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

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?

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

"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: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 :)

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.

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!

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: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: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.

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: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.

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: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

[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

[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.