How can there be so many MMOs?

[FailWhaleIV]

It doesn't take Hawking-level intelligence to see that other the past few years, us internet users have been up to our nipples (metaphorically of course) in adverts for MMOs. Now at first I dismissed them, I thought Evony and its various pictures of scantily clan women calling me 'Lord' and begging me to conquer them was a cheap attempt at luring people in with the promise of erotic gaming, only to dump them in a vat of viruses and malware.

However, in the last two years especially, the MMO adverts have been swarming in. And it's got to the point where I'm starting to recognise that many of these titles may in fact exist. My question to you as a knowledgeable community is;

How can this be at all possible?

Considering the figures which Extra Credits was giving us a year ago as to the cost of these projects, it is insane to believe there are enough investors (Hell, that there is enough money, dare I say such a stupid thing) hanging around in the first place. Personally, I wouldn't go near these things, as I said, viruses and malware. Are they extremely cheap? Are they fake? These things I must know.

 

[XUnsafeNormalX]

It goes something like...

(Board Meeting at major Publisher)
"World of Warcraft is doing very well! We should make one of our studios make World of Warcraft but better!"
"Alright we'll get a studio right on that!"
"Oh and make sure they have a strict timetable so the game is horribly buggy and unpolished on release"

Two years later the game is released to amazing reviews, despite having no endgame content, bugs out the ass, and poor playability compared to its direct competitor. Subscriptions soar for a month or two before people finally realize this and as a result the studio is dissolved after failing to deliver on demands or the game goes F2P.

 

[FailWhaleIV]

Faith in the games industry.....draining. Thank you though, kind sir!

 

[NathLines]

Most of them are free to play, so there you go. I had no Idea that someone could think that they weren't real. Then again, I was a free-to-play gamer for 6 years.

 

[Lilani]

Well all of them have varying levels of success, of course. I think WoW is still on top, but Gpotato is a huge network that has a lot of successful free-to-play MMOs under its wing. And that's what a lot of your new, upstart MMOs are--free to play. The F2P format allows for a smaller game, meaning a smaller initial investment from the developer. It also allows players to try before they buy, deciding how much they are willing to pay based on actually playing the game rather than some hardcore ad campaign encouraging them to subscribe. F2P allows players to play without putting their credit card information in first, which is very good for sucking them in.

But, as others said, the newer big MMOs are mostly trying to copy WoW, usually with not much success if I remember correctly. But you'd be surprised at how many gamers there are, and plus don't forget most MMOs function on a global basis. There may be more MMOs than you think out there, but there are also a lot more players than you think.