The Hype Cycle
It is in the nature of any form of journalism that it focuses on the new. Thus if your source of information is MMORPG blogs, you could be forgiven of thinking that the genre is dominated by the new entrants: Star Wars - The Old Republic, The Secret World, and soon Guild Wars 2. The Nosy Gamer is more interested in seeing what people actually play than what they talk about, and so he compiled a list of the 12 most played MMORPGs last Sunday, based on XFire statistics. World of Warcraft can quote Mark Twain and say: "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated"; in fact WoW was played for more hours that Sunday than the other 11 entrants together. The open beta of The Secret World, in spite of being both new and for free, was played 20 times less.
Fox News trademarked the slogan that their reporting was "fair & balanced". Not many people believe that. Blogs aren't even trying to be anything but biased opinions. That isn't as easy as it appears: Gamers tend to get stuck in the denial and anger stages of grief when discovering for the millionths time that yet another game has failed to live up to the hype preceding it. Woe to the blogger who dares to voice his opinion that The Secret World might maybe not be the greatest thing since the invention of sliced bread. Well, at least if he dares to voice that opinion now, when it isn't yet part of the general groupthink. There is an extremely predictable news cycle for every new MMORPG, with early hype always being followed by disappointment, and then the game not being mentioned at all any more.
I am currently very pessimistic about the MMORPG genre. There is certainly a part of that opinion which is due to me having played too many of them for too long. But there is also a part of that opinion which is justified by the glacial pace of innovation of the genre. There are a few highly innovative but low budget games, like A Tale in the Desert or Puzzle Pirates or Wizard 101, which in my mind show how huge the possibility space for MMORPGs is: There are millions of possible ways how a game could work and still be very clearly recognizable as "a MMORPG". But the big budget games are all huddling together in a tiny corner of that possibility space, very close to where World of Warcraft is. They all have the same sort of quest-based gameplay and the same sort of hotkey-based combat, to the point that some people have started believing that any game that works differently is not a MMORPG, despite evidence to the contrary. Games get major kudos from bloggers for having features that deviate minimally from the norm. Oh, wow, this game has quests you can pick up near to where you finished the last quest, instead of near the previous quest giver!
Game companies are increasingly aware of the hype cycle, and increasingly are trying to milk it. Early on there is paid-for beta access, pre-order prices up to 50% higher than retail price on release, very expensive collectors editions, and offers of lifetime subscriptions. Six months after release, when the first server mergers are announced, you get longer and longer free trials and special offers. And a year or two later the game goes Free2Play. Basically the price of the game follows the hype cycle. The price-conscious player can play the same games for much less if he only is willing to wait a while after release before starting.
The problem for me as a blogger is that nobody wants to read about a zoomed out view that ignores the hype cycle. I'll get angry comments for pointing out how many people still play World of Warcraft, and I'll get angry comments for pointing out that the currently hyped game will appear not so hot in six months. I'd get crucified if I dared to predict that Guild Wars 2 will only do well because it doesn't have a monthly subscription fee attached. It simply isn't fun to blog about MMORPGs any more if readers can't stand me blogging an opinion which doesn't conform to the current groupthink on where that game is in its hype cycle.
Well, summer is ahead, and as usually I will quit my daily blogging schedule for the holidays. And I can always blog about D&D or other games.
Fox News trademarked the slogan that their reporting was "fair & balanced". Not many people believe that. Blogs aren't even trying to be anything but biased opinions. That isn't as easy as it appears: Gamers tend to get stuck in the denial and anger stages of grief when discovering for the millionths time that yet another game has failed to live up to the hype preceding it. Woe to the blogger who dares to voice his opinion that The Secret World might maybe not be the greatest thing since the invention of sliced bread. Well, at least if he dares to voice that opinion now, when it isn't yet part of the general groupthink. There is an extremely predictable news cycle for every new MMORPG, with early hype always being followed by disappointment, and then the game not being mentioned at all any more.
I am currently very pessimistic about the MMORPG genre. There is certainly a part of that opinion which is due to me having played too many of them for too long. But there is also a part of that opinion which is justified by the glacial pace of innovation of the genre. There are a few highly innovative but low budget games, like A Tale in the Desert or Puzzle Pirates or Wizard 101, which in my mind show how huge the possibility space for MMORPGs is: There are millions of possible ways how a game could work and still be very clearly recognizable as "a MMORPG". But the big budget games are all huddling together in a tiny corner of that possibility space, very close to where World of Warcraft is. They all have the same sort of quest-based gameplay and the same sort of hotkey-based combat, to the point that some people have started believing that any game that works differently is not a MMORPG, despite evidence to the contrary. Games get major kudos from bloggers for having features that deviate minimally from the norm. Oh, wow, this game has quests you can pick up near to where you finished the last quest, instead of near the previous quest giver!
Game companies are increasingly aware of the hype cycle, and increasingly are trying to milk it. Early on there is paid-for beta access, pre-order prices up to 50% higher than retail price on release, very expensive collectors editions, and offers of lifetime subscriptions. Six months after release, when the first server mergers are announced, you get longer and longer free trials and special offers. And a year or two later the game goes Free2Play. Basically the price of the game follows the hype cycle. The price-conscious player can play the same games for much less if he only is willing to wait a while after release before starting.
The problem for me as a blogger is that nobody wants to read about a zoomed out view that ignores the hype cycle. I'll get angry comments for pointing out how many people still play World of Warcraft, and I'll get angry comments for pointing out that the currently hyped game will appear not so hot in six months. I'd get crucified if I dared to predict that Guild Wars 2 will only do well because it doesn't have a monthly subscription fee attached. It simply isn't fun to blog about MMORPGs any more if readers can't stand me blogging an opinion which doesn't conform to the current groupthink on where that game is in its hype cycle.
Well, summer is ahead, and as usually I will quit my daily blogging schedule for the holidays. And I can always blog about D&D or other games.
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