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

[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

[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."

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.

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.

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...

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: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!

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.