Running out of stuff to, there needs to be more endgame content.

[Bizniztyme]

I'd say the reason most MMO's have failed lately is because they have been pushing hard to target a wider audience. SWTOR targeted more than just the MMO audience and an MMO is obviously not for everyone. Additionally, there has been a lack of innovation in the genre as well. When you look at where the average level is for FFXIV (I'd imagine it's level 30 by now) you should know that it's not lack of content driving players away. It's lack of quality and innovation.

But are they failing or it's just people's perception that they failed. The games are still running, they are all profiting, how did they fail? People's definition of failure of MMOS are totally warped IMHO.

[MasamuneBranford]

But are they failing or it's just people's perception that they failed. The games are still running, they are all profiting, how did they fail? People's definition of failure of MMOS are totally warped IMHO.

I would tend to agree

[Orsnoire]

But are they failing or it's just people's perception that they failed. The games are still running, they are all profiting, how did they fail? People's definition of failure of MMOS are totally warped IMHO.

This is particularly interesting considering that SWTOR is more profitable now, after going f2p, than they ever were while being p2p. So by the definition of success for games being profitability, SWTOR is more profitable now, and is more successful as an extension of that, than FF XI, EQ, SWG, UO, etc. etc. (simple math proves that fact).


The truth is, there are only two ways to measure MMO success: the first is profit, the second is popularity. By the profit measure, it's silly to point to games like SWTOR as failures; they're extremely profitable with their current marketing approach. By the popularity measure, then games like EQ or FF XI that had small audiences and kept them for over a decade were never all that successful (which isn't wholly true either).

So the problem in pointing out this or that game as a failure is that it's far too complicated to boil down to one statistic. The best we can do is estimate, and because this is based on guess work, often a person's own biases and tastes end up being far more important than any reasonable estimation of a game's success.