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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[vimh42]

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

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[stunt_penguin]

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

*pats Philips PVR on head*
Good boy!

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

[tbannist]

Personally, I prefer this synopsis:

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

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

[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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

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 :)

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: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...

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: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!

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.

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.

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.

Not only Games...

[bsytko]

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

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.

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.

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

[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: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!

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: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: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.

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.

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.

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: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: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.

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?

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: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.

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.

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: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.

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?