I have gotten in a pretty good debate with Maxxius (who makes some decent points) over on FOH’s boards about how I believe the MMO market is cyclical and he doesn’t. Go check out the thread with a post by Cuppy in the thread which started the debate, for the background , but here is my prediction in summary, would love to hear other opinions also on it:
I predict this:
In sometime in the next 5-10 years, someone will create a generic fantasy MMO with up to date graphics (playing the WOW safe card by not being too overdone), UI, the whole shebang, BUT it will use (with a few small exceptions) the same level grind cookie cutter game mechanics that eq, eq2, wow and other games do today. It is just that in 10 years that WON’T be the norm. That game will be successful. Very successful because people will feel the nostalgia and are sick of the current niche norm. Then other companies will look at that and see there is money to be made and start create a clone (clone of a clone at this point) and they will ride that out for a few years, till the consumer market wants something different. How about niche MMOs? (like pony world, or whatever) then suddenly that will be where the money is and focus will be drawn back to that. It will continue to do this.
Much like every 10 years or so we see a hugely successful boyband, then for 10 years we don’t, then guess what?
The above is in relation to game play. Profit vs play will be the same way. Everyone will migrate over the next few years (maybe by a push from the industry?) to microtranc and “slight of hand” RMT, then by 2013 some company is gonna market a game as “Why pay small tranactions, when we are just happy with a monthly fee all you can eat?” and everyone will feel it is revolutionary and utilize it for awhile, until another game comes along with an even “better” microtransaction deal. The two cycles (profit / game style) may not be on the same troughs and crests, but that doesn’t matter, they will still be cyclical in their path.
How long have you played MMOs? One of the first MMOs around the time M59 came out was called Shadow of Yseribus on the Sierra Network. I can’t imagine how much money I spent playing Yseribus. You pay’d by the hour to level your character (there may have been some big flat fee per month but I don’t remember and it would have been exuberant). In essence you paid money in small increments to have the ability to have a more powerful character than other players. Then suddenly UO/EQ came out where as you could have an all you can eat buffet (barring you have a net conx) for a flat fee. Suddenly here we are 10 years later, and people are introducing microtranactional games where although you are not playing per hour you ARE paying a small fee incrementally for the ability to have a more powerful character than other payers. It isn’t under the guise of and hourly rate, but that is essence of it. This will probably be in fashion for the next 5 or 8 years or so and then some will come up with the innovative Ayn Randian’ “if everyone is special no one is” solution that the playing field needs to be leveled, because the majority of people will never attain the status of people willing to spend money, so they will create a revolutionary solution of “everyone pay the same fee” and the better players (who in this case just have more time) will have the more powerful characters/ships/robots/ninjas whatever. This industry will always be the have vs have nots, just the haves will bounce back between ‘those that have money’ and ‘those that have time’. Once the major populous gets sick of fighting those that have time, new games will come out that revert back to the other set of halves those that have money. They will continue to bounce back and forth (hence the cyclical). The winning companies will be those on the precip that end up being the catalyst for the change.
http://www.eq2daily.com/podcasts/show50.mp3
