Naoki Yoshida recent interview

[Panzer]

I think he's pretty spot on with his opinions of the future of MMOs... So many studios develop MMOs with the goal of unattainable subscriber numbers, and eventually compensate (or start from the beginning) by catering to the instant gratification generation (F2P/Cash Shop). The market only has the customer base for a handful, if that even, of polished high-quality sub type games. The way most modern gamers chew through content, or get bored when there is too much time/effort requirement, and move on to the next flavor of the month is a huge part of this problem.

People seem to think that WoW was this eye-opening explosion of "converted" MMO customers... Realistically, these are new MMO customers in the sense that new gamers were created with the Wii. Developers seem to think they can steal some of the players away from WoW, but a lot of that core playerbase isn't even aware your new game exists. They play WoW because it is the game they play occasionally - just like the Wii - they're not going to feed into random new MMO - or the Wii U (obviously) - customers because they're completely content spending their handful of playtime hours where they're safe and comfortable.

Until the industry realizes that WoW's phenomenon was exactly that - a fluke phenomenon - they'll continue spamming new MMOs with too-high production budgets that will never recoup their costs without a subscriber count in the upper hundred thousands. It's one of the few things SE has done right with their MMOs; set realistic expectations of profitability, and make a consistent and stable profit by keeping your core audience around. Sure XIV has messed with the formula a bit because it's unrealistic to not include modern MMO features and expect people to stick around, but overall they've done a much better job than the majority of the massive amount of MMO competitors over the past 10 years.

[AzraelX]

i personally think final fantasy will be one of the last/greatest mmos out there. like someone stated it used to be only mmos that had social/online/multi player aspect - now almost everything game is offering that with DLCs with no monthly fees- less of time sink and easy for most people to get into and leave.

[Panzer]

now almost everything game is offering that with DLCs with no monthly fees

Maybe it's just me, but I'd take monthly fees and consistent quality content over this "Season Pass" BS, where you pay $30 upfront for some content that should've been included in the game in the first place, or was designed specifically as a cash grab, or may even be just a promise of new updates with no real details on what is included (e.g. multiplayer maps and costumes instead of the content you were hoping for).

[Risvertasashi]

Maybe it's just me, but I'd take monthly fees and consistent quality content over this "Season Pass" BS, where you pay $30 upfront for some content that should've been included in the game in the first place, or was designed specifically as a cash grab, or may even be just a promise of new updates with no real details on what is included (e.g. multiplayer maps and costumes instead of the content you were hoping for).

Which is probably why FFXIV will be around for a long time to come. There's enough of us.

But there's a reason f2p is doing so well. On paper, sure, a lot of people will say they'd prefer to sub with consistent quality or some other ideal. As a reality that many people getting into game design must face... if you want people to play your game, you're going to have to get involved in f2p. Most people simply aren't willing to try something that requires up front investment.

Enough of us to keep XIV and maybe a few alternatives going, I think. But there's far, far more of them.

[Xairos]

It's harder because, as for Gaming today, there is so many different sources all vying for our "Consumer" attention. Look at Twitch and you will see that the whole of gaming today is riding a "Hype" train. As a result, companies have to (and somewhat want to) make a game that people feel drawn to where they can get superficial things done and "feel" accomplished. Very few games have a in-depth, robust, truly "alive" feel to them. Most rely on PvP interaction to create that "alive" feel.

Top Games at 12:31 PM (noon, Central US Time):

Dota 2
League of Legends
Speedrunners (Summer Games Done Quick 2015)
CS:GO
Hearthstone
DayZ
Starcraft II
Minecraft (the exception)
FIFA 15
Destiny
World of Tanks
Rocket League
Call of Duty: AW

The first game that isn't pvp and isnt online matchmaking is "The Walking Dead". But most dont even consider that a "real game"

[Akiza]

F2p is doing well on the mobile and app market which is casual not on the console and pc market. It's the same thing with hardcore gamers there are very few Triple A blockbuster games being made and a lot of casual mobile and Double A titles. What we are going to see is very few big budget mmos and a lot of mobile mmos and smaller titles. As it relates to Final Fantay I think XV will be the last Final Fantasy of its kind with pre made characters and single player exclusive experience. The next Final Fantay will have multiplayer online competing and an extensive character creator and customization system because of the always online requirement.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

I have not seen a game even remotely close to SWG yet. To the previous poster, the reason it died because they remade the game to be exactly like World of Warcraft, then they lost half their subscribers to it. This was when MMOs were not as popular.

SWG was awesome because...

PvP+PvE were the same servers. It just had rulesets in them, and the rulesets made sense to how PvP would work in real life. Do a Crime? PvP flagged, kill an officer? PvP flagged? Wanted man? PvP-flagged. It was very roleplay-esq and people loved optional PvP, Opt-in PvP.

Bounty Hunting, a class dedicated to hunting player criminals...

Open World (HUGE) planets, each one bigger then ALL of FFXIV combined. Player housing.

To this day, SWG still has the best crafting system out of any MMO by far. Nothing even gets half of what it did. Randomized Resources and literally customizing every single part of the weapon to get its stats.

Since the game had item decay, crafters were always viable. There is also no broker, so people must have to go to the player's shops to buy their stuff.

All this combined, made SWG one of the most realistic and immersive games on the market. They did not "Level-Lock you, or Item-Lock you." they slowed down content by making the game IMMERSIVE.

You can drive a bike through a dangerous world. However your mount can get killed/destroyed. Its gone, you have to buy a new one. Mounts are also expensive so its a risk! So you can choose to walk, or choose to drive and get your mount killed (maybe).

No game to this day has done the same. Its all been about slowing down characters so they can't do content as fast. Sandbox games are the future honestly.

Make players make the content for other players, let them make the cities, let them make the quests. Let them--.. ect ect.

SWG even had a feature which let you make story line quests within the world! Even though they were temporary they were FUN and you could even put in your own rewards for doing the quest! ((Of course you had to craft and make them, couldn't just generate them!))

[Risvertasashi]

-snip-

EVE online. But there's a reason SWG only operates on a fan-run server and EVE online is so niche.

All that said, I do hope we someday find an acceptable middle ground between sandbox and themepark.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

EVE online. But there's a reason SWG only operates on a fan-run server and EVE online is so niche.

All that said, I do hope we someday find an acceptable middle ground between sandbox and themepark.

Mmm, SWG is a bit old now and Smedley never wanted to accept his mistake and bring it back, and nobody wanted to pay the millions of dollars required for the Starwars IP. Eve I didn't like myself, not interested in spreadsheet wars. Lol.

Well, that is why that failed. However, I want to see a new game try to take up a Sandbox mantle.

[SQBoard]

To the previous poster, the reason it died because they remade the game to be exactly like World of Warcraft, then they lost half their subscribers to it. This was when MMOs were not as popular.

Not sure how you define "died" or perhaps the game was dead to you at that point?

I'm sure WoW had an effect since technically it was competition, but SWG was losing subs before WoW launched. And when the NGE/CU released, WoW was fairly new so the "WoW clone" hate wasn't really a thing yet.

A very simplistic timeline:

2003 - SWG launch
2003 - first player jedi unlocked 4 months after launch
2004 - WoW launched near the end of the year
2005 - NGE / CU update
2011 - SWG shuts down officially

SWG was losing subs PRIOR to the NGE/CU changes many players remembers to hate according to ex-creative director Raph Koster. He also attributes the push for changes such as NGE/CU was from the loss of subs after releasing the holocron to get jedi in the game.

From Raph Koster's blog:

Everyone started playing everything they didn’t like. Oh, some players discovered new experiences they never would have otherwise. Many emerged from this with a new understanding of the fundamental interconnectedness of a society. But most just macroed their way or grinded their way through it all as fast as possible, dazzled by the booby prize of Jedi.

Satisfaction fell off a cliff. I never did see a marketing push for Jedi — never saw a marketing push for the game at all, to tell the truth. But what I do know is that one month after Holocron drops began, we started losing subs, instead of gaining them. SWG had been growing month on month until then. After Holocrons, the game was dead; it was just that nobody knew it yet.

My handle on the forums had been Holocron.


And later…

Pretty much every single subsequent change can be traced back to that day. All the panicky patches, the changes, the CU and the NGE, were all about trying to get the sub curve back on a growth trajectory.

He also added this from another blog post:

SWG did not sell a million units instantly, and then lose them all, as many claim. It took two years for it to hit a number that big (unlike WoW, which shot up incredibly fast). Early reviews and launch buzz were mixed at best. That said, it was picking up more new users a day than all other SOE games combined, even after the CU. It did have a churn problem, and exit surveys showed all the top answers for why people left were “lack of content.” This was largely attributable to things like the combat balance, the lack of quests, and so on.

WoW didn’t kill SWG. In fact, SWG lost less users to WoW than any other SOE game. (This makes sense — it was the least like WoW, after all). It did lose some of its conversion rate — probably something we can credit to WoW’s buttery smooth experience.

There's also some added information from swg designer Dan Rubenfield. His original blog post has been deleted...he got a lot of flack from it. But if you can get past the insulting language and condascending tone, his original blog post was copy/pasted here:

So we were given the directive to make Galaxies better.

Not just make Galaxies better, but make it succesful. Not the 200k subs it had, but really succesful. The idea was that we had the most valuable IP in the entire world, and we f*cked it up to the point of having 200k subs.

And yes, all 200k of you were important, but 200k means nothing in the scheme of things.

--- (edited for length)

So, when the NGE push came along, we were asked to reimagine the game.

Not just small changes, but rebuild it.

And it was needed. When we were asked, we were bleeding subscribers.

If I remember correctly, somewhere around 10k a month. LOSING 10,000 subs a month.

It was not idyllic. You can remember it as an amazing game, but it wasn?t.

Hell, all of you who recall the grand ole days of launch seem to conveniently forget that everyone quit shortly afterwards.

EDIT: (Added due to the major threadjack above)

Their biggest mistake was recreating a live game instead of shutting it down to rebuild with those sweeping changes like they did with FFXIV. So there's lots of animosity from players who woke up one morning and finding out they're subscribed to a completely different game...not necessarily from the actual changes themselves.

If they told players that the game wasn't sustainable in its current form and they had to shutdown for sometime to rebuild it properly, then maybe it would've had a similar revival that FFXIV 2.0 got.

But will never know.

However, Yoshi's comment on the decline of mmorpg (i take to mean triple-A non-F2P games) has traction. Social games revenue have been on the rise and some traditional mmo companies like NCSoft is focusing on them also.

I'm sure mmorpg as we know it will still be around since they're still being developed in the years to come from like shadow of the avatar and star citizen so there will be representation but not sure how dominant (revenue) compared to other media when even the king (WoW) is showing a recurring downward trend.