Deja Vu

I think it's official now.  MMOs are dead, long live MMOs!

 

For a good number of years now developers everywhere has been trying to top World of Warcraft as the holy grail of subscription based massively multiplayer online game.  All have failed.  The latest being Star Wars: The Old Republic, now in life support as a free to play game funded by micro transactions.  The dream wasn't supposed be like this.  It was supposed to be funded via subscriptions.  Lots of subscriptions.  It is Star Wars afterall, with Bioware pedigree.  It was not to be.  The Old Republic is not the only victim.  Not by far.  The list reads like a who's who of sci-fi fantasy: Lord of the Rings, Star Trek Online, Final Fantasy 14, Conan, Warhammer and not even Star Wars can stem the tide.

 

Those are just the more well known names.  Recently, developer Trion (maker of the MMO Rift) got hit by layoffs.  At about the same time, another MMO called The Secret World just dropped its subscription model, presumably to move onto free-to-play.  I think it's safe to say that MMOs are pretty much dead and that noone can ever topple WoW from its throne.

 

Unless they can.

 

Anyone figure out what all the 'failed' games have in common?  Yes, they are all pretty much the same, aren't they?  I'm not too sure about Secret World, but I can say that I've read up on all the others from Conan to Rift and the one thing they all have in common is fantasy.  They are all, in some way, shape, or form, the same old melee and magic based RPGs that we've been playing in the past.  What if you can change up the formula?  Create something different.  Something that doesn't depend on swords and socery (or lightsabers and lightning in the case of Star Wars).  What would you get?

 

Well you might get something like EVE Online, which is one of the few surviving subscription based game.  The focus here is starship to starship combat rather than person to person.  This might sound like Star Wars but it isn't, because the game is designed to be extremly brutal.  You can be stolen from by other players for instance.  You can't do that in Warcraft.  Last I read, most players join a corporation (an EVE term for guild or clan) just to be able to survive.

 

Or, you can get a game that's completely different.  Like Second Life.  This doesn't come up much in gaming media because it's not a game but rather… well, it's a second life.  A digital life, versus your real life.  It's a place where you can design your own avatar if you have the inclination, or pay for 'parts' from other users to design your avatar with.  After that, I think, you just try to live a life.  Meet other digital people.  Maybe buy some virtual property and design a virtual house.  It's really rather flexible, and I believe people pay for the privilage. 

 

Personally, I don't think making the next breakout MMO is impossible.  But I do think making the next third person, quest-based, might and magic, raiding and leveling fest is.  In other words, there will be no World of Warcraft except World of Warcraft.  The next successful subscription based MMO MUST be totally different from anything that's came before.  I think the recent declining trend supports my theory.

 

If a gamer wants to play in a fantasy, the option is there.  If another gamer wants to be a spaceship, there's that too.  And if another gamer wants to live another life, that's possible online.  But there's got to be more people than that.  I don't know what it is though, because the next big massively multiplayer game has yet to be invented.  What I do know is that there will be two breakout MMOs coming in the future.  One is World of Warcraft 2, and the other will be someone noone has ever seen before.

 

P.S.  Why do I get the feeling I wrote this exact same blog before?  On 1up maybe?  Or an earlier one in Blogger?  I don't know.  But it's not stopping me from writing about it again!