What went wrong? Is it the game or the grenre?

[zdub303]

I won't say it's the genre, otherwise games like EVE online wouldn't be as popular as it is.

I think we need to change our perception of 'popular' as well. Both as a playerbase and as an industry. EVE, after 10 years, is JUST now breaking 500k players. FFXIV after its first month had 600k players. (with active subs that is) - yet which one would you say is the more popular game? (I would say EVE is much more well known imo)

The biggest problem in the industry today is that these games are so expensive to make that unless they have 1 mil+ subs the game is considered a flop. So they cater it to the widest audience possible by watering down their game.

There is still a crowd of players who reminisce of the old FFXI/EQ1 days where MMOs were about the multiplayer aspect of the game. Its a niche crowd though, and a developer is gonna have to be happy with 100-200k subs for years until a game like that can get real traction, something most investors I suspect will not want to back. I do think a game like that has more staying power than these quick fix wow model games that have almost always flopped after 1-2 years.

I'm with you, even with my limited play schedule I would take a revamped EQ1 PoP era style game over anything i've seen in the last 4 years any day. I think someone will eventually make a game like that, and it will be like EVE, starts small and grows each year. It's a game I would sub for long term for sure.