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Are MMORPGs dying?


AJ_Radio

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I think you just grew out of the eternal cycle of spending hundreds of hours to get the best stuff to suddenly that only serving as a slight advantage when the new stuff comes around, requiring other a hundred hours to be on top again.

 

The experience of downing new bosses in the hardest difficulty is nice, but eventually that's not enough to justify wiping 100s of times for hours on end.

I'm just fresh from quitting WoW for the second time (whch will most likely be the last) so I have the feeling on me.

Lately I was only playing the 6 hours of weekly raid with my guild (which is 5th in the realm) but just the thought of having to log in to go and wipe for 3 hours for that new Mythic boss kill felt terrible. I was sick of it. Thankfully we could find a Tank replacement so I'm now only there in case I'm needed as a sub.

My issue was just that, feeling like I was "wasting" my time. You can argue that any entertainment is time wasted, but playing other games that have a clear beginning and end, watching an anime or a movie, all that feels like a complete experience. It feels like you experienced something. A something that can be a lot of different things, new and old.

Thats the same reason why I don't play games like Hearthstone anymore either. 

 

It all has to do with our free time as well. When I was young I would grind monsters in Ragnarok Online for 12 hours. Today I would never do something like that. I'd much rather start a new RPG and experience a new story and characters.

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well there is one thing he is right about even if he just grew out of it like everyone seems to think here.

 

When I started FF14 I followed the story and really liked it.

I'm not a huge fan of MMO, tried WOW for a week and didn't like it, played everquest for maybe 50h with 3 others of my family together and that was nice but I don't miss it to run from miniquest to miniquest.

As a FF Fan  FF14 had some magic and I loved to explore it but I wanted to know what happened in the past so I played the story. until level 20 (maybe 15?) I had to do the most bosses "alone" which means to enter a bossdungeon with a mixed group of strangers but I couldn't do it with my BFF in a group like we wanted to. anyway, when we finally were allowed to do so, we were very happy and entered the first one we were allowed to do together. we were on a higher level than the desciption said and our equip too, but we met ppl with a far higher level like 20 level higher? And I think it wasn't their first character either.

I don't remember. at first they just laughet at us, they began to ignore us in the fight and started to run into the mobs.

They shouldn't have done that since I was the tank. they died several times and ranted at me for being a bad tank. when I finally died bc of their behavior they kicked my body, called us some colorfoul names and voted us out instead of resurecting me.

I got PNs with other nice names and other things.

This was only the first incident... I met 3 times some nice guys, asking us if we are new, if we wanted their explanations to the boss and i liked that. it was a nice chat and a good experience in generell.

But most of the time we earned ... lets say negativity.

Since the last situation I stopped playing the story.

I'm very sad about that, I wanted to enjoy it like all my games, and yes of cause I wanted the platinum too, I have plat of all FF games so far (ok I'm working on world of FF right now) but the only thing I do right now when I start FF14 is fishing and crafting and things I don't have to interact with others than my friend. And I will stop that too when I reach my goals bc I don't see sense for me in playing a game where I hide myself from everyone else like i already do in reality. To interact with others is hard for me and I can't let that happen to me in the only realm I seem so manage.

It's the same in destiny 2 for me, or in other games like that.

ppl see equip or charakterlevel they don't agree with and your out immediately, no help, only personal gain.

The moment I reached powerlevel 305 in destiny 2, my inbox exploded of requests, and when the DLC came with a new powerlevel, ppl refused to play with me bc I didn't purchase the DLC so my powerlevel was still 305.

I remember it was different 10 years ago when I tried games like that. there were nice ppl and helping hands everywhere...

and the lost of that attitude is the death of this kind of games.

The newbies don't feel welcome and the long-etablished will move on eventually.

 

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1 hour ago, Ai-ds_low said:

 

The newbies don't feel welcome and the long-etablished will move on eventually.

 

 

And this is what I don't understand about MMOs. Everyone was a newbie once, but so many forget that and suddenly trying to learn becomes something to be sneered upon. In my experience 90% of those bullies aren't even good at the game themselves! 

 

If someone is putting forth an honest effort and genuinely trying to learn, that should be good enough for most things, and where it isn't just a simple respectful "This is too advanced for your character right now, but practice x, y, and z and you will get here" won't leave an honest player insulted because you just gave them a vector. 

 

I used to play ESO and it used to frustrate me how many people would not run with lower levels for easy content. We could two man this stuff on level 10 alt characters, a low level in an otherwise experienced max level four-man group wasn't going to slow us down any. But sometimes we got that 4th person who insisted the person still learning was going to make our group fail.

 

If everyone needs experience before they can play then how will anyone be able to play? Newbies are the lifeblood of any online game and when they stop coming the game starts dying. 

 

Not to say that I have not removed anyone from group. Those who cause repeated wipes due to stupidity regardless of their level don't belong. And sometimes I have swapped out lowbies in favor of someone grinding endgame gear when leading the guild's weekly normal trial mechanics raids if we had a full group of twelve that night, but I always kept my promise to run it with them later.

 

If you want good players, you teach them. 

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MMORPG dying? no way! TERA is coming to PS4 later this year!

Join the fun! gank the newbs! be the best PKer!

 

Man I already spent close 6k hours in Final Fantasy XIV and with patch 4.2 right around the corner! Greatnes Awaits! Cant wait for the new dungeons/raids to run and gears to get with friends! Omg it never ends! Hopefully can give TERA some game time too!

Edited by ERGOPROXY-DECAY
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Yes MMO's are dying. Why? A lot of reasons, but one of the big ones is because most MMOs have bad end game content.

 

No matter what MMO it is, once most players reach the end of the "Story" or "New Content" that doesn't require you to grind stuff (whether it's dailys, bosses, or ect). Most players drop the games due to boredom. Even the big games like WOW, FF14, and ESO suffer from this.problem. As soon as a player has to grind stuff for days, the clock starts ticking down until they drop the game.

 

Sure they will come back for "updates" and "expansions", but outside of the that I would say 75% of mmo player fall into this group.

 

Like I said there are other problems to such as. all the free-to-play nonsense, oversaturation of the market, refusal to change the subscription model, poor quality control, bad story/gameplay, and more.

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14 hours ago, AndresLionheart said:

I think you just grew out of the eternal cycle of spending hundreds of hours to get the best stuff to suddenly that only serving as a slight advantage when the new stuff comes around, requiring other a hundred hours to be on top again.

 

 

 

I recommend trying Guild Wars 2 for all those who are tired of the gear treadmill. They have some cool stuff that counters the typical item spiral.

 

---

 

 

Funnily enough, yesterday I tried out Black Desert Online (there's a 7-day free demo).

And while I like it so far, I have the "typical" MMO problem and that is that the game has so many features now, that beginning now is right down overwhelming. This applies to most MMOs that are out for a while and is IMO one of the problems of the genre: it's hard to ease players into a game that already had hundreds of updates and new stuff added without drowning them in information overflow.

 

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MapleStory both wasted my time with gameplay and gave me a lazy (long now ex) girlfriend (she moved in with me).

 

I more than did my time with MMOs and am done with them.  Unless you count GTA Online as an MMO.

 

I do have fond memories of Furcadia.

 

Also, Second Life can go die in a fire.

Edited by Temmie
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As an ex Hardcore MMO player, i mostly agree with OP.

In my opinion MMOs are indeed dying. Thats part of the reason im not playing them anymore.

I put thousands of hours in World of Warcraft and Aion, i also tried out many more, like: SWTOR, Tera, Blade and Soul, FFXIV.

After a point none of them could give me something new an exciting.

 

For those who argue that MMOs arent dying cos there are still many out there with a big playerbase and a shitton of new MMOs being released everery year, i have to say that yes those facts are true, but they dont prove that MMOs are not dying.

Why? Because the already existing MMOs eventually will shut down and all of the new MMOs are total shit. Huge amount of new MMOs come out every year, but most of them are made in asia (Korea, China, Japan) and all of them are moneymaking machines. There is no innovation and evolution with MMOs anymore, they are just copying the previous ones and put in as little content as possible and put most the effort in the cash shop, making the game Free To Play and Pay To Win.

 

Tell me examples for new MMO games in the making with ambition and big budget, if you can.

In the western world there is maybe one, Star Citizen, but i dont think that game will ever be finished and even it will, it will be cut down in size and functions compared to the original plans.

None of the upcoming MMO games worth playing in my opinion. Even for people who never played MMOs, i would rather recommed any of the old ones that i played.

For me, the next generation of MMOs would be games evolving into huge virtual worlds, like you can see in some animes, movies and books. (For example: SAO, Log Horizon)

At this point it seems very unlikely that we will ever get games like those.
 

Blizzard the maker of World of Warcraft, the most succesful MMO in the world, was making a new MMO called Titan, but in the end they canceled it and made Overwatch instead.

Why? Because making a new amitious MMO game need a lot of money and a lot of time and there is no guarantee that it will be succesfull, so instead they made Overwatch which requires very little content and easily attracts both casual and hardcore players, they also made an esport out of it which makes even more money for them.

In conclusion, this is why MMOs are dying, becasue it doesnt worth the risk making innovative new MMOs which requires lots of money and time. From a business standpoint its just better to make MOBAs or very low effort MMOs with pay to win elements, so they can make a ton of money in little time with minimal work on their part.

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On 1/1/2018 at 4:39 AM, Eyjabria said:

I think the issue with players wanting to be as efficient as possible is because MMOs these days get new content updates at such fast pace. If you don't actively and efficiently reach for the best possible gear, everything you have is outdated and useless in a couple of months. This is one thing that eventually drove me away from MMORPGs that I used to enjoy (Ragnarok Online, Requiem, TERA, FFXIV, etc.). Everything seems futile and you fall behind the other player base if you don't have hours of time to grind on the game almost daily.

 

I just logged in to FFXIV yesterday and there were a lot of people online even on a less populated server. The game is going strong and it's apparently a very profitable business for Square Enix so it's not going to die out any time soon.

 

This was a problem when Wrath of the Lich King expansion came out for World of Warcraft. Most long time veterans will probably say Burning Crusade and the vanilla game were the peak, then when WotLK came out everybody had complained it was too easy. Then came Cataclysm and Mists of Pandora which both heavily changed the way classes were played.

 

Plus the way Blizzard does their updates, certain abilities for certain skills can be made entirely useless, because a few developers didn't like them. A Frost Mage could be good in one expansion then when the next expansion comes they are nowhere near as useful. Balancing classes in MMOs is very important but in WoW they're anything but balanced. I got tired of the bullshit and quit years ago. Looking at it today, it feels a lot worse than it did in 2011 - 2012.

 

I was high ranked in a lot of skills in Old School Runescape but it got to the point where I could no longer spend hours of my time every day to grind. So all my rankings for those skills fell down the tubes, and now a lot of the new updates I can't do because I'm not geared well enough. Then again this is a game where a lot of people play 10 - 15 hours every day just to keep up with things, and the game developers seem content with releasing more and more content at a quicker pace. Rather than stop for a minute and fix the problems that have been persistent for a long time.

 

I'm older now and have more responsibilities so I don't quite have the time to play several hours a day like I used to.

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I think, by their very nature, MMORPGs are destined to die. The concept might last indefinitely, but any single MMORPG starts becoming a relic the moment it's created. They're a product of the time period in which they were made. They may be able to update their graphics slightly over time, or release new content, but most MMOs seem to enjoy their heyday within the first year or two. After that, it becomes more about trying to maintain an ever-shrinking fan base than it does trying to draw in new players. (Or, alternatively, it becomes more about trying to draw in new players by making the game easier, at the expense of hardcore veterans.) Either way, it's only a matter of time before the amount of money it takes to keep the servers online outweighs the potential profits.

 

If there is a formula that will keep MMOs around forever, it's whatever is in WoW's secret sauce.

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5 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

I think, by their very nature, MMORPGs are destined to die. The concept might last indefinitely, but any single MMORPG starts becoming a relic the moment it's created. They're a product of the time period in which they were made. They may be able to update their graphics slightly over time, or release new content, but most MMOs seem to enjoy their heyday within the first year or two. After that, it becomes more about trying to maintain an ever-shrinking fan base than it does trying to draw in new players. (Or, alternatively, it becomes more about trying to draw in new players by making the game easier, at the expense of hardcore veterans.) Either way, it's only a matter of time before the amount of money it takes to keep the servers online outweighs the potential profits.

 

If there is a formula that will keep MMOs around forever, it's whatever is in WoW's secret sauce.

 

It’s quite frankly a losing battle. 

 

You could make the most visually impressive MMO out there that takes advantage of full scale 1080p/4K graphics, that will draw a lot of people in, particularly the mainstream AAA crowd, but it will upset those who prefer a more traditional role playing experience. 

 

On the other hand if they release a MMO that looks retro like as in Final Fantasy 7, Earthbound style gameplay, you run the risk of limiting your playerbase to a niche audience. Pick your poison. 

 

World of Warcraft was one of those rare games that continued to draw in people even well into the expansions. But since 2011 or so it has lost a significant chunk of its playerbase. 

 

I think the argument for quitting simply because you’re a mid 30s middle aged individual with a spouse and kids isn’t a good argument because everybody has to move on at some point. There are plenty of 40 year olds and even 50 year olds who play games. I think the real problem is the MMOs no longer feel fresh. 

 

I put in several years of work into Runescape, but 90 - 95 of everybody anymore is those same people who have played for 10+ years just like I did. I grew attached to this game because it was different and it drew in more and more players many years after it’s initial release back in January 2001. It’s been around a long time, and it gets my respect. But it isn’t fun anymore. Barely any new players make it past the first couple weeks. 

 

I played with a number of people in Warcraft who were on a trial period. Most of them ended up leaving because there was too much thrown at them. 

 

Runescape’s heyday was 2001 to 2007. World of Warcraft’s heyday was late 2004 to mid 2008. Beyond that, neither game has stayed true to its roots.

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MMO these days dont have long term playerbase, players jump around way too much, from one MMO to the next looking for satisfaction and excitement. I wouldn't go as far as saying "DYING", Im sick of that word but definitely a lot less than when there was only a handful of MMOs in the world. And an issue also arises that MMO are still pretty much only PC. And a lot of PC playerbase had moved onto consoles as the gap closes.

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3 hours ago, Fing3rButt3r3 said:

MMO these days dont have long term playerbase, players jump around way too much, from one MMO to the next looking for satisfaction and excitement. I wouldn't go as far as saying "DYING", Im sick of that word but definitely a lot less than when there was only a handful of MMOs in the world. And an issue also arises that MMO are still pretty much only PC. And a lot of PC playerbase had moved onto consoles as the gap closes.

 

Considering kids these days like to jump from one thing to the next while tweeting what they ate for dinner or what teen pop star is the hottest, I'm not too surprised.

 

The topic is mostly coming from my opinions so I probably should of reflected on that before I made this.

 

I never had a problem with PC games. The problem is these developers aren't taking the resources they have and putting them to good use.

 

If Sony can come out with Horizon Zero Dawn and the upcoming God of War, the PC market deserves it's own games of that caliber too. They don't necessarily have to be wow inspiring graphics, but a game that people can play and look back on is something to take note.

 

World of Warcraft and Runescape have basically been the same thing over and over for over a decade. A lot of people, including myself, have moved on to Playstation games for something fresh. Both games get more and more padding, and pretty soon you have an entire playerbase that is divided and can't agree with one another.

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26 minutes ago, Spaz said:

 

Considering kids these days like to jump from one thing to the next while tweeting what they ate for dinner or what teen pop star is the hottest, I'm not too surprised.

 

The topic is mostly coming from my opinions so I probably should of reflected on that before I made this.

 

I never had a problem with PC games. The problem is these developers aren't taking the resources they have and putting them to good use.

 

If Sony can come out with Horizon Zero Dawn and the upcoming God of War, the PC market deserves it's own games of that caliber too. They don't necessarily have to be wow inspiring graphics, but a game that people can play and look back on is something to take note.

 

World of Warcraft and Runescape have basically been the same thing over and over for over a decade. A lot of people, including myself, have moved on to Playstation games for something fresh. Both games get more and more padding, and pretty soon you have an entire playerbase that is divided and can't agree with one another.

 

But PC does get quality exclusives. In 2017 PC got more good exclusive games than PS4 for example (according to Metacritic). To make one example, Undertale was a PC exclusive for a long time until it was ported to consoles. Is that not a game that you can look back on and can you say it was not fresh? 

I fail to see how PlayStation is somehow "fresh" compared to any other platform. Personally I think PS4 has had very few interesting exclusives which is why it took me over 3 years to bother buying the hardware. I guess it comes down to personal preferences and what kind of games you enjoy. 

 

I agree that a lot of MMOs seem to mimic each other but then again I haven't played many lately to be able to evaluate how unique ideas they have. For me Ragnarok Online is still the most interesting MMO with lots of freedom and ways to creatively customize your characters and abilities. It's even possible to program your own homunculus AI. The game has been running for 15 years now.

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21 minutes ago, Eyjabria said:

 

But PC does get quality exclusives. In 2017 PC got more good exclusive games than PS4 for example (according to Metacritic). To make one example, Undertale was a PC exclusive for a long time until it was ported to consoles. Is that not a game that you can look back on and can you say it was not fresh? 

I fail to see how PlayStation is somehow "fresh" compared to any other platform. Personally I think PS4 has had very few interesting exclusives which is why it took me over 3 years to bother buying the hardware. I guess it comes down to personal preferences and what kind of games you enjoy. 

 

I agree that a lot of MMOs seem to mimic each other but then again I haven't played many lately to be able to evaluate how unique ideas they have. For me Ragnarok Online is still the most interesting MMO with lots of freedom and ways to creatively customize your characters and abilities. It's even possible to program your own homunculus AI. The game has been running for 15 years now.

 

I meant EXCLUSIVES that make the platform worth buying for, and aren't going to be ported to other ones.

 

Playstation and Nintendo have plenty of exclusives. The PC market has a lot of turn based and real time strategy games. They work best for that system because a console controller simply doesn't have the range of options that a PC has with a keyboard.

 

I'm sure Undertale is great and it's been on my wishlist for a little while now. Currently I got too many games to play so it's going to have to wait.

 

The issue I think is developers are afraid to make a game exclusive to the PC that is akin to a Horizon Zero Dawn or God of War. More people overall play on consoles because they're cheaper. That's not to say there are tons of PC gamers out there because there are. But if you want the best in terms of performance, you have to go and get a custom built desktop that suits the system requirements for that particular game. For Playstation, you just buy a PS4 Pro, hook it up to an Ultra 4K TV, and you're set.

 

Another issue I find with MMOs is the price range. Free to play MMOs generally have a pay to win method, because no game is truly free. I've played a few of them and I found them all to be highly imbalanced. Then games like World of Warcraft still want you to charge a fair amount for monthly subscription, plus there are fees for transferring your character to another server, changing factions and so on. It costs more to continue to play the game than it is to maintain a PS Plus membership, which gives you online multiplayer for all PS4 games and gives you "free" games for being a member.

 

Obviously, more people are going to go with Playstation Plus.

Edited by Spaz
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2 hours ago, Spaz said:

 

I meant EXCLUSIVES that make the platform worth buying for, and aren't going to be ported to other ones.

 

Playstation and Nintendo have plenty of exclusives. The PC market has a lot of turn based and real time strategy games. They work best for that system because a console controller simply doesn't have the range of options that a PC has with a keyboard.

 

I'm sure Undertale is great and it's been on my wishlist for a little while now. Currently I got too many games to play so it's going to have to wait.

 

The issue I think is developers are afraid to make a game exclusive to the PC that is akin to a Horizon Zero Dawn or God of War. More people overall play on consoles because they're cheaper. That's not to say there are tons of PC gamers out there because there are. But if you want the best in terms of performance, you have to go and get a custom built desktop that suits the system requirements for that particular game. For Playstation, you just buy a PS4 Pro, hook it up to an Ultra 4K TV, and you're set.

 

Another issue I find with MMOs is the price range. Free to play MMOs generally have a pay to win method, because no game is truly free. I've played a few of them and I found them all to be highly imbalanced. Then games like World of Warcraft still want you to charge a fair amount for monthly subscription, plus there are fees for transferring your character to another server, changing factions and so on. It costs more to continue to play the game than it is to maintain a PS Plus membership, which gives you online multiplayer for all PS4 games and gives you "free" games for being a member.

 

Obviously, more people are going to go with Playstation Plus.

 

I was talking about exclusives as well.
Everyone might not play with high-end hardware and have 4K displays but neither do all console players own a PS4 Pro / Xbox One X or a 4K TV. Why wouldn't a company want to invest in large productions on PC for a player base which is larger worldwide than on consoles (even more if we are talking about platform exclusives) and where you actually have the possibility to really match the current standards of high-end graphics for the audience who cares about these kind of things. 

 

I fail to see how MMO costs and PS Plus are some kind of an alternative to each other? If you play a free MMO on PlayStation 4 you're getting monthly fees in any case because PS Plus is required if I've understood correctly. Playing the same free MMO on PC doesn't necessarily cost you anything but the initial cost of your hardware (which isn't really that expensive as some console vs PC wars try to make it seem), electricity, internet connection fees and your free time because all payments are optional. And when you're playing a subscription based MMO on PS4 you'll have to pay double fees monthly. Or did you mean people would rather have some kind of online multiplayer experience via PS Plus in regular games than in a MMO? 

 

And slowly we are seeing the rise of mobile MMO gaming where the potential player base is massive and people are already used to microtransactions...

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I played a lot of ESO on PC, with a lot of endgame content, making millions a week on the side with trading. The game is definitely alive, and welcome to most players. There are guilds for beginners, endgamers and all together.

The good thing about eso is that you can basically level up your character to endgame content in two days, without paying for eso plus. There are a wide variety of gameplay styles. 
Even though it has become more of a pay-to-playbetter (instead of pay-to-win) there is so much freedom in it that you can do basically anything, especially with a bit of farming. 


Years before that I used to play Knight Online a lot before (no offence) there was basically a Turkish invasion and no English speaking players were left, thus ruining my fun a bit to play with others. That was basically my first MMORPG and I never stopped playing them since.

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On ‎1‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 4:43 AM, starcrunch061 said:

 

Trophy hunters have neither the numbers nor clout to kill off MMOs.

 

Trophy hunters represent maybe 2 or 3 percent of all Sony PlayStation gamers. No more than 5 percent.

 

90 - 95 percent of everybody, including my friends, just plays games for the multiplayer or to play through a story once and then call it quits. They're missing out on a lot but if that's what they want to do when I'm not going to stop them from enjoying what they like.

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On 1/8/2018 at 7:43 AM, starcrunch061 said:

 

Trophy hunters have neither the numbers nor clout to kill off MMOs.

 

My friends...

 

Sons and Daughters of PSNP. This much I vow:

 

The history of these days will be written in shitposts.

 

By crushing the MMOs of our PC enemy, by seizing the remasters and ports they thought to turn against us, we were fighting for our very backlogs.

 

But if there are those who would deny us trophies; refuse us our rightful place in the trophy universe, then we will unleash such terrible memes that MMOs yet unborn will cry out in anguish!

Edited by Trophy Huntress
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MMOs aren't dying, they're already dead. They've been replaced with games like League of Legends, Overwatch, and just the F2P mobile market in general. At least in terms of classic MMO style games. There are plenty of games that are large multiplayer games, but people realized that the main reason people were playing them, was for the PvP. So, instead of investing obscene amounts of money in making an MMO, they made a bunch of basic multiplayer games. It's way easier, way cheaper, and they make way more money from lootboxes/gacha systems than they ever did from a subscription or microtransaction system.

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