Originally posted by Ryanwb
The MMOG games aren't even that successful as games that offer both single and muliplayer with TCP/IP server support. The game developers are forcing these things down to us and we aren't buying.
Star Wars Galaxies still doesn't have half the number of players they expected the first 6 months of release. People can't afford the 15 bucks a month.....sorry, not a field I would want to be in right now
Well there are 3 big MMOGs right now with a few smaller profitable ones. The biggest being Everquest which has around 500,000 active subscribers and they have had this number for years.
Which means they have been grossing just under 90million a year in just subscriptions alone. They also have released 6 expansions that sold anywhere from 20 to 40 dollars each.
The next biggest game is Dark Ages of Camelot which just recently broke 250,000 subs.
At any rate, the big 3 EQ, DAoC and Ultima Online(which will be replaced by SWG in the near future) are pretty profitable and that is what the draw for publishers to continue to fund MMOG projects.
The only problem is that outside of 3 or 4 games the rest are not very successful and some are just downright flops(Horizons, Anarchy Online, Asheron's Call 2 just to name a few). Sadly this is going to be the case for any game that doesn't do something completely revolutionary. I think the best bet for the newer MMOGs in development is to go small and focus on a specific niche of the MMOG community(A Tale in the Desert, did this and they are successful on a very small scale).
Anyways I'll wrap it up as I could go on for pages about MMOG's.
Cardinal Mike!!
