Running in the Special Olympics

Discussion of the Evolving Nature of the MMO Industry from an Outsider's Perspective

Author: PhatWOP

Let's take an imaginary walk into the future. I say imaginary because of course we can't really do that. If we could, I would have already went to the future, stole a book of sports game results, come back into the present and caused a whole host of hilarious and wacky hijinks that would need to be solved, most likely in a sequel.

But I digress.

On our imaginary walk into the future, besides paying heed to our evntual robotic monkey overlords, I would like to examine the landscape of MMO's in that time period. I am particulary interested in a sub-set of the MMO genre in the future, MMO's built on established IPs (Intellectual Properties). A breif examination of the current crop of available games and the upcoming games scheduled, rumored or in the works shows me that we are already mining deep into the established IP vein of ore. So question becomes, what happens when this vein runs dry?

What will we do when there are no more super-popular IPs to build upon? No preset fan-bases to attract simply because of the brand the game is associated with?

Answer: It will never happen.

Let me explain by way of analogy. Movies, another form of entertainment media, are often based on established IPs. However, the well never runs dry for in addition to sequels (another popular convention in both MMOs and Movies), you can always simply remake the movie. Consider that since the inception of film, Pride and Prejudice has been remade more than 8 times for both television and the big screen. Last year's big budget extravaganza I Am Legend was at least the the third remake of that novel. How many times has a Superman movie been made for television or the big screen?

I did not pick twenty years into the future randomly or arbitrarily. It is roughly a generation, roughly the amount of time it takes for something to pass out of the social conscious and beg to be reintroduced. Batman Begins was alsmot twenty years after the original, which was roughly twenty years after the television show and so on.

I submit to you that the flagship MMOs of twenty years from now will look strikingly similar to today's MMOs. In fact, somemay even be remakes of MMOs during our time period that have gained enough mainstream fame to become their own popular IP. It certainly seems resonable that twenty or thirty years from now, an all new WoW or CoH could come out and ply on nostalgia for the "early days" of MMOs to build marketing traction.

In fact, we may already be seeing the earliest part of this trned right now. We are all familiar with the rumor of the Star Wars relaunch under Bioware. That would be the first "remake" of a great IP where the initial one has passed away (in this case due to ineptitude, but it could just as easily be due to time for other IPs).

So as usual, our walk into the future has not produced visions of flying cars, jet packs or food in delicious pill form, but instead, a world that looks much like our own. MMO's with names like World of Warcraft: The New Beginning or Lord of the Rings Experience, etc. On the bright side, that also means if there is currently an MMO in existence or development based on one of your favorite intellectual properties and you don't like the direction its going, just wait twenty or so years; they'll remake it.

Until Next Time, May you only experience the Best version.