For a few years now, there's been this assumption that massively multiplayer online games are the logical future of not just PC gaming, but all gaming. World of Warcraft's 11 million subscribers and the slew of imitators that followed it seemed to promise an endless money fountain.
They've taken a lot of revenue out of the game industry in general and concentrated it into a few specific areas. For instance, in the 'old days' the demographics were that 20% of the PC gaming population represented 80% of the revenue of PC games. But now, a good chunk of that hardcore are subscribed to an MMO and are no longer buying six to 12 games a year, but buying two to three games a year, which is a huge hit.
Other publishers smelled gold and a ton of big-name MMO launches appeared: War-hammer Online, Age of Conan, Hellgate and Tabula Rasa. Two of those are dead already. The smart money thinks Conon's on borrowed time. And, just a few weeks back, EA revealed that Warhammer's promising near-million subscribers have fallen to 300,000. Suddenly the future's not so bright. On the other hand, there are two opposite poles of MMOdom in the pipeline. On the big budget, mass-appeal end of the scale is Bioware's Star Wars: The Old Republic, which could be the first mainstream MMO to truly move beyond the World of Warcraft model. On the other is mesmerizing one-man art-project Love, which is a heartening signal that MMOs have a lot of new places to go.
On a third hand, MMOs continue to do absolutely stonking business in Korean and China, and as well as that more casual, kid-charming games such as Maple Story and Neopets have massive player bases. The former, across all its various global variants, has a startling 50 million subscribers. So while Warcraft clones might be in shorter supply than anticipated over the next few years, there's a good chance that browser-based and/or low-spec casual MMOs will do far more to define the future of PC gaming.
Article Source: www.sooperarticles.com.