Do MMORPG's Cause People to Buy Fewer Games at Retail? 411
Grimwell writes NPD reports that the video games industry isn't doing so hot in 2006. Information on a report found at GameSpot indicates that consoles are down, but PC titles are up, led by MMORPG sales. From the article:
"Do MMORPG's benefit the industry by bringing in more actively involved gamers? Or do they bleed money away from other companies in the industry as MMORPG players spend their money on subscriptions and skip out on trying other games that hit the shelf because they already have something to go home to?"
Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, several people I know (WOW addicts), are so amazed by the amount of extra money they save by not buying 3-4 games a month that they re-evaluate buying that many games even after they kick the WOW habit. So it isn't just a temporary loss... it could very well be a permanent one.
RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "beat" (Score:5, Interesting)
they take a long time to play.. they have very comprehensive worlds, thousands of items, quests, plot arcs.
a lot of the newer generation games are open "world" environments. They could potentially be played for a human's entire life because they are fully open ended.
I failed to bookmark the post, but the best case i've seen made on this was a post regarding EVE online.
The thing has 4,000 star systems and hundreds of thousands of players who carry on alliances and trade. There are even huge wars with massive armadas fighting it out for territory.. it's like an interactive version of babylon 5.
Heck.. there are still hardcore people playing the vintage 2001 release of gamecube PSO because they are hard core legits and want to find hard to find items without hacking them.
Meanwhile FPS games are generally very limited. They generally few enough maps to count on your hand, and similarly few weapons. Further an argument can be made that all games from the same generation are fairly the same save causmetics.
Weather youre shooting with a wwII era thompson or a covenant needler.. its pretty much the same experience either way..
this all leads to people getting bored quickly and moving on.
Largely concur... (Score:5, Interesting)
I just believe that there is no reason to spread out so much cash like I once did for games. Once I start playing WoW again, I probably won't buy anything at all until I stop again. I really think that this also goes beyond money. I think people who play an MMORPG, like WoW, get highly involved and play that one game and nothing else, or little else. This translates into a need for fewer games over all, since once they stop playing WoW, they can immerse themselves in their new games until they beat it before having to buy a new one.
YES!! (Score:2, Interesting)
There's three sides to that fence... (Score:4, Interesting)
The second is that some people don't like subscriptions and would rather just play their games when they want, and move on. If they want, they can alway go back to their old games and pick it up where they left of for free. They own it.
The thrid is them fence-riders. Or people with a lot of money and time. They pay for one or mor MMORPG and they buy games all the time. Single people with well-paying jobs, usually. Most people are on one side of the fence or the other as either side can just pick up the game when they want. It's all about how we/you/I view our money.
Personally, I play Wow and buy about as many games as I normally would (which isn't many). I rarely own two games that I haven't beaten, and MMORPGs don't really count. Couple that with the fact that there haven't been any games coming out that interest me and I'm saving up for a good Wii launch line up... No cash...
Re:No. (Score:3, Interesting)
It maybe the old fashion concept of paying for it and having it, but how often are you buying it is the question. The game itself is irrelevant, it is the enjoyment of the game is what you are paying for. If I were spending $50 month to buy a game where I play once or twice and own the disk,, is that really better than paying $16/month for a game that I really don't own?
I admit, I have bought a lot of games (100~), and threw most of them out. I had not even looked at some of these games in years. I would probalbly saved some monye if I had played MMO instead, though I am sure I would had less time to do other things in my life...
Is this why games are getting shorter in play time (Score:5, Interesting)
There are few "long term" games today and most of those are RPGs (NWN and TOE come to mind) and few first/third person "shooters". Personally I was a big fan of the Thief series of games and it would take about 30 hours for each installment if you did it "right". You don't find many games like that today.
But then again there is the somewhat recent increase in game modding too... How many people are still playing the original Counter Strike today? Where would that time have gone if the gamer didn't have CS? Granted, it helped to keep the original Half Life out of the bargin bin but the number of hours spent playing online (and not just MMORPGs) adds value to the original product. Perhaps that's another aspect of this issue that should be reviewed. I know I have about 200+ hours in on CSS at this point. That's more time than I've logged into EQ2 since I got HL2.
Thief also should be noted as having fan missions. There are just tons of them and some are even better than the original maps. It helped add more time to the game. So this too added value and took time away from a new game to devote to an old original.
At least for me (Score:5, Interesting)
There are lots of games types that I love and will happily pay for, but the fact of the matter is, there aren't very many quality games, regardless of platform or genre, being released lately. Oh, I'm sure I'll get a few replies to this pointing out people's personal favorites, but how many games have come out in '06 that really jump to the forefront of your mind as something that you heard about, planned to buy, -did- buy, and were very happy with -and- was widely popular? Let's see, TES IV: Oblivion, and...uhhhhm...
Re:RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "bea (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny story about that. I've beaten Oblivion twice (which shows just how little a life I have...), yet yesterday I came upon a whole town that I had no clue exsisted. I didn't even rush through those previous games!
Yes. (Score:2, Interesting)
The industry has no one to blame but themselves, unfortunately. The way that MMOGs are designed, in order to be "successful" in the game, one has to spend an extraordinary amount of time playing. This really cuts into your free time that might have been spent playing other games.
I'll also point to the pain that can be installing a new game. I recently received Half Life 2 as a gift. It took me a couple hours to get the whole thing working. First, I had to install, then patch. That took a good while. I launched HL2, and was told there may be issues with my video card, please update. So I update the video drivers, and reinstall activex on my machine. Then I discovered there was a conflict with my video drivers with an MMOG that I play, so I had to roll back the video drivers I had installed. Fortunately, both HL2 and DAoC now work on my machine quite happily, but it took, as I said, a couple of hours to get that right.
Many people who play video games are getting past the point in their lives where they want to spend a couple hours swearing at their computer. They'd rather come home and play with friends in an MMOG, or drop a disc into a console and have some fun.
Absolutely (Score:3, Interesting)
Once my WoW addiction subsided and I tried to play "catch up" though, I found that I had no interest in 99% of the games which had come out during my 18-month game-buying drought. Guitar Hero, Battlefield 2, and Dragon Quest VIII are the only major titles which I felt were "must-haves" during the time I was out of the market. It's interesting though that there's dozens of DS games which I still have on my "want" list, when I figured that there would be zero.
I don't think it's WoW's fault, I think that the past year has just been really really crappy for video games in general. It's all "same game different title" for the most part. Battlefield 2 and DQ8 are basically just and FPS and a standard Japanese RPG. Guitar Hero is probably the only new idea out there for the consoles, while the DS has Nintendogs, the Brain series, as well as the new control schemes for Metroid Prime Hunters gives the DS new life from the jaded gamer market.
I, like thousands of other gamers, have "been there done that" with the current generation of consoles. It's all just FPS, sports, and stealth games it seems. The DS breaks that mold by introducing the revolutionary control scheme and backing it up with great games. I'm hoping the Wii will continue this and really give people new, innovative video games to play again, because I'm tired of the "same game different title" syndrome.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
She started a new character with me. Since my first love is FPS games, it always ends up with her 20 or more levels ahead of me by the time I play Wow again. I only spend 5-10 hours a month playing WoW and 20-30 playing Enemy Territory. I can never keep up with her and I often need to play WoW to talk to her.
Another problem with the industry is that most people don't play games very long. Most of my friends don't stick with a game long enough to get more than one or two plays in with them online. Its costly keeping up. One minute battlefield 2 is hot and the next they are playing guildwars. I can't keep up anymore. I miss playing Doom or AOE2 for 5 hours with friends, etc. I've got literally hundreds of games collecting dust because no one else has them or wants to play them anymore.
Re:It's an addiction (Score:3, Interesting)
You can show your E-penis off in FPS, its just that much easier to get pwned, and you feel it. In WoW, its level over long period of time, it takes hardly any skill, all you have to do is hit keys in rhythm, use certain keys in different situations, I still play WoW, but I feel it misses a lot of player skill. This way the 12 year olds can strut and say they own when they are 60 and go around ganking 50s.
But seriously, the minute something as good as WoW comes out that is an FPS, and on a massive scale like Planetside, I am switching over.
Re:My favorite (Score:3, Interesting)
What really blows my mind, more than anything else, is that games are progressively becoming shorter, more expensive, and less replayable. I have, for the most part, memorized the location / timing / best approach method / best weapon for killing the majority of enemies in F.E.A.R. without getting shot or with barely getting shot. I have only beat this game once, but there is -zero- replay value, except for online play, because enemies do the EXACT SAME THING every time. Same thing goes for Splinter Cell and Raven Shield (and their sequels). Wolf3D (the original) has more replay value. Yeah, the enemies come straight for you, but at least they weave somewhat randomly. The worst part, though, is that my favorite games for NES or my old Tandy 2000 took about the same length of time OR MORE to beat as many of my favorite games on PSX / PS2 / PC last couple years. I would be WAY happier if the focus on graphics was put on the backburner to focus on duration and replay value instead.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
The bean counters need to worry solely about the quality of the game, and not the overall frequency of purchase for gamers in general. The games industry, like the movie industry has a long tail of shitty, not-worth-the-money games, and a gamer only sees about one or two games a month that is good enough to splash out €60 on and fits their taste in games.. The long tail of poo is not where the games industry makes it's money.
If this number of good games was zero as in your scenario, and the only thing that people were able to purchase were short, shit games that cost €60 and were immediately disposable then people wouldn't bother remaining gamers, they'd switch to movies or music, (and Jack Thomspson would have to get that which he needs so much, a real job).
The bottom line in the games industry is that quality sells and keeps the industry alive- other hangers-on are just there to make up the numbers, through accident or design. It's not like you can even release the games industry equivalent of the Adam Sandler movie (I see he has another steamer out this month) and expect to make a profit- games makers don't have much of the type of unaware-how-shit-this-thing-is audience that movie makers have.
In the TV world, the real sellers are 24, Lost, Sex in the City, The Sopranos, Desperate Housewives, CSI. No TV beancounter would dare say 'hey lets fund another 10 series of family fortune' instead of any of these shows no more than a games industry bencounter would say 'you know what, I think it's time we made another Sonic sequel' because he could be funding another Battlefield 2, World of Warcraft, Oblivion, Ghost Recon:Advanced Warfighter- projects that keep the games industry alive and make it worth it to be a gamer in the way that Lost and 24 makes it worth it to buy a TV and put up with advertising.
If you build it (and it's good) they will come.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Too much money (Score:2, Interesting)
If you're thinking of dollars per year, then it depends on your gaming habits. If you're one of those people that would otherwise be buying 2 or more games a month, then MMOs are cheap - 50 or so bucks for the first month, 15 or less for the rest per MMO, as opposed to 50 bucks a month per regular game. So, even with the initial box price, it's still cheaper. Not that I would argue with lowering the box price, of course
If you were only going to buy a couple games over the year, then it's probably cheaper that way.
Depends entirely on your perspective. For me - if I wasn't playing MMOs, I'd be playing tons of other games. Maybe it'd be Counterstrike for years on end, in which case I wouldn't be spending more money - but it would just as easily be the next great CRPG every month. Even with three MMOs active for me right now, I'm spending the equivalent of buying ONE game box a month. If a server is down, I go play a different one. And I end up getting play time that's measured in weeks or months, not hours.
I think so (Score:3, Interesting)
I would like to think that the handheld market would not be affected by MMORPGs very much. Time consuming PC and console games take the worst beating I think.
Of course in my case I make up for it during my MMORPG downtime. I think during my last "break" I went out and bought 4 or 5 PS2 games that had come out in the past year that I had been interested in but knew I would not play at the time. A couple titles, God of War comes to mind, were already available for $20 new.
Maybe if there were decent games out (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:The money saving aspects of a MMO (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to play Everquest with my ex-boyfriend. It killed our relationship. Well, no, the fact that he's an ass killed it, but EQ didn't help any. He had more time to play than me, so he was always higher level than me and we could never group, so even when we were "playing together" we were really just ignoring eachother. Then he had this bad habit of "marrying" other girls in-game that he grouped with instead of me. So, our relationship fizzled and burned out.
Now I play Smash Bros. and other (not massively) multiplayer games with my husband. Since we're actually playing together, it bring us closer (and there's no other girls for me to be jealous of), and when we're not together, I get to play all the other RPGs that I missed while playing EQ.
Also, when did EQ go down in price? When I played, it was $10 a month for each of our accounts, totaling $240, and expansions weren't included.
I'm glad you and your wife enjoy EQ and find it cheaper. I didn't.
On the Quality of Games (Score:3, Interesting)
So, I took it upon myself to look at some information on MetaCritic [metacritic.com]. While critical aggregation is not foolproof, it does have some useful data. I counted all the games that were rated at least a 90, that came out no earlier than 2001, and that were for the PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360, Gamecube, or PC. (Sorry, no handhelds or older consoles).
Here is how that turned out:
2001: 25
2002: 34
2003: 38
2004: 30
2005: 21
2006: 7
So if it seems that there's not as many good games as there were three years ago, you're correct. Extrapolating 2006, we come up with an awfully low total. Even with another twenty great games this year, which is extremely unlikely, it's still less compared to 2002-2004.
Here's a detailed chart [fantasticdamage.com] with a per-system breakdown.
Now have critics gotten tougher after the past two years? Or is the conventional wisdom correct, and have titles really just gotten worse?
For me it's invasive "copy protection" not MMOs (Score:3, Interesting)
I've chosen not to buy dozens of games lately that I normally would have bought immediately (Hitman: Blood Money, HoMM V, SpellForce 2, Battle for Middle Earth 2, SW: Empire at War) because of invasive "copy protection" technologies like Starforce and Securom. I just don't accept a videogame installing drivers, services, or anything else that destabilizes my system. Nor do I appreciate being treated like a criminal by companies I buy things from. I bought GalCiv 2 mostly to support Stardock selling games without copy protection, though it is a good game.
20 years ago, EA destroyed the floppy drive on my Commodore 64 with invasive copy protection that didn't work; fast forward to 2006, and they're still trying to destroy my OS with invasive copy protection that doesn't work. Idiots. It'd be nice if Spore doesn't come with destructive copy protection, but I wouldn't bet on it. Too bad because it looks like an incredible game.
I could have told them this... (Score:2, Interesting)
After a 7.5 year UO habit, I moved to WoW and I've been there ever since. Since 1997, I have only bought a few, exclusive games, and I only played them to a point before going back to full MMO: Diablo 2, Ultima IX: Ascension.
Occasionally emulators might distract me as I pine for something retro, but MMO's are a mainstay and a new form of entertainment that has replaced movies and TV for me.
What I feel is causing the decline in the purchase of console games is... (drum roll) console game companies.
Consumers are finally waking up and realizing that they're buying a new console and a whole new set of games every year. How ridiculous. With a PC I've got a much slower turnover rate though in the end it probably equates to the same amount of money. I'll replace my computer every two years, but I'll keep my library of games and play the ones that I still like (Diablo, Warcraft, Starcraft, Ultima Series, Master of Magic) when the mood strikes me thanks to virtualization, the ability to keep legacy OSes running and emulators.
I've never understood the attraction of consoles over PCs.
Re:RPG's take a long time to play.. cant just "bea (Score:2, Interesting)
Alot of the reason I stopped playing EQ (a mmorpg) was due to the fact that Sony kept messing with balance and got into the habbit of releasing expansions instead of fixing the game and correcting balance. The game became one of "if you aren't one of classes part of the holy trinity then you are just extra baggage".
The point here is that all MMORPGs will come to an end because of the people that run them will run them into the ground, even Blizzard.
I was searching for different games when a friend suggested I play Counter Strike. I watched him play and said "no". It is too lame, tame, and boring.
I then, about 2.5 years ago, after trying various FPS games (quake III, UT2003/2004, etc.), came across Enemy Territory. It was a free game. I played horribly as I had not really played too many games like it. It took at while and I read a bunch of stuff on line about it and got better. I have stuck with that game over the past 2.5 years. I'm pretty good and this game has alot of replay value. It isn't an adventure and it isn't about quest but it is a game where you accomplish objectives while being thwarted by others. When Quake Wars: Enemy Territory comes out I'll try it.
I have purchased BF2 and a slew of others but the developers keep screwing with the game. They reduced the capabilities of the aircraft, which they should have done, but they should not have reduced the aircraft total hitpoints. That essentially ended the fun for me. I have quake 4 and HL2, and a slew of others but it is the free game which is objective oriented that has kept me playing.
No... (Score:1, Interesting)
Hmm (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it is less a problem with MMORPGS, but more a feature of the extended life of some games nowdays thanks to internet multiplayer, in which case, can we really see it as a problem?