Originally posted by RandomDown

I agree for the most part with Quiz, though I do have a question. When you're talking about the market are you speaking in global or western market terms out of curiousity? Because given the rise of development and popularity in the East of gaming and MMOs, a developer who considers both markets during the process might very well exceed that in a combined playerbase.

I would make the same claim either way.  It won't necessarily be the same game that does both (more successful in the West, or more successful globally), but I think that there will eventually be a game that does each.

Originally posted by mmoDAD

WoW was more than just a Theme Park MMO. It was like a popular hair style that spread like wild fire. It spread throughout every Middle School and High School. Nerds played it. Jocks played it. Chicks played it. Business people played it. Ghetto people played it. It ran on just about every machine out there.

WoW is hardly unique in that regard, even in the history of gaming.

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by mmoDAD

WoW was more than just a Theme Park MMO. It was like a popular hair style that spread like wild fire. It spread throughout every Middle School and High School. Nerds played it. Jocks played it. Chicks played it. Business people played it. Ghetto people played it. It ran on just about every machine out there.

WoW is hardly unique in that regard, even in the history of gaming.

It is unique in that regard to this genre. Prior to WoW the MMORPG was a game for geeks and nerds like those of us who sit here and discuss this stuff.

Originally posted by MindTrigger

Marketing came after an interesting product that already had tons of momentum on its side.  It would be suicide for ANet to spend a fortune on ads to try to get more players.  Ultimately it may also not matter, if they have shitty player retention long term.

Yes, that's just it.  Eventually there will be another interesting product that has tons of momentum on its side.  And that will make massive marketing expenditures profitable.

Most games would have a much larger playerbase if they had WoW's marketing budget.  Probably not WoW-style numbers, but a lot more than they have now.  The problem is that spending $200 million on marketing to get $100 million in revenue isn't profitable, so they don't.

Originally posted by Thorbrand

Sure is but the is completely on how you see success. WOW is no longer a MMORPG but did start as one. They catered to the casuals. FYI...There is no such thing as a casual MMORPG gamer!

EQ still going and still a MMORPG.

DAoC Best PvP game in history even today.

Now if you talk money Blizzard isn't the giant everyone thinks they are. They never actually show true numbers and haven't since the first year of release. Blizzard make tons of money that is not a measurement of success. That is only a part of it.

Really, just look at Blizz (or activision) quarterly report.

They sold 10M copies of D3. 3+M copies of MOP .. if that is not success .. 99% of other companies would love to hve this kind of non-success.

And MMO changes. If WOW is successful, and it is no longer strictly a MMO .. may be other MMOs should be chnaged to non-MMOs.

In fact, the success of LOL and WOT shows that you can do online game differently (now that is innovation), and be very successful. May be MMO should take what they are doing well (like instanced dungeons) and get rid of what they are not doing well (like having a world no one is using).

Originally posted by MindTrigger

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by mmoDAD

WoW was more than just a Theme Park MMO. It was like a popular hair style that spread like wild fire. It spread throughout every Middle School and High School. Nerds played it. Jocks played it. Chicks played it. Business people played it. Ghetto people played it. It ran on just about every machine out there.

WoW is hardly unique in that regard, even in the history of gaming.

It is unique in that regard to this genre. Prior to WoW the MMORPG was a game for geeks and nerds like those of us who sit here and discuss this stuff.

The first huge success in any genre was, in its day, unique in that regard to its genre.

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by mmoDAD

WoW was more than just a Theme Park MMO. It was like a popular hair style that spread like wild fire. It spread throughout every Middle School and High School. Nerds played it. Jocks played it. Chicks played it. Business people played it. Ghetto people played it. It ran on just about every machine out there.

WoW is hardly unique in that regard, even in the history of gaming.

That was also a conscious decision during the development process. They wanted it to be as accessible to as many people as possible for the broadest market. If you demand top of the line graphics to future proof your game then that is going to eliminate a substantial portion of your initial player base.

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by mmoDAD

WoW was more than just a Theme Park MMO. It was like a popular hair style that spread like wild fire. It spread throughout every Middle School and High School. Nerds played it. Jocks played it. Chicks played it. Business people played it. Ghetto people played it. It ran on just about every machine out there.

WoW is hardly unique in that regard, even in the history of gaming.

I don't know.  There are many other MMO's that have attracted such a wide-spread fanbase.  Sure, other games might have the occassional jock, chick, middleschooler, highschooler, nerd, grandma,etc, but WoW took it quite a bit further.

In a way, I think WoW benefited from the mid-200's gaming scene, where you have all kinds of non-gamers getting into the mix.  The Wii, the Rockband/Guitair Hero games, and WoW made up a kind of Holy Trinity for casual gamers.  I think they've since moved on to Facebook, phones, and tablets though, for the most part.

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by MindTrigger

Marketing came after an interesting product that already had tons of momentum on its side.  It would be suicide for ANet to spend a fortune on ads to try to get more players.  Ultimately it may also not matter, if they have shitty player retention long term.

Yes, that's just it.  Eventually there will be another interesting product that has tons of momentum on its side.  And that will make massive marketing expenditures profitable.

Most games would have a much larger playerbase if they had WoW's marketing budget.  Probably not WoW-style numbers, but a lot more than they have now.  The problem is that spending $200 million on marketing to get $100 million in revenue isn't profitable, so they don't.

Agreed, but the worthy game has to come first.  All we've been seeing for years is regurgitated MMO concepts. 

I think the next big MMO could very likely be browser based and be designed for Facebook.  Those of us here on this website will decry it as garbage, but it will be popular nonetheless.  That's another thing to take into account.  There was no (or very little) social media and social media gaming while WoW was on fire.  Things have changed across the entertainment spectra.

Originally posted by stayontarget
Not going to happen Quizz,  8years ago people had limited choices in what they could play.  Blizzard was in the right place at the right time with the right product.  Today we have far more choices which tends to make the gaming world a niche market.

I never say never but this is exactly right. Current MMORPG players are spread out in 100s of games and the number of MMOs is getting larger by the day. When WOW was attracting players by the bucketload there were what? 10 MMOs to choose from?

For a phenomenom like WOW to happen again there will either have to be a huge influx of new players who don't already have favorite MMOs or a mass closing of the MMOs that currently exists--specially the ones with large bases...the ones that are profitable.

If you have a really profitable coffee shop on a busy corner, opening a second one accross the street might increase the total volume of customers a tiny bit (the people who hate crossing streets :) ) but more or less, they'd just split the number of customers the first one had to begin with. They might increase the total number of customers if in addition to coffee they started selling cell phones and TVs...but it wouldn't be just a coffee shop any longer would it?

Originally posted by mmoDAD

No game will be as popular as WoW was at its peak.

I disagree. WoW at its peak had what? 13 million? Im asking because depending who you ask these numbers are different. Lets say WoW had 15 million at its peak. On one platform that is incredible. Imagine a couple different scenarios that MMO's have yet to make a worthy attempt at really.

Consoles - Xbox Live and Playstation Plus prove console players are willing to pay extra for online gaming. If a company made a serious effort to bring an AAA MMO to either of these consoles let alone if they had the technology to make a game that ran on all three platforms together(ps3/xobox/pc) it would destroy 15 million monthly users. Hell look at the numbers some of the best console games pull in. Black Ops 2 just shattered games sales. With its map packs it proves also again console gamers will pay for bonus content. if i company said "We wanna charge you $15 per month(general cost of mmo's monthly) and we will guarentee additional content regularly for that fee people would be all over it.

Social network/browser based gaming - Another area where mmo's havent even begin to tap into its player base. Zynga's Farmville had 18+ million monthly users at one point(no clue what it peaked at.This is just a published number i know of). Many of those users pay extra month for items in its game. If a decent mmo came along that adapted to Social gaming it would have millions of monthly users. It couldnt cost nearly as much to creat as AAA pc titles that cost upwards of half a billion to make. 

http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/01/zynga-turns-on-the-viral-charm-with-farmville-2/

A game just released with 15 million monthly users? A company with 344 million monthly  users active?  People will say "Social games dont count" or "Farmville sucks" but honestly with numbers like this im surprised they havent already tried to tap into this fan base. An mmo would surely work on social networks not that any true gamers would wanna play it.

Maybe if we are talking pc games you are right but gaming as a whole has plenty of area's yet it hasnt even  really attempted to make a splash in.

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by MindTrigger

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by mmoDAD

WoW was more than just a Theme Park MMO. It was like a popular hair style that spread like wild fire. It spread throughout every Middle School and High School. Nerds played it. Jocks played it. Chicks played it. Business people played it. Ghetto people played it. It ran on just about every machine out there.

WoW is hardly unique in that regard, even in the history of gaming.

It is unique in that regard to this genre. Prior to WoW the MMORPG was a game for geeks and nerds like those of us who sit here and discuss this stuff.

The first huge success in any genre was, in its day, unique in that regard to its genre.

We will have to see what happens.  WoW is slowly fading, and a lot of people have left this genre out of pure "been there done that" boredom. 

Originally posted by itbewilly

Originally posted by mmoDAD

No game will be as popular as WoW was at its peak.

I disagree. WoW at its peak had what? 13 million? Im asking because depending who you ask these numbers are different. Lets say WoW had 15 million at its peak. On one platform that is incredible. Imagine a couple different scenarios that MMO's have yet to make a worthy attempt at really.

Consoles - Xbox Live and Playstation Plus prove console players are willing to pay extra for online gaming. If a company made a serious effort to bring an AAA MMO to either of these consoles let alone if they had the technology to make a game that ran on all three platforms together(ps3/xobox/pc) it would destroy 15 million monthly users. Hell look at the numbers some of the best console games pull in. Black Ops 2 just shattered games sales. With its map packs it proves also again console gamers will pay for bonus content. if i company said "We wanna charge you $15 per month(general cost of mmo's monthly) and we will guarentee additional content regularly for that fee people would be all over it.

Social network/browser based gaming - Another area where mmo's havent even begin to tap into its player base. Zynga's Farmville had 18+ million monthly users at one point(no clue what it peaked at.This is just a published number i know of). Many of those users pay extra month for items in its game. If a decent mmo came along that adapted to Social gaming it would have millions of monthly users. It couldnt cost nearly as much to creat as AAA pc titles that cost upwards of half a billion to make. 

http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/01/zynga-turns-on-the-viral-charm-with-farmville-2/

A game just released with 15 million monthly users? A company with 344 million monthly  users active?  People will say "Social games dont count" or "Farmville sucks" but honestly with numbers like this im surprised they havent already tried to tap into this fan base. An mmo would surely work on social networks not that any true gamers would wanna play it.

Maybe if we are talking pc games you are right but gaming as a whole has plenty of area's yet it hasnt even  really attempted to make a splash in.

 Yuck. You got that right.

What I hear you saying is that its possible to have more than 13 million people actively engaged in the same online game and this is true... but we're talking about the type of game that demands a lot more time and commitment than the average farmville player is willing to devote to gaming...unless you go with a revisionist definition of MMORPG that contemplates people playing a very dumbed-down version, alone, in 15 minute spurts ... oh wait, those already exist and have their own forum here... never mind

Originally posted by Iselin

Originally posted by itbewilly

Originally posted by mmoDAD

No game will be as popular as WoW was at its peak.

I disagree. WoW at its peak had what? 13 million? Im asking because depending who you ask these numbers are different. Lets say WoW had 15 million at its peak. On one platform that is incredible. Imagine a couple different scenarios that MMO's have yet to make a worthy attempt at really.

Consoles - Xbox Live and Playstation Plus prove console players are willing to pay extra for online gaming. If a company made a serious effort to bring an AAA MMO to either of these consoles let alone if they had the technology to make a game that ran on all three platforms together(ps3/xobox/pc) it would destroy 15 million monthly users. Hell look at the numbers some of the best console games pull in. Black Ops 2 just shattered games sales. With its map packs it proves also again console gamers will pay for bonus content. if i company said "We wanna charge you $15 per month(general cost of mmo's monthly) and we will guarentee additional content regularly for that fee people would be all over it.

Social network/browser based gaming - Another area where mmo's havent even begin to tap into its player base. Zynga's Farmville had 18+ million monthly users at one point(no clue what it peaked at.This is just a published number i know of). Many of those users pay extra month for items in its game. If a decent mmo came along that adapted to Social gaming it would have millions of monthly users. It couldnt cost nearly as much to creat as AAA pc titles that cost upwards of half a billion to make. 

http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/01/zynga-turns-on-the-viral-charm-with-farmville-2/

A game just released with 15 million monthly users? A company with 344 million monthly  users active?  People will say "Social games dont count" or "Farmville sucks" but honestly with numbers like this im surprised they havent already tried to tap into this fan base. An mmo would surely work on social networks not that any true gamers would wanna play it.

Maybe if we are talking pc games you are right but gaming as a whole has plenty of area's yet it hasnt even  really attempted to make a splash in.

 Yuck. You got that right.

 

What I hear you saying is that its possible to have more than 13 million people actively engaged in the same online game and this is true... but we're talking about the type of game that demands a lot more time and commitment than the average farmville player is willing to devote to gaming...unless you go with a revisionist definition of MMORPG that contemplates people playing a very dumbed-down version, alone, in 15 minute spurts ... oh wait, those already exist and have their own forum here... never mind

I think you would be surprised how much time people are willing to spend gaming on Facebook.  Especially for the right game.

Originally posted by MindTrigger

Originally posted by Iselin

Originally posted by itbewilly

Originally posted by mmoDAD

No game will be as popular as WoW was at its peak.

I disagree. WoW at its peak had what? 13 million? Im asking because depending who you ask these numbers are different. Lets say WoW had 15 million at its peak. On one platform that is incredible. Imagine a couple different scenarios that MMO's have yet to make a worthy attempt at really.

Consoles - Xbox Live and Playstation Plus prove console players are willing to pay extra for online gaming. If a company made a serious effort to bring an AAA MMO to either of these consoles let alone if they had the technology to make a game that ran on all three platforms together(ps3/xobox/pc) it would destroy 15 million monthly users. Hell look at the numbers some of the best console games pull in. Black Ops 2 just shattered games sales. With its map packs it proves also again console gamers will pay for bonus content. if i company said "We wanna charge you $15 per month(general cost of mmo's monthly) and we will guarentee additional content regularly for that fee people would be all over it.

Social network/browser based gaming - Another area where mmo's havent even begin to tap into its player base. Zynga's Farmville had 18+ million monthly users at one point(no clue what it peaked at.This is just a published number i know of). Many of those users pay extra month for items in its game. If a decent mmo came along that adapted to Social gaming it would have millions of monthly users. It couldnt cost nearly as much to creat as AAA pc titles that cost upwards of half a billion to make. 

http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/01/zynga-turns-on-the-viral-charm-with-farmville-2/

A game just released with 15 million monthly users? A company with 344 million monthly  users active?  People will say "Social games dont count" or "Farmville sucks" but honestly with numbers like this im surprised they havent already tried to tap into this fan base. An mmo would surely work on social networks not that any true gamers would wanna play it.

Maybe if we are talking pc games you are right but gaming as a whole has plenty of area's yet it hasnt even  really attempted to make a splash in.

 Yuck. You got that right.

 

What I hear you saying is that its possible to have more than 13 million people actively engaged in the same online game and this is true... but we're talking about the type of game that demands a lot more time and commitment than the average farmville player is willing to devote to gaming...unless you go with a revisionist definition of MMORPG that contemplates people playing a very dumbed-down version, alone, in 15 minute spurts ... oh wait, those already exist and have their own forum here... never mind

I think you would be surprised how much time people are willing to spend gaming on Facebook.  Especially for the right game.

I wouldn't be surprised at all, specially since my son has been programming casual games in a thriving casual games company for the past 6 years. But in his spare time he plays WOW, SWTOR, GW2, etc... I raised him right

I don't think Quizz had Farmville or even Minecraft in mind. I think he's talking about something that has at least the same degree of complexity as WOW.

Originally posted by Iselin

What I hear you saying is that its possible to have more than 13 million people actively engaged in the same online game and this is true... but we're talking about the type of game that demands a lot more time and commitment than the average farmville player is willing to devote to gaming...unless you go with a revisionist definition of MMORPG that contemplates people playing a very dumbed-down version, alone, in 15 minute spurts ... oh wait, those already exist and have their own forum here... never mind

MMO does not have to demand a lot more time or commitment. In fact, you can see the trend is to have LESS TIME commitment. Hence LFD/LFR so you don't have to commit to a raid schedule.

Definition changes all the time. There is nothing mysterious about it.

Populations starting to plateau and decline in many first world countries. Projections have been revised long ago and will likely decline around the year 2050. I can't remember the exact projection but it was at or in the latter half of this century. So not really relevant. Though if you want to start getting all futurist then why not consider actual sentient A.I. and the fact they may want to play games etc etc. So really it should be considered within a smaller timeframe than that.

Even with raid schedules and the like you don't always have people running a single raid in an entire night, in fact they made it so there is no obligation to do so, which is great. You progression for the week can be completing that raid this week ten days or whatever arbitrary time they use if you and your groups schedule don't mesh often.

a large advertising budget is huge for player growth. i think the only other recent company to do a tv ad that i've seen, in the past 2 years, has to be trion, but even then it didn't last very long. it's really basic business. you have to advertise to bring in new customers. this is true with most products that compete within a crowded market. the number of people that actually watch mmo news isn't as big as people think. the company would need direct advertisements across the board (radio, podcast, internet, tv, movie previews, retail posterts, etc.). discount sales, free game time, starting bonuses, etc are all part of good marketing. everyone has a push point that would get them to try a product of interest, and good marketing is based off of finding that point.

WoW is in a lot of areas. just off the top of my head.. i think they have a brazil hub, korean hub, hub in china, and the normal NA and EU. i may be talking out of my ass here, but i doubt that most games are available in as many countries as WoW is. Rift is available in NA, EU, S. Korea, and not sure about anywhere else.

WoW also started on a a great IP. most of the people i knew who were into non mmo gaming had played a warcraft title. it was an easy jump for them to get into gaming based off of the lore and style. i think a new mega million player mmo would have to based off of a great IP, as well as a few other things. if not a pre-established IP, then a large push for lore involvement would have to be pushed through ads and other story infusing avenues (books, comics, tv show, animated movies, etc.). the market is just so large that in order to stand out from the rest, a company would have to make people want to be involved with a world.

a lot of people want different things. this is really going to screw over most new games sincse no one is every happy. i think a new game on this level would have to offer something that really sets itself apart from the standard games released today. a patented system similar to what we've seen in some anime tv shows would do the trick (sword art online or dot hack), but i don't think it needs to be on that level to get those types of numbers. it's amazing how far an original idea goes. the anime i mentioned are slick because they would add interaction to a game, and with somthing like an mmorpg this is always a good thing. i don't think we need to be fully imersed into a game like that, but a little something would go a long way. a good gimic is often times the the structure to a good idea.

imho a 10 mil+ player mmo today would have to have amazing marketing with a massive budget, be available in most of the world, have a great launch with continued additions to the game (player and/or developer), a great IP or a new IP with a major out of game content push, the largest world we could have ever wanted, obvioulsy it would have to have solid gameplay that would fit the needs of most players with a HUGE selection of gameplay options, and will have to offer something that we haven't seen before to unite player game types.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Iselin

What I hear you saying is that its possible to have more than 13 million people actively engaged in the same online game and this is true... but we're talking about the type of game that demands a lot more time and commitment than the average farmville player is willing to devote to gaming...unless you go with a revisionist definition of MMORPG that contemplates people playing a very dumbed-down version, alone, in 15 minute spurts ... oh wait, those already exist and have their own forum here... never mind

MMO does not have to demand a lot more time or commitment. In fact, you can see the trend is to have LESS TIME commitment. Hence LFD/LFR so you don't have to commit to a raid schedule.

Definition changes all the time. There is nothing mysterious about it.

Why am I not surprised that you're willing to broaden the definition of MMORPG to be almost all encompassing? Here I'll go one better:

Massive = bigger than a breadbox

Multiplayer = both of us

Online = this one is obvious

Role Playing = well that little bundle of pixels ain't really me, so yeah...I'm playing a role

Game = Hot diggity! Ain't this fun?

OK... Farmville is officially an MMORPG... happy?