I like to take some time every now and then to detail certain parts of MMO Fallout, usually terms and expressions I use, that generates the most feedback from fans. More recently, I’ve had a few questions about my consistently ending certain product articles (Star Wars Galaxies, Age of Conan, Planetside, and several others) with “More on ____’s downward spiral as it appears.” Some of the readers appear to be under the impression that I’m calling the deaths of these MMOs, lovingly pointing out that I have said from day one that I will never predict the death of an MMO.
Well they are right, at least on the last point. When I say downward spiral, I always have facts to back myself up, and I am not always referring to subscriber numbers. Take Funcom for example, who not only cut off 20% of their staff, delayed a non-dated MMO, announced a massive revenue drop, and somehow is still finding the time to develop a free to play kid MMO. When I say Funcom is in a downward spiral, I mean financially that company is in a downward spiral, that changes direction depending on your hemisphere and leads right into the septic tank.
I don’t call death because, to be honest, it’s redundant. Dwindling subscriber numbers? Yes. Financial ruin? Yes. Ponzi Scheme? Stargate Worlds. Calling death on an MMO is akin to calling yourself a soothsayer and predicting that someone would die, but they would have financial gain at some point before they do. Not when they’ll die or what the financial gain is, and all that can be chalked up as everyone dies and, generally, everyone has an income at some point in their lives. Blamo, you’re the most generalized soothsayer in all the land.
It is because of this that I have to give a chuckle at people who look at MMOs and say “See? I told you it would die.” All MMOs will eventually die, yes even World of Warcraft. Most MMOs have an unofficial full time staff who go about predicting month to month that the title will close down, just so they can say “I called it for every month for the past two years, but I was right this month!”
I’m rambling, so back to my point. Mainstream MMOs receive what I call celebrity treatment, in that they are held on life support much longer than most other MMOs (Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa, Dungoen Runners, Asheron’s Call 2, etc). Sony is loved by their fans because they try their hardest to keep MMOs open as long as possible, even if it means keeping the title on life support long after even the gold farmers look at it and say “There’s no market there.” Up until The Matrix Online shut down, if you had told me that Sony was shutting down an MMO, I would have laughed at the idea. Impossible, it seemed.
When Funcom fires 20% of it’s staff and reports double digit revenue loss, I report on it. When Mythic fires 40% of its staff, I report on it. When Codemasters does such a horrible job on Archlord that the developer refuses to allow them to continue publishing and maintaining it in an entire region, I report on that too. I report on the good, and the bad, that is what MMO Fallout is about: The rise and fall; documented. The only time I talk about the deaths of MMOs are in my special “What happened” which I should be publishing several about some games that were cancelled this year.
I don’t call on MMO deaths because it is stupid, arrogant, and should be left to the fanboys and trolls. More on MMO Fallout’s downward spiral as it appears.
MMO Fallout 