As we all know, the market is dominated by Blizzard, World of Warcraft. Just to clarify, I enjoyed their game just as much as the next and Im definately not a hater or against  them.

But currently, the size of blizzard is a bad thing. We dont like to hear it but it doesnt make it less true. This has a rather substancial effect on the market as a hole.

Mmo's in general are trying to copy the WoW formula far too much, new(er) mmo's are often clear and in some cases less clear WoW clones, which wouldnt be such a bad thing if nearly the entire market is that right now.

The market is losing alot of flavour and is very discouraged to come up with inovations, even within World of Warcraft there is pretty much a status-quo. The way the market is right now is even bad for WoW itself..

The market needs changes.

More important, World of Warcraft needs counterweigh, we definately need competion to restore the force.

While I dont think its going to be "just 1 single mmo"doing this, I honoustly think we are slowly starting to see a shift in this.. right direction..

At this point because of the way the market is right now, we simply losing an mmo is a bad thing. Closing down, failing or even canceling mmo's is very bad.

We, the market have shown on so many occasions before we do want changes, look at how many of us rushed to mmo's like Vanguards, Age of Conan and even DCuo. Despite the lack of success or the reason WHY they where less then successfull it IS a clear signal. 

Even looking at the attention and hype around an mmo like The secret world, Firefall , Tribes Universe, planetside 2 and even Defiance  again is a clear signal we do want changes.

Rift.

Rift is a good excample, even though it very much is a WoW clone, it does have its distinque'd differences again showing we do want changes.

Ive played it myself since beta, it is a good game, servers population dropping to the point where server transfers where actually needed was disapointing but the game survivived.

And rift is a good thing for the whole market, no matter how you feel about the game itself.

The effect of it being released , even now are noticeble even on WoW, they are putting more efford into it instead of staying with the World of Reruns routines..

Just to name a few .

We need the secret world

We need SwToR

We need Gw2

So in short what competition would do when it actually does get to the point to BE that counterweigh will only bring good :

-Blizzard will be forced to work much harder for their success, forcing them to look for new and improved ways to keep their game interesting.

-It will show investers , there is more then WoW and WoW clones,the confidence from actually being able to make a profit from something else will encouraging them to invest in inovations and different types of games and mmo's.

- it will give us the players the faith in other products , making it more likely for us to end up trying and actually staying with other products. 

Hopefully we'll see changes in the future of mmo's..

Yours truely, The Pan. 

World of Warcraft generates a large revenue stream for Activision-Blizzard.  In combination with Call of Duty: Black Ops, and some other games, they pull in 4 Billion USD in a year.  While the company may work to keep the WoW title relevant, there is no danger to the game becoming unsuccessful.  In contrast, the other successful games on the MMO market make peanuts in comparison, and they continue to run for a period of time in a F2P/Cash Shop model or subscription model.

Keep in mind, Blizzard has been working on a new MMO for awhile now.  I'm sure when the time is right, they will release another behemoth MMO that will dominate the genre.  I learned early on that hardcore MMO players may care infinitely more about these games and the genre as a whole, but the mountains of money from casual players who want a casual game will always win out for the companies who make these games.  You can say making a WoW clone is bad, and you can say we need change.  People have been saying it for years.  Until the majority of players stop paying for these watered down versions of the same games, then there will not be a significant change (ie: developers risking new innovations in game design).

However, there are always upcoming titles.  Games like SW:TOR and GW2 give is hope for something better.

to OP: 

i'm sorry, but first you say "things have to chage", "too many WoW clones", "the industry needs a new direction" and then you refer to Rift as an example of change?!....are you serious?!!

Rift is nothing more then latest WoW clone that has borrowed and stollen bits and pieces from almost every mmo out there. there is absolutely nothing innovative or different about Rift, on the contrary, Rift is pretty much as "WoW clone" as it gets. just updated graphics and a slightly different setting. i was bored in the first 2 hours of playing Rift because it all felt like i had done it a million times over in all other mmos i'v ever played.  Rift is the perfect example of "just one more theme park WoW clone making huge profits fomr the same old recycled crap".

wile i agree that the industry is stale and is overdue for radical new ideas and direction, Rift is not the way to go. unfortunately most companies brave enough to try something very different have not been succesful to date. hopefully this will change sometime soon.

And you are right, especially in the near future WoW really wont be in danger at all.

How ever the MMO Blizzard is working on is probebly going to be far far less to the market then WoW did or even does.

Not to mention blizzard is probebly some what reluctant to actually release it because its garanteed to draw an substantional amounth of players from WoW.  So far we really havent seen anything from it either. So if I have to gues, I really dont expect to see much from it and dont expect the release till when WoW is hitting its diminishing returns.

But the fact remains, we definately need counterweigh, while you are right that WoW is probebly going to effected the least of all.

It still will bring nothing but good to the market, for us.

And we love to hate, sure the lack of successes dont help to counter it but its regretteble non the less.

To pick a all time favourid, SOE. We love to hate them. We love to blame the fiasco Lucasart made to SWG on them, granted it was a bad idea of them to post they SUPORT the changes they made to the game. But what (most) people dont know the average ACTIVE player base of SWG was around 600k, yet the game felt like a wasteland.. so where are those players? How retarded as it may sound.. that stupid card game.

EQ2 the game it self wasnt bad at all at release, even the bugs ang glitches wherent all that bad. I wont go into debt where games went wrong,because its more a debate for a different place but 2 of the larger problems it being less successfull is, it required a stronger PC then a commondore 64 and WoW. If you want to bring launch issues as reason why people didnt go for EQ2 you are down right wrong. Speaking stability bugs glitches AND ballance, you know.. the ussual launch issues, its mind boggling WoW ever took off at all.

Eq2 still is a wonderfull game and right now successfull to a point. If you loved EQ and would download EQ2 today just for the heck of it going to Kelethin to pick a place feels like coming home.

Vanguards, again soe gets blamed for it all. Sigil is 100% responsible for the poor launch. When SOE desided to step in to try to save the game , they did put in a small fortune to fix the game, which they really did do a great job on. They also invest alot of time and efford of content that has been added. I have yet to find a game with a more "our game"additude under its players, even though nowadays the playerbase is very very small. Which unfortunately did lead to Soe stopping to invest in it, which led to people losing interest etc ec.

We all heard the "everything SOE touches turns to crap"additude, this simply put isnt true. The lack of success is pretty much global, the entire market.

Which brings us to EQ arguebly THE founding father of modern mmo's. Gues where Blizzard got its inspiration from? Mind you it was a blast to actually raid with their devs on the legendary server... god I miss those days..

But this love to hate and I appologise to have picked SOE as excample is hurtfull for the market. It discourages both players as well as investers.

But dont get me wrong, I do understand there being plenty of people not too keen on certain publishers and developers.

But we do need changes, not just from the industry but from us as well.

I dont think Ill encourage many to change , but how can I lose? At worst everything stays the same.

But we there are a few things we can do.

-Invest and try new products and try to be patient to let them grow out of their initial launch issues.

-Learn to be constructive, painfull isnt it.. we all have been guilty of being not so constructive..

-less bandwagoneers, we all hitch a ride on that one unfortunately.

-less dot dot dot reviews by axeman13 kinna reviews. If you dont know what that is.. here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2Z23SAFVA

if you dont trust the link.. google dot dot dot , you'll find it.

Originally posted by Jakdstripper

to OP: 

i'm sorry, but first you say "things have to chage", "too many WoW clones", "the industry needs a new direction" and then you refer to Rift as an example of change?!....are you serious?!!

 

Rift is nothing more then latest WoW clone that has borrowed and stollen bits and pieces from almost every mmo out there. there is absolutely nothing innovative or different about Rift, on the contrary, Rift is pretty much as "WoW clone" as it gets. just updated graphics and a slightly different setting. i was bored in the first 2 hours of playing Rift because it all felt like i had done it a million times over in all other mmos i'v ever played.  Rift is the perfect example of "just one more theme park WoW clone making huge profits fomr the same old recycled crap".

 

wile i agree that the industry is stale and is overdue for radical new ideas and direction, Rift is not the way to go. unfortunately most companies brave enough to try something very different have not been succesful to date. hopefully this will change sometime soon.

 And thats what I said too, rift IS a WoW clone. But if you read futher its not just about having to make something other then WoW clones, its about the need of counterweigh, competition.

Despite it still being a clone, it does help a shift in power to the entire market, even if its just a small one.

But be honoust and forget the actual Rift concept for a second, do you really disagree with what I said?

Well. alot of developers do not believe major change is good because they are afraid they will not make as much money as if they would with a typical theme park mmo.  In terms of innovations, the mmo genre is a failed genre because we are still getting the same type of mmso since Everquest. In terms of making a profit mmos still do pretty well.

Originally posted by SaintViktor

Well. alot of developers do not believe major change is good because they are afraid they will not make as much money as if they would with a typical theme park mmo.  In terms of innovations, the mmo genre is a failed genre because we are still getting the same type of mmso since Everquest. In terms of making a profit mmos still do pretty well.

 It still is helpfull to get more clearly successfull tittles on the market.

Simulairities arent a bad thing.

I know Ill get crusified for this.. but even replacing a axe for a light saber and a bow for a blaster helps to bring changes to the cycle. They are just babysteps.

A big problem is the its going to fail additudes , everyone is reluctant. Its kinna funny if you think about it, but so many went back to WoW not really wanting to.