Other than World of Warcraft and EVE Online, are there any successful sub based MMOs left?

[Allthingsspectacular]

Yeah, successful for an MMO means that it holds a relatively large steady or growing playerbase for an extended period of time (Preferably half a year or longer).

If the goal was just to turn a large profit from launch sales, then they lost money because they could have made something else much less expensive and difficult to make than an MMO.

That must be why companies keep making them, with sizable production budgets even for smaller profile titles.

Because all but two have been failures.

Well, I'm sorry what I'm asking doesn't fit your definition of successful.

I'm only asking for sub based MMOs that have a relatively large steady or growing population. Under your definition we could easily count the dead or MMOs that went free to play.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Well, I'm sorry what I'm asking doesn't fit your definition of successful.

I'm only asking for sub based MMOs that have a relatively large steady or growing population. Under your definition we could easily count the dead or MMOs that went free to play.

Well no, I'm using the dictionary's definition of successful. If you want to use your own word with its own definition, you could say "Allthingspectacularful", or something.

There's only 4 sub based MMOs I can think of that don't offer a significant FTP alternative off hand, at least amongst western MMOs. I won't count TOR, as we all know their FTP mode is on the way. So that leaves WoW (probably somewhere between 2-3M western subs), EVE (somewhere around 400K subs), Rift (approx. 250K subs) and TSW (approx. 50-100K subs).

TSW still needs to pay back its production costs and take a bite out of Funcom's debt, so it's in rough waters, but it's cash positive even with its tiny sub base. Rift is a pretty solid hit, despite having the "surge and drop off" you believe disqualifies an MMO from being considered successful. EVE is something of a super-hit. WoW, of course, is an anomalous pop cultural sensation.

 

[Allthingsspectacular]

Unless Rift recovered from its spike and started gaining subs again of course. But MMOs very rarely recover from its spike.

 

[nexus]

I just want this meme to go away. Guild Wars 2 came out, and the hype-machine still tries to claim it's a herald of evolution for the industry. It's not. It was successful in sales, but it's still "just another MMO". It's quite generic, and from what I've seen, many people have said it is already boring. Those who I talk to say that in hindsight, the only reason they got it was because it didn't have a sub. Amazing.

F2P is a ruse. Those who spend any amount of time playing "F2P" games almost always spend more than someone who just plays a subscription game. Nickle and dimed, dollar here, dollar there. You could say you are "choosing when to spend money".. but that doesn't make any sense. What do you think a subscription is.. Extortion? It is someone choosing to pay up front for *everything*. Not a bit of difference here, except the former being of questionable value, because you don't get "everything", you get bits and pieces.

Guild Wars being an exception, not being "Free to play" and instead with a cost up-front. You are not paying a sub, but if you are a serious player of that game, you will be paying for their full-priced expansions. Won't you?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Guild Wars being an exception, not being "Free to play" and instead with a cost up-front. You are not paying a sub, but if you are a serious player of that game, you will be paying for their full-priced expansions. Won't you?

Every MMO ever, including the sub fee based ones, have charged full price for expansions. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.

Also, why is this thread about GW2 all of a sudden? And how does any of it qualify as a "meme"?

Unless Rift recovered from its spike and started gaining subs again of course. But MMOs very rarely recover from its spike.

You're assuming there's something to recover from, or that perpetually gaining subs is a natural state for an MMO. Other than WoW, and the somewhat unusual EVE (which has the benefit of being the only serious sandbox MMO on the market), every single MMO has followed the surge/drop-off pattern with subscribers. That suggests THIS is actually the baseline, "normal" performance expectation for an MMO, not one where they just keep adding subscribers ad infinitum.

 

[skywolfblue]

Rift spiked, so that's a no.

Doesn't that disqualify WoW as well then? Since WoW's already hit it's peak (number of subscribers) and started it's long slow decline.

 

[renegade7]

I understand Final Fantasy 11 has a rather dedicated player base comparable in size to that of EVE, and is growing slightly as WoW subs look for new games to play and as there was some new interest due to the hype around 14.

 

[nexus]

Every MMO ever, including the sub fee based ones, have charged full price for expansions. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.

Not true at all. EVE for example (in the OP), does not charge for it's Summer/Winter expansions and updates. They never have. CCP has never charged for anything other than the base game and the sub since the game's inception, as far as I know. Also, to my knowledge, they have never failed to release their expansions on schedule. They always put something out at least once a year, I'm not sure if they've always done the Summer *and* Winter expansion thing, as I've only played since 2008.

The thread isn't about GW2, but if you're not aware of the current paradigm of hating on subscriptions due to the monster hype-machine of Guild Wars, then I don't know what to say. Not trying to hijack the thread, but it's kinda obvious.

On another off-topic note: I bet most of everyone here on the Escapist has an Xbox Live membership, ~$8 a month (Fuck that noise, I already pay for internet access).I have nothing against sub-based games because you choose when and how you want to play. Xbox Live on the other hand, is given a "pass" by 95% of gamers in some sort of apathetic see/hear-no-evil sort of way. I really hate the concept.

This whole thing about, "All sub based games dying, industry is completely changing." has been nothing short of propaganda. It's been like this for I'd say.. ooh I don't know ... 5 years now? It has been set to hyper-mode because of GW2, when in reality, GW2 isn't changing the industry at all.

 

[Allthingsspectacular]

You're assuming there's something to recover from, or that perpetually gaining subs is a natural state for an MMO. Other than WoW, and the somewhat unusual EVE (which has the benefit of being the only serious sandbox MMO on the market), every single MMO has followed the surge/drop-off pattern with subscribers. That suggests THIS is actually the baseline, "normal" performance expectation for an MMO, not one where they just keep adding subscribers ad infinitum.

Here's why a surge-drop off is so deadly for an MMO's future:

When players quit, other players quit too. People make friends in MMOs and when their friends leave, chances are that they will too.

It's a chain effect that can be very difficult to recover from.

But EVE and WoW aren't the only ones that didn't follow this pattern. Someone above pointed out Runescape which apparently keeps a steady playerbase. Everquest and Lineage II also kept a steady playerbase.

Steady growth, and even steady decline, is just fine for an MMO. It's the sharp up and downs that cause the death of MMO communities.

 

[Allthingsspectacular]

I just want this meme to go away. Guild Wars 2 came out, and the hype-machine still tries to claim it's a herald of evolution for the industry. It's not. It was successful in sales, but it's still "just another MMO". It's quite generic, and from what I've seen, many people have said it is already boring. Those who I talk to say that in hindsight, the only reason they got it was because it didn't have a sub. Amazing.

F2P is a ruse. Those who spend any amount of time playing "F2P" games almost always spend more than someone who just plays a subscription game. Nickle and dimed, dollar here, dollar there. You could say you are "choosing when to spend money".. but that doesn't make any sense. What do you think a subscription is.. Extortion? It is someone choosing to pay up front for *everything*. Not a bit of difference here, except the former being of questionable value, because you don't get "everything", you get bits and pieces.

Guild Wars being an exception, not being "Free to play" and instead with a cost up-front. You are not paying a sub, but if you are a serious player of that game, you will be paying for their full-priced expansions. Won't you?

I personally think the end times of subs are here, but there's more contributing factors than Guild Wars 2.

For one, the glut of MMOs trying to cash in on World of Warcraft. Not the least of which was Star Wars: The Old Republic which burned a LOT of people with its derivative qualities and staleness.

People got so fed up with the copycats that they were perfectly buttered up for Guild Wars 2 to blow them away with its changes to the formula and the buy to play plan. Whether or not it is the BEST MMO EVA is irrelevant. It was just good enough, different enough and fun enough to get a great many folks to stop paying for subscriptions.

 

[krazykidd]

everything is not "in decline" the mmo space its just in a period of flux especially in the west.

"f2p" games have a completely different business and gameplay dynamic to the likes of WoW.

most companies see the supposed benefits of the business model (more $$$ usually) but less of them truly understand it.

very, very few understand the difference from a players perspective.

"f2p" games do not demand your time or your undivided attention.
people don't feel obliged to play them because they haven't paid "at the gate".

you can "play" a dozen at once and hop around between them if you get bored and it means next to nothing either to you or the company that's running the game as long as a certain mass of people remain engaged overall.

this means they don't need to be skinner boxes and indeed that type of gameplay which is what traditional mmos have always relied on to psychologically grab players and make them play their games when there is nothing else to do actually puts people off in f2p games.

WoW would probably be a terrible f2p game because Blizzard is a "lazy" developer. people don't hangs around in f2p for 18 months stretches at a time with no content. people simply aren't that invested in a game if its f2p. they'll go away and play something else until you make something new for them to play at which point they'll come back, play it, and then probably mostly go away again.

if any of you are familiar with the game Firefall you might have heard they have borrowed the mantra "if you build it they will come". this is a good mantra for f2p (and its what "The Melding" is about) but likewise from a PvE pov "if you don't build it they will fuck off somewhere else".

"massively multiplayer online" gaming hasn't even really started. we haven't even got all the traditional mainstream sports represented online by a flagship product yet and those are blatantly obvious candidates for PvP or team based MMO-isation.

one of the biggest PvP mmos on the planet atm is actually World of Tanks which is basically a team based shooter with an optional tech tree/grind attached and its pretty much turning twice the profit WoW does with a fraction of the overheads and they have 4 other games in the pipeline being built on the same business model. (Wargaming.nets CEO says the company expects to make approx 200 million USD next year from WoT alone)

Would an mmo with player generated content be a more succesfull f2p mmo then? I've for a while had this image in my head of an mmo which is just a large empty space with resources and trees/rocks/hills w/e placed randomly. Then some type of crafting system allows players to build towns and cities and form alliances, eventually forming small armies. The dynamic pvp/diplomacy that results would be a continually shifting, and thus hopefully continually fun, type of gameplay.

Kinda like EVE online? But with EVERYTHING? Kinda like a sims online kinda thing? It COULD work , but it most likely would turn out TERRIBLE because people are dicks . It would be troll central . In my opinion .