http://www.examiner.com/article/8-years-later-the-city-has-fallen-and-the-world-is-still-at-war?cid=db_articles

The above article contrast how City of Heroes which shut down a week ago, and World of Warcraft both about the same age differ in terms of how one is now dead, and the other slowly dying, but still enjoying more success then brand new games.

So the question i have, which -might- seem obvious is when do we let a MMORPG pass on? When do we stop trying to revive a cold corpse?

I view the Mist of Pand as a revival attempt that has failed, This article shows deceptive practices behind Blizzard to hide the true health of their capital MMO : http://www.examiner.com/article/world-of-bullcrap-uncovering-the-bad-math?cid=db_articles

So, how long should we the consumer, and them the developers allow a game to keep breathing life? The obvious answer would be till it's no longer fun, or a profit generator.. but when does the fun factor become perverse, we don't all view fun the same way.

When does the bottom line super imposed new pragmaticals that are unhealthy to the gamer's mindset, and the industry?

What say you

When should we pull the plug on a MMO's life support?

Originally posted by Muppetier
you make it sound like you are linking to someone elses articles.

I did? I just state what the articles state incase you are not interested in reading them, or giving a general summary, ect. Sorry to dissapoint. 

Your math is out of whack. To begin with Blizzard does not measure subscribers. They measure active accounts. No one has access to the raw data but Blizzard. Blizzard is forbidden by law to mislead investors. The law is very clear and the penalties are stiff. They may not give you all the numbers but the ones they give you are substantively correct.

MMORPGs die when companies cancel them. The choice is entirely up to them. Ubisoft kept Shadowbane alive when it was completely free for several years.  That's right, no income at all.

Originally posted by zymurgeist

Your math is out of whack. To begin with Blizzard does not measure subscribers. They measure active accounts. No one has access to the raw data but Blizzard. Blizzard is forbidden by law to mislead investors. The law is very clear and the penalties are stiff. They may not give you all the numbers but the ones they give you are substantively correct.

MMORPGs die when companies cancel them. The choice is entirely up to them. Ubisoft kept Shadowbane alive when it was completely free for several years.  That's right, no income at all.

Blizzard can not mislead investor by fudging the margins on operatoral revenue that product lines bring in, however making claims of "10-12 million subs" on marketing schemes, when they really have only 3 million subs, and 7 million poeple who have logged in at one point or another in asian markets as pay-per-hour account is misleading, there was a seperate topic on this already.

Originally posted by Divion

Originally posted by zymurgeist

Your math is out of whack. To begin with Blizzard does not measure subscribers. They measure active accounts. No one has access to the raw data but Blizzard. Blizzard is forbidden by law to mislead investors. The law is very clear and the penalties are stiff. They may not give you all the numbers but the ones they give you are substantively correct.

MMORPGs die when companies cancel them. The choice is entirely up to them. Ubisoft kept Shadowbane alive when it was completely free for several years.  That's right, no income at all.

Blizzard can not mislead investor by fudging the margins on operatoral revenue that product lines bring in, however making claims of "10-12 million subs" on marketing schemes, when they really have only 3 million subs, and 7 million poeple who have logged in at one point or another in asian markets as pay-per-hour account is misleading, there was a seperate topic on this already.

 As long as they paid in the last 30 days it is not misleading at all. 

And the plug should be pulled when a.  It is not making money   and/or b.  The company thinks there resources would be better spend elsewhere.

edit - WoW is dying the same way that every human on the planet is dying.

Two signs:  When the dev / publisher gives up.  When the players give up.

It's unfortunate when a publisher pulls the plug while players are still having fun.  To me that's an indication that the game could be revived with a bit of effort.

My girlfriend still has not bought MoP and she plays everyday. Also you are using numbers shortly after the games release, I'm sure the game has sold more copies now to match its active subsriber base.

As another poster has stated it would be illegal to lie about this, they define "Active Subsriber" in all subsciption based press releases, if they lied and someone sued they would be forced to provide said data to the court if it turns out they lied every current subscriber would be ables to sue them  for god knows what.

Originally posted by XAPGames

Two signs:  When the dev / publisher gives up.  When the players give up.

 

It's unfortunate when a publisher pulls the plug while players are still having fun.  To me that's an indication that the game could be revived with a bit of effort.

 

What about games that either needed fixed liked All Points Bulletin, or undo a fix that ruined it ? SWG

APB was a nice example of a company ignoring their playerbase til they went belly up, and no longer could keep the doors open as their assets were sold off, but what about others like SOE?

Originally posted by tablo
They should run the game until it loses profitability and then, in some way, provide the community the option to keep playing. This could be done by either selling the game or just giving it away to the community. No matter what I think the community should always have the option to keep playing.

 Why is that?  I think it would be nice to give the community the option to keep playing.  But why do you feel they should have the option?

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

Originally posted by tablo
They should run the game until it loses profitability and then, in some way, provide the community the option to keep playing. This could be done by either selling the game or just giving it away to the community. No matter what I think the community should always have the option to keep playing.

 Why is that?  I think it would be nice to give the community the option to keep playing.  But why do you feel they should have the option?

Why should they not? They poured time and money into the game for years and if the company isn't going to sell it to someone else then they may as well give it to the communty that they profited off of.

This is one of the reasons I prefer multiplayer games vs mmos. You can always set up a dedicated server for it even if the community is small.

Edit : and you typically have so few jerks.  Like in nwn persistent worlds

Originally posted by Castillle

This is one of the reasons I prefer multiplayer games vs mmos. You can always set up a dedicated server for it even if the community is small.

Edit : and you typically have so few jerks.  Like in nwn persistent worlds

I miss the days of the original Dungeon Siege Multi-player on MS Zone, those were the days.

Why should an MMO ever die?  Does it somehow hurt you that there is a server out there that you've choosen to ignore?  If your poll is going to ignore the cost-benefit math of business decisions, then what possible reason is there to ever turn a game off, even if there isn't even a single active player?