The Realistic Future of MMO Fallout

So I can halt any fears: This is not a shut-down announcement or news that I’m getting bought out.

With MMO Fallout’s seventh (good lord) anniversary coming up, I wanted to discuss the realistic future of this website and how I see things changing in the coming months. If you’re a regular viewer of this website, you’ve probably noticed the not-so-subtle change in direction over the past year. Even if you’re not a regular, I can probably assume you have at least some interest in the MMO genre and have noticed how that has changed.

So where to begin? I conceived MMO Fallout as a spinoff of an earlier project in 2009 to document the rise and fall of developers piling onto the genre after the success of World of Warcraft. The name, and thus the current logo, reflects how success and failure has a rippling effect in the industry. Since its launch, the scope has expanded far beyond the original vision, and the industry has changed quite dramatically.

We’ve gone from a world where MMOs were quite easily defined to one where the lines have been blurred to the point of irrelevance. Everyone has a progression system, everyone has microtransactions, everyone has persistent online features, not every MMO has a hub world. With the exception of a few titles, the answer to “how is this an MMO” can only be answered with “because I believe it to be.”

In that respect, coverage has become a lot harder because I have to constantly ask how far I’m willing to stretch my own definition in order to cover something that I think is important. I’d sit down and look at a game and think “does this count? Not really, but it is 95% like another game that I did cover,” and that policy over five years has slowly diluted the overall pot. As the scope of coverage has expanded to include serious issues of consumer protection, like Steam’s refund policy, developers revoking fraudulently purchased keys, etc, I’ve had to throw those definitions out so many times that they don’t even feel relevant anymore.

For those of you who have your ad-blockers on and wouldn’t notice, this website doesn’t serve ads. It has never generated a profit or a revenue stream, and I used all of my pay from writing for MMORPG.com to cover this website’s costs. So in writing, I consider two things: interest and time. People read how to fix your FFXIV demo, or about lawsuits. According to my metrics, they don’t come here for patch notes, so I stopped writing about them.

Yea, yea, stop rambling. This was supposed to be about the future.

So where does MMO Fallout go from here?

• More coverage of important events. Game launches, developer shuffling, new studios, etc.
• Less coverage that boils down to small patch notes.
• More time spent following up on previous coverage.
• Less articles that are simply regurgitating press releases.
• More emphasis on highlighting independent developers worthy of your attention, aka why I incorporated indie development in the first place.
• Less emphasis on vilifying indie developers through various pieces and Crowdfunding Fraudsters (but that isn’t going away).
• More previews, reviews, game-specific editorials. I’d like to do more of these.
• Less dead/abandoned columns. I’m looking at you, editorials section.
• More involvement from developers and the community. I currently do interviews/collaborations maybe once every six months. This isn’t out of a lack of offers.
• Less news for the sake of news.

MMO Fallout will always be centered on the online game industry, so don’t worry about our focus suddenly shifting to movies or cake recipes (although I’d like to look at some game-based books/movies), but the days of folding our hands and refusing to cover something because it doesn’t 100% pass the litmus test is long gone.

I want MMO Fallout to continue to exceed my expectations, and I am nothing without my readers. I respond to all emails, questions on Ask.fm, and messages on Twitter. My doors have always, and will always, be open.

And with that, let’s go back to talking about games.