One of the biggest reasons the MMOs that have popped up in the last couple of years have failed so miserably is because they are not finished.

This is a topic that has been addressed in other threads but I'd like to bring it to our attention once again. MMOs in recent years often have very unrefined worlds that appear "incomplete". They have a lack of fully developed content. They're just not fleshed out. Why? Marketing demands. The game has a release date. If developers don't have time to finish everything and polish the game before that date? It's getting released whether they like it or not!

Now, the developers are not the one's at fault here, although they have a part to play. The marketing people are one of the main problems. It's their job to hype the game and get everyone excited. It's up to them to show off all the coolest parts of the game so that when it launches, people will play it. There's not much getting around this. They need to hype the game so people will know it exists and will give it a try. But often they say too much too soon. They promise features that never wind up getting put in the game, they show off parts of really cool levels that never get finished. They raise everyone's expectations to a point that the game can't possibly reach, and then it fails. So are the marketing people at fault? Not entirely, they are just doing their jobs and often doing them well.

Next you have the investors. They want to know that they're going to get a return. They want to know that this game is going to at least break even. They want the game to be released right on time. They put a lot of pressure on the developers to get everything done. If you asked an investor if they wanted a good game or a game that was released on time, they'd probably answer "both". However, they would much rather have a game with a few bugs be released on time than a perfectly polished game be released several months late. Investors are definitely a big part of the problem.

If the development team actually has a say in the design process, then they're responsible for how much and what kind of content they're expected to develop. If they have no say in what the game is going to be like, and they're simply handed a design document and told to go, it's not entirely their fault if they don't get it done in time. The designers have to have realistic goals for a game.

So what can developers do? How can they prevent making incomplete games? Everyone needs to work together. The designers have to know the limits of their development team and set realistic goals for them. The company as a whole needs to make sure they can develop the game in a time frame that will please the investors. The marketing team needs to know what is going to be in the game for sure and not go around making promises they can't keep. The game might not come out as big and bad as you might have hoped, but when it comes out neat and polished with minimal bugs, it'll all be worth it once you start getting players that want to stay.

The fact is.Not everyone got a budget of 30 millions and 5 years to make a game(like blizzard did)

Apart from being unfinished - and you only have to look at piles of steaming crap like "Hellgate" to see this in action' - the other reason games fail is that, far too often, they are warmed-up rehashes of existing games, particularly WoW.  We've had more than enough of that, but the games designers never seem to cotton on to this.

i dunno wich reason it is what makes for me most new mmorpg boring and some even anoying.But its also not the money part then wow with there 30 million budget was also a big failure for me ..... i was playing 2 games for years and that was anarchy online and neocron.Both no uber mmorpgs for the market but i loved both of them.I only mention this to show what i was liking to represent wich ones never were boring for me frome the begin.Both very different playstyle.But nothing frome the new ones get even close to the feelings i had with these 2 named mmorpgs.

Originally posted by Master_Razor

So what can developers do? How can they prevent making incomplete games? Everyone needs to work together. The designers have to know the limits of their development team and set realistic goals for them. The company as a whole needs to make sure they can develop the game in a time frame that will please the investors. The marketing team needs to know what is going to be in the game for sure and not go around making promises they can't keep. The game might not come out as big and bad as you might have hoped, but when it comes out neat and polished with minimal bugs, it'll all be worth it once you start getting players that want to stay.

All valid points.

It only takes a couple days to burn through what took developers years to build. Developers cannot keep up!! How can they?

They are constantly re-inventing the wheel, the tools they're using constantly evolvie, and expectations grow after every release.

 Don't design something completely different, you get slapped with 'clone'. Fail.

Try something radically new or unexpected and you really have NO CLUE whether it will actually work, or how well, or how long it will take. Fail.

Throw in unrealistic expectations from consumers (us), and it's a mess. We don't want to believe a game takes 5 years to develop. A highly-anticipated game is announced and we want to PLAY it within 12 months. And one or two months later, we want something NEW.

It's a no-win situation.

(Unless you're name is Blizzard)

Only one AAA new mmo failed (tabula Rasa) so imo I think saying New MMos tend to fail is a bit of a streach.

Unless you consider anything under WoW numbers failing? Then you should say "Why does every MMO fail except WoW" and i would promptly grab my popcorn and watch the flames.

Firstly - I'll take issue with the job description you give for marketing. It's not necessarily their job to hype things up. That's only part of it. The other traditional major job of marketing is to research what customers actually want. Indeed - if they do this other job well enough then hype is hardly necessary, since a good enough product that meets a real demand will pretty much sell itself. Anyway - that's where a lot of MMO marketing fails.

I'd suspect a lot of MMO failures are also due to crappy software project management. But that's hard to see from outside.

I'm also having trouble understanding the behaviour of investors. I'm trying to imagine the situation. Suppose the software company has just spent 5 years developing an MMO. They come up to the investors and say:

You know we're supposed to be shipping in one month. Well we've talked to our beta testers, and they think the game isn't quite ready. So we have the following choice:

a) Ship in one month and get 50,000 subscribers, and break even

b) Ship in one year and get 500,000 subscribers, and make a huge profit

Now assuming the people at the software company are vaguely competent in business, then (b) doesn't seem to me to be a remotely hard sell. The investors have already sunk 5 years of funds into this company. So they're already quite committed. And the extra cost isn't much compared to the amount already spent.

So why do the investors opt for (a)? There must be more to it - things we don't see or understand. For example - is the problem that the investors opt for (b) , and then in a year's time the software company comes back to them again and presents the same choice? In which case one can hardly blame the investors - they're just trying to limit their losses - and the real fault almost certainly lies with the people who are approaching the investors - the managers of the software company.

Originally posted by Antipathy

Firstly - I'll take issue with the job description you give for marketing. It's not necessarily their job to hype things up. That's only part of it. The other traditional major job of marketing is to research what customers actually want. Indeed - if they do this other job well enough then hype is hardly necessary, since a good enough product that meets a real demand will pretty much sell itself. Anyway - that's where a lot of MMO marketing fails.

 

I'd suspect a lot of MMO failures are also due to crappy software project management. But that's hard to see from outside.

 

I'm also having trouble understanding the behaviour of investors. I'm trying to imagine the situation. Suppose the software company has just spent 5 years developing an MMO. They come up to the investors and say:

 

You know we're supposed to be shipping in one month. Well we've talked to our beta testers, and they think the game isn't quite ready. So we have the following choice:

 

a) Ship in one month and get 50,000 subscribers, and break even

 

b) Ship in one year and get 500,000 subscribers, and make a huge profit

 

Now assuming the people at the software company are vaguely competent in business, then (b) doesn't seem to me to be a remotely hard sell. The investors have already sunk 5 years of funds into this company. So they're already quite committed. And the extra cost isn't much compared to the amount already spent.

 

So why do the investors opt for (a)? There must be more to it - things we don't see or understand. For example - is the problem that the investors opt for (b) , and then in a year's time the software company comes back to them again and presents the same choice? In which case one can hardly blame the investors - they're just trying to limit their losses - and the real fault almost certainly lies with the people who are approaching the investors - the managers of the software company.

 

Though I would agree with most of your points, you have to look at it from the investor/parent company/CFO perspective.  As many of these games are a "labor of love", you can get in that syndrome of "just one more month/quarter" forever.  At some point, someone who is in charge of finances has to say enough is enough, it's close enough.  These games are hard to develop, it's as simple as that.  Even the huge successes like WoW, did not have a perfect launch product (though the core of what made the game appealing was definitely there at release).

That doesn't mean we have to like it, but that's the business world.

I would also agree with previous posts that one of the biggest reasons for dramatic subscription fall-offs, is way over-promising from the marketing team.  These games need to try a new approach, much more limited releases of info, why do you need to build hype 3 years before your intended release date anyway?  Why not create a circus closer to release date with real-live game info...?

I have another couple ideas why new mmos fail.

-Were spoiled
We are already playing something we enjoy.
There may be a few things about our current mmo that has bored us, or been a deal breaker but we dont want a new mmo, we want a new mmo that is exactly like our old mmo without the parts we dont like.

-No one gives new mmos a chance
I know most if not all of us on this boards have played multiple mmos and we know what we want. Instead of giving new games a chance to become fun our attention span is short, we see things we dont like and stop there and in turn never give new mmos a chance to become fun like they were when we first started playing.

-We know the outcome
What do I mean by that? Well just like many have grown tired of raiding because they recognize the endless loop of raiding for gear so that you can raid for more gear......maybe we all have learned the pattern of mmos. Its not fresh anymore. Theres nothign there to learn and understand. No matter how new and interesting the particular game is, we already have a idea of whats going to happen, how much time we are going to spend and what we will be doing late game.

I could say maybe its the lack of innovation and creativity. WoW was a very polished game, why cant mmo devs take what was good about that game and move on instead of trying to make clones? Why cant they look at the success of certain "Parts" of games.

DAOC had a very interesting and fun RvR and Battleground System

Shadowbane had a great take on City Building/Crafting and even ways to add more depth to charachter abilities (rune hunting=an adventure to get an ability for self or to sell)

WoW had some of the most varied forms of CC

And thats just what Ive thought of off the top of my head.

Lets not forget the hype factor. Eager for initial box sales, companies wildly over-hype their mmo, promising it to be all things to all people, talking up amazing features, many of which never make it into the release. Naturally should the product not live up to the hype at launch, some people will be upset.

Edit: also wanted to add the hurdle of the social aspect. New games have to overcome the fact that a lot of people play a given game because all their friends do.

Originally posted by JGMIII

Only one AAA new mmo failed (tabula Rasa) so imo I think saying New MMos tend to fail is a bit of a streach.

Unless you consider anything under WoW numbers failing? Then you should say "Why does every MMO fail except WoW" and i would promptly grab my popcorn and watch the flames.

I consider a game such as AoC to be a failure. Selling over 800k copies of the game and managing to loose well over half of those in a matter of a month or two. As is the same with a few other releases over the years that have managed huge box sales only to be left with a handfull of subscribers within a month or two of release.

A game does not need to have the WoW numbers to be considered a success. But I think managing to loose over half of your sub base in the first month doesn't count as a success either.

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Originally posted by andmiller

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Originally posted by Antipathy

Firstly - I'll take issue with the job description you give for marketing. It's not necessarily their job to hype things up. That's only part of it. The other traditional major job of marketing is to research what customers actually want. Indeed - if they do this other job well enough then hype is hardly necessary, since a good enough product that meets a real demand will pretty much sell itself. Anyway - that's where a lot of MMO marketing fails.
 
I'd suspect a lot of MMO failures are also due to crappy software project management. But that's hard to see from outside.
 
I'm also having trouble understanding the behaviour of investors. I'm trying to imagine the situation. Suppose the software company has just spent 5 years developing an MMO. They come up to the investors and say:
 
You know we're supposed to be shipping in one month. Well we've talked to our beta testers, and they think the game isn't quite ready. So we have the following choice:
 
a) Ship in one month and get 50,000 subscribers, and break even
 
b) Ship in one year and get 500,000 subscribers, and make a huge profit
 
Now assuming the people at the software company are vaguely competent in business, then (b) doesn't seem to me to be a remotely hard sell. The investors have already sunk 5 years of funds into this company. So they're already quite committed. And the extra cost isn't much compared to the amount already spent.
 
So why do the investors opt for (a)? There must be more to it - things we don't see or understand. For example - is the problem that the investors opt for (b) , and then in a year's time the software company comes back to them again and presents the same choice? In which case one can hardly blame the investors - they're just trying to limit their losses - and the real fault almost certainly lies with the people who are approaching the investors - the managers of the software company.
 

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  Even the huge successes like WoW, did not have a perfect launch product

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WoW might of not had a pefect launch product but they had the closest thing to a perfect launch that any other mmo dev team would love to see for their game.
The content was there. The game was smooth. The graphics had no major bugs.
The gameplay had no major bugs.

And you said in your post at sometime someone has to say its ready ENOUGH.

That person is usually some pencil pushing idiot who understands everything about business but nothing MMOS, nothing about the market and who would RUIN all the hard work, time and money spent just because its "Ready Enough".

Age of Conan wasnt ready enough.

Warhammer wasnt ready enough. They would of been had they had the lag under control.

Look what happened.

Originally posted by talismen351

Originally posted by JGMIII

Only one AAA new mmo failed (tabula Rasa) so imo I think saying New MMos tend to fail is a bit of a streach.

Unless you consider anything under WoW numbers failing? Then you should say "Why does every MMO fail except WoW" and i would promptly grab my popcorn and watch the flames.

 

I consider a game such as AoC to be a failure. Selling over 800k copies of the game and managing to loose well over half of those in a matter of a month or two. As is the same with a few other releases over the years that have managed huge box sales only to be left with a handfull of subscribers within a month or two of release.

A game does not need to have the WoW numbers to be considered a success. But I think managing to loose over half of your sub base in the first month doesn't count as a success either.

 

While in the case of AoC I would tend to agree, I might also point out that a game losing over half of it's subscribers doesn't always mean it 'failed'. A large part of the reason that happens is due to the sheer amount of marketing / hype some of these games generate before launch. Whether promised or not, players expect everything of these games; whether realistic or not.

So of course, new MMOs tend to fall short of this idealistic expectation of having the entire universe of possibilities under 1 game, with better graphics, and able to run on more systems, etc. etc. WoW is a Blizzard title, and as such didn't have to live up to such expectations to gain the momentum to steady gain subscribers. While being a good game, it had fairly limited content at launch (as do most MMOs), and less than supurb graphics (which it too was criticized for at launch).

Most MMOs that people tend to view as 'success' didn't really build up a ton of up until after launch.

Its people's definition of "finished" that has changed. Nowadays, people are expecting a new MMOG to have all the same features and content as a game that has been running for years.

Originally posted by Aganazer

Its people's definition of "finished" that has changed. Nowadays, people are expecting a new MMOG to have all the same features and content as a game that has been running for years.

Personally, I feel that should be the case. To stick with services, which is what MMOs essentially are...

If someone decided to open up a gym right now, they would need to either have the same amount of facilities as the competitor or charge less for their membership. If a premium TV service (cable, dish or whatever) came out today they would need to offer programming and features on par with the existing services or they would need to offer a reduced rate.

If an MMO wants me to spend my 15 a month with them, they need to offer something that I feel is equal to or better than what I have now. For many MMO gamers, that usually just means something different for 3 or 4 months.

Interestingly enough, the F2P MMOs have a noticeably higher rate of releasing stable clients and finished games than the subscription MMOs do.

Originally posted by Aganazer

Its people's definition of "finished" that has changed. Nowadays, people are expecting a new MMOG to have all the same features and content as a game that has been running for years.

That is very true. Any new game that is released now will be expected to compete with established games like WoW. The fact that Blizzard has had years, after launch, to add new content doesn't matter. People had invested time and money into the game and to pull them away from it the game has to either offer as much, if not more, content than WoW or offer a drastically different game play.

Since developers choose to rehash the same WoW/EQ-esque game play, they involuntarily put themselves into direct competition with those established games. The games do poorly because the development houses don't have enough resources to compete with WoW and the abundance of content Blizzard added over the years.

On the other hand, games like Jumpgate Evolution, The Black Prophecy and Mortal Online, will probably do relatively well because those games offer a different game play and don't really have any serious competition besides EVE Online, Darkfall and themselves.

The only theme park MMO that may give WoW a run for its money is the new Star Wars game. Because it's Star Wars and the game has a serious developer working on it.

Just my opinion.

They havn't failed they just do like how all mmorpgs did before WoW.

Originally posted by heartless

Since developers choose to rehash the same WoW/EQ-esque game play, they involuntarily put themselves into direct competition with those established games. The games do poorly because the development houses don't have enough resources to compete with WoW and the abundance of content Blizzard added over the years.

That's a very good point, Heartless.

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Originally posted by aesperus

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Originally posted by talismen351

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Originally posted by JGMIII

Only one AAA new mmo failed (tabula Rasa) so imo I think saying New MMos tend to fail is a bit of a streach.
Unless you consider anything under WoW numbers failing? Then you should say "Why does every MMO fail except WoW" and i would promptly grab my popcorn and watch the flames.

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I consider a game such as AoC to be a failure. Selling over 800k copies of the game and managing to loose well over half of those in a matter of a month or two. As is the same with a few other releases over the years that have managed huge box sales only to be left with a handfull of subscribers within a month or two of release.
A game does not need to have the WoW numbers to be considered a success. But I think managing to loose over half of your sub base in the first month doesn't count as a success either.
 

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While in the case of AoC I would tend to agree, I might also point out that a game losing over half of it's subscribers doesn't always mean it 'failed'. A large part of the reason that happens is due to the sheer amount of marketing / hype some of these games generate before launch. Whether promised or not, players expect everything of these games; whether realistic or not.
So of course, new MMOs tend to fall short of this idealistic expectation of having the entire universe of possibilities under 1 game, with better graphics, and able to run on more systems, etc. etc. WoW is a Blizzard title, and as such didn't have to live up to such expectations to gain the momentum to steady gain subscribers. While being a good game, it had fairly limited content at launch (as do most MMOs), and less than supurb graphics (which it too was criticized for at launch).
Most MMOs that people tend to view as 'success' didn't really build up a ton of up until after launch.

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I am in no way a Blizzard or even WOW fanbois, but I think its fair to say that WoW had one of the smoothest releases out of any mmo to date.
No major problems.

"Some" people had a wait time.

And limited content? Oh Im sure it was limited content...for the uber nerds maybe?

Nobody in a months time, got to 60, epic riding mount, capped all gathering and proffession skills and had the best gear in game. They might not of had too many people to group with...but thats not the devs fault.

And this CASUAL word that always seems to be thrown around in regards to wow...the pace was casual but if you didnt play everyday and I mean play nonstop, the leveling wasnt quick, it might not of been hard, but it wasnt fast.

Seriously where do you guys get this shit?

Stop regurgitating someone elses plaguerized commentary.

Suppose tomorrow, a company offered a game of a similar level of completeness to WoW at launch. Let's further suppose that it differntiates itself from WoW in 2 key respects:

Firstly it has better graphics, on a similar level to 2009 expectations (e.g. at a level LoTRO, Vanguard and others have already achieved)

Secondly it addresses a different market in some way, so doesn't compete directly with WoW.

Simple question - would such a game succeeed?

To me that's quite a fundamental point of the discussion. Personally I think it would. LoTRO has done this, and they had one of the smoothest launches we've seen.

Some people are saying the problem is that expectations have gone up. Perhaps they have. But the reason many games seem to fail isn't due to an inability to compete with WoW as it is now. Those games couldn't even compete with WoW as it was back then. Why? Too many games are shipping with serious bugs, and without the smoothness of control that WoW has always had.