The real reason there are even subscribers in 2024

[Striker44]

So dead that it's still one of the most popular genres. Spreading such misinformation needs to stop, it belongs 8 years past. The genre itself takes a lot of resources to maintain and keep up, and trust me it'd be even more alive if it wasn't so difficult to make. That's the one limiting factor to mmos being more popular.

Calling MMO's "dead" would be inaccurate, but it's also very evident that they're well past their "golden age" or heyday. Back when WoW hit the scene and made it huge, MMO's were *the* thing for people of all ages to play, and rather importantly younger gamers. Today? There's very few teenagers and college kids playing MMO's compared to 15-20 years ago. MMO's are now primarily the home of gamers rapidly approaching (if not already in) middle age, and the "new blood" is heading to other things like MOBA's and mobile games. That's important because it means studios are going to be *very* hesitant to pour the amount of resources you need to make an MMO into a new venture at this point.

[Ayan_Calvesse]

Calling MMO's "dead" would be inaccurate, but it's also very evident that they're well past their "golden age" or heyday. Back when WoW hit the scene and made it huge, MMO's were *the* thing for people of all ages to play, and rather importantly younger gamers. Today? There's very few teenagers and college kids playing MMO's compared to 15-20 years ago. MMO's are now primarily the home of gamers rapidly approaching (if not already in) middle age, and the "new blood" is heading to other things like MOBA's and mobile games. That's important because it means studios are going to be *very* hesitant to pour the amount of resources you need to make an MMO into a new venture at this point.

I find this is actually a fun observation of social norms - the newer age group is less prone to forming common communities and are not really as into long-term development buit rather prefer the quick fix and rapid growth; consuming and discarding. So MMO players tend to stick with the people they play with over and over versus MOBA players which might form small clicks of 5-8 folks and then just have a massive list of friends they play with once and a while and they just do all content in the roulette system of their game of choice.