What is the future of MMOs?

Hearing on the Bombcast today about how BioWare is going all in on Anthem and has floated the idea of shutting SWTOR down, it got me thinking about the fate of MMOs as a whole. Sure, WoW isn't going to die any time soon, but how is Guild Wars 2 doing? What about The Elder Scrolls Online? Are there any other MMOs that are managing to stay afloat in the current market? And are there any more in active development?

While I like what I've played of Destiny 2, I really don't want that to be the final fate of all MMOs going forward. I really like having a big open world to roam around in, not a series of medium-sized corridors and a disconnected story.

The ones that have a decent player base probably aren't going away any time soon, but there's a reason you rarely see new MMOs these days.

It really feels like the end of the age of "classic" MMOs. No one is really trying to "kill WoW" anymore, as that thing will just stay alive until the heat death of the universe. With Warframe's success in the last years + Destiny, that style seems to be what is deemed as feasible enough to try with the current market. I haven't listened to the Bombcast yet, but I'm surprised about the SW:TOR thing, bc that seemed to be doing OK last I checked.

I don't think there's going to be any more successful traditional, subscription-only MMOs, and probably no more attempts by major developers, but it does seem like WoW and FFXIV are going to hang on for quite a few more years.

But I do think there will continue to a slow trickle of new free-to-play or buy-to-play MMOs, some of which will be successful; games like Elder Scrolls Online, Black Desert Online, and Elite: Dangerous. The issue with SWTOR is that it's just getting a bit long-in-the-tooth I think. Also, it seems like a lot of the F2P MMOs that are still doing well have a strong South Korean and/or Japanese playerbase, and I don't know if SWTOR has that (it might).

MMO-lite games, like Destiny or The Division, are taking up a lot of the old MMO space, but I don't think they have all of it.

As @fezrock mentioned above, I think you're going to see a lot of these "MMO-lite" games. What WoW captured, I do not believe, will ever be captured again. Personally, that's a bit of a bummer as I love WoW and would be interested in playing something new like that, that captured some of the same magic but did it differently. I don't think that will ever be happening though, we're just not there anymore and times a different in regards to what the masses want. I mean, if someone can't get a Star Wars MMO off the ground to be amazing, how can anything else do it at this point? (SWToR wasn't bad either.)

I would like to see a little more depth with these "MMO-lite" games. I played about 10 hours of warframe, and perhaps it was because the class I chose and I didn't have anyone else playing with me at the time, but I fell off of it. I also hate micro transaction and I think that is the sticking point. That's where most of these MMO-lite games are going to go and they will make enough money to be profitable but it they may not appeal to those who prefer a sub model if the content is great.

MMO's used to be these huge games with huge social ties into them but anymore they are largely single player experiences that just happen to have very "light" social ties in these days. No one talks to each other in groups anymore because content via a matchmaking component and you'll never see these people again.

I miss the social aspect of those games even if I don't have time for the old ways anymore. FFXIV and WoW have both evolved to account for this and I think they are better games for it even if it makes the worse as an MMO.

I miss the days of having to find a group ON YOUR SERVER to kill a world boss, or a notorious monster, or hell even just to do dungeon runs. It forced people to talk, it forced people not to be dicks, and mostly it fostered a sense of community that you wanted to be a part of. Some of my closest friends that I play game swith

Will we ever regain that? It's hard to say but with the way games are currently trending I wouldn't expect to see it anytime soon.

Well they are bringing back classic WoW. So if that's your thing, you know go for it. It is sad to see so many cheaper F2P games being the majority today. Ah well, such is life.

The reception and life span (after the hype dies down) of WoW classic might be an interesting indicator for if the "old" mmo model is still feasible.

@der_folger said:

This also! I am firmly in the camp that there is not going to be as much enthusiasm for "vanilla" WoW as people think once more really play it. I think enough has changed that its really going to show its age.

@zirilius I think you hit the nail on the head with the social aspect. Its not there anymore and that ruins whole "MMO" aspect of the games. Granted the flip side was being stuck on a low population realm that you could never do anything or waited a half an hour for a small 5 man group and then it disconnects and its all for naught. I also wouldn't change the way things have improved, but that social aspect sadly is gone.

We'll probably see a lot of the bigger MMO's die off within the next 5 years. WoW is unlikely to be shut down any time soon, but it's getting pretty long in the tooth at this point and there's only so much content they can keep piling on to it - I wouldn't be surprised to see a WoW 2 pop up with some sort of character transfer feature after WoW has an official final expansion.

As for new MMO's, I doubt we'll see many of them beyond a handful of smaller ones aimed at very specific niches. Part of this is just MMO fatigue and the whole post-WoW MMO craze naturally dying down, but a giant chunk of it has to do with mobile games. Generally, the primary goal of a P2P MMO is to keep people playing over a long period of time while the goal of a F2P MMO is to attract the big spenders (whales) via the cash shop and keep at least a decently sized community since new players are unlikely to spend money on a game that looks like a ghost town.

However, mobile games, especially gacha game, eclipse these models. Gacha systems can keep players around for the long term and, since they are directly tied to your power since you're getting gear/characters from them, gradual power creep ensures that whales will keep spending while login bonuses can entice free players to stick around and maybe spend a little here and there. Portability and generally rather low system requirements also make these games far more accessible than something like Final Fantasy XIV. On top of all of that, they are likely far faster and cheaper to make and maintain since you mostly need a fancy menu, character art, and some backgrounds, rather than all of that on top of a ton of assets and animations for a whole world.

In other words, gacha games require less money to make initially, less money to maintain, and generally rake in at least as much money as an MMO would. MMO's used to have the advantage of providing a unique social experience, but, as others have said in this thread, they play mostly like single player games with some light multiplayer elements these days. All those companies from Japan and South Korea that used to put out F2P MMO's have pretty much either died off or moved on to mobile gaming with few exceptions, it just makes more sense business-wise right now.

I think we can expect to see a resurgence in MMO's in about a decade, after many of the current ones have died off and the gacha craze has died down, since people will start feeling nostalgic for them around that point. Any big-budget MMO's coming out in the near future are probably doomed to failure though.

The "problem" MMOs are facing is that other games started to mimic parts of them, and doing it better. MMOs were big, with a lot of systems and features and content. They wanted to appeal to as many people as possible and always have something for people to do (so they didn't cancel their subscription). However unless you're into everything a MMO serves up you can now find a game that does the thing you like instead. If you like big open RPG worlds, you can find that. If you like small coop dungeon runs, you can find that. If you like big epic boss fights, you can find that.

There's only one thing MMOs can do that no other game can do, and it's being massive. Unfortunately that got left by the wayside a long long time ago. Although we do have a certain little game called PUBG, which could arguably be called the next generation of MMOs.

@der_folger: Judging from the popularity of vanilla WoW private servers I'm going to feel very safe saying that that while it won't match current WoW numbers, WoW Classic will do very well for itself. Especially as most people playing on those servers aren't vets playing for nostalgia, but new blood who heard the tales.

I would argue that MMOs have kind of morphed into the 'games as a service' model over time. I don't think there is a huge difference between SWTOR (in it's current state) and Destiny 2 in the grand scheme of things, and I think a lot of the older MMO type games have either transitioned into something similar or folded completely. WoW and maybe FFXIV will probably be the only games that can get by with a subscription fee and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, while most others on the market will turn to post-release content or microtransactions/loot boxes/gacha to support theselves because that stuff has proven to be successful.

@zirilius: I do wish I could remember the positive ideal MMO social dynamic like this but I just think of the inconvenience of it all and the unceasing server drama.

I am fascinated by what the reception of WoW classic will be because its one of those things that has always seemed like a hideously bad monkeys paw style idea to me.

As someone who's not an expert on MMO's, does shutting Swtor down mean you can't play it at all? Not even offline in some capacity? I never really played any other MMO's than swtor and enjoyed it more as a singleplayer game because of it's excellent narrative.

If they were to shut it down then that's it. It would then go into the hands of people willing to try and create private servers, but officially gone.

I don't really expect to see that game outright shut down though, abandoned and put into maintenance mode maybe but a lot of MMOs have held that fate and existed for quite a while for those who are still in.

True, though I think the main caveat to this is cost. Of course I'll give classic wow a whirl if it's free. Even with the occassional private server hiccup, it's still a well-designed experience. Once you move it to a subscription model though, it becomes a very different beast imo, especially in terms of longevity. It'll be interesting to see sub numbers after 2/3 months,

SWTOR is a really intersting case for maintenance mode as well, since it has one of the better single player experiences in its story, especially the way they built their last 2 expansions. It really would be a shame if that would no longer be playable in any form if it got shut down.

@der_folger: I frequently hear the idea that people only play on WoW classic servers because it's "free WoW!"

But thing is, modern WoW and vanilla WoW are totally different. People weren't playing WoW for free, they were playing classic WoW for free, and many of those players will likely support a legit, real server. And many supported the private servers over the years.

Also, look to EQ1, EQ2 and some other games for success with official vanilla/classic servers. People miss oldschool MMO's.

I'm excited to try Classic out as a curiosity but I know that I will probably hate it almost immediately. Because when I played WoW when it first came out I was marveling at how friendly it was compared to other MMOs of the era and that gulf is is now just as wide if not more so when you compare it to modern WoW.

In the future, there will be only one MMO. Richard Garriot will bring back Tabula Rasa and Ultima Online and merge them.