I'd like to work for Blizzard right now. $200 million a month from subscriptions alone? Yes please.

Originally posted by Redemp

Thats no it at all,  I won't pretend to be the end-all say on the topic. I just don't see the points adding up... its a typical " The Recession" scapegoat as I see it.

I think both arguments are right.  Because in a recessed economy consumers will take into account how important their dollars are more-so than when the economy is doing good.  When people shop for things they are more tentative to what they are buying and why.  And the quality over quantity stands out... 

So people looking for a game will sit back and read reviews and check out demos more-so now and decide weather or not to buy a game.  I've noticed myself and other coworkers doing so as well.  So unless it's doing great with reviews most people are not impulse buying games as much now as they may have did in the past.  Because I know I used to just buy a decently cheap game just because i was bored and didn't have anything else to play and was waiting for the next big thing from bioware or something like that.  but now i'd rather download one of the many f2p mmos out there and kill time or replay something i've already played or download extra content for my already great games than get a new random game to check out.

Or maybe people are just getting fed up with all the sub-par games that have been released in recent past and it has stained the gaming industry as a whole.  hard to say...

But I think you are both right, poor game developing and poor economy have played a role to some degree or another...

While the big guys feel the pain and lay off their workers, AV (Darkfall's company) is growing and has moved twice to bigger offices.

Looks like the little guy won (ganked) 2009.

2009 was always going to be the crap year for MMO's.  For memory the 'biggest' releases set for this year (back in 08) where Darkfall and Champions online.  Already its a poor start.  Couple that with all the other crap that has happened and you have easily the worst year for MMO's in the last 10 years.

That being said 2010 will be better...mostly because nothing could be as bad as this year.

---

Originally posted by LumTheMad

On the one hand, all the games released *weren't* really bad (EA for example released Dragon Age, which is one of the best CRPGs in recent memory).

---

The way you've worded that statement it comes off as EA was the developer of Dragon Age.

It wasn't. Bioware was; who while owned by EA did not undergo ANY layoffs. And that's not even to mention that Dragon Age has been almost 6 years in the making, and of those 6 only 2 were under EA rule. While the EA stench can be felt on Dragon Age's marketing (blood galore), it's move to consoles (DA was explicity going to be PC title ONLY), and even it's DLC distribution, the actual core of the game is entirely EA-taint free. It's pure Baldur's Gate Bioware. Dragon Age is a Bioware game. To call it anything else is disingenuous.

So I can see the point you're making (faking), "Dragon Age sold well but EA still had massive layoffs" but the spin-free edition of what you're trying to say is "Dragon Age sold well and Bioware had no layoffs, not only that but Mythic was essentially folded under the umbrella of Bioware leadership." So in essence Bioware has grown as a company during this recession and thrived.

As you may have realized at this point, the spin-free edition of your point does not favor your argument, it in fact favors your opponent who said Devs who released quality games didn't get hit by the recession (ie, Bioware).

Now, does that mean I personally buy into the argument. Not so much, not that I really care though.

Still, I get annoyed when people fubar the details to try and win an argument.

---

Originally posted by Teala

---

Originally posted by MrcdesOwnr

My favorite part of the article was actually the following caption, that you had next to a WoW race change ad/graphic:

When Blizzard just said,
"Oh well, why not, they'll buy ANYTHING."

The irony is, I'm starting to truly believe that this is the mindset of most of these companies today and therefore the real cause for the mess we are in and most likely the culprit behind these layoffs as well.

These companies, ie Funcom and Mythic took us for a bunch of fools. Due to Blizzard's success they had these huge dollar signs in their eyes with overconfident expectations and champagne and caviar dreams. All the while, trying to pass along unfinished products with misleading advertising, with their hands on our wallets and a snickering laugh.

Hopefully 2009 is the year where developers have learned that we are not the fools that some mistook us for and that we will not settle for half-finished garbage products wrapped in a golden bow of lies and deceit.

---

Don't count on it. Look at the number of fools that spent money on games like Aion and Champions. Guess what theose same people will be buying games like Mortal Online and Star Trek and later SW:ToR...and nothing will have changed.

---

The simple fact that you'd actually have the gall to clump Bioware in with the likes of Mythic, Funcom, Cryptic, etc, shows how out of touch with reality your viewpoint is and why it should be summarily dismissed as inane rambling.

Originally posted by Redemp

Originally posted by LumTheMad

It's very difficult to argue that the gaming industry suffered record layoffs (and they did - EA's 1,500 alone is a huge, industry-shattering number in an industry of 50,000 people, and estimates are that the total carnage last year is around 8,000) in 2009, not because of economic conditions, but because all the games released in 2008 and 2009 were just really bad.

On the one hand, all the games released *weren't* really bad (EA for example released Dragon Age, which is one of the best CRPGs in recent memory). On the other hand, game releases haven't slowed in terms of sales (see: Modern Warfare 2's record-breaking release). And on the gripping hand, you essentially are arguing that not only were games in the past year so bad that they caused layoffs, but they were uniquely bad as opposed to years prior. Which just doesn't make sense.

 

It should if you go back and re-read it.

Was a work in progress... should be easier to ascertain my points now.

Forgive my lack of acceptance of the typical " Its a Recession" excuse. I was laid off at the begining  of the " Its a Recession" blame game. Was I laid off because of the Recession? No.. I was laid off because for the past year the company was hemoraging money due to poor decisions on the corporate level. Myself and several others had been blowing the whistle far prior to the layoff about our spending practices. That atleast is where I am coming from in the debate.

 

So you're dismissing the economy outright because the reason yourself and others you know were laid off in your particular case had nothing to do with it? You believe that your example disproves every other case, or at least casts it in serious doubt? Really? Wow.

Take a look around. The recession has been affecting *everyone*, everywhere. My last job laid off at least 10 people (in a company that only had around 40 to begin with) because business had slowed. Business had slowed because the businesses they provide a service to stopped spending money, because the economy hit them as well. It's a ripple effect.

Are the lay-offs at companies like EA/Mythic at least partially to do with poor performance of a MMO like WAR? Sure, I can believe that... at least in part. But I also think that to believe the economy isn't to blame for many lay-offs these days, because your personal experience didn't play out that way, is incredibly myopic.

Originally posted by local93bc

Well i can only speak for myself.

most years i spend 1000$ a year in the PC industry. Games hardware, sub... etc..

this year iv spent arround 400$ on PC gaming in all.

 

Iv never bought or spent money on consul.

Well this year for the first time iv spent  1000$ with Nintendo.

 

Iv said this beffor in my post on this web site.

I feel like the PC is one big train reck. nothing is compatible, games crash over and over again. etc.....

They need to wake up!

 
Well in all  it was a good year for me in the end I lost 60 pounds and i feel great.

I  support  company's that innovate.

 

 

 

Just wanted to say congrats and to keep up the great work!

I was a personal trainer for almost 7 years, so I know how hard that can be for most people. That is a great accomplishment and you should feel proud.
 

2010 isn't going to be much better, very few interesting titles, and expect many push backs, we will all be waiting for 2011 very soon

It's not the recession's fault that all these companies put out sucky MMOs.  Even broke people need something to do for entertainment, and $15 a month for a MMO is cheaper than a couple movies or a few drinks at the local pub.

2009 wasn't all that bad, I got a 65" Sony Bravia TV and a PS3 and saved $1100, BOOM. My PS3 that I paid $600 for wouldn't start up one morning. Go figure, if you play something ~20 hours a day it will break after a couple years hehe.

Yeah it wasn't too great for MMOs though. I used to work for Blizzard, keywords "used to".  I didn't see it announced anywhere, but alot of thier GMs that are hired by 3rd party companies got "fired" (yay contract workers).  Consoles though seem to be doing ok this year, I got picked up doing pretty much the same job, just for Xbox 360s.

I'm from Austin too, and it did seem for awhile that I would never get another job in the gaming industry.  Thanks to my mom though (she saw an ad in the paper), I got a job just in time to make enough money for christmas :)

Originally posted by Vagrant_Zero

 

---

Originally posted by LumTheMad

 

On the one hand, all the games released *weren't* really bad (EA for example released Dragon Age, which is one of the best CRPGs in recent memory).

---

 

The way you've worded that statement it comes off as EA was the developer of Dragon Age.

It wasn't. Bioware was; who while owned by EA did not undergo ANY layoffs. And that's not even to mention that Dragon Age has been almost 6 years in the making, and of those 6 only 2 were under EA rule. While the EA stench can be felt on Dragon Age's marketing (blood galore), it's move to consoles (DA was explicity going to be PC title ONLY), and even it's DLC distribution, the actual core of the game is entirely EA-taint free. It's pure Baldur's Gate Bioware. Dragon Age is a Bioware game. To call it anything else is disingenuous.

So I can see the point you're making (faking), "Dragon Age sold well but EA still had massive layoffs" but the spin-free edition of what you're trying to say is "Dragon Age sold well and Bioware had no layoffs, not only that but Mythic was essentially folded under the umbrella of Bioware leadership." So in essence Bioware has grown as a company during this recession and thrived.

As you may have realized at this point, the spin-free edition of your point does not favor your argument, it in fact favors your opponent who said Devs who released quality games didn't get hit by the recession (ie, Bioware).

Now, does that mean I personally buy into the argument. Not so much, not that I really care though.

Still, I get annoyed when people fubar the details to try and win an argument.

 

---

Originally posted by Teala

---

Originally posted by MrcdesOwnr

 

My favorite part of the article was actually the following caption, that you had next to a WoW race change ad/graphic:

When Blizzard just said,
"Oh well, why not, they'll buy ANYTHING."

The irony is, I'm starting to truly believe that this is the mindset of most of these companies today and therefore the real cause for the mess we are in and most likely the culprit behind these layoffs as well.

These companies, ie Funcom and Mythic took us for a bunch of fools. Due to Blizzard's success they had these huge dollar signs in their eyes with overconfident expectations and champagne and caviar dreams. All the while, trying to pass along unfinished products with misleading advertising, with their hands on our wallets and a snickering laugh.

Hopefully 2009 is the year where developers have learned that we are not the fools that some mistook us for and that we will not settle for half-finished garbage products wrapped in a golden bow of lies and deceit.

---

 

Don't count on it. Look at the number of fools that spent money on games like Aion and Champions. Guess what theose same people will be buying games like Mortal Online and Star Trek and later SW:ToR...and nothing will have changed.

---

 

The simple fact that you'd actually have the gall to clump Bioware in with the likes of Mythic, Funcom, Cryptic, etc, shows how out of touch with reality your viewpoint is and why it should be summarily dismissed as inane rambling.

No doubt your 'enlightened' viewpoint is based on all the successful MMORPG's Bioware has created.

Oh wait....  never mind, they haven't yet.

its pretty simple only a handful mmos are not worth the 15 dollars a month standard sub to the average mmo player where they may be worth 5-10 or the freemium model . its the dogmatic approach on the behalf of a lot of developers which is the problem and the idiots that ll problerby respond to this post saying i m happy to pay 15 dollars a month rather than another subscription model . well all i can say to them of course you are most likly your playing one of the handful of games that are worth it . and not the likes of warhammer , vanguard , everquest 2 , age of conan the list goes on and on . the game that appears to have got it right is dungeons and drgaons online offering both freemium and subscription options . thats the way to go for 95 percent of mmos in my opinion or if your game is older and unable to to attract the numbers of subs in once had . drop the price . if you offer the game at a third less and attract 50 percent more players ( for example)  then your increasing your revenue .

its pretty obvious which way mmos will go because like any market competition will eventually lead to price wars in sub fees . its only the most dogmatic fanbois who does nt have an idea what the real world is like would suggest the current status quo of 15 dollars a month standard subscription fee for all mmos is sustainable or even an attractive prospect .

talk about turkeys voting for christmas

i would rather the option of paying less or not at all unless i got into a game enough to want to buy moduals or expansions and be able to play several mmos a month on the side of one of the games that are worth a 15 dollar fee like eve , warcraft  or lord of the rings .

Originally posted by googajoob7

its pretty simple only a handful mmos are not worth the 15 dollars a month standard sub to the average mmo player where they may be worth 5-10 or the freemium model . its the dogmatic approach on the behalf of a lot of developers which is the problem and the idiots that ll problerby respond to this post saying i m happy to pay 15 dollars a month rather than another subscription model . well all i can say to them of course you are most likly your playing one of the handful of games that are worth it . and not the likes of warhammer , vanguard , everquest 2 , age of conan the list goes on and on . the game that appears to have got it right is dungeons and drgaons online offering both freemium and subscription options . thats the way to go for 95 percent of mmos in my opinion or if your game is older and unable to to attract the numbers of subs in once had . drop the price . if you offer the game at a third less and attract 50 percent more players ( for example)  then your increasing your revenue .

its pretty obvious which way mmos will go because like any market competition will eventually lead to price wars in sub fees . its only the most dogmatic fanbois who does nt have an idea what the real world is like would suggest the current status quo of 15 dollars a month standard subscription fee for all mmos is sustainable or even an attractive prospect .

talk about turkeys voting for christmas

i would rather the option of paying less or not at all unless i got into a game enough to want to buy moduals or expansions and be able to play several mmos a month on the side of one of the games that are worth a 15 dollar fee like eve , warcraft  or lord of the rings .

 

Subscription cost is not the problem with the majority of games on the market.  They simply are not worth investing time into.  Gameplay doesn't get better when the price is dropped from $15 to $5. 

Overall I get the basic of what you are trying to say, but it doesn't really factor in the real currency most people value, their play time. 

I disagree that 2009 was a bad year for the role-playing genre. Borderlands was a great change of pace and Dragon Age was one of the best roleplaying games I've played in years. Meanwhile, I was disappointed with my experiences playing WAR, AOC, and Champions Online.

I also wanted to add that except for a few developers, a lot of MMOG companies don't get "it." We're in a recession - which means that only is money in short supply but also time. If you're working, you're probably pulling a lot of extra hours to keep your job. If you're unemployed or in school, you still need to spend a lot more time studying or looking for work in order to get anywhere. The PC Gamer review of Aion hit it on the head - the end game is great, but you need to spend dozens of hours getting there. Nobody has the time to just grind out boring content anymore for the dangling carrot. So far, only WOW and to some extent LOTRO with the new expansion have done a good job of creating fun, "bite-sized" content that you don't need 4-5 hours a night to complete.

I also agree that Scott's name and cartoony avatar remind me alot of the late Waylon Jennings....

..wait, guess i'm offtopic here.

Have to say it...IMO, this has been the best discussion thread I've seen on this site in a while.  Just a great read, from start to finish, so far.

I hope that in 2010, this site can have a lot more discussion like this.  *fingers crossed*

Originally posted by BattleFelon

 

 

I disagree that 2009 was a bad year for the role-playing genre. Borderlands was a great change of pace and Dragon Age was one of the best roleplaying games I've played in years. Meanwhile, I was disappointed with my experiences playing WAR, AOC, and Champions Online.

I also wanted to add that except for a few developers, a lot of MMOG companies don't get "it." We're in a recession - which means that only is money in short supply but also time. If you're working, you're probably pulling a lot of extra hours to keep your job. If you're unemployed or in school, you still need to spend a lot more time studying or looking for work in order to get anywhere. The PC Gamer review of Aion hit it on the head - the end game is great, but you need to spend dozens of hours getting there. Nobody has the time to just grind out boring content anymore for the dangling carrot. So far, only WOW and to some extent LOTRO with the new expansion have done a good job of creating fun, "bite-sized" content that you don't need 4-5 hours a night to complete.

While Borderlands and Dragon Age are great games, neither of them is an MMO, which is what we're discussing. And yes, its been a horrible year for MMOs, gotta agreee with the article and many of the posts. 2009 (and late 2008 in respect to WAR) has been a horrible year as far as MMO developers bringing anything truly unique and new to the table, even after promising repeatedly to deliver it. Its just been nothing but the same old stale gameplay with a new skin (and in some cases even worse graphics) weve had for several years already and lots of unfinished/unpolished, buggy, no content garbage that many of us wouldnt have even bothered with if it were F2P, but unfortunately got screwed out of paying full price & sub fees for games that a couple years ago wouldnt have even been passed as being in Beta stage yet.

Originally posted by MrcdesOwnr

Originally posted by Teala

Originally posted by MrcdesOwnr

My favorite part of the article was actually the following caption, that you had next to a WoW race change ad/graphic:

When Blizzard just said,
"Oh well, why not, they'll buy ANYTHING."

The irony is, I'm starting to truly believe that this is the mindset of most of these companies today and therefore the real cause for the mess we are in and most likely the culprit behind these layoffs as well.

These companies, ie Funcom and Mythic took us for a bunch of fools. Due to Blizzard's success they had these huge dollar signs in their eyes with overconfident expectations and champagne and caviar dreams. All the while, trying to pass along unfinished products with misleading advertising, with their hands on our wallets and a snickering laugh.

Hopefully 2009 is the year where developers have learned that we are not the fools that some mistook us for and that we will not settle for half-finished garbage products wrapped in a golden bow of lies and deceit.

 

Don't count on it.   Look at the number of fools that spent money on games like Aion and Champions.    Guess what theose same people will be buying games like Mortal Online and Star Trek and later SW:ToR...and nothing will have changed.    The game companies will continue to pump out garbage game after garbage game because they know that gamers right now are so looking for the next good game that they are willing to shell out money on anything they (the game publishers) put on the market and that is a shame.    If the majority of games(like some of us) had the will power to just stop buying these games maybe then we can force some real change on this genre.   Until then...they'll just keep putting out half-baked garbage.

Not sure you can lump Aion in with those other titles. While someone could argue that Aion was a grind it was nowhere near as buggy and problematic as the majority of other games that have been released. I can only hope that the list of games coming out in the near future are released with as much polish as Aion.

While Aion may not be your cup-of-tea, I wouldn't go as far as calling it half-baked garbage.
 

There isn't any end game to speak of, and even though ncsoft claimed to spend 6 months on westernizing the game, the only difference between the west and east is that western players don't have access to cash shop services (coming soon in feburary!) and you can't afk (even on the login screen) for more than 30 minutes. The 1.0 content that was "beta" tested for 3 months is fine but after that you find quests that lack dialog or can't be accessed at all unless you change your language from english to something else. Go read the main story line then read it in korean. It wasn't custom tailored, it was translated word for word...

Gaming is ressesion proof, and people will buy anything at least once. It's entertainment, cheap entertainment, and unless you are living in a cardboard box with no computer, you can scrape together that 10-15 dollars a month to have an unlimited source of packaged fun. Mmo players are essentially addicts and no matter how bad the economy is, a junkie WILL get his fix one way or another.

The thing is, people are still logging in but not necesarily into the same game. Consumers may all be gulliable fools but they are not brain dead retarded. They will only listen to lies of  "soon" for only a set period of time. What I've been seeing happening are people continously moving on to the next best thing or laying low in the laughable "free" to play game subgenre. Aion is doing fine now but it's going to lose a bunch of it's user base when the next best thing comes out. Aion is pretty with one of the most complex character creation tools available but there is absolutely nothing to do once you hit level 50... which is really messed up when you consider the entire game is balanced around level 50.

I really don't believe in the bad game scenario. People will play anything if the company gives it enough support. Players are people, a lot of them are sterotyped as sad and lonely people but people nontheless and if they feel they are being listened to and taken care of they will continue to pay their subscriptions or buy from the item mall or both! Just look at uo. It's a "bad" buggy and old game by 2009 standards (say, when you compare it to aion) but people still play it after 10 years. Even if a minimal amount of effort is made, one can be rewarded with a huge amount of customer loyalty.

The number one problem isn't the economy, it isn't even the players, it's the those CEOS sitting in their ivory towers thinking that they all can have the 12million+ customers blizzard had 5 years ago, and if they can't have them... by god they will still get paid like they did. Because they have all the cohesive synergy and wear powerties. How do they make this fantasy a reality? They cut support and staff and pocket the difference.

Wow's success will never happen again. Wow brought in a bunch of people to the mmo scene and they have all dispersed over different subgenres over time. Wow was their first taste of mmos and they sorta liked it... but now they have matured and grown to like their own personal flavors. These people will never again unite under a single subscription and companies need to stop running theirs games into the ground, neglecting the current subscriber base while they clamor to eat up everyone else. Taking care of the "newbies" is a good thing, you want that first experience to be a good one so they stick around but so many companies do so at the direct expense of the older player base.

While pretending you are in a consensual s&m relationship with your customers sorta kinda worked in wow  it isn't going to work in your  game. This should be posted in every development studio: You aren't blizzard, you aren't bringing in a couple million naive first time mmoers and they are not going to put up with this nonsense when 10 other titles are promising to treat them better. At the end of the day, it just leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth and they never look back when they jump ship to the next best thing that promises them the moon. So you lose subs and someone writes an article about how shit your game is while downloading the next, then some big wig reads it and uses it as an excuse to lay off people he was planning to lay off anyway to make the quarterly reports look good and the cycle begins itself anew.

Best article by scott so far. 

Its hard to argue that 2009 wasn't a bad year for MMOs.  What is becoming more and more aparent is that its not about the games or the gamers (if ever it was)  - its just about the buisness and the money.  And that means...you get the buisness and the money any way possible.  Thats on its own is not good for gaming.

I think that MMOs are gonna be hit even harder in 2010 than they were in 2009.  Its not only the resession that is hiting hard atm (Quality bandwith on peak times is expensive ) but also  I feel that both developers and publishers are realising that making a MMO that will be played by millions of ppl - is not as easy as they thought it would be.

But... when it comes down to it...  The reason why most of the 2008-2009 MMOs are not played by millions... is because they were not created for the gamers at all...

Unlike many others - I feel that the resession will do alot of good things for gaming.  Games don't have to be 50GBs and with DX 2000 graphix to be enjoyable.  Its maybe time for many of the developers and the publishers to create QUALITY GAMES - instead of software that is sold as Pre-order and then fixed up a bit to make it playable over the next 2 years.  Its time that we see a game that is DEVELOPED online as free to play with STRONG quality gameplay that is then developed futher for a charge (any form).

And lastly - I really think that the sadest part about 2009 is BLizzard adding item malls into WOW.  Its for me a disgrace to see a company that was build on games for the gamers - go full circle and now start item mall for the BUISNESS - instead of offering it as part of their normal subscription fee. 

Shame on you BLizzard. 

Again - good article Scott.

One thing I would to add here tho.

Not every MMO company got hit with layoffs.  CCP (Eve online) is adding some 200-300 new staff to future programs - both existing and new games.  Eve online is also the game that would be voted by many to be the most "diffrent" MMO game of them all - showing that a good game with a good strong core systems that you build upon - will be played and subed for.

But at the same time other companies (Funcom with AOC and Mythic with WAR) have been changing pretty much every system of their game back and forth for month after month cause quite frankly....cause  those games had no real strong true vision when it came down to it.  It was buisness... Pre-orders... money...  And core systems, good gameplay and features were not in high priority compared to the PR squads and the pre-order campaigns put in place to make THE BUISNESS some MONEY.