I have been reading 2 games forums inparticular lately. EQ and WoW and at least on these 2 games I have noticed very many gamers. Many saying they are going to be quitting said games. Which got me thinking, how do MMO's die.

1. The game just grows old and dies of old age.

2. Massive Developer mistakes, causing lag/unbalacing/whatever.

3. A new game comes out that is "good".

4. Goes out in a glorious bang/ shut down before it becomes a laughing stock.

5. Some other reason(respond why).

I'm gonna have to go with 2, for EQ and WoW. If anyone has been keeping up with EQ lately these has been a huge fight on the boards over a large gear nerf incoming, discouraging a lot of groupers and keeping the top end raiders happy.

For WoW, it seems most people are tired of the . Coupled with a bad patch on the release day of another MMO.

So what are your opinions on how these MMO's, or others will die.

MMOs die of

1. old age

2. Developer's pidgeon holeing the game ( Niche games)

3. Distribution mistakes ( Darkfall) 

4. Nerfs & patches designed to ballance or SOCIALIZE the game

5. New Releases of self proclaimed GAMES OF THE FUTURE.........

Games that have been around long enough to be considered old all have reletively stable player bases.

Given that, there are really only two things that will drive those players away. The game changes in ways the player no longer enjoys or the player himself changes in ways that render the gane no longer fun.

I left the EQ for the simple reason that I could no longer afford a 40 hour a week raid schedual. I started playing a couple of games that did not have heavy time requirements.

The other reason is, as you said, bad patches. Even before I left EQ, I disagreed with the direction things were moving. The addition of mercenaries killed what little casual grouping there still was in the game.

They just do , it's part of their life:P

See SWG.

Through amazing incompetence, bait-and-switch tactics, horrible communications, ignorant community representatives, poor IP management, ridiculous ideas coded by ridiculous people, and outright lies.

Wow.... nice

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Originally posted by Nightbringe1
Games that have been around long enough to be considered old all have reletively stable player bases.
Given that, there are really only two things that will drive those players away. The game changes in ways the player no longer enjoys or the player himself changes in ways that render the gane no longer fun.
I left the EQ for the simple reason that I could no longer afford a 40 hour a week raid schedual. I started playing a couple of games that did not have heavy time requirements.
The other reason is, as you said, bad patches. Even before I left EQ, I disagreed with the direction things were moving. The addition of mercenaries killed what little casual grouping there still was in the game.

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You are correct. I have said, and still maintain, that no MMORPG has yet died of old age. It probably *will* prove that they can die from being too old, just that the their natural lifespan is longer than MMORPGs have been around so far. MMORPGs die from a variety of causes, but they can all be boiled down to one base cause: developer mistakes.

Actually, I'd add a second reason: "still-born", as in, the game never found its public, wasn't big enough to get marketed efficiently.

Ok, so it could be argued that it's still the developers's fault for weak communication. But I still think there,s a difference between a game were some player base existed but was then owned by bad decisions from the studio or publisher and a game were only minimal audience ever touch it.

Games die when players stop supporting them and the devs have to close up shop due to lack of funds.

Too many examples could be given why people stop playing but this is basically what happens.

Ever heard of wwiionline? Didnt think so, they got 12 or so employees. These are 12 decent paying jobs for a game no ones heard of and nobody plays. What does this tell you? Tells you the monthly fees your paying are a lot more than devs need to keep a game running. Some of these games would still be alive even if they dropped their fee and just had volunteers running it.

To kill your MMO:
- Turn the server off
- Increase latency
- Increase subscription fees, then tell other people they can play for free
- Implement out of control toons. Example: Hello kitty Halo
- Drasticly go against the origional intent of the writers. Example: Thrall goes back to Kenya(?)
- Change loot drop rates to 0.0000001%
- Make the play linear
- Don't fix bugs
- Don't balance play
- Allow outsiders to keep people from playing
- Introduce 'shocking' subject matter
- Erase people's work
- Lose their mail
- 40vs2 pvp 24/7, all dead, all the time
- Shut the servers down during a major 4 day holiday weekend
- Have incomplete quest chains and broken missions
- Use ad banners and pop ups that require you to wack the monkey for a free credit score after completing 259 offers for $13.95 and 4 box tops at your local Piggly Wiggly

If games make the 2 year mark, I don't think they will die any time soon, like others have said many of the older games still have a dedicated player base, this can be seen with games like WoW, EQ and YES even SWG regardless that the player base is much and much smaller their still is a portion very dedicated to that game and this goes for most MMORPG's.

If games don't make it to the 2 year mark where they need to be seeing investments payed and starting to see some profit. If that is not the case such a MMORPG will die, simple example take a look at Tabula Rasa. I often wish that SWG's NGE was like the character combat animations of Tabula Rasa, I bet mixed with SWG that game could have a truly "Re-Born" status.

 Pre-order it, then on launch realize how the game is shit past early levels, unbalanced bugfest that should have been taken care of since they had multiple beta phases, don't subscribe after 30 days... game dies of cancer and abandonment year later.

Ref Tabula Rasa, Hellgate: London.

EQ and WOW are not in danger of dying any time in the near future, (esp WOW, I expect my grandchildren will one day play it)

Not true for some others, and bascically when the cost of their upkeep exceeds the paying subscriber base the game is shut down.

It depends what you mean by die. The only MMOs I can think of that have literally closed down were very short-lived and never established much of a playerbase eg Tabula Rosa.

Appropriately for the genre, the more common fate seems to be to enter a sort of undeath with a small but fairly stable population and very little interest from outside their own community. The list of such games is long and sometimes illustrious (eg EQ, UO, SWG, DaoC) but I doubt that WoW will be on it for a while yet.

You increase the target audience.  We need more First Person Shooting!  We need more left-handed dislexsick cake eating brown eyed eskimo's!  We need more RP'ers!  We need more space stuff!  Oops, add more fantasy stuff!  Wait, let's get bobble headed weird eyed big nose pointy toes underware on the head toons!  We need more people to farm and sell gold!  We need more people to steal stuff from other people and mess up their raids so we can sell more time cards!  An no more writers, just pvp maps!  No more solo stuff!  Wait, no more group stuff!  No more people getting rewards!  Reset all the xp, gold, and reputation bars!  Everyone will start over and be the same!  Don't listen to the players, they have no idea what they want! :)

Pretty soon you have jet powered flying motor cycles in pre-Christian times and gamers watching TV while they are playing because it simply doesn't matter.

Originally posted by Lansid

 Pre-order it, then on launch realize how the game is shit past early levels, unbalanced bugfest that should have been taken care of since they had multiple beta phases, don't subscribe after 30 days... game dies of cancer and abandonment year later.

Ref Tabula Rasa, Hellgate: London.

Hellgate: London wasn't bad man. One of the few games I could actually say I thoroughly enjoyed. And sooner than later they're apparently bringing it back so I guess you could say it's getting Necro'd in a way.

 WoW is dying?

News to me.

The only way WoW will die is the same way EQ died.  A better game will come out.  In EQ's case, the better game was WoW.

Aside from a new and better game coming out, the biggest reason people quit MMOs is burn out.  You can get burned out on anything given enough time.  The thing about burn out is that once you are burned out on one MMO, you are burned out on all MMOs so changing MMOs does little to relieve your burn out.

Here are 10 reasons games (in general, no particular ones) die, in no particular order:

1. Graphics become outdated;

2. More fun games come along;

3. Lack of end game/sufficient expansions;

4. Repitious gameplay that players tired of;

5. New players have no one to play with at low and mid levels, or their progress is somehow stymied to where they can never catch up. So they quit and there is no one to replace departing old players;

6. Game sucks the word gets out, putting game in life support mode;

7. Devs do something silly to ruin the game's fun;

8. Too many nerfs or other irritants;

9. Poor customer service;

10. Lack of communication between game maker and players.

Oh, and a bonus reason:

11. Features promised to players never get implemented.