Why are modern MMORPGs not doing so well?
With a new influx of MMORPGs coming out every few months it seems, it gets one to wondering, why are none of them dominating the market? Is there no innovation in these new titles? Are they too casual? Are they not casual enough? Is the market over saturated? Let's take a look and see if we can answer these questions and a few others.
Now, this is not just a crack at studios developing games, trust me when I say it's not easy to make a game! That said, none of these titles seem to innovate on the genre; or if they do, they innovate out the things that make the genre fun to begin with! Like this new trend of no healers hitting the market (Thanks Guild Wars 2 for starting that <<end sarcasm>>). With said "innovation" , you alienate part of your community; the ones who like to heal. Innovation does not have to be a game changer, maybe just a new take on content even. In example, Guild wars 2, the dynamic event system is just amazing! That kind of innovation is what the genre needs! Sadly, you won't find many willing to make a change like that, instead they are only willing to make minor changes to game play formula which result in a watered down experience while not being truly innovative.
Maybe the games are just too casual now. Perhaps they need to add more elements of hardcore games. All you have to do to find a party is click a button and portal to an instance. It seems like there is no sense of community, nothing to tie players together. That isn't a bad idea, it just seems to make the community a bit...disconnected. Perhaps if they added a rating system where you could rate the party you was just in, or something, it might make people feel less inclined to ninja loot, drop parties, name call and any other number of things that this new wave of players do. Perhaps, the games are not casual enough? With end games that require a large chunk of your time to even begin to be competitive, it's hard for anyone other than folks with more time on their hands than average, to get a true sense of progression or reward.
Could it possibly be a matter of market flooding? Go to any search engine and type in something like: MMORPGs coming out this year. You will absolutely be overwhelmed by all the new titles coming out. It's hard to stand out when you are vying against so many others. A lot of those are cash grabs or trash games, but how do you know that when you look at a game for the first time? Which brings me to the next point: Jaded gamers. There has been so many MMORPGs that came out, even in the last 5 years, that promised to change the face of the genre forever! They set the bars so high, but only meet their goals by 1/4. This new style of "Hype" could be another reason some games are not doing as well as they should. Gamers have heard it all before and have been disappointed by games they've waited on for years. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying this is the developers fault, most of the fault falls on the media. It only takes one excited game interviewer to spark an entire fire of hype. Not that hype is a bad thing, it may just need to be toned down a bit.
There are a myriad of reasons why these newer games are plagued the launch month server full-next month ghost server syndrome. Homogenized classes, poor progression, over zealous cash shops(ie Pay to Win), little content to hold people after max level, too much of a time sink. The list could go on and on, but let's stop here. Anyone else have any thoughts on this? Let me know in the comments.
