All i see on the forums is people mentioning how games sub numbers are in decline.

TSW sub numbers declining

WoW - declining,

AOC - Decline,

GW2??

Rift overall -......yup declining.

Where are people going what are they playing?

Heres the question is there an MMO where subs are increasing?

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Originally posted by DonY81
All i see on the forums is people mentioning how games sub numbers are in decline.

TSW sub numbers declining

WoW - declining,

AOC - Decline,

GW2??

Rift overall -......yup declining.

 

Where are people going what are they playing?

Heres the question is there an MMO where subs are increasing?

---

I beleive eve is at an equilibrium or still maintains positive numbers..

There is so much saturation of options (not a bad thing from a player perspective), including a massive F2P market now. Subs are likely on a global decrease because of this, but it doesn't mean the actual number of people playing MMOs is decreasing.

That said, if you cross-referenced against the rise in popularity of mobile gaming, you could likely draw some indirect conclusion about a time investment shift between where people play their games (computer/console/mobile) which could also account for a decline in this area. Of course, anyone who really calls those aweful time-locked, feature-limited "Mafia" type games as MMORPGs should be shot. :)

also those games you listed are either old,  brand new,  or don't have a sub.

games die over time and mmo's rarely increase numbers before they decrease.  rift's population is arguably stable.  although they might be growing due to the xpac.

Mmorpg's overall are declining in popularity, losing in popularity to lobby games.   It cannot be stopped. Mmorpg huge growth in west was because in 2004 there was very little non-fps online games without totally f**ed up matchmaking (battle.net was exception). 

Now it is just slowly returning to normal.  Mmorpg's is becoming niche again.   General playerbase audience is slowly going into lobby-like or / and single or co-op online experience in some cases mixed with limited mmo-lite elements.   

Originally posted by DonY81

All i see on the forums is people mentioning how games sub numbers are in decline.

TSW sub numbers declining

WoW - declining,

AOC - Decline,

GW2??

Rift overall -......yup declining.

 

Where are people going what are they playing?

Heres the question is there an MMO where subs are increasing?

Forget WoW, that was a one time deal thats never going to happen again.  Everything now is niche,  nothing wrong with that its just that people still expect "the next wow" to come along.

All in Decline, you can thank F2p and Item shops. The only one that is not is Blizzard's WoW but subs seem low.

Most any noteworthy game release, be it on PC, console, mobile, contains all of the novel aspects that MMORPGs used to exclusivly offer.

MMOs aren't on the decline. They're just spread really thin now.

It does range from crafting / collecting players playing casual social games like Farmville, and compeditive PVPers finding more action on games like League of Legends, to explorers and world shapers finding better experiences on games like Skyrim.

The MMORPG as a single entity is archaic tech now.

MMORPG developers haven't progressed what so ever in the last decade with MMO design. Other game platforms have.

Originally posted by Elsabolts

All in Decline, you can thank F2p and Item shops. The only one that is not is Blizzard's WoW but subs seem low.

You are right. The total ammount of gather bots, chinese farmers, chinese gold sellers, pvp bots, leveling bots is aroud the same. The total ammount of player base is so small you wont believe it. 

Video games in general individually decline. There are very few exceptions to this. WoW and Eve are the only exceptions to this that I can think of. Oddly enough, even though every video game released declines in numbers, the overall number of gamers increases. Not sure if that's true for MMORPG as well, but it certainly seems possible.

Originally posted by muffins89
there are so many options nowadays that people can switch between games with ease.  there are also more mmo's without a subscription then there are with one. 

Nicely summed up. As you say, this makes it trickier to say which game is in decline or growing.

I have several 'free' MMOs (I'm including B2P and games I used to sub to which I now don't pay a sub for in this category for convenience) on my hard drive (LOtRO, Champions Online, GW1, GW2, SWtOR, DC Universe, Conan) and because I am not compelled to get my moneys-worth for a monthly sub I just play whichever one I feel like.  So, rather than playing one MMO almost exclusively, I'm spreading my playing time around to a lot more games.

Originally posted by DonY81

All i see on the forums is people mentioning how games sub numbers are in decline.

TSW sub numbers declining

WoW - declining,

AOC - Decline,

GW2??

Rift overall -......yup declining.

 

Where are people going what are they playing?

Heres the question is there an MMO where subs are increasing?

Very simple.

1) WOW gained back 1M sub to 10M .. so not declining.

2) People don't sub, they play F2P. The evidence is clear that F2P is getting more and more of the MMO market.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by DonY81

All i see on the forums is people mentioning how games sub numbers are in decline.

TSW sub numbers declining

WoW - declining,

AOC - Decline,

GW2??

Rift overall -......yup declining.

 

Where are people going what are they playing?

Heres the question is there an MMO where subs are increasing?

Very simple.

1) WOW gained back 1M sub to 10M .. so not declining.

2) People don't sub, they play F2P. The evidence is clear that F2P is getting more and more of the MMO market.

Thats because newer mmorpg's offer no value because they lack even the basic features. Even older rpg's with 300-500k subs did much better than most these newer mmorpg's that fall or go f2p just to try to bait new players to buy from their cash shops.

Originally posted by Onomas

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by DonY81

All i see on the forums is people mentioning how games sub numbers are in decline.

TSW sub numbers declining

WoW - declining,

AOC - Decline,

GW2??

Rift overall -......yup declining.

 

Where are people going what are they playing?

Heres the question is there an MMO where subs are increasing?

Very simple.

1) WOW gained back 1M sub to 10M .. so not declining.

2) People don't sub, they play F2P. The evidence is clear that F2P is getting more and more of the MMO market.

 

Thats because newer mmorpg's offer no value because they lack even the basic features. Even older rpg's with 300-500k subs did much better than most these newer mmorpg's that fall or go f2p just to try to bait new players to buy from their cash shops.

So? Whatever the reason is .. F2P is taking over a large market share, and growing. And that is a reason why subs are declining. And if they are succesfful to get players buy from their cash shop, more power to them.

It is a free world.

I agree with many of the commentors in this thread.... There are just so many MMO options these days that people are playing several different games - of course numbers will go up and down depending on what games people are subscribed to or playing for free for that particular month.  I myself am playing Aion, but am subbed to WoW - I also dabble in other games too.  I feel like a lot of MMO players probably jump around quite a bit because of the extensive options available to us!