The Cyclical MMO Industry: Those with Time Vs Those with Money (HINT: Our Grandkids will be having this same argument)
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.
June 15th, 2007 at 11:16 am
I like your theory and mostly agree with your prediction.I’m confussed on a few of your points.
Background….
I’ve played MMOs for a longtime as well, starting with MUDs then getting really into it with the Legend of Kesmai (graphical sequel to IoK)
However, when I started I was well, young and poor, so I played games that were micro in every since of the word. The times were different in the late 80s early 90s, and games that today would be considered microtranactional were FREE. There was no way a small developer was going to get any money unless a larger company purchased the licensing rights then wrapped it in cellophane and tossed it in a shareware bin.
I’ll try not to digress into a rant too much. I understand that the entry into the MMO market comes with two groups those with time and those with money. In the late 80s and early 90s that line was less visible because of the high cost necessary to enter the “online computer market.” My nice new 486 computer cost just shy of $5000 and I was 14 so you can guess I didn’t buy it. Anyway, there were less people, things cost more, and everything was done by the hour… (phone, prodigy, and prostitutes)
Skip ahead to the mid/late 90s and the world explodes. The online world changed almost daily as new people entered the market. In the beginning games like Gemstone and Dragonrealm were able to charge hourly because EVERYTHING was still hourly. Once competition grew they all had to shift their pricing model. This is when your “all you can eat buffet” began, and IMHO will never end. Once the market is exposed to something it isn’t going away. It is my understanding that the only change occurring now is new people playing, so many in fact that they are able to have games on just about anything. The more “niche” the more cash, well in a way.
OK, so here is my confusion…
How does Pay vs Play (Money/Time) become “by 2013 some company is going to once again offer a buffet style game.”
a) All MMO take both Time and Money, with Time being the dominate factor.
b) By 2013 people will still be playing WoW, EQ2, and even EQ1.
So, the way I see this cycle… companies will try to form profitable niche games and when they don’t do as well as expected they will lump them together with other games and throw them in the virtual shareware bin. These niche games will always try new approaches at capturing profits. But, just as I refused to pay hourly for anything I will continue shopping in the shareware bin.
I started my life in pay to play games with Gamestorm which offered a handful of games one was LoK, then EQ, and then SOE all access which for $29 i get EQ, EQ2, Vanguard, SWG, Matrix, and Planetside.
WOW.. I think this is the longest comment I have ever left.
My original reason for posting was just to say you guys should check out http://www.longbets.org/
Anyway please forgive the spelling errors, and YES I’m writing this instead of spell checking this comment!
June 16th, 2007 at 7:37 am
Nic,
I think that a.) is the part where we differ. I think that as cookie cutter MMOs are now, there is a base that time = progression, but I also think that if you have money to spend (in a non EULA or sanctioned way) you can purchase “X” to help you advance more quickly. I think that business have already seen that profit exists in this market and that is what microtransactions will be prevalent for the next 10 years. I think they will grow to be so prevalent that one day most games will encompass some form of them, then someone (with money) will sit back and design a game that completely excludes them. It will be “new” and star spangled and marketed in that manner, and it WILL be successful because a lot of the people that play MMOs now, will see the nostalgia EQ/WOW/EQ2ish system (more time = better char) as something they would like to go back to.
Also I would like to add that I think I could spend all day looking at longbets.org. This site is awesome. I am tempted to post a longbet that “longbet.org won’t be around in 2009″ just to see if I ruffle some feathers
June 17th, 2007 at 12:26 am
As usual, the underlying assumptions here simply don’t tally with my own in-game experience. I am aware that there are a lot of people playing MMOs who are driven to get to the top, reach the “end-game”, be “uber” and so on; I have met a few in the 8 years I’ve played, but really not many.
My day-to-day experience of meeting other players in EQ/DAOC/EQ2/Vanguard and a host of other MMOs over the years is that between the whiners who want everything but don’t want to do anything to get it and the ubers who will do whatever it takes to be the best come the huge mass of ordinary players, who trundle along at their own speed.
Those players generally set themselves reasonable, achievable goals, requiring only the help of a few friends or guildmates. Big raids involving serious commitment don’t appealto them, and neither does spending any more money playing than the cost of the box and the monthly sub.
Those players are likely to continue to support games very similar to those we see now. They are a tiny number, however, compared to the huge potential audience for free games containing a much wider range of content and theme, funded by advertisnig, microtransactions or both.
The upshot is, I don’t see much changing. Most of the games that currently exist will continue: of all the MMOs I have installed on my PC over the last few years, I can only think of one that is no longer running. There are 3d MMOs still up that have peak numbers in the hundreds. In addition to those, there will be many more games very like them and a whole new wave of much more mass-market games (MMMMOs
)which will attract a huge new audience but probaly not appeal much to many current MMO players.
It’s all variety and it’s all good.