AoC’s apparent rapid loss of subscribers is encouraging talk that today’s players won’t stick with new MMORPGs very long any more. Now, I think this is total b.s. as I think today’s players will happily stick with great games (WoW) but won’t stick with mediocre or poor games. Thanks to WoW though, the bar has been raised so that games that might have been considered good/great 5 years ago are not considered that way by the players any more. This is no different than in Hollywood when a breakthrough movie raises the bar for the competition (think about the race for the best special effects in Sci-fi films).

Since WoW’s launch, no new Western, subscription-based MMORPG has sustained a population of 500K subscribers. While their exact numbers aren’t known, both LoTRO and AoC have failed to hit that mark. And as anyone who knows anything about MMORPGs could tell you, the one thing you don’t keep secret if you are doing well is your monthly subscription numbers.

full article here :http://onlinegamesareanichemarket.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/what-does-wars-success-or-failure-mean-for-the-mmorpg-market/

Welcome to the party.

Better late than never eh?

I can't say I agree with the idea that wow has had a positive effect on the MMO genre. They had great personal success with their product, at the expense of the genre as a whole IMO. They've essentially caused a saturation of the market, everyones chasing that blizzard level polish, this includes both developers and players.

Sure the players aren't causing harm by doing so, the developers on the otherhand in an effort to chase down these players are leaving the innovation of the genre behind. The players are also avoiding not so stellar launches based on the preference of polish, those not so stellar launches should be expected when breaking from the norm though. I just hope games like Fallen Earth don't suffer because of this.

define success for me please.

i didnt know that all games are to compared to the kiddy version of  an mmo.  This is the only way to ge the level of success that wow has, you gotta go after the children, and the asian market, that is were the bulk of thier subs are, blizzard are gods over there. (sadly the majority of the devs that are responisble for the great games at blizz are gone.)

Both AoC and lotro are doing fine. they dont need 500k subs to be profitable. between 200-100 subs would be just fine for them.

the only reason funcom posted a loss for the quarter is because they hired alot of new people, and purchased alot more equipment and service for the AoC launch. 

AoC DID prove how big of a market there is for mmos now. moving 800k games is not easy for any game market.

Dunno if WOW is all bad.  IF the quote is accurate, Jacobs himself states "I think today’s players will happily stick with great games (WoW) but won’t stick with mediocre or poor games. Thanks to WoW though, the bar has been raised . . ." 

He states that WOW is great--no modifiers added, not that it's great for kids, noobs, ppl that live in the basement , etc.  It raised the MMO bar.  That's an admission from the CEO of a competitor in the MMO market. 

I think the peopel that actually work in the MMO business are more realistic than the fans of the genre.  I suppose we are all at liberty to flame Jacobs for such fanboi WOW comments.

Originally posted by Vhati

define success for me please.

 

i didnt know that all games are to compared to the kiddy version of  an mmo.  This is the only way to ge the level of success that wow has, you gotta go after the children, and the asian market, that is were the bulk of thier subs are, blizzard are gods over there. (sadly the majority of the devs that are responisble for the great games at blizz are gone.)

No offence, but this is an asinine argument. The "WoW is all kiddies" argument really destroys any credibility you might have had. 10 million children play WoW? I bet you played WoW, probably for years, now you got bored of it, so it's just a game for kids. Lame man, real lame.

Both AoC and lotro are doing fine. they dont need 500k subs to be profitable. between 200-100 subs would be just fine for them.

You can't credibly compare AoC and LOTRO. BTW, you're right, LOTRO is doing fine, well, actually. AoC is failing. And you would be delusional to believe either wouldn't love to be in Blizzard's shoes right now.

the only reason funcom posted a loss for the quarter is because they hired alot of new people, and purchased alot more equipment and service for the AoC launch. 

What?? Lol. Yep, that's why they lost money. 

AoC DID prove how big of a market there is for mmos now. moving 800k games is not easy for any game market.

I think maybe WoW proved how big the MMO market is several years ago, like it or not. AoC simply proved that even when you can sell a lot of boxes, it doesn't mean squat if you lose 1/2 the playerbase in the first few months. AoC proved that even a solid game can fail with an incompetent company behind it.

Originally posted by Eunuchmaker

Dunno if WOW is all bad.  IF the quote is accurate, Jacobs himself states "I think today’s players will happily stick with great games (WoW) but won’t stick with mediocre or poor games. Thanks to WoW though, the bar has been raised . . ." 

He states that WOW is great--no modifiers added, not that it's great for kids, noobs, ppl that live in the basement , etc.  It raised the MMO bar.  That's an admission from the CEO of a competitor in the MMO market. 

I think the peopel that actually work in the MMO business are more realistic than the fans of the genre.  I suppose we are all at liberty to flame Jacobs for such fanboi WOW comments.

yea....800k in the first month then only adding 15k new subscribers after the frist 3 months, but as long as they stay above the 200k subs they should be able to float fincially.

Originally posted by Vhati

define success for me please.

 

i didnt know that all games are to compared to the kiddy version of  an mmo.  This is the only way to ge the level of success that wow has, you gotta go after the children, and the asian market, that is were the bulk of thier subs are, blizzard are gods over there. (sadly the majority of the devs that are responisble for the great games at blizz are gone.)

Both AoC and lotro are doing fine. they dont need 500k subs to be profitable. between 200-100 subs would be just fine for them.

the only reason funcom posted a loss for the quarter is because they hired alot of new people, and purchased alot more equipment and service for the AoC launch. 

 

AoC DID prove how big of a market there is for mmos now. moving 800k games is not easy for any game market.

You are flat out wrong about Funcom's financial situation.  They did not have a huge expense related to equipment for AOC.  they are leasing the equipment based on subscriptions from a 3rd party company.  Funcom does not own the servers and therefore did not have to buy them.

The exact same thing is true about it's customer service.  They did NOT hire customer service people... they are paying a 3rd party company to provide it (at a cost of $2 per subscriber).  There was no huge ramp up in funcom employees at the launch of AOC.

The only major one time expense would be advertising, which is an insignificant figure when compared to the 8M they lost in the 2nd quarter.

The one-time expenses funcom paid for in the 2nd quarter was DWARFED by the 8M in revenue they received from box sales which they are also not  going to see again.

As far as WOW goes.. you do realize that WOW has over 5M subscribers in North America and Europe.  Sure, they have 6M in Asia... but they still have about 20x's as many subscribers as AoC and LotRO do just in NA and Europe.

And finally,  All of the top people at WOW have been there since before launch and are still there.  I'm sure there are some mid-level developers that jumped ship and used their experience to get a promotion.. But all the top, key people are still there.  There is not a single name I know that left

Originally posted by Azrile

Originally posted by Vhati

define success for me please.

 

i didnt know that all games are to compared to the kiddy version of  an mmo.  This is the only way to ge the level of success that wow has, you gotta go after the children, and the asian market, that is were the bulk of thier subs are, blizzard are gods over there. (sadly the majority of the devs that are responisble for the great games at blizz are gone.)

Both AoC and lotro are doing fine. they dont need 500k subs to be profitable. between 200-100 subs would be just fine for them.

the only reason funcom posted a loss for the quarter is because they hired alot of new people, and purchased alot more equipment and service for the AoC launch. 

 

AoC DID prove how big of a market there is for mmos now. moving 800k games is not easy for any game market.

 

You are flat out wrong about Funcom's financial situation.  They did not have a huge expense related to equipment for AOC.  they are leasing the equipment based on subscriptions from a 3rd party company.  Funcom does not own the servers and therefore did not have to buy them.

The exact same thing is true about it's customer service.  They did NOT hire customer service people... they are paying a 3rd party company to provide it (at a cost of $2 per subscriber).  There was no huge ramp up in funcom employees at the launch of AOC.

The only major one time expense would be advertising, which is an insignificant figure when compared to the 8M they lost in the 2nd quarter.

The one-time expenses funcom paid for in the 2nd quarter was DWARFED by the 8M in revenue they received from box sales which they are also not  going to see again.

As far as WOW goes.. you do realize that WOW has over 5M subscribers in North America and Europe.  Sure, they have 6M in Asia... but they still have about 20x's as many subscribers as AoC and LotRO do just in NA and Europe.

And finally,  All of the top people at WOW have been there since before launch and are still there.  I'm sure there are some mid-level developers that jumped ship and used their experience to get a promotion.. But all the top, key people are still there.  There is not a single name I know that left

actually, there is a large upfront cost for setting up the servers.  It costs more to launch them than maintain them.  As server demends decrease, they will combine servers and lower costs further.

Same goes for customer service.

I stand by my wow = britney spears - the train wreck.  Sure she sells alot of records, but is she really deep and intellectual?  I think not.  WoW is incredibly casual, and it was designed that way, for the masses, not for general gamers.  Why do you think the sims sells so well.  Call it WoW bashing if you want, but im just stating my opinion based on a lvl 55 warrior and 30 hunter when the game launched.  I gave it as much time as i gave AoC before i realized it would never be the game i want.

If it's that casual, why only a few guilds/server manage to finish the content?
Hell, some of them don't even set foot in TK/SSC, they farm Kara and they call themselves PvE masters.
 

Originally posted by Thenarius

If it's that casual, why only a few guilds/server manage to finish the content?
Hell, some of them don't even set foot in TK/SSC, they farm Kara and they call themselves PvE masters.
 

because 90% of the population isnt interested in it.  There are a few guilds that pride themselves, and there is nothing wrong with having a tougher element to the game at some point so people have a challenge. 

The fact is that Blizz is making all the dungeons easier, and easier to access so that everyone can experience them.  That is a fact,  they said it themselves.

Lets not turn this into a WoW discussion though.  lets end it here.

Big part of what made AoC bad is that they marketed it so big. They created large expectations in their potential player-base and failed to deliver the content. Their marketing ( and customer service) failed more than the quality and the content of the game itself. And what's even worse is that they got a really bad reputation right now. It's going to be hard for them to repair it.

Originally posted by Lence

AoC’s apparent rapid loss of subscribers is encouraging talk that today’s players won’t stick with new MMORPGs very long any more. Now, I think this is total b.s. as I think today’s players will happily stick with great games (WoW) but won’t stick with mediocre or poor games. Thanks to WoW though, the bar has been raised so that games that might have been considered good/great 5 years ago are not considered that way by the players any more. This is no different than in Hollywood when a breakthrough movie raises the bar for the competition (think about the race for the best special effects in Sci-fi films).

 

 

Since WoW’s launch, no new Western, subscription-based MMORPG has sustained a population of 500K subscribers. While their exact numbers aren’t known, both LoTRO and AoC have failed to hit that mark. And as anyone who knows anything about MMORPGs could tell you, the one thing you don’t keep secret if you are doing well is your monthly subscription numbers.

 

 

full article here :http://onlinegamesareanichemarket.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/what-does-wars-success-or-failure-mean-for-the-mmorpg-market/

It isn't hard to sustain those numbers when all you need is a commodore 64 to run it, Also I don't see where people are getting this 10 million subcriber number for WOW at, unless they are counting the 6 million Chinese farming accounts.
 

I guess they can't tell their investors they spent millions upon millions of dollars to make a crappy game, so they blame it on the consumers instead.  That's a pathetic excuse.

The most annoying thing is how all the major MMO developers are too chicken to even try differentiating themselves from the WOW-style thempark model. So whether it's AoC or War, all we get is basically WOW with a different graphical style. I want to believe that War, unlike WOW, will offer real PVP, but we have yet to see it.

Really the only MMO I am *really* hoping succeeds beyond expenctations is Darkfall for the sole reason that they're actually *trying* to evolve the genre.

Originally posted by javac

The most annoying thing is how all the major MMO developers are too chicken to even try differentiating themselves from the WOW-style thempark model. So whether it's AoC or War, all we get is basically WOW with a different graphical style. I want to believe that War, unlike WOW, will offer real PVP, but we have yet to see it.

 

Really the only MMO I am *really* hoping succeeds beyond expenctations is Darkfall for the sole reason that they're actually *trying* to evolve the genre.

Reason for them taking the wow as an example is that it has such a large market share. It's obviously what large amount of people want. It's what people are use to, and they want making the switch between games as easy as possible.

For Darkfall, I sincerely doubt that game will get any significant amount of subscribers (if they go for subscriptions). If they go for a regular subscription based p2p, anything over 75k i would consider remarkable.

Originally posted by Vhati

  Call it WoW bashing if you want, but im just stating my opinion based on a lvl 55 warrior and 30 hunter when the game launched. 

 

And with that comment, you have zero credibility to back up your arguments.  You had a lvl 55 warrior 3 years ago?? you didn't even make it to end game, you have no idea that raiding in WoW is some of the hardest, most time consuming end game out of any mmorpg.  Only the most hardcore elite players/guilds in the world got to experience the final raid dungeon in vanilla WoW, Naxx.

WoW is designed for casuals and hardcores, you just saw the casual solo leveling.

Sick of noobs trying to voice some kind of authority on WoW.

Originally posted by Hydrakana

Originally posted by Vhati

  Call it WoW bashing if you want, but im just stating my opinion based on a lvl 55 warrior and 30 hunter when the game launched. 

 

 

And with that comment, you have zero credibility to back up your arguments.  You had a lvl 55 warrior 3 years ago?? you didn't even make it to end game, you have no idea that raiding in WoW is some of the hardest, most time consuming end game out of any mmorpg.  Only the most hardcore elite players/guilds in the world got to experience the final raid dungeon in vanilla WoW, Naxx.

WoW is designed for casuals and hardcores, you just saw the casual solo leveling.

 

Sick of noobs trying to voice some kind of authority on WoW.

just because i didnt stick around for wow doesnt mean my friends didnt.  personally, i found the dungeons quite lacking.

wow raids are merely an annoyance.  If you think wow raiding was for the elite, more than the people with excessive time on thier hands, you are mistaken.

Why dont i have any credibility when blizzard already announced changes to most major dungeons for the noobs.

Dont kid me about naxx, i ran it on my friends toon for 1 run. a guy who hadnt played in over 6 months.  it was his attempt to pull me back into the game.  His comment to me,  are you sure you dont still play this behind my back.  It really wasnt that impressive to me,  or hard.

I am personally sick of wowtards claiming thier game is tough, or that the pvp is awesome, and requires skill.  It might get rough once in a while, and a young child might has a problem with the pvp aspects for a while, but hey.

Originally posted by Vhati

Originally posted by Hydrakana

Originally posted by Vhati

  Call it WoW bashing if you want, but im just stating my opinion based on a lvl 55 warrior and 30 hunter when the game launched. 

 

 

And with that comment, you have zero credibility to back up your arguments.  You had a lvl 55 warrior 3 years ago?? you didn't even make it to end game, you have no idea that raiding in WoW is some of the hardest, most time consuming end game out of any mmorpg.  Only the most hardcore elite players/guilds in the world got to experience the final raid dungeon in vanilla WoW, Naxx.

WoW is designed for casuals and hardcores, you just saw the casual solo leveling.

 

Sick of noobs trying to voice some kind of authority on WoW.

 

just because i didnt stick around for wow doesnt mean my friends didnt.  personally, i found the dungeons quite lacking.

wow raids are merely an annoyance.  If you think wow raiding was for the elite, more than the people with excessive time on thier hands, you are mistaken.

Why dont i have any credibility when blizzard already announced changes to most major dungeons for the noobs.

 

Dont kid me about naxx, i ran it on my friends toon for 1 run. a guy who hadnt played in over 6 months.  it was his attempt to pull me back into the game.  His comment to me,  are you sure you dont still play this behind my back.  It really wasnt that impressive to me,  or hard.

I am personally sick of wowtards claiming thier game is tough, or that the pvp is awesome, and requires skill.  It might get rough once in a while, and a young child might has a problem with the pvp aspects for a while, but hey.

Yeah keep digging your hole buddy.

ohhhhh.................... im scared????????????????

I mean,  have you played anything other than wow, do you even know what a tough mmo is?  If it means anything to you,  AoC is even easier than WoW.