I guess it depends on how you define popular myself, more people i knew played SWKOTR 1 / 2 Then knew about Starwars Galaxies. To be fair, anything with the tag Starwars would be mainstream. I suppose it’s mainstream in the sense it’s starwars but no not for the game itself, Sandbox MMO’s have always been Cliche.
As for long-actively of games, that’s subjective. I still play Civ4 and classic WoW Both are very old games so, and CIV 4 was rated one of the best games of all times Just depends on how you look at things.
Again i’m not saying they where bad i loved Galxies, and played on the P server. But i mean even look at that P server it never goes beyond like 10k, unlike Classic wow P servers etc.
Yeah but realistically you couldn’t compare ANY genre to shooters back then. MMOs still had a relatively pretty large following in that day but the PC gaming landscape was pretty different in general to the really mainstream stuff, which was mostly console-focused. I do agree it changed the landscape of gaming, but that has been a constantly evolving landscape for many years and continues to be. You are correct, though, that it was the major start of gaming becoming such a powerful force in the entertainment industry.
Also, this thread is really making me miss SWG. Man what i would give for an MMO with that sort of depth and complexity again.
I just think games where already more wide spread and popular in the early 2ks. I mean compared to now it feels limited. but compare 2000 to even 1990. by 2004 when wow launched. there was already xbox and ps2. I didnt even mention my personal favorite MMO PSO. that was on xbox and like you said it depends on what main stream means. but people have been playing mmos before wow. wow was just the most popular in the west.
Yea it’s a same, there’s not enough people wanting an open world sandbox game, also a game like that would be hard pressed to survive, just because a lot of folk just want to down content and raid log ASAP It’s a shame. But that’s a fair point about shooters. I think one problem people tend to forget is how much money a PC back in the day also costed for gaming. 400-1k USD was quite a buck for a majority of people. Now? Buying a Console was what? 100 Bucks and all those games you can get with it at your own pace Hell yea!
I mean one thing that people don’t give enough credit for is the Sub model wow had and worked with back then.
Eh, not a lot of people played videogames in the early 2k because it cost a lot of money A LOT of EU country’s and eastern country’s ETC didn’t have the same buying power as they do now. You see a lot more Romainain Urkaine guy’s etc. On games then you did in early 2k for sure. I do think that the market is over saturated for lack of idea’s and everyone just chases the easiest dollar, and genrally the market lacks for imagination. But that’s on the people who keep buying the stuff. more then anyone else.
Look at all the new CODS, that’s what everyone wants or the new Fortnites. Easy to make, cheap good pay day, and not a lot of flack from politics culture and so on. There’s just less passion in general, and that’s what happens when you’re going in to make money and not entertainment / Art
the ps2 launched in 2000 for 300 bucks. it is the number one selling gaming system of all time. by 2k gaming was becoming affordable.