How much has MMOs negatively impacted other genres in PC gaming?

[patience]

So I'm reading one guy's theory about why the pc market has floundered and one thing that stood out and made me think of this forum was this.

One of the crucial developments happened in the mid '90s when MMOs arrived on the scene in a big way after Ultima Online was released. The genre had always been around in the MUD form, but UO (and Meridian 59 before it, though that one was much less successful) was a new breed, a graphical, large-scale massively multiplayer online RPG. The game was a massive hit and is still operating today. EverQuest a few years later compounded that and the MMO craze was on. I do think that this had an important role in what happened to PC gaming -- because in terms of raw dollars, PC games never actually decreased in income. It's just that an increasingly large amount of that money, and gaming time, went into MMOs, with their monthly fees and massive timesinks. There was less and less room for other kinds of games to have much of a market.

Since a lot of people have been in the MMO scene to actually observe this time period I was curious to see if there was significant validity to this.

Has your time with other PC games been reduced because of MMOs or was it MMOs that really got you into PC gaming to being with.

[tgr]

Personally, I've moved over to EVE Online for my main gaming activity, but I still play a few strategy games and FPS games when I find one that doesn't appear to suck. Latest FPS is BF:BC2.

And for me, PC gaming has increasingly alienated me by the very act of trying to protect itself from pirates. So much so I've gone from buying 30+ games a year, to 5, tops. I currently don't see this trend changing much either, not if Ubisoft's latest strategy is anything to go by.

[Sir T]

Well its only one guys experiance but I can say that eve massively cut down on my time playing other games. Its such a massive time sink that there simply wasn't time to play other, single player games. But I would imagine that's an unusually time intensive MMO. It is true there's only so many hours in the say.

[Cadaverine]

MMO's would be a pretty small part of it.  There's only maybe a handful of PC games a year that at all interest me anymore, and most of them are coming out on consoles as well, so I can just play it on PS3, and not have to worry(much) about driver issues, or draconian DRM measures that fuck up my computer, or whatever.

However, outside of the initial box purchase, it's only $15 a month for any of the mmo's out there.  Then there's all the f2p stuff.  So, I disagree with his contention that there is still the same amount of money in the pc game market, that it's just been shuffled over to the mmo publishers.  Unless you want to count rmt as money that would have normally gone to buy other SP games.  

[Stabs]

Unless you want to count rmt as money that would have normally gone to buy other SP games.  

I think you should count it.

Before: buys three new games, spends $150, receives 60 hours of entertainment in a given month.

After: pays $15 sub, buys $135 illicit gold, receives 60 hours of entertainment in a given month.

What's different for this hypothetical customer? He spends $150 and gets 60 hours of fun.

[Stormwaltz]

I spend more time playing MMGs, but that hasn't stopped me from buying just as many other games as I did before.

[Bzalthek]

Personally I play MMOs so I don't have to pay more money on short, low-replay value single player games.  15 bucks a month for anytime I want stuff to do is a lot better than chunking 50+ for a game I can beat in a couple days.

[pants]

The term is a touch strong, but I cant think of a better descriptor than a perfect storm has hit PC gaming in the noughties.  MMOs are definately a contributor - in that I have definately bought a lot less PC games since I started playing EQ in 99.  However thats not the whole picture - I can see 3 things.

* MMOs eating up a lot of time/money from the average PC gamer.
* Consoles becoming a valid alternative to PCs, as well as getting a large %age of the younger kids coming through, taking the next generation of gamers, and keeping them once they get older, since there are adult games now so they don't 'grow out' of consoles any more.
* The rise of broadband making piracy even easier than before for PCs.

Add them up, and yeah, its a big funk on PC games these days. 

[UnSub]

That was an insanely bad article. It uses dates and figures to appear accurate, but most of it has been pulled out of thin air and nostalgia.

Also, it isn't like PC gaming was built on having a slower, more patient sales schedule. Publishers still wanted their titles selling well on day one. However, in the period of time the article covers, AAA games have gone from something a few guys could build in a bedroom to something that a few hundred people work on. The rise in development costs have been staggering and given that console titles shift more units, it isn't surprising that is where the focus is.

[DLRiley]

the four horsemen of pc gaming impotency, cost of upgrading/new hardware, piracy, console market, new windows operating systems. I tend to think that mmo's are a good thing for single player games or multiplayer light games. Keeps the standards horrendously low.

[raydeen]

Yes, MMOG's have pretty much kept me from playing traditional single player games. I still buy single player games from time to time (and usually from the bargain bin), but my attention span for single player is really bad anymore. Even when I'm basically playing single player in an MMO, I'd still rather do that than play a single player game (Elder Scrolls games excluded). I have consoles but rarely fire them up. M59 and EQ pretty much redefined my gaming experience.

[Shatter]

MMO's have kept me for the last 12 years from buying any new consoles or games.  I have on occasion purchased and played other PC games, like I will probably purchase Starcraft 2 this year but my game time for many years has gone and will continue to go to MMO's. 

[Slayerik]

I used to play single player PC games until UO came out. I was a MMO addict right up till about now. I'm tired of everything out there now, maybe I'm just tired of gaming after all these years. Once I became an MMO addict, I would only buy games strongly recommended by friends. Or just pirate em.

[Raph]

High-end PC gaming is toast because almost all the value-add that PC gaming has at the high end is being done by consoles. In many cases, done better (in a market sense).

Used to be the PC version was "better" (richer, prettier, bigger, etc). Not anymore. The mouse is about the only unique feature left.

Flip side is that indie on PC is burgeoning -- because PC does it better than console.

[Ghambit]

I dont think MMOs themselves have impacted negatively, but rather the design direction.  MMOs take a LONG time to develop, so whichever direction designs are trending tend to remain unchanged for a while.  Logic would dictate that there needs to be another paradigm shift for the PC to survive.  Like Raph says, the indie market is really the only thing right now keeping PCs afloat (I've noticed an ever increasing amount of small-studio wares on my box)... and within that, the content creation aspect.  MMOs also still need to leverage tools only realized on PCs into their games to survive the future.  Spore tried it and failed, mainly because it WASNT an MMO.  PS3's LBP did a better job in the end ironically.

The other issue for me is that today's MMO is still nothing more than sharded versions of the same ol' FPS servers of the CS, JO, GR days... that is, 100 players on a shard max, heavy instancing, etc.  They're not really MMOs at all save for chat.  The worlds themselves are fragmented and feel devoid of "life."  Get back to the massive worlds and move more server-side (like a few studios are doing) and PCs can still compete.  Rely more on stylization and less on 3d effects, yada yada.

Interestingly enough, after gaming since dial-up 2400 baud BBS's... the most fun I've had in an MMO is STILL playing WW2O with a good squad.  To this day, not a single studio has leveraged that design into something more workable... modernized engine, easier dev. tools, smoother command UIs, etc.  Imo the PC-door is still wide open in the large-world RvR market, if the design has enough meaningful, layered strat.

[Nyght]

  Imo the PC-door is still wide open in the large-world RvR market, if the design has enough meaningful, layered strat.

Yeah, I think secondary markets are only secondary from  a certain perspective.  Do you really have to have big market share to count? In competitive markets a market share in teens is a big player. The industry is just maturing.

[Ghambit]

  Imo the PC-door is still wide open in the large-world RvR market, if the design has enough meaningful, layered strat.

Yeah, I think secondary markets are only secondary from  a certain perspective.  Do you really have to have big market share to count? In competitive markets a market share in teens is a big player. The industry is just maturing.

Well, I mean look at what people typically say.  Most dont want yet another DIKU-clone yet most everyone is "thumbs up" when it comes to a redesigned planetside, ww2o, or persistent Battlefield series, etc. (the few genres that PCs typically do better than consoles in).  Instead we get abortions like WAR or Darkfail. 

It's not the MMO genre, it's the people that make them that fail PCs.  In that, the biggest failure MMO-wise was the fact their initial success(s) bred nothing but mediocrity in their copycats... rather than redesign.  And there's no market share for suck.

[Malakili]

I think the popularity of things like WoW has led to the increasing "RPG elements" (read: Experience points) in games that frankly have no business having experience points.  Take for example the two games I am playing right now Bad Company 2 and Dawn of War 2.

Bad Company 2 - You have to unlock all the weapons and gadgets in order to use them.  There are 4 different classes each of which you need to unlock a wide variety of weapons and items for. 

Old FPS  model - You just choose your class (Team Fortress classic), acquire them another way (counter strike), or just have them all available to you in the map and you pick them up.   


Dawn of War 2 -  You gain rank points by playing in ranked matches.  As you rank up you unlock neat looking new armor (that has no in game benefit).  I find many people saying "I want to max out Space Marines" or whatever.  (note, this is separate from your ladder rank/ "Trueskill" which are used by the matchmaker.

Old RTS model - choose a race and just play.


I think the "Rpg elements" get people to keep playing for certain.  Hell, I find myself slogging through recon right now in BC2 just so I have all the items available and I don't even like the class. 

Penny Arcade put it well recently: http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/807503965_rBNbP-L.jpg

[patience]

While I don't agree with the idea incorporating RPG elements doesn't add considerable value to other genres your point is well made that more timesinks is being introduced into other games. What stands out to me most about that statement is that I was just thinking recently that MMO development has helped encourage crappier game development across all platforms once patching infrastructure became robust enough.

Sometimes I think people look at MMO dev companies and go "gee whiz, these guys don't even have to make something resembling a finished product and people still pay them more for it; maybe, I can just extend bug testing and final touches to the game beyond the release date." This is overlooking the point that A) MMOs are game systems where their goal is to find ways to convince people to continue hanging out in their virtual world. B) MMOs might be proving there's a lot of risk in not getting a strong idea of what is required to make their system feel like a complete experience now even though they'll be required to add on or revise stuff later.

It's sort of like MMO devs are OS designers and everyone else is a single app developer. The MMO has to account for a lot more variables because people have very different ways of enjoying a game. Developers of more focused products should actually recognize their advantage over such a project is that they have significantly reduced variables and can make a complete product faster, cheaper and more focused. They shouldn't as single app devs fall into the development habits of OS designers (and I use that term very loosely).

[UnSub]

That's not just MMOs though; that's what access to the internet does. You can patch after launch.

Of course, before the internet, games still shipped with bugs, but the idea of fixing things up after it was on the shelves didn't exist.

[Sheepherder]

Yes, single players before MMO's always launched with high standards and compelling gameplay.  Now excuse me while I go grind some cranium rats, berk.

[01101010]

I'd say the patching issue is due for its own critique. Games used to be much cleaner but I'd assume heavier in the budget. Now, games leave more loose ends to grab the immediate sales and operate in a time frame of how much stuff can be left till later when the planned group of bulk players begins to encounter that area/zone/stuff more frequently - mainly to cut costs and bolster profits with box/download sales which will hopefully be used to fund finishing the game as it was meant to be. Sadly, this rarely if ever happens - turnover post release and prior to main patches can be seen by the player and felt by the community when the playerbase starts to drop. Granted, there are other variables that have an impact, but this is one with a direct link to development and publishing. Now, its almost standard for a game to ship with the intro content somewhat finished and the end-game content unfinished or not even in the game on release to be patched later. I have no clue who you can point the finger at, but my guess is the people with wearing the money hats.

[Yegolev]

MMO playing cuts into my console game time.  PC games are not being made (with quality) in favor of easy console money, in my opinion.  See Bethesda's games and statements since Morrowind, and Borderlands.

[Sheepherder]

Yegolev what are you talking about?  There's no elephant there.

[HaemishM]

Has your time with other PC games been reduced because of MMOs or was it MMOs that really got you into PC gaming to being with.

For me, my first big MMO was EQ, and I ran a large guild. The time sink required both by the EQ game mechanics and the responsibility of guild leadership pretty much ensured I barely played anything other than EQ for the entire 2 1/2 years. Any MMO that I've gotten significantly into has impacted my gaming time outside of that MMO a great deal, so yes, I can buy his premise.

[Sheepherder]

Single player games aren't meant to compete with MMO's in /played, why are we even talking about this?  Because developers are including more grinds in their game?

Solution: developers are fucking stupid sometimes for no particular reason.

[Minvaren]

I've played PC games since the gold-box TSR days.  My first MMOG was EQ back in 2002 or so.  Until about a year or two ago, my gaming habits had followed a predictable pattern since then...

- one active MMOG
- A couple of recent single-player games to play when I get bored of the MMOG

Since I got hooked on the Fake Plastic Guitar(tm) bandwagon, my habit is more like this:

- one active MMOG
- RB/GH to play when that's boring
- Steam sales when both of the above don't cut it

There is not a lot that inspires me to go spend $60 on release day anymore.  Diablo 3 will probably be the first thing that gets me to do it since...  Er....  (scratches head)  Civ4?  At least FFH saved me from calling that $60 a waste.

[Goreschach]

It's pretty much just common sense. MMO's tend to be played for significant time, and the cost per playtime is a lot lower than single player games, so they're going to bite into other game sales. Like mentioned above, pretty much everything has been going wrong for single player PC gaming the past couple years, so MMO's aren't the only factor, but they're still part of it.

[HaemishM]

I'll give you one positive thing MMOG's have done for single-player PC games.

PC Gamers are now much more tolerant of buggy, incomplete shit in a single-player game simply because as buggy as most single-player games are, most still don't compare to the facefuckingly bad QA standards of release day MMOG's. 

[Ingmar]

I'll give you one positive thing MMOG's have done for single-player PC games.

PC Gamers are now much more tolerant of buggy, incomplete shit in a single-player game simply because as buggy as most single-player games are, most still don't compare to the facefuckingly bad QA standards of release day MMOG's. 

We are? I am remembering the state of - just to give one example - Fallout 2 at release and thinking maybe you have some rose-colored glasses action going on.

[Rasix]

I'll give you one positive thing MMOG's have done for single-player PC games.

PC Gamers are now much more tolerant of buggy, incomplete shit in a single-player game simply because as buggy as most single-player games are, most still don't compare to the facefuckingly bad QA standards of release day MMOG's. 

That's a side effect of patching, not necessarily MMO influence.  Once patching became par for the course, there's been the always available option of "ship shit, patch at release".  And what company gets something right in one patch?  Then after a while, the company makes a cost/benefit analysis over further patching as opposed to the ill generated by not patching.

If anything, MMOs mean I buy less shit.  I'm no longer searching for stuff for to just fill the time (I also read less as an unfortunate consequence).  I still buy all of the titles I normally would, but I take less chances on stuff I'm not sure I'd like or I'm unsure of the quality of.  The buggy crap I still occassionally purchase are STILL MMOs (Conan, WAR).

It's not like buggy games were invented with the internet, the internet just allowed people to bitch about them endlessly amongst themselves.

[Sheepherder]

And the MMO genre is uniquely suited to wasting time on the cheap.

[Sjofn]

I think I buy about the same number of PC games as I used to, but I never really bought what I felt were a LOT of PC games, I just play the everliving shit out of the ones I do decide to buy (assuming they aren't ass). I have a few genres I really like, and everything else can go hang. The "problem" is that the ones I like have a lot fewer releases than the ones I don't. Of course, I am a LADY gamer, so I never count in this shit anyway.

[Sheepherder]

I have a few genres I really like, and everything else can go hang. The "problem" is that the ones I like have a lot fewer releases than the ones I don't. Of course, I am a LADY gamer, so I never count in this shit anyway.

Great, in addition to being a skeletal fucking freak I'm now apparently a lady gamer?

[Tebonas]

High-end PC gaming is toast because almost all the value-add that PC gaming has at the high end is being done by consoles. In many cases, done better (in a market sense).

Used to be the PC version was "better" (richer, prettier, bigger, etc). Not anymore. The mouse is about the only unique feature left.

Flip side is that indie on PC is burgeoning -- because PC does it better than console.

You are kind of dismissing the whole modding community, Its the first thing that sticks out when you compare Fallout / Oblivion / Dragon Age between platforms. Also, the dumbed down combat game in Dragon Age shows that PC games would have added value if the developers wouldn't go for the "one size fits all" method of game development.

On topic, yes I bought way less single Player games in my Everquest days, and only those titles I had in my eyesight before I started the crack. On the flip side, I could wade through so many good games on the cheap afterwards that I was in heaven.