Many MMO titles have fallen on and off the radar.
Many F2P MMOs have been shut down due to publisher negligence and greed.
And World of Warcraft continued its tight stranglehold on the entire industry.
But today, it’s becoming more apparent that gamers are getting burnt out on MMOs altogether. Mainly due to years of conditioning brought by World of Warcraft, many titles have been forced to follow its formula down to a T, as well as follow a strict check list for progression, features and amount of control the player has up until the endgame. For any MMO that doesn’t have a massive amount of content like World of Warcraft, it’s a formula that becomes a time bomb for any MMO attempting long term development.
Previously at GDC 2013, Park Seong Joon of Neowiz CRS hosted a lecture regarding the pitfalls of maintaining a modern MMO, with average scenario that happens after an MMO has launched:
Wonky grammar aside: his lecture explains is that most players will burn through the content of a new MMO faster than any development team can crank out new content for it. While I tend to play my MMOs at a more casual pace these days, it’s a routine that I see time and time again, as many gamers seem to be convinced that the endgame is where all the “fun stuff” happens, and with the linearity that most modern MMOs have, they’ll soon realize that the endgame actually has an –end- to it.
