It seems like the hot trend right now in the MMO blogosphere is talking about why folks are canceling their SWTOR subs. Only time will tell if this is a precursor to the general population doing the same thing, but the similarity in WHY people are canceling leads me to think these bloggers are pointing out serious problems in the game rather than just hardcore gamer burnout. What do you all think?
SWTOR’s $300 Million Virtual Bridge to Nowhere
Copy, Gold Leader. I’m already on my way out.
So many factors at work that determined this could have never worked in a million years:
* The genre cycle for the MMO is finished (or will be finished with Guild Wars 2, depending on your point of view). Games have to become increasingly complicated (expensive to make) to appeal to enthusiasts, which in turn builds a wall against newbies. Essentially, you have to spend more to appeal to fewer players. Note how different Super Mario Bros. is from Pitfall!, and how Mario 3 is “more Mario than Mario”. To compete in that arena today, you’d have to make a game more Mario than more Mario than more Mario. About half a hundred different super suits for the protagonist might get you there.
* You have market of games completely dependent on the retention of millions of players to succeed financially:
- You have a subscription fee, so you can only play one of the games at a time. There’s only around 200 million people on the planet who can comprehend written english and live in an area where they can be a customer. Combined with a lovely recession and a constantly dwindling middle class from automation, it’s a miracle any of these whales are still breathing.
- Since you have a reoccurring fee, it follows that you need to have a slow game pace so players can eat their cheetos and socialize at the same time. The. Same. As. Every. Freaking. One. Else.
Seriously, at this point the crazy innovative thing you can do is… make a single player game. I am seriously far more excited about trying out Devil Survivor 2 over any of these MMPOOs.
Tangent that occurred to me: You’re a necromancer. You live to build an army of awesome dead things. You do this by searching around for rare body parts, and there’s an entire crafting system for your quest of pumping out undead dudes. Craft-a-zombie system. Why isn’t this in every game ever?
Inevitable. It was clear from the beginning that TOR was going to be a WoW clone, and the blogosphere has been sour on WoW for years.
I like TOR. It does what it set out to do, and it does it VERY well. I’m not sold on playing it long term, but that’s mostly because I don’t like the time consuming nature of mmos anymore. I have fun when I play it, but it wants me to play it too much to keep up.
For better or worse, I suspect GW2 will be my final mmo. If it’s like the original GW, in that I can pick it up and play it whenever I want without falling behind everybody else, I’ll keep playing it for ages and not need another mmo. If it’s a hamster wheel like every other mmo, I’m done with the genre.
BryanM: Necromancers in Vanguard do just that for their undead minions. It may not have a the level of customization you’re suggesting, but you do still have to find body parts to equip to your zombie, and the rarest ones are obviously the best.
BryanM: Good point regarding subscriptions and the fact that most people do not want to subscribe to more than one MMO. This is why I think the subscription model has overstayed its welcome and needs to die. There’s a reason people don’t have cable, DISH Network, *and* DirecTV. You only need/want one to get everything. The same is not true for MMOs or games in general. It is not the appropriate medium for a subscription.
Muckbeast: Subscriptions costs definitely influence whether or not a player will continue playing a game once a new game (with a sub) comes out, but the issue isn’t one based purely on cost. The problem is more a cost vs. time thing.
I was playing World of Tanks and Madden throughout most of the Fall – until SWTOR. Now I only have time in my schedule to play SWTOR. When GW2 comes out I’ll play it, and even though it doesn’t have a subscription, I’ll still probably cancel my SWTOR sub, because I won’t have enough time to play the game so why pay for it?
Time seems to me to be the biggest factor in determining what games people play. If I could play two sub-based games for what I deemed long enough to pay for the sub in terms of value, I would. As long as games are a treadmill with a need to stay within the progression curve (PvP/Raid gear?) to stay competitive, time will always be an issue. I think more than money, really.
I could keep two cash shop games on my comp and never play them, because I only have time for GW2, but how is not playing the cash shop games and consequently not giving them any money for items any different than simply cancelling a subscription? Or is there another payment model that you think could be a better option than what is currently on the market today?
If you’re not playing a game at all, its payment system doesn’t really matter. If you’re playing heavily, a subscription probably feels worthwhile. The problem is the gaping middleground. The gamer who goes months without playing, but then gets a free weekend and wants to binge. Or the one who jumps on for a half hour now and then, before bed/after dinner/etc.
Honestly, I think the treadmill style of gameplay and subscription system are equally poisonous to long-term casual play. I suppose that’s why MMOs have held onto the subscription model even though it should have died by now. Typical MMO design and monetization seem to rely on monopolizing the player’s gaming focus.