There is a quiet opportunity in the MMORPG market if someone could make something cool.
Helldivers 2 shows us that people want to play good games…we just haven’t seen many in years as the large organizations hold most of the wider markets attention with mediocre products.
WOW isn’t dying. In fact it’s doing better than it has in YEARS. Dragonflight the first expansion since WOTLK to gain players throughout its run. And it’s the first since Legion to be successful as a whole.
FFXIV was ahead of WOW basically from mid-BFA until Dragonflight launch. It’s hard to gauge right now, but Endwalker wasn’t as successful with its endgame patches as the launch was, partially due to Yoshida having to split his time between 14 and 16. (He stated he is not doing that again.) So with Dragonflight being much more successful than WOW has been in the better part of a decade, it’s possible it has jumped back ahead of FFXIV in sub numbers.
MMOs aren’t dying yet they are plowing into a dull existence.
All Video Games are doing thus infact not just MMOs!
The nice and shiny wears off all the time and the Devs never understand what makes Video Games great even when they make a hit(for instance Zelda Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were popular with their open World yet Nintendo neglected it’s traditional unique Zelda Dungeons which results in complaints which is followed by Nintendo assuming that Fans are complaining about lack of linearity in the Game as a whole).
To you. Which is your opinion and you have a right to it and to stand by it. However, clearly others of us don’t agree.
I’ve been watching my partner play FF7 Rebirth on and off and each time I inevitably leave due to meh game design. From the combat, to the story, to the throttled PS5 graphics, it just doesn’t feel like the quality those players deserve.
The worst part is we allow them to get away with it. We create these cults behind our games that allow subpar design. Meanwhile games like Baldur’s Gate 3 come along and we give it the praise it deserves but leave it at the way side when it comes to comparisons.
I feel bad for the Bloodbournes, the Elden Rings, the Baldur’s Gate 3’s, the Starcraft II’s, the Dead Cells, the Tekken 8’s, the Devil May Cry 5’s, and every game creating an amazing gaming experience. They come and go so quickly compared to the mass produced nonsense people buy regardless of quality.
Think it’s less genre dying than it is tastes shifting again. A couple years ago we had game journalists declaring RTS to be a dead genre and yet it actually coming back now.
And WoW… it’s ancient as far as games go. It honestly feels like Blizzard is in a holding pattern, hoping to catch the next MMO wave the next time it comes around.
Once the internet and social media evolved in a way that allows for more connection and the near instant discovery of all exploration and secrets, MMOs got a lot more boring. They didn’t evolve.
There is no “figuring out what works best for you”
its just, look up a cookie cutter build and whoever gets the best at following their addons instructions wins.
Forced group play is a thing of the past.
The genre is dying. People don’t want to group anymore. They want to play at their own time at their own level of difficulty and be rewarded.
Due to how games are made, as consumers we’re conditioned to consume one product then move onto the next.
In some cases cash shops can enrich an experience but I feel the mistake being made is more focus goes into building a game around a cash shop rather than adding a cash shop onto an other successful game.
Though it could easily be a matter of taste, as I often pine for games more like Skyrim, Fallout or Oblivion. Everything being online just…doesn’t feel casual.
I think the game will turn 30. WoW would’ve died a long time ago if it were ever “dying”.
MMOs weren’t all that popular to begin with.
At best, the MMORPG market is stagnant. There are a decent amount of people who pretty much only want to play MMOs, but they just end up hopping between 2 or 3 of the most relevant existing MMOs since there’s nothing worthwhile entering the market ever.
I hesitate to say the genre is dying because it’s not like there’s a massive wound or anything, but there’s inevitably some bleed off due to people leaving their preferred MMO and not latching onto another one since everyone just plays a few MMOs that are 1-2 decades old already.
I don’t see that trend reversing, ever. People talk about VRMMOs and stuff, but we are NEVER going to see the whole SAO / Full Dive nonsense. Not happening. And without that level of VR, VRMMOs are going to stay a gimmick.
Yveni is also correct. MMOs were successful but nothing crazy until WoW came along and literally, you know, had like 20x more players than any other MMO. WoW was NEVER representative of the wider MMORPG Audience. It was an anomaly. I think companies kind of realized that around 2014 and stopped trying to get their “piece of the pie”. Hence the stagnation and why we basically only see cash grab Eastern ports and Kickstarter projects.
The genre needs a big boom, at the moment nobody has the creativity or want to take risks in order to see that through. So until then we will be playing garbage, enjoy.
Look at SoD, it was advertised as classic + and is hardly that. It’s 90% the same game, with RaIds. The old school mmo design is dead, wasting your time isn’t cool anymore.
I might’ve just missed it but I never saw it advertised like that. I just saw players refusing to stop using that term.
Yeah, has nothing to do with being part of one of the the most critically acclaimed RPG series in the world. 
/S
I’d play another MMO if it had proper playable foxes in it (i.e., foxes that look like foxes, like Vulpera (but with the correct pupils)). 
It’s very hard to find such a thing (I recall there being one a long time ago but it shut down).
WoW is okay but it’s missing a lot that I’m looking for in an MMO. But it has a lot of foxes and that makes me happy so I still pop in from time to time. 
It’s hard for MMORPGs to get new players because if you haven’t been out for a decade, you don’t have enough experience to develop content to hold people’s interest, but then the game has been out for so long that it’s impossible for a new player to start it and learn to play intuitively.
I think WoW has gotten way to bloated with DF, and it is only looking to get worse with Warthin. FF14’s devs have realized bloat isn’t the way, and is actually curbing a lot of it.
I personally do not see the draw… Only 3 locales in Final Fantasy have any draw: the Ice Pyramid of Mystic Quest, Pandemonium of Final Fantasy II and the Interdimensional Rift of Final Fantasy V.
Secret of Evermore, Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana have a lot more good locales.
MMOs aren’t that special anymore. There’s many other multi-player formats that attract attention and that specialize and do those specialized features better. Current MMOs can also be quite intimidating due to the scale of how much a player has to learn.
FF as a series is fine.
I’m sure FF14 is fun for many players, but it was considered as popular as ESO or GW2 prior to the Shadowlands’ exodus.
While Twitch isn’t a good metric of a good game, it is a decent way to measure interest. It simply wasn’t a popular game prior to 2020. It’s huge spike was likely led by streamers, like Asmongold (especially Asmongold). The most viewership/interest it received was during 9.1, when the exodus occurred. It literally has never come remotely close since that time.
Again, I’m sure FF14 is fun for many players, but interest as steadily waned since mid-2021. And concurrent viewership is currently exactly where it was prior to the exodus.
