I'm sure that the genre will have many players hooked, but it will not -be- the future of games. Can you believe how boring it would be if 60% of the games released would be MMORPGs? Not everyone likes MMORPGs (or RPGs) and the companies know that. (EA will probably make another Fifa for those people ;P)
So it will just be one of the genres.

World of Warcraft having recently acquired 6 million people paying a monthy subscription makes me believe that it's not a fad.

Assuming 6 million people paying $10 a month = $720 million a year.

Quote:Original post by Pipo DeClown
I'm sure that the genre will have many players hooked, but it will not -be- the future of games. Can you believe how boring it would be if 60% of the games released would be MMORPGs? Not everyone likes MMORPGs (or RPGs) and the companies know that. (EA will probably make another Fifa for those people ;P)
So it will just be one of the genres.

Aye, I would have to agree that its not everyone's thing, not to mention a lot of people don't have the time to put into them that is required to keep up with everyone else. I dislike MMORPG's because they are too boring/repetitive. The only one that I have ever truly liked would have to be Ultima Online. WoW kept me busy for about 2-4 weeks before boredom started creeping in like an executioner's axe. I quit about a little over a months time.

However I do like RPG's :D Baldur's Gate of course is one to mention. Morrowind was ok, but the beginning was too slow for my liking so I ended up never getting into that. I was kept busy by Neverwinter Nights for around 2 to 3 years, scripting and DMing for servers. The thing that kept me there for so long was the custom player content, and the smaller community with more personal rewards and experiences. Not to mention its easier to weed out immature players in a smaller player base ;)

However I won't be suprised at all if the MMORPG genre grows in the future for a while as more people are being introduced to it, and are willing to pay the monthly fees to maintain the servers, keep active game support and pay for more content to be added ;) Another factor that should help the MMORPG genre would have to be the increase in availability of broadband internet. Though we've personally had that since the EQ days, woot. I cringe inside whenever I hear a friend tell me they're still using Dial-up, haha. Anyways... I guess the genre will grow, and my personal guess would be that it would possibly be a worthwhile investment to make a MMORPG if you played your cards right.

My thoughts worth, sorry for the lack of statistical data if thats what you're going to need to be convinced ;)

Heh, I'm sure someone could think of a way to do the Tetris, but it would be incredibly pointless. The only reason I could think to run Tetris on server side on massive scales would be to improve the integrity of a High Scores table. Less chance of it being messed with if secured properly. They way they don't just hack the memory and change their score before or as the packet is being sent out X collecting server.

As to your question. I can see some genres moving torwards MMO gameplay, such as FPS or games such as Sims 2. FPS being the more likely canidate. Though it would be interesting seing a community of Simulated houses/malls/etc... where people can hang out and do whatever, open a buisness etc. That would be kinda cool, but probably take more work than MMORPG and MMOFPS haha.

I don't really see RTS having any reason/advantage to go MMO style, nor puzzle games like Bejelwed, Tetris, etc...

So what I'm trying to say is, yeah in some areas its going to be something thats probably going to keep growing as long as there is some advantage/reason for doing so. The more the merrier :D

Quote:Original post by lightblade

Quote:Original post by Will F
World of Warcraft having recently acquired 6 million people paying a monthy subscription makes me believe that it's not a fad.

Assuming 6 million people paying $10 a month = $720 million a year.

Ok, that is
+720 million
-??? server maintenence fee
-??? server hardware upgrade
-??? costumer support
-??? initial development cost
-??? expansion development
-??? advertisements

add all that up...you decide

and...MMO is definitely a fad, with all the MMO addiction cases around, government will will step in and regulate it. By then, it will fade.

+ recovering from incredible investment they had to go through to get the game made, servers set up and etc ;)
+ a good profit for the hard work. Probably pretty huge profit haha, but I'm thinking not as much as we would think. Though I personally don't know much about running MMO systems obviously ;)

Quote:Original post by lightblade
Ok, that is
+720 million
-??? server maintenence fee
-??? server hardware upgrade
-??? costumer support
-??? initial development cost
-??? expansion development
-??? advertisements

add all that up...you decide

I've read that the development costs of WoW was between $40-60 million. Subtract the other costs, and i'm sure they're still making a tidy profit - and the $720 million a year I estimated was based on a $10 a month subscription fee, I wouldn't be suprised to find out they're making more per month.

Quote:and...MMO is definitely a fad, with all the MMO addiction cases around, government will will step in and regulate it. By then, it will fade.

The Chinese are already doing so [wink]