lol

u did miss one other event

Blizzard announces Title of their new MMO at Blizzcon in Jul and and a good chunk of MMO gamers kept occupied for the rest of 2010 by speculating on the game.

 Awesome post -- thanks!

Was a fun read.  Very market characteristic trends to these games.  What will be exciting is the new MMO's announced in 2010 to flesh out the events of the total market.  The Hype Train will keep chugging.

god damn i knew it...
ambulation still didn't come out :D

CCP stated that the next two expansions will be planetary interaction (to incorporate DUST 514 into eve) and incarna (ambulation). seeing how they do two a year that "should" happen in 2010.

while DUST 514 might not be the next big thing, its unique nature will probably get it mentioned in 2010.

but as far as ambulation is concerned...i have my doubts even for 2010 :(

btw, did MMORPG.com ever do a report on DUST? id like to read that...

Originally posted by Morden

* Jumpgate: Evolution, which released in June to little fanfare and about 100,000 subscribers*
 

 

Did I miss somthing? JGE was never released! Has anyone any info on this?
 

Epic fail....j/k.

I hope there is 1 MMO this year that really sucks me in. It's been "meh" for awhile now to me. They seem so cookie cutter these days.

I loved the article! I certainly don't follow the MMO world THAT much but it all seamed reasonable. And for everyone throwing around their own predictions please keep this one, mind boggling fact in mind: even SWG is still alive after all this time. If that game can last as long as it has then anything is possible!

I am surprised by the STO hate on this thread. I think it will do very well. If you are a MMO gamer, you might like it, might not. But for those who have never played a MMO in their life, they will love it. Playing a MMO isn’t just about maxxing your level in a matter of days and speed past the content. True Trekkies will be in their ships shooting the breeze and hopefully starting a good community in the game.

Good Article!

 I think swtor will release before that, I also think it will have a lot of hype, and swg veterans like myself will just suck it up and play a really awesome game

Originally posted by Zorndorf

It's with these kind of articles and sarcastic predictions, I am always reminded the editors of mmorpg.com are recruited from their own crowd.

Let's see:

- Cataclysm with 2 times the word "fail" in it. And OP : the opening sales weekends doesn't matter much to Blizzard. It is the steady yearly income from the subs that kill the revenus of COD and other games compared to WOW. Even in 2010 (Cata), 2011 (film), 2012 level 90 .... Well at least till COD will have subs.

- Star Wars: blindlessly promoting the next big thing. "Internet will explode...and "positve" " Yep just like Warhammer, Lord of the Rings and Conan did. Not much "massive" Lore left after this one isn't it ? :)))

- Linden Labs, it isn't seriously considered an mmorpg over here. So lillte bit stabbed (and being linked to SOE and Cataclysm helps of course). Money is not needed on mmorpg.com. One wonders who pays the bills.

- FF14 actually holds some insight. Delayed for PC's for a Japanase game. One wonders ... what would have happened if Morhaime and Pardo decided they would go with consoles back in 2002... Bye Bye game PC's in Japan.

- Clearly ST is not on the same wish list as SW in this article. Probably because it doesn't belong to the EA stable. And by lack of its killer status. But again ST can go a long way with the engine. I hope it kills those mediocre money makers that confuse level grinds with computer gameplay. The 500K long term subs are over the edge again. Perhaps thinking about the bills to be paid after all here. I predict 300 K long term subs, but on Xfire it will still be beaten by the A-team logging boys of Aoin. After all who even doubts the NCsoft Korean is less played than Counterstrike....

As an interesting side note ...: "Aside from this column, Scott is also currently contracting with NCsoft..." Cough...

- A VERY optimistic view of the "holding on" to subs of all other games. Yes, it finally sets in... mmorpg.com has to be saved after all. I very much question the optimistic "holding on". Unless you want to ignore the open letters of Directors in games like Vanguard and the cuts in FunCom personnel and you would consider under 50K subs as "holding on".

Next insightful article on mmorpg-lost-without-a-clue.com please....

When it comes down to games with a lot of lore like AOC, LOTRO. What matters most is the company doing them. Perfect example was MxO (Matrix Online), when Warner owned it, the game was amazing, dev's actually took role in the game, they would come in from time to time as a main character and RP it out when we had world events. They showed passion for the game, and it's players followed. Having parties in clubs with radio stations actually made for the game, Radio Free Zion, I still remember it, but, as soon as a good game reaches SOE, well, you know. I think SOE just 'buys' it's competition so it can kill it and make room for EverCrack. I solely would put money on BioWare. They haven't failed me yet (except for dragon's age), but that's ok! They need to fail once ;). 

FFIV will also bring back a lot of old players. I think this game will be undeniably fun. I also think since it's new and shiny, it will rake in a lot of console players too. Xbox and PS don't really have any MMO hold in America. Huxley, was sold to Ijji, a company like codemasters, and probably won't be brought to consoles. This is where FFIV can try and get the console MMO gamers who can't and don't want to dish out money for a 'big rig'.

Second Life being sold? I believe it. 

I can't say anything about STO, never read about it, never watched the shows, I'm not really all the personally into it, but if it's a good game, you don't have to know anything about it to play it. The game should either immerse you into the universe, or help you to understand it through text and quests. I might try it. 

Cataclysm, sure, another wow expansion. Punctual blizzard is, despited their timing issues, *cough* diablo 3 *cough*. Another dollar into BlizzActivision's pocket! At least they aren't making a new world or anything, luckily.

I disagree with most of this article to be honest lol. I don't think STO will become that popular. And SWTOR seeing a release in 2010 isn't something that can be said for certain, it might as well take another year to finish it, but we'll see.

I have very strong doubts that Cataclysm will sell as well as WotLK, WoW is getting old and even if they spit out more expansions I'm sure most people are going to be fed up with the game.

I also doubt there will be a delay for the windows release of FFXIV, seeing as how they're going to start the beta testing exclusively on PC.

There's also a few games missing in the equation that could be of huge importance. Mainly TERA Online which is ramping up for a worldwide release that I'm sure is going to be spectacular when people start finding out about the game, as of now pretty much no one has even heard of the game, if you haven't I think you should take a look. And if Blade and Soul actually gets released this year in English(which I doubt) it will probably attract some of NCsoft's old crowd, people from Lineage 2 and Aion will certainly start playing it.

I'm betting that 2010's winners will be FFXIV and TERA Online.

 Lum, you forgot to mention Fallen Earth and how far it has come. It has been steadily fleshing out the world and gaining fans, and it's starting to become quite a big deal.