[sethstorm]

For that kind of pricing, you'd be even better off running a 10-12man farming outfit in Lineage II. Heck, with the GM's that outright assist botting, you dont have to worry about the inexistent ban once you've reached the break-even point.

Bleeding money away?

[BigGar']

Or do they bleed money away from other companies in the industry as MMORPG players spend their money on subscriptions and skip out on trying other games that hit the shelf because they already have something to go home to?
I'd like to point out that if they "bleed" money away from other companies then they simply have a more desireable product than the competition. People will generally spend their money exactly were they think they will derive the greatest benefit to themselves. If it's spending their money on an MMORPG to the detriment of the competition, so be it. If it's to sample a wide array of games and not pay a monthly fee, that's what they'll do. Just because a company delivers a a game to market doesn't mean that it will sell. If they complain that it's because MMORPG's are draining money away from gamers that would otherwise have bought their game, they're naive about how the marketplace works and they should have done some work to determine if there was a market for what they wanted to develop before developing it.

$3/month for me

[NineNine]

Actually, it does have an impact for me as well. I've been playing nothing but OGame for the past few months, and I'm buying the "premium" service which is a whopping $3/month. That's $36/year I'm paying for games right now. That's less than one PS2 title. But, once the PS3 becomes available, I'll have to indulge. MMOG's are great, but they're no replacement for a slick, twitch-action console game.

The money saving aspects of a MMO

[everphilski]

But you obviously have internet access. Personally, I save money when I play a MMO. My wife and I play Everquest. $100/year for the subscription, and the expansions are all paid for. For less than the price of three date nights a year we have fun several nights a week for the entire year. There is an open-endedness you get in an MMO that doesn't exist in games that are "bought and paid for", and we utilize it to have fun and save money, versus seeing a movie or going out on a "date night" (we still do occasionally, gotta keep the flame alive... but we've definitely noticed the money saved)

Re:The money saving aspects of a MMO

[drinkypoo]

Personally, I don't buy games just to try them out, I make sure I try before I buy, and on top of that, I typically only play games that will have a high resale value. I'm still playing games from the olden days, and I'm not even including stuff like hack and larn. Or Solitaire :D Seriously though, I STILL play Doom (albeit legacydoom or similar), Quake 1 (works on crap computers and you can even play multiplayer over a modem!) and such... I don't buy games just because they're new. In fact most of the games I buy are used. Switching exclusively to MMOGs would probably reduce the money I spend in a year, because I also buy a lot of old fidgety stuff, like I have a tendency to buy up dreamcast VMUs when I come across them cheap, and I buy every wacky game controller I come across... Anyone wanna buy a virtual boy? :)

Re:The money saving aspects of a MMO

[Jaysyn]

"you can even play multiplayer over a modem!"

This is huge reason why I play free Nevewinter Nights Persistent Worlds instead of your normal MMORPGs.

Re:The money saving aspects of a MMO

[everphilski]

Anyone wanna buy a virtual boy?

No, but if you come across a PowerGlove in good condition ...

Re:The money saving aspects of a MMO

[ElleyKitten]

Yes, I have internet access. My personal limits are not the same as everyone else. That said...

I used to play Everquest with my ex-boyfriend. It killed our relationship. Well, no, the fact that he's an ass killed it, but EQ didn't help any. He had more time to play than me, so he was always higher level than me and we could never group, so even when we were "playing together" we were really just ignoring eachother. Then he had this bad habit of "marrying" other girls in-game that he grouped with instead of me. So, our relationship fizzled and burned out.

Now I play Smash Bros. and other (not massively) multiplayer games with my husband. Since we're actually playing together, it bring us closer (and there's no other girls for me to be jealous of), and when we're not together, I get to play all the other RPGs that I missed while playing EQ.

Also, when did EQ go down in price? When I played, it was $10 a month for each of our accounts, totaling $240, and expansions weren't included.

I'm glad you and your wife enjoy EQ and find it cheaper. I didn't.

Re:The money saving aspects of a MMO

[HarvardAce]

If I only knew where I put mine...I think I used it about 3 times so I'm sure it's in good condition if I still have it.

Re:The money saving aspects of a MMO

[everphilski]

They are modable to use with PC's. Back when I was in high school (98-99) there was a community of people who worked with Rend386/AVRIL to make "immersive environments" where you could interact with a lot of different interfaces, including the power glove ... I used to to think it was cool as hell and drooled over it, but the going rate for PowerGloves was like $75 at the time and I never found 'em at rummage sales ...

Zap forward to the future an I do 3D programming (in a much different context) and I could see some fun to be had with a PowerGlove. I see some on eBay for $7-$22 ... hmmm...

Re:The money saving aspects of a MMO

[Anonymous Coward]

You can bet that most of the "women" he married were actually guys...

Re:The money saving aspects of a MMO

[ElleyKitten]

You can bet that most of the "women" he married were actually guys...

Yeah, that wouldn't make it any better. ;)

No really buying less games, but spending less

[Phaxn]

I'm a big EQ2 player and i use to buy one or 2 new releases a month before starting MMO's. Now I buy the same amount of games, but I wait for them to drop in price. I am a huge Star Wars and RPG fan, so KOTOR was like a bright star after the void following fallout2 , but since I was enjoying SWG so much at the time, I didn't have to pay $49.99 for the game. I got it when it was $19.99 several months later. Granted there were exceptions like Oblivion which i only got it at the full price because all my friends were playing it. So, I'm buying the same amount of games. I'm just spending less money on those games.

PlanetSide

[Anonymous Coward]

> Meanwhile FPS games are generally very limited.

PlanetSide has has 400 players on the same map.

Not just gaming industry

[refriedchicken]

With the WOW addiction keeping so many people in front of their computers for days on end every industry (especially the music industry{you here that RIAA go after gamers and leave the file sharers alone}) is suffering, except maybe the diaper industry.

Neither for me

[The_Shadows]

I'm a gamer. I have a folder full of games, all purchased legally. I support publishers that make good games. For me it just feels like there aren't that many new games worth my money. I've also got less time to play since I joined the workforce last year. I don't like MMORPGS in general so I don't play them. But I don't buy 3-4 games per month. I can't imagine that many decent games even coming out in a month, much less every month. The last games I bought were Oblivion on release day and Hitman: Contracts last week. I'. That's over 4 months between buying games, not just new releases. I have been gaming less over the last year, yes, but more often I've been going back to older games that value gameplay over graphics. X-COM has been installed on one HD or another for years. I recently played through HL and HL:2 again. The Max Payne series is an enjoyable way to while away a weekend every so often. Heck, even classic Wolf 3D is a nice use of 10 minutes.

Really, I want a game I can finish. One I don't have to go online for. One where I don't have to deal with other people if I don't want to. It seems that more and more developers are focusing on MMORPGS. With their rampant success and the money they can bring in (initial cost + monthly fees) it's not surprising. But the time spent on those is time spent on making a game I won't buy. And they are very good games, I'm not debating that. I just see Blizzard, for instance, working only on WoW anymore. There won't be a StarCraft 2, which I would definetly get. There won't be another Diablo, which I would probably get. They've got WoW, it's making them huge numbers of dollars and I respect that. But I'm not going to buy it, and they're not going to make anything else for me. I wouldn't play a World of StarCraft if they made it either.

I would seriously encourage everyone who likes good single player games to go look up older ones, that are of excellent quality, and play those for awhile. Buy them on half.com, check to make sure they'll work on your Windows XP box at ntcompatible.com. Adventure games should pick up The Curse of Monkey Island and The Dig. Strategy fans should take a look at X-COM 1 & 2. The old Sim City, SC2K, Civ II, and Alpha Centauri are classics. Thief 1 & 2. Deus Ex. There are plenty of great games that are out there for under $10 simply due to age. Grab one or two of those and enjoy it them month instead of spending $200 on 4 new releases that don't compare to even one classic or $20 on a monthly fee for WoW.

You save money on everything

[uncleroot]

Because full blown MMO addiction (Dark Age of Camelot in my case which I'm in recovery from) squeezes out most everything else in life. You not only stop buying other games you save money on food because a Hot Pocket and a yogurt is way cheaper than going to a decent resturant or preparing yourself a good meal. You save money on gas because you don't leave the house much except to go to work. Absorbed in your virtual world you don't feel the need for new clothes, consumer electronics (except that needed to run the game). You need a Legendary Hammer and Realm Rank 10 but you don't need a new car, the old one will suffice.

I saved a lot of money while addicted to that game.

Bajilliontuple Unknown Based Theories

[nick_davison]

GameSpot indicates that consoles are down, but PC titles are up, led by MMORPG sales.

Console sales are down during a transition period where many people are hesitant to buy current gen games when they know they'll be upgrading soon and publishers are holding off interesting titles waiting for the exciting new systems.

Obviously the only possible explanation is that people are playing a different type of game on an entirely different platform.

There are 100m+ PS3s out there, 30m? XBoxes and 5-6m WOW accounts. Let's call it 10m players across all MMOs. So, assuming every MMO account holder actually actively plays, isn't a mule, owned a console (rather than was only a PC gamer anyway) and has entirely stopped purchasing new games for their consoles (though they're apparently still purchasing just fine for their PCs). Wow, that'd knock the console market by a whole 5-10%.

Sure, there are other variables like whether they were hardcore gamers or not. But that's kind of the point - it's a weak theory based on dozens of unknowns and conveniently ignoring the most likely answer: the console market's in a transition phase and always expected to be low for the first year of a change over.

But, whilst we're on the exciting headlines, isn't it time to pronounce adventure games/flight simulators/PC gaming as on it's deathbed again?

Re:Retail is eventually going to suffer even more.

[vux984]

Do you really think companies will just resend the game over without a charge? That bandwidth must be payed for somehow.

Seriously, how much is it going to cost them to send me a new copy of the game if I was too stupid to burn it myself? 30 cents? They even could charge me 2 bucks and we'd both be happy.

In the world of utility and productivity software where digital download is already a very common distribution model, they usually let you re-download for free. If you lose your license key, they nearly always let you recover that for free too, provided they have some method of verifying your purchase.

The only exception is if the company goes defunct -- always a risk no matter what you buy. Or your version is so out of date, you need a paid "upgrade". But games don't get upgraded, bugs get patched for free (if at all), major upgrades are called "expansion packs and are optional purchases. And the next version is called a "sequel" not an "upgrade".

Just like Toyota

[mnmn]

Word has it that Toyota has caused people to buy less cars. They last too damn long.

Someone should go after Toyota. Maybe their competitors should file a class action lawsuit.

Mmmmm.. Oblivion..

[Chordonblue]

I've logged more than 80 hours on the 360 version of this game and I'm still loving it! I'm attempting every single quest I can find, not just running through the main quest and calling it 'game over'. I figure I've still got 30-40 hours left - minimum. And I agree with the previous poster, Spore is definately my next game (unless S.T.A.L.K.E.R. makes it out first).

Now that said, I've purchased quite a few Xbox Live Arcade games (waiting for Defender/Stargate!) for when I don't have a spare 6 hours to slog away at Oblivion.

Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it reduces total sales of games. After you lose your job because you spent all of your time playing instead of working, you have no money to buy new video games. Pleanty of time for the old one, if only you could still afford the subscription.

Yes, gameplay is everything

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Meanwhile FPS games are generally very limited. They generally few enough maps to count on your hand, and similarly few weapons. Further an argument can be made that all games from the same generation are fairly the same save causmetics.

I think your last point here is the key one.

Personally, I'm currently replaying Baldur's Gate II/Throne of Bhaal. My most-played game is Total Annihilation. My favourite FPS of all time for multiplayer is still Quake, and my favourite for single player is probably Deus Ex. Can anyone spot the connection between all of these titles?

It's not that I haven't tried more recent games. I have. But while Halo had a couple of nice features, it wasn't much different to the FPS of ten years ago. I played it once, but felt no particular desire to replay it. Similarly, Neverwinter Nights was terribly pretty, yet completely lacked the story-driven nature and character interactions of the BG series, and I lost interest after a few hours. Quake III Arena was far less fun than Quake, because when you're up against people with one-shot-kill weapons and a much lower ping than you, your skill and tactics become pretty much irrelevant. (I'm in the UK, and it seems there aren't a lot of local servers for most games around here.)

As for the latest crop, I just feel no inclination to try them. I've seen demos of many a FPS, but while they all look flashy, none of them seems to offer enough playability to be worth shelling out a few hundred for a graphics card capable of playing them at a decent frame rate. Likewise I've heard all about MMORPGs, but never heard of one that actually has the kind of well-thought-out story arcs I experienced in some of the Black Isle/Bioware titles of yesteryear.

I just want someone to come up with an original idea, or at least a new slant on an existing genre that consists of more than some new artwork and different lighting/fog effects. Until then, I shall carry on happily playing my favourite games of yesteryear, and spending very little money on newer titles.

Re:Yes, gameplay is everything

[Anonymous Coward]

nitpicks, nitpicks... this must be slashdot.

Quake 3 doesn't have any 1-hit kill weapons. You start with 125 health which counts down to 100 very slowly (longer than a typical lifespan). The most damaging weapon does 100. The upshot is that in almost every circumstance you need to be hit at least twice to die.
OK, with the BFG that can still be very fast. And there is a quad damage. And maybe you were playing a mod.

As for the new games, I thought the Prey demo was pretty interesting. Fancy gravity so people can run on some of the walls and ceilngs. Dimensional rift portals you can see and shoot though. You can send out your spirit body to fight, but this leaves your real body vulnerable. Great story and characters for an FPS. It runs very well on my £75 card.
Battlefield 2 demo is pretty interesting as well. Not worth buying (it's an EA game and fundamentally broken in several ways which they have no interest in fixing), but the experience of 32 player modern warfare is completely different to Quake DM. Class and squad based teamplay, vehicles, huge, open maps including seas. You might like it.

Or maybe you've just lost interest in new experiences and want to live a life based on nostalgia? Well, have a good one.

Value of your time - Re:Yes

[Slider451]

Don't forget to place a value on your time. Unless you enjoyed every moment of the game grinding to 60 and getting gear you need to factor in the opportunity cost (i.e. what did you give up to grind?) for that $500. For example, an IT pro can easily make that much in one weekend's moonlighting.

Re:Value of your time - Re:Yes

[KDR_11k]

Of course there's also enjoyment to factor in, I have this hunch that he enjoyed those games a bit more than working overtime.

Re:Value of your time - Re:Yes

[Slider451]

Certainly, and I allowed for that in my post. But I have a hunch that at least 16 hours of that level-grind to 60 were not as enjoyable as coding an app, configuring a server/network, or building a PC. From that perspective the $500 he might make on his character is less impressive.

Put another way, what are you getting paid per hour to grind (i.e. the times your game is more like a job than a fun pastime)?

Titles may be up but good titles are down...

[uarch]

I haven't bought any games in a long time. The reason? There haven't been many good games released in a while. MMOs have very little to do with it.

Play Everquest

[everphilski]

Everquest Titanium contains the first 10 expansions (that is everything except the most recent, Prophecy of Ro) for $19.99. Buy it in stores or digital download. Same price. Buy that + $29.99 and for $50.00 you are ready to go.

Re:Play Everquest

[HermMunster]

Except for the whole slew of arguments about why 70% of the population quit EQ at the first possible alternative, which just happened to be WoW. Sony became arrogant toward it's customers and that pretty much ended the loyalty of the vast majority of it's long term initial customers. I stayed with EQ for almost 5 years. 3 of them were playing a massive number of hours. The friends I made kept me there. Sony drove me away with their idea of the "holy trinity" which means that if you are not one of the classes included in the holy trinity (healer, enchanter, warrior), you might as well just consider yourself extra baggage.

It was an up and down ride where Sony expected every weak and underpowered class to buy the next expansion just to come a tad bit closer to balance whilst never ever really achieving it. The response from Sony was always: oh, you are weak? Buy the expansion and you'll be not so weak.". All the while they were empowering the holy trinity with ever more power.

In the beginning when we were to overcome the planes and then the dragons (or vice versa), it was a tremendous challenge and you made friends and showed off your ability, but also with each expansion those newer players that hadn't been playing nearly as long as you were rained upon with gear 10x better than that which you had when you were their level. All your hard work was for naught.

There were classes in EQ that sat for hours upon hours waiting on groups just to play. No one would invite them because they needed a healer, a warrior, an enchanter. Even if you could accomplish the mission without one or more of them you didn't do as well nor advance as fast nor get the equivalent gear if you happened to be in a balanced group. It was this way for years.

That's why it isn't a good idea to jump on EQ, at least not without understanding the history of the game.

Straight from the Galka's mouth..

[Anonymous Coward]

As a 2-year addict to FFXI I say: yes!

It's not the US28.90/month that I pay for my wife's and my own account that keeps me from buying games, it's the serious lack of time. The only game to pique my interest enough to pull me away has been Guitar Hero and that's quite an accomplishment.

STOP THE PRESSES!

[Moofie]

MMORPGs are just like piracy! The game companies are entitled to that revenue, and it's down right commie pinko TERRORISM to deny them that money!

Somebody get me the President!

when you dont have to patch.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Buying new games died for me thanks to MMOs, but not the way one might think.

Back before the days of Everquest, when a game was release, it would be finished, ready to play. You could pop the CD (or floppies) in, let it sot (or change out floppies) for a bit, and you would be up and running with a fully functional game.

Then EQ came, and the concept of Patching caught the industry's eye. They now realized they could ignore the developers and release according to the marketing folks. So game after game after game requires an internet connection to start playing (even ones that don't have an online component) because without the patches, they wont work.

So count me in the crowd of people who complain about quality of games on release for why I don't buy them.

Oh, and BRING BACK THE SPACE SHOOTERS!!!! How long has it been since Freespace 2 and Independence War 2 came out? I've not seen a decent incarnation of the genre since them!!! I need Shivans, Tie-Fighters, and any other belligerent alien race you can come up with to battle in my extra-planetary vehicle of choice!!!

WoW - Addicts

[S810]

I play WoW and so does my wife. I do still go out and buy games, but they are usually games for the XBOX not the PC. I do still download demos and play various Beta's.

Most of the people that I work with play WoW and one of them actually lost his job because he was working on WoW @ work, not playing but looking up items and planning out raids and guild stuff.

Anyone remember Ultima Online? That game almost ruined my marriage, I stopped playing MMORPG's after that for a long time until City of Hero's came out, then someone hooked me on WoW.

Peace.

Re:WoW - Addicts

[rehtonAesoohC]

I'm glad that you and your wife play. Otherwise I would be worried about your marriage.

MMOG's Make Video Games Open Ended

[Phat_Tony]

Traditional video games were a "get through all the content" type of media, like watching a movie, except more interactive and (sometimes) less linear. Still the idea was to get through the levels, and unless you were obsessive or something, that was pretty much it. Sure, there are puzzle games and such, but that's a different category and isn't what they're talking about when they say sales are down. Most video games were the kind of games where you'd say "have you beat Zelda yet?" like asking "have you seen ET yet?" implying that, when it's over, it's over.

But MMOG's, by relying on human interaction, are more like sports. You don't generally ask someone "have you played tennis yet," meaning "have you grown tired of the sport and will now never play it again?" Sure, if people pick up open-ended human interaction games, they're going to occupy a lot of time that could have been spent on closed-ended media. Note, this isn't new with MMORPG's. I knew hardcore gammers who used to be into beating game after game obsessively, until Quake came out, and then they joined a quake clan and played quake exclusively and obsessively for hours a day for years. Games are turning into things more like sports or communities rather than entertainment, and these are things people tend to stick with, rather than seeing once and being done with.

If you fish in a small pond ...

[WillAffleckUW]

If you are fishing in a small pond, and then suddenly the dam bursts and the large earth depression your boat is in is now in a large lake, you could either decide to notice all the people who now come to the lake to catch all the fish that entered from behind the freshwater dam - or you could see that there's more pond and more fish.

A better question would be:

Is the number of gamers other than MMORPGs smaller, the same, or larger?

not

Is the number of non-MMORPG compared to total gamers smaller, the same, or larger?

One picture, the former, leads one to see if the number of gamers has actually grown, but is dwarfed by those attracted to MMORPGs. The other picture, the latter, makes one think non-MMORPG gaming has shrunk, even if it increases.

As a side example, consider how many new gamers play Nintendogs and other handheld games now - many of them people who never played games before, especially women and girls underserved by our current gaming industry.

Re:RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "bea

[i.r.id10t]

With a FPS though, the game is constantly changing (assuming you are playing w/ other real people online) because no bot can be like a human. Heck, I still play the original Quake.. sure, some of the maps are the same, but its the challenge the opponent(s) give you that makes it for me.

Maybe?

[DeeDob]

We can't go further than a maybe...

Other factors needs to be examined, such as the fact that we are in a generation transition in console gaming.

In generation transition, the old consoles don't get the attention of the major developpers and the new consoles don't get many games sold because there are not a lot of consoles sold overall.

See the games coming for the old XBOX, GC and PS2. They are mostly mediocre (take a look at the most of the reviews). There are no AAA titles (with a possible exception or two) for those old consoles.

Most of the big anticipated titles are for PS3/Wii/360. However, the sales of those titles are in direct proportions with the number of those consoles sold. There are less 360 on the market now than old xboxes, so overall less sales.

The fact that you have to buy a 500$ console might also explain why there are fewer games bought. People's budget for gaming can only go so high. The fact that the 360 and the PS3 are capable of HD means that some people will also buy an HDTV, meaning even less money left for game purchase.

So is MMORPG the reason why console game sales are down? To make that analysis, we'd have to take a look at sales number during a time where the number arn't screwed by this generation change.
Scratch that... sale number don't mean anything. We'd need a serious study with sample gamers that have adopted MMORPGs and see if they trully have changed their purchasing habits.

What about Game Fly?

[GodInHell]

Screw WoW - it competes in the PC market for RPG dollars, which is not the majority of console sales. What about Game Fly? I used to buy one or two console games a month. Now I get two or three console games delievered every couple weeks, I almost immediately send back the ones that aren't worth beating, and keep one or two gems for a few weeks to play through the end. It lets me try out alot of games, without paying the price for console game adventuring - which is that the majority of console games are rehashes of other games with less care given to design and features. There are a few games (either Fable or Halo2 was the last one I preordered) I expect to be good, and I still buy those up front. Most of the time, I just wait for the mail guy to bring to them to me at a nice flat 20$ a month rate. I sat down and worked it out once.. and I think I was saving about $1200 a year using game fly. -GiH

It's a Lack of Quality

[pkcs11]

The release of quality games over the last year is primarily the reason for sales lagging.
Add to that the playability of MMORPG's and it's a one-two punch.
In fact, the playability issue is something MMORPGs have a strangle-hold on. I think on average I play a regular video game maybe 12-20 total hours. Most MMORPG players I know easily that amount of time on a single MMORPG per month.

140 hours in Oblivion

[Anonymous Coward]

Some might ask why its taking so long. It is because I am making the game last. Playing for 2 or 3 hours a pop. Somtimes on the weekend play for 10 hours. It is like an mmo that i don't have to worry about any extra fees.

No

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everyone plays or likes MMORPGs, so how much of the population does this even affect anyway?

I think so

[rabbot]

When i'm in "MMORPG mode" (which lasts 3-6 months usually before burning out and taking a few months off), I don't buy nearly as many games. I buy games I would play while not being able to play the MMORPG i'm addicted to. I buy a lot of Nintendo DS/GBA games during these times.

I would like to think that the handheld market would not be affected by MMORPGs very much. Time consuming PC and console games take the worst beating I think.

Of course in my case I make up for it during my MMORPG downtime. I think during my last "break" I went out and bought 4 or 5 PS2 games that had come out in the past year that I had been interested in but knew I would not play at the time. A couple titles, God of War comes to mind, were already available for $20 new.

Maybe if there were decent games out

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the reason is there are getting to be fewer and fewer really good titles that are worth $50. Publishers are whipping out more and more short titles but still charging the same (and one thing that turns me off on a game is to read a review and find out its only 5 hours long, I get better value from my money by going to the movie theater) Plus more and more console games that rely on strictly pushing the envelope of how much skin and violence they can pack in (ya, really it was cool the first 100 times but its getting old...)

Don't forget about 1-on-1 fighting games...

[Metroid72]

This discussion reminds me of when SF2 (and it's multiple iterations and clones) came out.
Years went bye and people were still "stuck" in SF II Hyper Fighting.

Alas, I think that I have friends that get together every Sunday and for sure there will be sessions of SF, KoF, etc. for at least an hour.

I am sure that more 16 bit games would have been sold if those 1-1 fighting games would not have been released (*)

(*) Arguably...

Console gamers prediction was wrong

[Drakin020]

Its funny around the time the XBOX360 came out Console gamers kept saying this was the end for PC games. Every next gen console the same thing happens. Seems they were wrong.

Article is baseless....

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont have time to do the searching while at work, but within the past 3 months there has been about 10 articles posted here about game sales in the PC sector slipping and even one or two which totally states the opposite. Sure there are millions of subscribers, but hell I know a few die hard MMORPG players who still shell out $50 each time a "hot" game comes out. MMORPG isnt sucking shit out of the market, the quality of the games are, since innovation isnt rewarded with the old fun action/adventure games of old, you have now fighting, racing, MMORPG sillyness, and FPS... that's about it!

Groupthink attacks

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot groupthink doesn't allow you to suggest that WOW might be bad.

I'd recommend WOW addicts join a support group, e.g. WOW_widow@yahoogroups.com, and try to kick the habit before they realise that ten years have passed and they've nothing to show for it but a bunch of level 100s (or whatever the level cap has inflated to by then).

Re:Is this why games are getting shorter in play t

[Eideewt]

Thief is a great game indeed. All it would take to make me disappear from the world would be a MMO Thief game (assuming it was up to T1 standards). I couldn't get into the MMO thing for less than that. Traditional grind based MMORPGs interest me not at all, but an MMOFPS (where S=sneaker) would be a dangerous drug.

Re:Is this why games are getting shorter in play t

[Anonymous Coward]

But Chess has more replay value.

One datapoint

[DrVomact]

I've been playing pretty much nothing but Everquest since it came out. (When was that...1998? 99?) I have bought and played a couple or three of the "Civilization" type games--mostly because my daughter likes them, and we play each other across the home LAN. One reason I haven't bought any other games is that my playing time is self-limited; I have a life and intend to keep it. So I really only have time for one game in my schedule. That includes other MMORGs--I haven't switched to WoW or EQ2 (though I tried it briefly) because I can't play two of them, and I don't want to stop playing EQ because it's still fun.

Everybody says that MMORGs are all about leveling--and that's what I thought at one time. But that can't be true, because my main has been 70 for over a year, and it's still fun to play him. Part of the reason for that is that Sony keeps thinking of stuff to do--more interesting places to go in the EQ world, more artifacts, special abilities you can gain, and so forth. But I think the main reason is that I enjoy the social interaction of EQ. It feels good to be with a group of competent players...especially if they appreciate my sense of humor.

So I would say that from the bean-counter's perspective, MMORGs can look very good: once you've got a customer, you can keep him for a long time--and he'll keep paying those monthly fees and buy those expansion packs. I do think there's a limit to even a really good MMORG's life--but it's set more by the dynamics of the game's internal economics than by the innate appeal of the game. How do you avoid flooding the market with Swords of Ueberness, thereby requiring introduction of the Sword of Ueberness II? How long before everyone has one of those? How ridiculously high will the stats on the new one be? No-trade items seem artificial, but it's one of the main methods used by EQ now. If MMORG designers can ever solve the problem of inflation, there may one day be a MMORG that lives indefinitely. And then maybe we can fix the real-world economy...

Yeah, BUT...

[Martindale]

Of course they do. But then again, as the OWNER and creator of an MMORPG ( GWing Roleplay ), I see many users interested in buying and playing other games. ( example, example 2 ) Solution for gaming companies: Make better games.

MMORPGs Immune to Piracy too

[Dangolo]

1) From what i've seen so far, MMORPG games can't be cracked and so Piracy cannot take a chunk out of their sales away. 2) MMOs are specifically engineered to take as much of your time as possible. (your time=their money) 2B)MMOs can get very "involved" since you'll meet friends online, have guilds, LAN parties and whutnot, and those just aren't common with retail $50pop games and it takes alot to break away from something you've already invested so much time in. 3)I haven't seen anything, since Kingdom Hearts 2, come out that's worth playing to completion. 4) I'm saving up for the PS3 anyways, yipes! 5)It's summer here, and the central west coast is a paradise too great to miss! Maybe it's the sun taking away from gaming? i'm only speaking for myself, i have no idea what everyone else is up to these days.

All good games?

[vga_init]

This doesn't just happen because of MMORPGs. I've been playing games since I was a wee lad, and the shocking truth is that you spend the bulk of your time playing the best games you have, even if you've had them for a long time. For example, when I was a kid I liked Quest for Glory so much, I played it through many times despite having much newer games. You could argue that it prevented me from investing as much in those games (time, money, or otherwise).

That game was an RPG, but there were others. Later I got addicted to Final Fantasy, and then Counterstrike in my late high school years. When I played CS, I didn't buy or play any other shooters, and this lasted for quite a while.

I think it just shows that when you find a game that you really enjoy, you buy less overall because you're more satisfied with what you've got. I get the feeling that the industry learned this less a long time ago, what with all mediocre games that keep being released; they keep you coming back for more.

In my case yes

[GalacticCmdr]

Quicken would back me up on this, but about 3 years ago I was a 24 games/year purchaser. I would say that 5 of those games would be bought used from EB, but the rest were new in box. In most cases my purchases were a bit scattered, but centered around FPSs and Tactical Wargames. My occasional jaunts into RPG or RTS territory tended to be the highlights (NWN, Rise of Nations).

That was before I got into City of Heroes - it was my first non-text MMO (since I did a ton of MUDding back at Purdue). Since then (and again Quicken would back me to the hilt there) I have purchased very few other games. Those games I have purchased do tend to be a best of breed: GalCiv2 and SSGs series. Overall, I would have to say that my spending on games has gone down. But then with COH always on tap - I do have less time for pickup games that I might have had just a few years ago.

To push that out in to some type of general statement might be difficult, but if you were the type of person that used to spend money on 15 games/year ($40 per) = $600. Then you replace that with a game that is constantly calling you back to the grind - not something you can just pick up and go with. There is a general pull to the games that those that spend a bunch of time on, pull those of us that are more casual about playing. Otherwise we get left behind.

Overall this will be a benefit to the very large players that can gather in a strong enough base to keep the constant MMO money rolling in. I also do not think this will hurt the really small players since they only expected a small and really tight group of purchasers anyway. However, I believe this will gut the middle companies that produced a few really great titles amid a storm of garbage.

This might not be that bad of a situation, but it will make companies very shy about introducing really off-the-wall titles that may or may not catch with the public. Say like the growth of Fallout.

everquest cured my addiction

[micromuncher]

Before 2001, I used to spend $300 a year on PC games. After I got "addicted to everquest", I spend about the same on EverQuest... but...

I've saved $50 a year on Cable! I don't watch TV anymore. Maybe it was all those reality TV shows drove me into vr games.

stand up

[jaimz22]

well, you know, buying new games retail usually includes getting off your ass and leaving the house

The SUN!

[Onuma]

We like to call him "BOB" here in the desert. Short for the Bright Orange Ball.

Bob kills.

PC to Mac Conversion

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont know about most.

But since I left the PC world, to the Mac world (yes I know about bootcamp but dont use it) I have found much love for WoW.

However it would be a lie to leave it with WoW. I also have found my love for MUDing again.

Eye candy and MS promises, mixed with insecurities (Malware, Spyware, Virus, WhateverWare>, leaves me not missing my old gaming habits at all.

Well, except for Oblivion. But I doubt I buy the Xbox 360 for it.

If I can just hold out and avoid the next Total War game ..... I will feel as if I am then a fully converted PC to MAC gamer.

Where are the games? I dont know. Where are the vulnerabilities? Hopefully, still with PC's. So long and thanks for the BS MS.

Honestly, I do miss the games, but not as much as the other problems.

Non-gamers in WoW

[borkus]

I was the first among my friends to get World of Warcraft. However, two friends (a Diablo II Mac player and another who never bought a single game) have gotten it and are as avid players as me if not more so. Unlike other games, there is a very strong cooperative play aspect to the game along with some great game content. Also, you don't have to have exceptional eye-hand coordination to play it (though it helps with certain classes in PvP). In that respect, I think that WoW has attracted many people who wouldn't normally play games - MMO or otherwise.

On the other hand, I don't think they're more likely to buy other games now.

On the Quality of Games

[The-Bus]

Others here mentioned the quality of games as being in decline the past one or two years. I found this odd as each year, that I can remember, had several pretty good games. I was never one to buy more than a game every few months, so while the barrel of gaming per se was always filled to me, I never drank enough from it to see how quickly I reached the bottom.

So, I took it upon myself to look at some information on MetaCritic. While critical aggregation is not foolproof, it does have some useful data. I counted all the games that were rated at least a 90, that came out no earlier than 2001, and that were for the PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360, Gamecube, or PC. (Sorry, no handhelds or older consoles).

Here is how that turned out:

2001: 25
2002: 34
2003: 38
2004: 30
2005: 21
2006: 7

So if it seems that there's not as many good games as there were three years ago, you're correct. Extrapolating 2006, we come up with an awfully low total. Even with another twenty great games this year, which is extremely unlikely, it's still less compared to 2002-2004.

Here's a detailed chart with a per-system breakdown.

Now have critics gotten tougher after the past two years? Or is the conventional wisdom correct, and have titles really just gotten worse?

Re:On the Quality of Games

[tool462]

I don't think straight extrapolation on the 2006 year-to-date sales is fair. Releases are end-loaded for the Christmas shopping season. I'd guess the numbers end up close to 2005, albeit a bit lower. Still the overall trend is interesting...

I wanted to see it as percentages of games released (technically rated, I suppose), so here's how it breaks down according to MetaCritic:

2001: 465 total -- percent with 90 rating or greater: 5.37%
2002: 819 total -- percent with 90 rating or greater: 4.15%
2003: 954 total -- percent with 90 rating or greater: 3.98%
2004: 1020 total -- percent with 90 rating or greater: 2.94%
2005: 931 total -- percent with 90 rating or greater: 2.25%
2006: 573 total (to date) -- percent with 90 rating or greater: 1.22%

no, duh

[gimione]

my friend and I were at target the other day, and we noticed that there hasent been ANY new good console games in MONTHS (most notibly for the 360)! if there were games available that are decent, people would be buying them.

Decisions, Decisions...

[RoffleTheWaffle]

I honestly don't know anyone whose gaming habit costs them $50 or more 'every few weeks', but I do know people whose gaming habit costs them $180 a year. Those are my 'World of Warcraft' addicted friends. It wasn't that way a couple years ago, though.

Before 'World of Warcraft', my crew wouldn't bother buying up dozens of new titles. We were almost exclusively PC gamers, and what few console titles we did acquire we usually made sure we'd thoroughly enjoy first. The same thing went for our PC library. We had a few titles we liked that had a very long life, primarily because of a regular influx of new content and fun maps and mods, as well as plenty of people to play with online. 'Counter Strike 1.5' immediately comes to mind, being uncumbersome and extremely content-rich. (I would say rest in peace, but I do wish more people would jump on the WON2 bandwagon. 1.6 just isn't the same.) 'Starcraft' was another old favorite that still offers plenty. Our RPG of choice was 'Diablo 2', and while hardly content-rich, it had massive replay value and was plenty casual and genuinely fun if you had a lot of friends around. When 'World of Warcraft' came along that one fateful winter two years ago, however, all this changed.

Even after we had moved on to 'Counter Strike: Source', lured by the promise of rich new worlds and innovative new gameplay features - it failed miserably to deliver, but 'Half-Life 2 Deathmatch' was much more entertaining - there was a void in our game library left behind by 'Diablo 2'. We'd practically sworn a vow against it - people were beginning to buy items on eBay so they could be lame in player-versus-player, and it just ruined the fun of it. When 'World of Warcraft' came along, that void was masterfully filled, and then some. Suddenly, all we were playing - all we had time to play - was 'World of Warcraft'. Even after our interest in the game began to wane, even after several of us quit, there was still never enough time, never enough people. Only recently after the latest patch did virtually everyone in my crew actually drop the game. We've found ourselves retreating to the oldie-but-goodies we used to enjoy.

The point here is that games like 'World of Warcraft' don't rob people of money, but rather, of time. I'd even wager that the game is addictive by design, to keep people doing the very same thing over and over again without realizing that the game is a champion of monotony. (This is one of the reasons I could never get into it.) When people begin to play 'World of Warcraft', they forget the other games they had, not because they'd rather be not be playing them but because 'World of Warcraft' is a mandatory time-sink. A bulk of the players treat it as a chore, a job they simply must do, not a game. To get anywhere, to be better than anyone, to feel that you've accomplished something, you absolutely have to sink at least 20 hours a week into this game, or else you're a loser, you can't play, and your character is going to suck and be completely useless. I won't go into how many psychological complexes this plays off of, but I'll say this:

For such a boring, monotonous, undynamic, snail-paced game, 'World of Warcraft' succeeds where other games before it have failed, and that's in keeping people playing for every reason besides fun. It's frustrating. It plays on people's insecurities and materialism. It keeps you there, and it really does mess with your head in a myriad of subtle ways. I thought it was pretty messed up, too, but it happens a lot more than I'd like to see. If it required less time, maybe it wouldn't be such a problem. If individual quests didn't last five hours or more, maybe people would actually get up and leave the game, and go do something else since what they were attempting to accomplish is now complete. 'World of Warcraft', like most of the MMORPG genre, is a time-grab. This is why people playing games like it not only lose interest in other games, but the rest of their lives as well.

That aside, if there were new games worth playing, the people

Actually, it's even worse than that.

[ghjm]

My personal experience: I bought most of the major game titles, but I had never subscribed to a MMORPG because I couldn't get my head around the monthly cost - until City of Heroes. I played it for a solid year, during which time I didn't buy a single other game. I just didn't have the time for it; in fact, CoH ate into time I probably should have spent on other things.

Then came the nerfs. My character went from uber to puny. I tried to stay interested, but basically, it was no longer possible to play the game I originally bought. Some people liked the changes, and I'm not trying to argue whether they were good or bad, but the nature of the game changed and I liked the old play style. After $200+ (not to mention buying a high end laptop so I could play while on business trips), I was left with a game that I didn't think was fun.

CoH forced me to come face to face with the question of what I get for my money when I buy a game. Ten years after buying it, I still play Total Annihilation every now and then, because it was fun then and it's fun now. CoH stopped being fun and I had no way of opting out of the changes. I paid much more money for CoH but got much less value. In coming to the understanding that CoH was a big waste of my time and money, it was inevitable that I would also realize most other games were a big waste of time and money as well.

I've been to Best Buy since then and walked the gaming aisles, looking for anything that stimulates my interest: And it just doesn't. At one point I even dropped a few bucks on Age of Empires III and Civilization IV, sequels to two of my favorite games. I think I played AoE twice, and Civ hasn't even come out of its box.

CoH broke me of gaming.

-Graham

Re:Actually, it's even worse than that.

[Maxo-Texas]

Check out

http://aa.planetannihilation.gamespy.com/download. htm

Absolute Annihilation 6.0 is the original TA with lost of improvements but nothing I would call a "nerf".

They also have a 3d rendered version there that I don't personally like as much but lots of folks go wild over.

Re:Is this why games are getting shorter in play t

[stunt_penguin]

I don'; think that Epsisode 1 is an entirely fair target for the 'Games becoming shorter' point, since it only cost $20 and is intended to be one of several more episodes and which was developed in a couple of months. Also, they packed it very tighly with action, riaisng the quality bar above that set by HL 2 :)

To Reframe "Bleeding..."

[TheIndifferentiate]

I would characterize what the poster calls "bleeding" as "more effectively competing with" other companies in the industry.

Re:MMOs are easy to get in to and hard to get out

[Anonymous Coward]

MMO's are a pox on the industry. They are disgustingly unhealthy for the amount of time required to play them and do decent.

MMOFPS?

[Slovenian6474]

Has anyone made a mass multiplayer first person shooter? If not, they should. Think of battlefield 2 but instead a large map, a large continent... First company to do a decent job with this, has my paychecks for quite some time.

Re:MMOFPS?

[RoboRay]

Yes, PlanetSide. Free 12-month trial is underway: http://www.fileplanet.com/161885/160000/fileinfo/P lanetside-Reserves-Installer-%5B12-month-free-tria l%5D

Re:RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "bea

[LordPhantom]

True, but in player-driven environments like eve online there are other players that continually change as well - so that's no different.

This isn't reflected in my retail outlets

[Zadaz]

Every place I go to buy games (eb games/gamestop, circuit city, compusa) the PC games are the retarded stepchild of the joint, mishandled boxes thrown in a remainder bin, while the console games line every visible surface of the place. Sure, if console games aren't selling, push them harder. But if PC games are selling well, shouldn't a store have at least have some kind of selection? Maybe one game released in the last 6 months? Nope. I can't remember the last time I found a game I was looking for, and I live downtown in a major metro. Guess if I lived in BFE I'd have access to Wal-Mart and I could stop crying, but until then... WTF?

Yes

[jcdick1]

My MMO playing has reduced a large amount of entertainment spending across the board, not just stand-alone games. I have been playing DAoC since only a couple months since it went live. I prefer playing the MMO at $15/month and using TeamSpeak to talk to the people I have been playing with for years now, than shell out the money for a movie that lasts 2 hours or pay $50 for a game that may last eight to ten. Basically, for my entertainment dollars, the MMO gives the biggest bang for the buck. So they get the bucks...

For me it's invasive "copy protection" not MMOs

[Jelloman]

I've been spending a good $1000/year on PC games for a decade or more. But I bought less than 10 in 2005 and only a couple in 2006, and I can't really blame MMOs... even in my heavier MMO playing days in 2003-2005, I was still buying plenty of single-player PC titles.

I've chosen not to buy dozens of games lately that I normally would have bought immediately (Hitman: Blood Money, HoMM V, SpellForce 2, Battle for Middle Earth 2, SW: Empire at War) because of invasive "copy protection" technologies like Starforce and Securom. I just don't accept a videogame installing drivers, services, or anything else that destabilizes my system. Nor do I appreciate being treated like a criminal by companies I buy things from. I bought GalCiv 2 mostly to support Stardock selling games without copy protection, though it is a good game.

20 years ago, EA destroyed the floppy drive on my Commodore 64 with invasive copy protection that didn't work; fast forward to 2006, and they're still trying to destroy my OS with invasive copy protection that doesn't work. Idiots. It'd be nice if Spore doesn't come with destructive copy protection, but I wouldn't bet on it. Too bad because it looks like an incredible game.

Re:For me it's invasive "copy protection" not MMOs

[Russellkhan]

Well said. I wish I had mod points for you.

Your position is similar to one of my reasons for getting Microsoft software off of my system. This of course limits my gaming mostly to consoles and WoW, which I bought a used Mac to play.

The Black Hole

[HoboPirate]

After having played MMOs since the late 90s I found that I put less money into normal games when I was experiencing the throes of addiction. Eventually, the addiction would pass and I would buy every online/mmo I could possibly find to replace that 'special something' I experienced with my first. I wasn't really putting money into many normal games but I was putting plenty into less-than-satisfying MMOs. The purchasing of and subsequent subscriptions to MMOs became an addiction in itself. I could never get into WoW because it was everything I had already seen before although I bought it and payed for a subscription for a while. In short, these games have been a black hole for my wallet. But I'm proud to say that I've been MMO free for a whole year now. Now I only play the occasional story driven single player RPG. I've started running since then and it's funny how that has replaced the grind of MMOs in a healthy way. I now use the grind mentality I had playing those games to run (gotta reach that next level ;-)). It continuously presents me with new challenges and it's payed off quite well. At least I learned something from years of addiction. Oh, it's also funny how I was very introverted before I played MMOs and after years of playing I've become quite social while retaining my ability to reflect. So I suppose all those years of money 'wasted' into that black hole payed off after all.

Re:RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "bea

[Anonymous Coward]

My god, I've seen a lot of arguments professing the merits of an MMO, but this is the most ass backwards one yet. It seems the reason you play a MMO is that you don't "get" FPS. An FPS isn't about the tools your using, no, it harkens back to what a game is all about, being competitive. A MMO on the other hand, shovel feeds you dogshit for 15.00 a month. Sure WOW might be expansive but it reads like they took all the cereal box story authors available and told them to go at it.

If you actually like playing games, a FPS is enjoyable. On the other hand, if the thought of playing a casual game of chess makes you want to puke, perhaps your better off in MMO lala land.

The other element is time. If you don't play an MMO as often as your friends, you will end up being trapped in a single player world filled with idiots. It is true that people often get better by investing more time playing a game, but nothing stops you from playing a friendly game of UT 2k4 with your buddy, even if he has invested 50x as much time.

An MMO is like NASCAR, a joke. Any shumaker can hop in and make a mockery of the whole damn league.

Re:RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "bea

[rehtonAesoohC]

7... hours?! Of NS!! Holy crap bawls... I certainly hope you had the Extra levels plugin enabled on that one.

MMORPGs?

[the dark hero]

Gas prices make me buy less games no MMOs.

Replayability and quality.

[Onuma]

I must admit firstly, that I have paid a LOT of money over the last dozen-or-so years that I have been buying video games on my own. Just as far as PSOne and PS2 games combined, I have spent at least $2500 since '97...over time it really isn't that much, perhaps 1 new $50 every 2 months. That's just for PS series games though.
Factor in PC games, subscriptions for any MMOs I had played (I'm through paying per-month for the same cookie cutter crap that I can get for free or on a 1-time-buy), hardware to play said games, as well as any portables I own, and we're talking an equal or greater amount than my PlayStation collection. I was single, had disposable income (albeit not a lot in the earlier years) and got bored quickly with games.

The titles I have beaten and/or keep coming back to are, in my eyes, timeless. SoulBlade, FFTactics as well as a couple of other FF numbered series, Castlevania (particularly Simon's Quest and Symphony of the Night), Starcraft/Warcraft, Diablo 1 and 2, Day of Defeat, Medievia (a MUD http://www.medievia.com/, and more. Hell, I still own my original NES and Sega Genesis and still play some of those classics when I get the chance.
You will never see me replay crap titles like Dungeon Lords, Silent Storm, or so many of the other games that were rushed into production and put on the shelf with a fancy box only to contain a shallow and quite boring game that is far from "polished".

The point is, the games that held my attention for being high-quality with a good replayability factor are STILL holding my attention. How many newer games live up to the precedents that the old classics set so many years ago?

I've definitely cut back...

[thesandtiger]

I used to spend about $50 a month on games, and now I spend about $20. This is entirely due to MMO's.

I started with Star Wars: Galaxies. Then went to City of Heroes. Then World of Warcraft. When I see a game on the shelf, where I used to just pick it up and take it back, I find myself asking if I'm really going to play it all that much, since I'll be playing my MMO...

Am I the typical gamer? Probably not, but I can't imagine that I'm that unusual.

Now, if we flip the question a bit, I am *DEFINITELY* paying more *per* game - I've been WoWing for over a year now - so figure 15 months @ 15 bucks = $225 there, and then I bought the game at retail for ~$50 - so $275 on one game, World of Warcraft, and I don't see myself quitting anytime soon.

In other news...

[pitc]

Blizzard makes millions on a successful business model, competitors complain about it.

Film at eleven.

Saved a crapload of money.

[Postmaster General]

In fact, looking back on it, there could be a direct correlation drawn between my purchases of MMO's, and my declining interest in electronic games.

If I were to ever gain another interest in games, I would probably get a Wii and forego the PC.

Absolutely

[Maxo-Texas]

I bought Everquest in may of 1999.
I have not bought another game since.
Prior to that I bought a game every two months going back about three years.

Lan parties stopped almost overnight. We used to play a lot of Quake (Quakepong mod in particular), and some game with transforming japanese robots.

The only game I still play from that time is Total Annihilation (with the Absolute Annihilation mod which is worked on to this day by the community).

The only game that has interested me since was the dance revolution games- never quite got around to buying them tho.

Answer: No

[Rhyas]

MMO's don't cause people to buy fewer games. Better games cause people to pass on lame games. WoW is thrown around as "the" example of something causing the industry headache. It's a good game but if another game came out and was better people would buy it regardless if it was MMO, RPG, FPS, or something new.

They Suck

[ezwip]

I have never purchased a MMORPG because I don't want to keep shelling out cash every month. However, I'm quickly coming to the end of my leash. There are no good online games out there that are appealing to me. The last game I bought was Star Wars Empire at War. The box looked great, and the game completely sucked in every aspect. It was such a turn off that I'm probably not going to buy any game again until C&C releases the new Tiberium wars. Why should I pay 50-60 bucks for some half ass game that the developers are using me as a beta tester for... because they knew damn well it was a piece of crap. When I posted the bugs in their forum, the week of release, they actually told me my input didn't count because I didn't give it before the game was released? Whatever... I'll just pirate any game that isn't awesome online for now on. That's what these crap games have done to my attitude. I don't mind paying but I'm not just giving my money away. Screw that. Make better games and stop ripping everyone elses code.

Re:Is this why games are getting shorter in play t

[Anonymous Coward]

Pawns are long overdue for a talent update. They need buffs.

Queens need to be nerfed. None of the other classes can duel a Queen and win unless they get the first jump, and only in the right circumstances.

MMORPG's cause people to do less of everything

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps if we had free MMORPG's with no guilds people wouldn't act as though it were some sort of job.

Re:RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "bea

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's what happens when you take some time to venture out into the wide, open world. You can find whole towns full of interesting people if you just take a few hours away from the computer and do a bit of travelling. :)

Gee, consoles are down at the end of a generation

[wickning1]

There is a new gen of systems coming this fall, it's not surprising at all that console sales are down. TFA says PC sales are up, so I don't see anything unusual. Console sales will pick back up when (flamebait) the Wii comes out.

Not just game purchases.

[bileduct]

Maybe I'm particularly pathetic, but WoW hasn't only curtailed my game purchases, its curtailed my purchasing in general as well.

I used to be a steadfast console gamer, checking the review sites every week and eagerly heading to EB each Wednesday to check out the latest and greatest. I'd pick up between 3-5 games a month.

And then I found WoW. And as others have posted, I haven't felt any compelling need to buy anything else since then. It's not that I've made a conscious decision to save money, it's just that the desire to play anything else is gone. I'd much rather hop online and help one of my friends kill a few murlocs than play the latest and greatest single-person console game.

But wait, there's more! I used to participate in random consumerism just to cure my boredom. Have a rough week at work? Feeling restless? Nothin' a new iPod can't fix. Feeling a little blue? Why not forget about it for a while with some new clothes.

These days? When I've had a rough week, or I'm feeling restless or blue, I find that I can get the exact same satisfaction by heading to the WoW auction house and buying myself something useless and pretty as I can by buying something in RL. My virtual consumerism is every bit as fulfilling as my RL consumerism was. And it's a whole lot cheaper.

So thank you, Blizzard. You've probably saved me from thousands of dollars' worth of crap that'd just be sitting in a closet somewhere.

I could have told them this...

[Avatar8]

in 1998. I purchased Ultima Online in September of 1997, and suddenly in January of 1998 I realized I hadn't purchased or even played any other game.

After a 7.5 year UO habit, I moved to WoW and I've been there ever since. Since 1997, I have only bought a few, exclusive games, and I only played them to a point before going back to full MMO: Diablo 2, Ultima IX: Ascension.

Occasionally emulators might distract me as I pine for something retro, but MMO's are a mainstay and a new form of entertainment that has replaced movies and TV for me.

What I feel is causing the decline in the purchase of console games is... (drum roll) console game companies.

Consumers are finally waking up and realizing that they're buying a new console and a whole new set of games every year. How ridiculous. With a PC I've got a much slower turnover rate though in the end it probably equates to the same amount of money. I'll replace my computer every two years, but I'll keep my library of games and play the ones that I still like (Diablo, Warcraft, Starcraft, Ultima Series, Master of Magic) when the mood strikes me thanks to virtualization, the ability to keep legacy OSes running and emulators.

I've never understood the attraction of consoles over PCs.

Most MMOs have an initial retail cost

[snuf23]

Most MMOs don't give you the client for free. At launch MMOs typically retail for the price of a normal PC game: $40-$50. I know I paid $50 for World of Warcraft even 5 months after launch. So $50+$165=$215 for the first year of gameplay (remember the $50 includes the first month of play).
Of course if you know you are going to be playing for awhile, most MMOs will give you a reduced monthly cost if you pay for 3, 6 or 12 months upfront.

Re:RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "bea

[snuf23]

"Meanwhile FPS games are generally very limited. They generally few enough maps to count on your hand, and similarly few weapons. Further an argument can be made that all games from the same generation are fairly the same save causmetics."

It's kind of hard to compare the two. I mean looking at an FPS and saying "the lewt is teh suxors" is a bit silly. Having more guns doesn't necessarily make an FPS any better.
For the last three years I've been playing one MMO or another. They fill up most of my gaming time. They don't tend to offer the same visceral experience as an FPS - either single player or multiplayer. WoW's PVP battlegrounds can be fun, but they don't really have the intensity of a good Battlefield game. I'm not saying they should either, they are different animals.
The single player FPS games that I have enjoyed (and completed) recently actually tend to be the shorter ones with tighter designs. I really enjoyed Half Life 2 but didn't even make it halfway through Doom 3. Most recently I completed Call of Duty 2 which although being more of the same, is probably the best WW2 FPS experience out there. Really intense.
I prefer an FPS game that is consistently good and short to one that is large and uneven. On the other hand, I guess I save "large and uneven" for the MMOs, which is how pretty much all of them can be described.

I will never buy a MMORPG with monthly fees.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm perfectly happy with single player RPG's. Elder Scrolls, NWN, Gothic, Icewind Dale, Fallout etc.. have better stories, better role playing and better adventures. I don't need a chatroom at this stage in my life.

try Nexuiz

[Janek Kozicki]

I play very rarely. It's not possible for me to make online friends, and I don't plan on doing so. I played AO for some time (lv 50), but gave up due to lack of time. Now if I want a quick relax I run nexuiz, there is always somebody online, but not to much. And I always can have a quick FPS sparing, whenever I need it.

Re:RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "bea

[JD-1027]

Yup, just like the battlegrounds *inside* of WOW.

Re:RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "bea

[Spinalcold]

This wasn't combat, this was straight NS and before they had the time limit in. I can't remember what version it was at this point anymore cause this was more than a year ago.

It is very simple

[cspariah]

If you want to compete with the MMOs, you have to release a game that is more fun than the MMOs. Something that will make people want to play it instead of raiding and PvPing and grinding and such. In the past you only had to compete with the games that were coming out around the same time as your game. Now you need to compete with MMOs that have come out a year or more previously. But then, that's not so new either. Every FPS that comes out has to compete against CounterStrike, right?

Yes

[auron_prophecy]

WoW means a game that will go on forever. Or even if a person doesn't want monthy payments, $50 can get them a Guildwars. Guild wars alone has given me around 300 hours of quality playing time, where as most console games usually bore me after 10 or so hours.

Plus I think this view is a bit bias. Most of us grew up playing mario and sonic on their respective 16 bit systems. Maybe if companies created games like they used to, we would become interested again and start buying more games again.

Maybe one day Wii will wise up...

Re:RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "bea

[HermMunster]

I started out with warcraft and C&C. I then migrated to starcraft. I was really addicted to starcraft because I could play against so many others and show my skills in winning. When EQ came out I dropped it all for that. I played day and night for 3 years. I then stopped and only played once in a while for the next 2 years. When most of my friends that were made during those 3 years stopped playing completely I stopped.

Alot of the reason I stopped playing EQ (a mmorpg) was due to the fact that Sony kept messing with balance and got into the habbit of releasing expansions instead of fixing the game and correcting balance. The game became one of "if you aren't one of classes part of the holy trinity then you are just extra baggage".

The point here is that all MMORPGs will come to an end because of the people that run them will run them into the ground, even Blizzard.

I was searching for different games when a friend suggested I play Counter Strike. I watched him play and said "no". It is too lame, tame, and boring.

I then, about 2.5 years ago, after trying various FPS games (quake III, UT2003/2004, etc.), came across Enemy Territory. It was a free game. I played horribly as I had not really played too many games like it. It took at while and I read a bunch of stuff on line about it and got better. I have stuck with that game over the past 2.5 years. I'm pretty good and this game has alot of replay value. It isn't an adventure and it isn't about quest but it is a game where you accomplish objectives while being thwarted by others. When Quake Wars: Enemy Territory comes out I'll try it.

I have purchased BF2 and a slew of others but the developers keep screwing with the game. They reduced the capabilities of the aircraft, which they should have done, but they should not have reduced the aircraft total hitpoints. That essentially ended the fun for me. I have quake 4 and HL2, and a slew of others but it is the free game which is objective oriented that has kept me playing.

Re:Yes, Short and Unplayable

[MikePlacid]

I've bought only one game after hooking onto WoW, and it was Civ4. Yes, a turn-based strategy game. Nice game, but problem is - it wasn't playable on my laptop with a 64M videocard. Worse than just unplayable - it starts OK, but in the middle of the game it runs out of resources. Bang! Game over. Can you imagine that? A real-time, 3d WoW runs smoothly but the turn-based strategy run out of graphical resources? Huh? Well, no more titles from Sid Meyer or Firaxis - never!, I promise you. For the Alliance!

It is a big deal for small companies

[AHumbleOpinion]

I for one don't feel bad or find it to be news that software companies find themselves making less.

The real problem is that many smaller companies and studios are around the break even point. Making less is a big deal to them. The game industry is like many others, the press generally covers the big companies, but most people in the industry work for small companies.

No...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to say that games such as WOW, Guild Wars, and so on are not the reason that the industry is so cold. It's the fact that no one is making anything that is actually good. I have barely seen a good game in a couple years. G.R.A.W. is decent, and i'm no FPS'er. But to say the industry is cold because of online games is a joke. The industry needs to actually put something decent out first. Compete with what is out there, innovate, do something totally new. Then the industry will heat up.

Wait a Minute...

[Vistea]

What about games like Diablo (II) and Guild Wars? You have to pay for them initially, but they should have the same draw - moreso, pricewise - as per-month online games. Wouldn't those be the best deal?

God, idiots...

[bky1701]

It's PIRACY that's causing it, didn't you hear them one of those bazillion times they said it? It's never a problem brought on by something else!!!! ...dot dot dot...

Evolution in the market

[jacobw]

As in pretty much every other area in the world, a high quality product is neither necessary nor sufficient to generate profit.

On the other hand, wings are neither necessary nor sufficient for evolutionary success, yet species evolve them.

In any ecology--whether a literal one or a metaphorical one like the marketplace--the key to success is finding an underexploited niche, and then exploiting it.

As long as there are people willing to pay more for quality, there will always be a market for high-quality games. And as long as there are people willing to buy crap from the bargain bin in order to save money, there will always be a market for crappy games.

Will a "smart beancounter" try to produce a quality game? That depends on the market niche the beancounter's company is trying to fill. If you run Joe's House of $5 Walmart CD-Roms, and some game designer tells you he wants to delay a launch for a week in order to polish up a game, you'll fire him. If you run EA and Will Wright tells you he wants to delay a launch for six months, you'll let him.

formally known as

[allgoodnamesaretaken]

the MMORPG formally known as "life life wtf is life?" has been hijacked by a virus known as "money money whos got my money?"

Hmm

[Sv-Manowar]

I don't think this can be attributed to *just* the MMORPGs, a lot of games that have extended multiplayer lives (as many should) can stem the flow of games that one person goes through in a year. Many people who play Counter-Strike or Battlefield 2 for example often don't play that many games at the same time, and we all know about the cases of gamers who have played nothing but CS since they got it.

I think it is less a problem with MMORPGS, but more a feature of the extended life of some games nowdays thanks to internet multiplayer, in which case, can we really see it as a problem?

Re:RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "bea

[beetlefeet]

There are still people playing Ultima Online which came out I THINK in 1997? People join communities and it's the community that keeps the game going.

Doom III, Quake IV, Serious Sam II...

[malf-uk]

..and many more games I've bought since I started Dark Age Of Camelot over 3 years ago have probably had about an hour's play each before ending up on the dusty pile on top of my PC.

Only game in 3 years that I've completed was Half-Life 2. I haven't even bought Episode 1 yet.

Re:RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "bea

[rehtonAesoohC]

Ohhh ok. Yeah, I remember the good 'ol days when we would have day long matches of NS. I'd leave and come back later and they'd still be playing the same map with a lot of the same players.

Not true at all

[everphilski]

I soloed to 70 as a necromancer (granted, SOE's gift to the soloer) and as a beastlord. Completely solo. My wife both grouped and soloed as a shaman.

A new server is opening next week (with only the original three continents, expansions will be unlocked as end-game content is successfully raided) and I intend to solo with another class. Haven't made up my mind yet. Thinking enchanter.

So basically your "holy trinity" argument is bunk. There is a lot of content that encourages it and the concept is sound, but you conveniently overlook **plenty** of us who think outside the box and do things that amaze our guild mates. I can't tell you how many times guildies have said "wow... you can do that?" etc. You have to think outside the box. What about kite groups? What about GoD instances where you don't have a tank (think vxed)? What about Plane of Valor, Halls of Honor, or any of 20 higher end zones that are kitable, requiring only one person with snare to fight in? Just because the average joe can't see beyond the trinity doesn't mean alternatives don't exist. Simple minds are the reason WoW is so popular...

WoW; Destroyer Of Worlds

[NexFlamma]

Personally, since I started playing WoW in second beta, I have bought exactly one other game (Halflife 2), and I very rarely play it. This is down from 2 to 3 games a month.

The reality of the situation is just that Blizzard has made a fantastic product. They worked VERY hard and support it amazingly well and it's paying off for them. With such a deep game, people simply don't need anything else.

I, for one, think the other game companies should simply be scared because they aren't willing to work as hard as Blizzard has to deliver a fantastic, quality product. The days of them being able to milk games they churn out of programming sweatshops every 10 months are now over.