Comments on: Will 2009 be the best year ever for MMOs?

By: Tipa

Tipa — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:10:49 +0000

What about Aion? Buzz for it has been really low, but if they can break into the western markets — fantastic! NCsoft could use another success. Its presence in the West is a *good* thing. That said, I, personally, am not in the market for another Eastern grinder.

By: gabbariele

gabbariele — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:04:09 +0000

and what about Aion? lol

By: HMR_in_SV

HMR_in_SV — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 02:55:34 +0000

The line to which I was referring is:
“In 2009, we get the MMOs that don’t have to have a million subscribers in order to be considered acceptable.”

By: HMR_in_SV

HMR_in_SV — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 02:52:56 +0000

This line and its following comment are probably the most important business comments made in this well stated view of 2009. What this implies is that originality and creativity from independents or smaller groups under umbrella financing company may bring us both the best as well as the most profitable MMOGs in the next two years.

This may be good news for the gamer as well as the creative development start up teams. Swinging for the bleachers types of investment are riskier than movies of a similar cost. Let’s see what happens.

HMR_in_SV (who always signs with a real identifier)
Harrison in Silicon Valley

By: Abriael

Abriael — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 23:23:56 +0000

Honestly i don’t see much of interest coming out in 2009… everything seems more of the same soup, just with less content due to being new. Technology isn’t making any big jumps lately, so even graphical innovation is loosing it’s sense of wonder it had in the past years.
I will probably try most of the MMOs that come out this year, but i’m not holding my breath for them.
In the end the only things that interest me enough to bother discussing them are expansions/new content/features incoming for existing MMOs, like the ambulation expansion for EvE (I’m almost totally uninterested in Apocripha, find it pretty bland), and the Tomb king expansions and possibly new capitals in warhammer.
Darkfall took no more than a few days to sorely disappoint me, champion online is completely under my radar. The star trek universe doesn’t interest me in the least, and god forbid me mixing with the ultra-casual crowd in free realms. Paint me uninterested.

PS: the wowians may have returned to wow, but how many of them are already re-returning to warhammer or other games having already seen all the (quite few) there was to be seen in WOTLK? There’s no day in warhammer in which i don’t see someone lf the exodites coming back. They might have checked blizzard’s new underdeveloped stepchild, they might have had some fun with it, but in the end there wasn’t much new in it to bother with any continuated interest. many already noticed. Pretty sure many more will in the next few months.

By: Tesh

Tesh — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:41:34 +0000

I’m idly reminded of the five year lifespan of the console market. Interesting in that it may just be more of a psychology thing than something tied to any particular market segment.

By: Tipa

Tipa — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:42:08 +0000

2004 was a great year, too. But 2009 has the potential to be even better — and more widespread, with many more different *kinds* of MMOs coming to market. WoW and EQ2 were both re-imaginings of the original EverQuest. City of Heroes was truly unique, though, and it’s been five years before anyone has tried to compete with it.

By: Crimson Starfire

Crimson Starfire — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 05:23:46 +0000

There is definitely a lot of good MMOs coming out this year… although didn’t EQ2, WoW and CoH all launch in 2004? It would be tough to beat those in terms of quality…

If GW2 and SW:TOR had of launched this year, then 2009 would definitely be the best so far.

By: TheRemedy

TheRemedy — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:44:57 +0000

I have nothing productive to add to this blogpost. I just wanted to sign my comment.

Remedy (resident blogless idiot of the interwebs who is now jumping on the comment signing bandwagon)

By: Green Armadillo

Green Armadillo — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 21:09:26 +0000

I agree that this may be the year of the family MMO, and/or the (not so-)microtransaction MMORPG. The entry barrier – both for the publisher in funding the game’s development, and for the consumer in paying $50, installing a client, downloading a patch, etc – in the monthly fee MMORPG space is high, and there’s enough competition that you really need to be offering up something different before people will even consider canceling their WoW or Station Pass subscriptions to play your game.

The one caveat is that we may see a backlash on pricing. Some free-to-try games are structured in the hopes that players will spend MORE than the $15/month that a traditional subscription title costs. I wound up having to rely on old posts here at West Karana (thanks for those! :)) for information on what W101 crowns and crown items cost in real dollars for a post I wrote today – that information is very very conspicuously absent from the portions of the site you can access without an account. Some parents may not take kindly to the genre when their kids approach them for permission to join a “free” game and then come back in a few levels asking for $10 a month in subscription fees and an additional allowance for crown items.