Dan Fortier returns this week to talk about his take on why players quit their games.

What an exciting week! I managed to wipe an entire hard drive of games (also deleting this week's article) and turned my motherboard into a Pentium BBQ. There nothing like inviting your friends over for some toasted ATI and smoked RAM while waiting for the local Fire Dept to hose off your smoldering tower case. Something good did come of the whole tragedy though, since this week's topic is suitably mired in that angst: What makes people quit games?

Not being one for gank and tells, I usually have a dim view of MMO hoppers that move from game to game without even getting their feet wet. It's not like the genre really fits that type of temperament either. Can you imagine grouping with someone with an "I don't have all minute" attitude? How can any game that requires hundred of hours of mostly repetitive content attract gamers with the attention span of a dope fiend?

Read the whole column here.

fix the link to the whole article plz? Need my wtf fix!

Got me to thinking back on why I quit my MMO's...

1) Lineage 1 (6 months) - My first MMO, I didn' t know any better.  Boring, repetitive game play that serverely penalized grouping and had me camping 8 hours one night just to pop a single boss mob.

1a) EQ 1 - I had an incompatible video card (didn't realize it), thought it was a problem with the game, uninstalled it after one night.

2) DAOC (2.5 yrs) - TOA, TOA, TOA....  single handedly pushed me out of the game... I'm back now, on a Classic (no TOA) server. (bought a new video card for it, btw)

3) Shadowbane (3 months) - Server instability coupled with silly city building system that let other players destroy them down to just 7 buildings without having to declare a war.  (which always seemed to happen at 4 am EST....)

4) City of Heros/Villains (4 months) - Just nothing much to do at the end game, on either one, combat a bit simplistic... Pvp was... eh...

5) Lineage 2 (5 months)  - Its the grind... stupid.  No, I didn't have the patience to grind past level 51.... and hated the way I could be one-shotted by 70+ archers during sieges.... and I hated the stupid Care Bear Alliance (who were anything but) that took over every castle in the server.

6) WOW  (1.75 yrs) - quit 2 times now..both for same reason...leveled up a few 60's... ran through the end game (MC, BWL) grew bored of raiding, faction grinding etc and the pvp was not to my liking.

7) DDO (3 days) - Didn't like the instanced combat and forced grouping (in the early days). Wanted a chance to master my character before embarrasing myself with others.

8) Matrix Online and Horizons (0 days) Bought both of them at the store, came home, read about them on Internet and decided to return them to the store unopened.

9) RFO - Did the 10 day free trial..seemed like Lineage 2 in space.... though the grind was less harsh... had no community though.

10) Anarchy Online (3 days) - My one regret, I didn't really give this a fair try, I have a feeling I would have enjoyed it.

In the end I'll confess that I'm guilty, I change because I'm looking for the one "perfect" MMO.  You know, with automatic "I-win" buttons for people who suck at PvP like me (too old and slow), that don't reward players who have too much free time by making them walking gods compared to me, that have interesting crafting, housing zones and a friendly community.  Whose producers are responsive to player suggestions and concerns, and don't make sweeping changes which totally change the game play.  And one that doesn't automatically nerf whatever class I chose to play just moments after I reach the top level in it.

Looks like I'll just have to keep searching

Originally posted by Kyleran

Got me to thinking back on why I quit my MMO's...

1) Lineage 1 (6 months) - My first MMO, I didn' t know any better.  Boring, repetitive game play that serverely penalized grouping and had me camping 8 hours one night just to pop a single boss mob.

1a) EQ 1 - I had an incompatible video card (didn't realize it), thought it was a problem with the game, uninstalled it after one night.

2) DAOC (2.5 yrs) - TOA, TOA, TOA....  single handedly pushed me out of the game... I'm back now, on a Classic (no TOA) server. (bought a new video card for it, btw)

3) Shadowbane (3 months) - Server instability coupled with silly city building system that let other players destroy them down to just 7 buildings without having to declare a war.  (which always seemed to happen at 4 am EST....)

4) City of Heros/Villains (4 months) - Just nothing much to do at the end game, on either one, combat a bit simplistic... Pvp was... eh...

5) Lineage 2 (5 months)  - Its the grind... stupid.  No, I didn't have the patience to grind past level 51.... and hated the way I could be one-shotted by 70+ archers during sieges.... and I hated the stupid Care Bear Alliance (who were anything but) that took over every castle in the server.

6) WOW  (1.75 yrs) - quit 2 times now..both for same reason...leveled up a few 60's... ran through the end game (MC, BWL) grew bored of raiding, faction grinding etc and the pvp was not to my liking.

7) DDO (3 days) - Didn't like the instanced combat and forced grouping (in the early days). Wanted a chance to master my character before embarrasing myself with others.

8) Matrix Online and Horizons (0 days) Bought both of them at the store, came home, read about them on Internet and decided to return them to the store unopened.

9) RFO - Did the 10 day free trial..seemed like Lineage 2 in space.... though the grind was less harsh... had no community though.

10) Anarchy Online (3 days) - My one regret, I didn't really give this a fair try, I have a feeling I would have enjoyed it.

In the end I'll confess that I'm guilty, I change because I'm looking for the one "perfect" MMO.  You know, with automatic "I-win" buttons for people who suck at PvP like me (too old and slow), that don't reward players who have too much free time by making them walking gods compared to me, that have interesting crafting, housing zones and a friendly community.  Whose producers are responsive to player suggestions and concerns, and don't make sweeping changes which totally change the game play.  And one that doesn't automatically nerf whatever class I chose to play just moments after I reach the top level in it.

Looks like I'll just have to keep searching

I wouldn't classify you as a quitter by any stretch of the imagination. You played most of these game for a significant amount of time. Think of how many single player games we churn through.

I suspect some MMO marketing gurus out there have an educated guess to this question. What do most MMO producers expect the average lifespan of a subscription is? i.e. How long does a typical player play in their game?

I wonder what is a decent return on a developers investment in regards to subscription. If the game box helps defray the production costs, how many months of subscription are necessary to break even (assuming x thousands of subscribers).

Oh well, just a curious mental excersise .

To me, a quitter is someone who plays the game and quits within a month on a habitual basis. There will always be reasonable excuses such as hardware incompatibility, etc.

My MMO History:

Ultima Online: 6 Months - quit becuase as my friends left to play WWII Online. My first MMO - found it quite fun - tons to do although I always seemed to end up picking cotton for some reason.

Jumpgate: 3 Months - Liked it initially, go fed up getting killed by people pirating on the trade routes with me having any chance to fight back or escape.

WWII Online: 6 Months - quit again because friends left to play Planetside. Enjoyed this despite the crappy graphics - one of the most tense MMOs I've played due to the fact it would take at least 20mins to get back to the scene of the fighting when you got killed :)

Planetside: 6-12 Months -  left to play SWG with friends. Had a great time with this one. Left not long after the core combat expansion as it got a little repetetive and hard to compete with those who did get the expansion

Dark Age of Camelot: 2 Months - liked it initially and had a group of friends to play with, but didn't feel like I was progressing very quickly and got bored of it.

Star Wars Galaxies: 18 Months - really enjoyed my time here. It had loads of flaws including the combat and buff system but i still remember this one fondly. Left after beta testing the space expansion - seeing how bad it was - and the devs saying that they still wouldn't be fixing the combat. Was a bit sad when I retired my avatar for this one :'(

City Of Heroes: 12-24 Months - The only MMO i've played without people I know IRL. Very fun MMO to play. Found the levelling a bit too slow at higher levels. Came back after a 6-12 month break for City of Villains but only stayed for 2 months or so.

DDO: 2 Weeks - Didn't like the forced grouping - Didn't like the way the ruleset was implemented and felt it was far to complex (despite knowing abit about DnD).

World Of Warcraft: Release-Present (18 Months?) - The first MMO i've ever maxed out a char in (currently have 3 at 60 now which is an achievement for me) - See myself staying until something new comes along (i.e. not another EQ clone or similar :)) - This will probably be either Age of Conan, or The Chronicles of Spellborn - Warhammer looks good too, but thats not till the end of the year (at the earliest) and I doubt WoW will see me through till then.

Well most games i played for 5 mins and quit lol.

- COH: Didn't like my first impressions of the game, felt really badly made.

- DAOC: UI was horrible and the character movement was like controlling a brick.

- FF11: Bored after a few levels, didn't feel fun to me.

- EQ: This was back in 2000, i just didn't like the UI and was lost and found it boring.

- MXO: Very buggy, noone playing and crap.

- D&DO: Too instanced.

- RFO: controlling with mouse, standard Korean unfun mmorpg.

- The Saga of ryzom: Just no music and poorly done, the UI felt horrid.

I don't give games a 2nd chance usually, released like crap = crap forever.


Games i quit after awhile:

- EVE Online: Got bored after playing in 2003 and my corp got scammed in 2004, then they went pirate. Got fedup of traveling and it felt very lonely + the time based skill leveling got tedious.

- EQ2: Just really boring and the Graphics are horrible, got fedup of having to wait 30 levels to see if i liked my class. All the classes in the archtype felt the same and bland and boring. The community was horrible and most the servers were empty.

- Vanguard soh: Clear to me the game wasn't ready to be released, not supporting anymore unifnished mmorpgs. Was a big letdown too and felt like a step back rather than one forward.

- SWG: Played for a couple years but then the CU and NGE came along so i quit.

- WOW: I come back tot his game recently to see the expansion, i feel myself getting bored of doing the same crap over and over again.

- PS: Ruined after CC expansion.



You might tell me mmorpgs arn't for me, i don't agree. The current mmorpgs arn't for me, i want somethign different and not the same tired bullcrap :P I don't like killing the same thing over and over again to gain XP and i don't like boring tedious questing to get XP like kill 10 of these and came back lol.

I want INNOVATION!

the only MMORPGS i've played a short amount of time and quit would be:

Ultima Online: I don't remember exactly why, but I THINK it was just boring to me.

Anarchy Online: My computer was crap at the time and I got fed up with the crappiness of my experience.

City of Heroes: A combination of crap computer and lack of direction.

I played FFXI for about a year and a half, before most of my friends who played stopped playing too.  I've picked it back up a few times, but never for long.  I'm still waiting for them to come up with a way for me to not end up in a party full of people who look JUST LIKE ME.

WoW, I played for about 2 months?  Gave up on that one because of difficulty getting on the same server with friends - I had 2-3 groups pulling me to different servers.  Plus I really missed the "using my PS2 controller" style of FFXI :-p

waiting for Age of Conan and Chronicles of Spellborn!

Coh: 3 months- Repetitive,felt like a chore
SWG- Sience patch 5 - Quit because of SOE's Evil super villan patch. (nge)

Silkroad online: 2 months - Quit because of an error

Guild wars - 9 months - No end content imo

WWII Online: 30 days - Quit because my dad didnt want to play for it. (i was playing on his account heh)

WoW: 4 months (i think) - Quit because of massive lag spikes.

Well, playing a raiding game isn't going to make me "wins" a good game either.  So, the only possible "wins" route is to quit and cancel, to show them I don't support their game.

 

CoV is integrating raiding soon if Warcry is true (which is questionnable as there is nothing on the official website yet), if this is the case, it will effectively put CoV behind EQ in my interesting games to play; unless they made the LRSF somewhat logical, and not in need of 5 corruptors to complete!    Somehow, I don't even remotedly want to play EQ, I mean, raiding?  Eurk!

 

So, what options do I have if a game about GROUPING is enforcing raiding?  I only have 1 option, it is to quit.  If I was addicted to MMOs, I guess I would put up with raiding, but I am not.  So I won't "play" a game that enforced raiding on groupers, forget it. 

MMO's Iv'e played and left.

Shadowbane (2 months) - I just didn't like it. Kept hoping the game would get better.

Anarchy online (8 months) - I was a froob. Enjoyed it but not enough to consider paying for it. Tradeskill system was good though.

Eve online (6 months) - Started with a free trial and enjoyed it, but as I got bigger and bigger ships the game became less and less enjoyable. As far as I could tell combat prowess was mostly down to how you set up your ship rather than how you used it. I liked the skill learning system though, but still too much grind for money unless you stuck with the basic frigates.

Flyff, Last chaos and Rappelz (little time) - Pretty graphics but no substance in my opinion.

May qiut EQ1 soon, I can't afford the constant barrage of expansions.


I've learnt one thing that I want in a mmo and that is tradeskills, I like em. I don't even consider trying  a mmorpg unless it has tradeskills.
Aside from that I'm not too fussy as long as it works reasonably well.

I played iRO for nearly 2 years, my first MMO and really quite fun.  No real point, but fun with friends, plus I could play it on my laptop.  I quit this once I realized grind doesn't equal fun.

I'm currently playing CoH going on 1.5 years.  I really like the fast-paced action and comraderie with my supergroup.  I love the look of the game and I LOVE the rag-doll physics.  Something so satisfying about watching a baddie plop over a bridge unconcious    I also love the character customization.  I very rarely run into someone who looks just like me.  While I play CoV every now and again, I don't get the same feeling I do as with CoH.  Maybe I like to save the day?

I have beta tested and/or trialed a bevy of other MMOs (WoW, DoaC, RFO, Vanguard, DDO, GW, SWG, EQ2, L2) looking for my next 'perfect' MMO to capture my time and money, but so far none have lived up to my 'standard'  Only WoW and GW have gotten me to come back for a second or third trial, but until I lose interest in CoH or something really stellar grabs my attention, I'm content where I am.

I'm looking forward to PotBS  and may look at iRO2 when it comes around.  That said, I'm eagerly awaiting the (far-off) day when KotOR3 hits shelves and if anyone had the common sense to make an MMO out of that franchise, I'd play it in a heart-beat.

well i can honestly say i have only played less than a handful of MMO but i stuck it out for a long time

UO: i played this around the time of the Felucca, Trammel split and i loved it , all the skilling up no levels or grinding just honing my skills however i could, i spent week crafting on this one, stayed for around 8 months and the only reason i quit is 2 fold, PC blew up and CC expired plus moved house and i never really got round to getting back on this, I have however noted teh new version so am intedning on getting that as i loved this game

FFXI: i am currently subscribed to this and have been for around 7 Months but to be honest i am getting bored of it now, lack of Solo contenet and the fact my main char is stuck at level 45 and getting PT to play with is time consuming, log on spend 2 hours waiting for PT to form (cos there friend has to come from 9th level of hell on the back of a snail stopping every 2 paces to res a Noob who got killed by a fly!!) i havent gained a level on this for over 2 months and when i do get a pt i tend to find it ...awful... negative XP is not a good thing, and as for craft skills, hmmmmmm would be alright if everyone else wasnt running round at twice my level killing the mobs faster than me and getting all the goodies!! I have to rely on my LS supplying me wiht the good i need to craft and this just goes so slowly

EVE: I played this 3 times over the free trial period and having read waht people were saying and also having an innate love of ELITE i know what to expect, i never signed up for this because i just didnt have the time needed to dedicate to this as already playing FFXI, who knows may get a laptop so i can play EVE while waiting for PT on FFXI sine SE wont allow windowers on PC version

SWG: First MMO I played. This game was the greatest game I'd ever played. CU came out, TEF removed, lack of support from SOE ( I never had a ticket returned....ever), and the complete and total ignoring of the entire communities wants and needs. Greed killed this game. WOW startled them with numbers and they paniced. Had they stayed this course the numbers I feel would have evened out. This was the longest I'd played any game 2 years of time and money. I would still be playing if it were handle properly and pre-cu...

Now for games I bounced around on.

COH/COV: This game I did indeed play for about 7 or 8 months. Maybe longer can't really remember. Honestly the only reason I stopped playing were financial restraints at the time I had to cut loose some spending ie...my digital cable which included my internet service. I think this is a great game. I think PvP was handled in a pretty cool way that capped anyone involved to the same "level" for all fairness. Hands down best character creation you can get. Although from playing this game I have to say I'm not a fan of a hard "level" based system as far as NPC's etc...I don't like the fact that "purple" means I'm dead. I like better that my talents at the keyboard and pre-planning and strategy come into play at some point. Though I almost feel guilty for not picking this game back up. I probably will after I try out a few others.

The real Bouncer:

EVE Online: I played the free trial and no more. I still have it on my comp waiting for me to subscribe. What turns me off...I don't like the fact that the skills systems I'm not rewarded for hard work. The time based train "at all times"
is really a double edged sword. I like the fact that I can set it up, go to work, presto chango I have a new skill. Like I said though I'll never "catch up" to someone who's owned the game longer but doesn't play as hard when they do play. The game is huge which I do dig. Some of it seems to drag though. In a way it's kinda like playing magic the gathering. The real skill is building your deck (your ship). Which is fun....eh...and not so fun at the same time...I dunno about this one I'm in the middle of the road.

EVE Versus Ryzom: Round one.....
I've been trolling reviews on Ryzom for a few months now. I finally decided recenly to get the free trial. Not bad. still has a hard levels system...but not "that hard." It's fun and unique. I'm a big fan of the story they are setting up and it's definately not your run of the mill "game setting." It's not taking off of any popular movie title and it's not a Tolkien rip off standard fantasy game. Game play seems very smooth to <b>"me"</b> anyway. Big plus as well is that I don't have a great computer. Actually I have a big piece of junk lol...This game is pretty AND it performs really well even though I don't have a top of the line rig.......
So here's the battle.....EVE or Ryzom......I just as of last night subscribed to Ryzom. I'll give it a month......

Wait I guess I'm not a quitter.....

On a side note: I've played Table top games for a very long time. Traditional RPGing. I'm currently working on my own game that once it works on paper I'm going to investigate modeling it for an mmorpg. It will be the hot jam.....and none of you will ever quit! lol So to combat bouncing around from game to game I'll just make my own. :P

i quit d&d, auto assault, lineage2, rf online cause they weren't fun after a month.

I quit eve and wow cause I realized I wasn't ever going to get that carrot dangling in front of me unless I went against my gaming principles.  In eve I ran out of alliances I wanted to join, in WoW i hated the way other guilds went about their business and could never motivate my guild of 7 people to try onyxia with our blues (what's it going to cost, like 10 silver a death, might as well try you know)

In order for me to succed in Eve or Wow either a bunch of new types of players would have to come onto the scene or I'd have to change my ways, I don't believe Martin Luther King Jr. wouldv'e changed to violence to get civil rights, and I'm not going to stop playing how I want to play to "beat" Eve or Wow, so I just quit them instead.

Now I have a bigger problem however, Eve has spoiled me with free expansions, and WoW has spoiled me with one button masher macros.    I'll try vanguard out in 8 days, but I don't think I'll last the month once I find out the macro limitations, and if I do last past that first month, I'll probably be gone when the first expansion for it comes out.

Hmm, I cant say how lonmg Ive played various games but heres a list of a few and my reasons for quitting...

Asherons Call 2:  Started well enough, and I played for about a year.  The combination of it looking more like a beta as time went by, stupid crafting costs, and my inadvertantly killing the uber powerfull leader of the server's most popular clan (in a PvP area) and his constant rants at me afterwards got to me.

Star Wars Galaxies:  About 3 months light play, and then occasionally I try again every six months or so for a couple of years.  It just doesnt hold me, Im not a Star Wars kind of person.

Planetside (does this count?):  On and off for about three years, great game to play when I was into other games but didnt have enough time to cooperate in convoluted questing.

Eve Online: 1 month complimentary that came with the game.  The only community I managed to get involved with was the "whats the point of this game" one.  I just really didnt get it.

Everquest 2:  2 years solid.  This ended when I started a new relationship at the same time as the EoF expansion launched.  I pretty much had the choice of spending time learning all the changes to the game, new areas, tradeskills etc or having fun in RL, I chose RL (though I may restart my station subscription for Vanguard).  The other downside when the EQ2 EoF expansion came out was that I pretty much figured it would be quicker to get a new character fully speced, than to get my existing main lvl70 throught all the available AP lines. 

EQ1:  Approx 2 hours: Ugh, those graphics. ugh the command interface, eek!

 

Most games from the big distributors have surveys after you quit a game, so I won't bother listing why I leave games. Now the question is:

Do people come back to a game they left? Why?

My MMORPG timeline (listed in roughly the order I played them):

1)  Star Wars Galaxies (1 year) -  It was the first MMO I ever played.  I got in during open beta, found a huge guild, and really played the heck out of this game.  But I always had the feeling that SWG never got its footing.  It seemed to being trying to fix design mistakes with every pach rather than code bugs.  I loved the player-run game economy and really had high hopes for Space Expansion but my guild disintegrated and I was getting frustrated with the constantly changing game mechanics so I jumped ship when  FFXI was released.

2)  Planetside (3 months) -  I very much enjoyed being a Galaxy pilot inserting a boat-load of troops into a hot LZ but I quickly became frustrated with seeming futility of the game.  We would spend all night securing continents only to find all our work undone in the next day.  Game was ultimately pointless.

3)  Final Fantasy XI (1.5 years) - This is the game I miss the most.  I loved everything about it except for one critical aspect.  Unless you could find a dedicated linkshell that was readily available to help with quests and level grinding, you had little hope of actually experiencing all this game has to offer.  It is one of the most punishing games for a solo/un-LS'ed player I've ever played.  One night, after 5 hours sitting in the mud in the Yuhtunga Jungle waiting for a PUG to form, I walked away.  I've resubscribed a couple of times but quickly abandoned it again when I remember that without a good linkshell you can go nowhere in this game.

4)  Lineage II (1 night) - Yeah, right.  After being ganked repeatedly in the start area and never able to figure out what I was supposed to be doing, I gave up this ridiculous game.  Great graphics, and I hear its fun if you run with a guild that can protect you but the newbie griefing was a turnoff.

5)  City of Heroes (2 days) - Making characters was fun, playing the game was dull.   'Nuff said.

6)  World of Warcraft (2 years - present) - Still subscribed to this one but its days are numbered.  It appealed to my soloing tendencies and had a lot of fun but I had bad luck with guilds again, could never find one large enough or stable enough for end-game.  Had more fun levelling to 60 than actually being 60.  The pressure to raid and get the Tier armor sets made end-game more of a chore than anything.  Ultimately, the lack of a cohesive story turned me off as well.  Still, graphics are great; gear, weapons all looked cool.

7)  ***** (NDA prohibition) (1 month) - Beta testing one that looks to get me to cancel my WoW account and jump into this one when it launches.  At this point, the only game on the horizon that has a chance of getting me out of it is Age of Conan.  Good story, good graphics, solo friendly, it's a keeper.

I wouldn't say I'm fickle when it comes to MMOs but after playing them for the last 4+ years I would say I still haven't found the perfect one for me.  The one I'm testing now might be if the end-game content is any good but we'll see.  Now all I need is better hardware to enjoy it to the fullest.

I quit when a game starts to lose balance. I loved EQ for many years until the gap between raiders forced the devs to destroy the grouping game. I felt EQ was totally unbalanced when it came to raiders vs. groupers. Again this happened to me in DAoC. Casters took over the game, and its pretty much futile to play a tank unless you have a dedicated 8 man.


 Since these two games I just haven't been able to find a game that can balance repetitious activity with a fun story/gameplay.

beta on a few but my main was Horizons for over 2 yrs almost 3 and now on WoW ( 2 months ongoing )

why I left ,well one name , Edward C Anderfraud

when eii/pme or what ever they call themselves took over everything went down hill.

multibilled on single accounts ... billed on cancelled accounts , lack of communication about the accounts , non refunded accounts , closure of the blight shard and general lack of respect towards their customer base. Dont read the official forums as the above is cleaned up ( read deleted ) .

Would I go back ... a resounding NO

CoH = 10 months My first mmo. Got in during beta then kept playing after release. I hit the wall in my 30's with my blaster and left. I can back last year to play CoV. They made a lot of improvements. I got bored after a while, since the mission zones tend to repeat alot. I will likely go back again at some point.

EQ2 = 5 months. Started at release. Combat was boring, but crafting was alrightt, but they kept nerf'ing it until it was just random and my imput didn't matter anymore in what I made. I was a guild, or would have left much sooner.

matrix = 1 months. I was in beta. I hated locked combat and the city zones were ugly.

SWG = 6 months. I was in during the final days of the first combat system and stayyed through all the new versions. I was in a guild. The bugs, constant changes, little content caused me to leave.

DDO = 2 days. I got in late beta. Hated pretty much everything about the game.

Autoassult = 1 week. Okay game if it was free to play.

Guildwars = few months. Okay game. I didn't care for the community.

WoW  = 5-6 months. I went to 60 so I could play with my guildmates, which was the only way you could play if you weren't within a small level window. Guild broke up. I leveled a few more toons up to different levels got bored and left.