This week, in a new Community Spotlight, MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood addresses a thread from our forums and tackles the question on genre in MMORPGs and Fantasy's place at the top of the mountain.
Recently, I came across this interesting post on the forums:
I've been following many titles that have come out recently and that will be released soon and I noticed a pattern. Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Fantasy (now copy what I said and push control v 90 times and that will be the accurate number of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Games out there). There are a few games that are a bit different like Guild Wars and CoH,CoV, but are basically following the normal MMO pattern. I was wondering if any of you had any ideas for new MMO Genres, what would their "genre" be named, what would be the objective, skill tree vs. purchased abilities, and how do you improve your character. I'm interested to see your ideas because I'm at a loss.
-MACKNEB (MMORPG.com user name)
This is a subject that seems to have been plaguing the industry for some time now. It's not hard to look at a Games List like we have here at MMORPG.com and see that there are a huge number of Fantasy games, and that Sci-fi is slowly catching up as well. In fact, 140 of the 196 games currently listed on our Games List are classified under the Fantasy heading, that's over 70%, for anyone keeping score at home.
Read the whole column here.
