A Little Something...
State of the MMO: Industry Luminaries On The Genre, Its Future

The MMO industry has grown from a two-horse race at the turn of the century to one of the largest segments of the gaming industry and perhaps the last true foothold games have on the PC. Yet, during this same period, there have been innumerable failures, and many questions remain wide open. Can MMOs truly be global? Is the subscription model in decline? To what extent should developers innovate or evolve gameplay? What role should established IP play? Have these games gotten too expensive to make?

To answer these questions, we spoke to cross section of people from around the industry to get a handle on the true "State of the MMO". We spoke to SOE President John Smedley, ZeniMax Online Studios General Manager Matt Firor, Themis Group CEO Alexander Macris, GamerDNA.com Director of Community Sanya Weathers, EVE Online Game Designer Chantel Zuurmond, IGN PC Executive Editor Steve Butts and the former Executive Producer of Star Trek Online Daron Stinnett to get their thoughts on all these issues and much more.


State of the Genre Today

"It's pretty bleak right now!" explained Daron Stinnett, formerly Executive Producer of the ill-fated Star Trek Online. "If you take a look at the games in the shadow of WoW, you'll find a pack of MMOs that have managed to hold onto one or two hundred thousand subscribers."

It was a sentiment shared by most of those we spoke to. It's obvious that World of Warcraft has the market by the throat and have become perhaps the only truly global game in the MMO-space. That means some tough realities for the games in the next tier.

"[MMOs are in a] state of unrest, right now," said Matt Firor, General Manager of ZeniMax Online Studios, a sister company of Bethesda. "World of Warcraft is ruling the subscription game market, and no one wants to compete with them directly, so they go off for niche markets."

Chantel Zuurmond, Game Designer for CCP Game's EVE Online, agreed: "I think any game that wants to coexist with WoW and do well should try to cater to a niche."

This leaves developers and investors with a choice. They either run at the colossus that is WoW head-on, or they do as Zuurmond suggests and try and carve out a unique - but smaller - niche.

Read the rest of the article.


Source: WarCry


[A Little Something... - full article]Rossee (Halfling Reporter) @ 10:58

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