I agree with the general premise and that's why we always have fanbois vs realists arguments post release, but people might want to split your list into two separate lists. Sure they all faded into obscurity (to greater or lesser extents), but on one hand you have your blatant, rushed IP moneygrabs (WHO, STO, etc) and then you have some of the older games that (to me at least) predated WOW and were more niche and perhaps just weren't as popular as EQ1 perhaps (AC, AO, etc). The latter I'd say were good games for their time and I knew people that played them for a long, long time. They also came out before WOW blew the market wide-open and everyone started tripping over themselves to make what you might call a "2nd Gen" MMO, based on a popular IP as many did. Sure they had their own issues (as did EQ1 on a massive scale lol) and I vaguely remember AO having a bad release for example, but I'd hesitate to put it in the same category as games like WHO or SWTOR.If Blizzard can take Cleveland Steamer over a box and slap Diablo 3 on it and turn it into the best selling game, then I am sure TESO will be able to pull off at least a few box sales. Then it will fade into obscurity like
Asheron's Call
Anarchy Online
Dark Age of Camelot
Dungeons & Dragons Online
Vanguard
Age of Conan
Warhammer Online
Aion
The Matrix Online
Tabula Rasa
Star Wars Galaxies
Star Wars: The Old Republic
City of Heros
and on and on and fucking on.
Fact is 95% of MMO's suck massive donkey cock, either due to shitty corporate dick weasels or coked up developers or rushing it out before it's ready. Seems like they forget the first and most important thing above all over shit is making a smooth responsive game that's actually fun to play. That shit trumps all the other retarded bullshit these companies seem to care or worry about.
To me a failed MMO is if its cost vs its revenue is drastically lopsided in the red. Would be interesting to see the amount of loss vs profit for the above games.
Well we always end up in these debates, and most of the time it seems like people take one of two stances: either they look at whether the game made money as an indicator of success, or they look at games that underperformed, had massive faults and ended up hemorrhaging subs until they had to go F2P as an indicator of failure. The former has the problem that you can still have a game that makes money but by almost any other metric failed horribly, and the latter has the problem that it's very hard to quantify moves to F2P and how well a game performs afterwards, and often people tend to write games off completely once they start tanking after release. STO could be an incredibly good MMO now but I'll never know because I wrote that shitfest off early on.Im pretty sure most of the above games ended up making money in the long run.
Yeah either definition is fine even though they're very different. The other thing to consider is what help or hindrance a game does to its brand. SimCity 2013, Diablo3 and Dragon Age 2 all were hugely profitable games but really torpedoed the brand and owe their success largely to previous iterations.Well we always end up in these debates, and most of the time it seems like people take one of two stances: either they look at whether the game made money as an indicator of success, or they look at games that underperformed, had massive faults and ended up hemorrhaging subs until they had to go F2P as an indicator of failure. The former has the problem that you can still have a game that makes money but by almost any other metric failed horribly, and the latter has the problem that it's very hard to quantify moves to F2P and how well a game performs afterwards, and often people tend to write games off completely once they start tanking after release. STO could be an incredibly good MMO now but I'll never know because I wrote that shitfest off early on.
I don't see the subs. Not actual subs. If they count the free month in their sub numbers (lolinflation), maybe. That free month would give everyone that ignores mass media time to say "fuck this steaming pile of bear shit" and get out. But I wouldn't be surprised with an actual sub highpoint (being at least one month of subscription billing after the free month has expired) only reaching 100k.Ita going sell boxes prob 2 to 3 mil easy. But subs post the first month? 500k and under down to 100k under three month in. Then a miracle pvp patch bring it back to 500k for a week then down the shitter again
I agree but it makes you wonder if the guys in charge even care. I mean depending on how to spin it you can say they tanked the brand but on the other hand they sit back and show the shareholders they latest quarter earnings showing the highest profits ever. Considering the amount of money it costs to produce an MMO you would think they want to build a cash cow and see the golden goose of a monthly sub (I.E. residual income). Yet all to often they do just as you listed and will tank a brand without a second glance.Yeah either definition is fine even though they're very different. The other thing to consider is what help or hindrance a game does to its brand. SimCity 2013, Diablo3 and Dragon Age 2 all were hugely profitable games but really torpedoed the brand and owe their success largely to previous iterations.
I don't really feel like the examples I gave really tried to tank a brand, or more accurately, tried to produce a minimal cost game to cash in on a strong brand. DA2 was rushed, yeah, but D3/SimCity were all hugely expensive games that had some serious misteps.Erronius thankfully expanded on the point I was trying to make in that we have seen a plethora of games released that did truly tank after release. While I admit in my first list I probably added some that didn't deserve it the overall point remains the same.
I agree but it makes you wonder if the guys in charge even care. I mean depending on how to spin it you can say they tanked the brand but on the other hand they sit back and show the shareholders they latest quarter earnings showing the highest profits ever. Considering the amount of money it costs to produce an MMO you would think they want to build a cash cow and see the golden goose of a monthly sub (I.E. residual income). Yet all to often they do just as you listed and will tank a brand without a second glance.
I really have no idea. I figure they will at least sell 500,000 "boxes" the first month or so but just because of the IP's name recognition value in the general populace.So grim1 what do you think week 1 sales will be like?
Oh and Utnayan, you're on the hook for a 1 month avatar bet with Blackwulf saying that week one of ESO sales will be higher than 2 mill.
Most mmos make money, even the crappy ones. Especially now with the new F2P changes. F2P has extended the life of many mmos that should have died long ago.Im pretty sure most of the above games ended up making money in the long run.
Man I remember the AO launch. Was one of the quickest cancels I did for a game. Shame too as heard it got much better ,but what sticks out in my head it was the hardest time I had actually cancelling my sub. That experience made me never go back and try it again.Poor AO, was actually a amazing game and did a lot of things first, but holy cow was their infrastructure bad. That, along with the big memory leak they had, made the launch so bad and it could never recover.