It seems like a new MMO is announced almost every day. After the success of World of Warcraft it feels like every game company must have their own MMO. Well, no denying World of Warcrafts huge market share, and how it somehow attracted non-gamers to play. Probably thanks to it’s social appeal. It became the genre king of MMO, an have continued to be no. 1.
But like every other industry, then something comes along, that surpass everything else and somewhat create a standardization, everyone have to case a piece of the cake. The most recent is apparently some kind of Tom Clancy MMO!? I’m just afraid the industry is killing the genre by overpopulating it to many MMO in contrast with the numbers of possible players. The amount of MMO will exceed the market demand. We people are limited by time and energy.
On the other hand, it’s only good for the genre to increase it’s range of MMO which will appeal to different sub-cultures. World of Warcraft and other classical MMO is based on fantasy, and there are some science-fiction’s one as well. I just believe game companies must have a realistic belief in how many players they will attract. It’s great to create MMO, which appeal to a certain sub-genre for example people totally psyched of lets say the Matrix movies and universe.
An increase in variety of different MMO is great, so every one can find the one most suited for them. The point I make is similar to one in my Brands in Social media post, namely that World of Warcraft is like Facebook today. It isn’t the first, but at the time the best and have attracted the biggest market share. And now people know what it’s all about, how the new media works. And soon they will start to look for a new MMO, more suited for their life, interest and people around them.
If World of Warcraft is one of the 5% which make up 90% of the revenue and population of MMO, the demand and focus on more niched MMO will surely increase in the years to come. This is great of the market! But I really hope the game companies developing the new MMO don’t just jump on the trend cause it’s hot right now. To plan and be realistic on the market. Not every game franchise is fitted for a MMO version.
