The Future of MMOs (Part 1: Intro)

Alright, so much to unpack here. Online vs Live Service. MMO vs MO/MMO-Lite. While I have so many things to say on all of these adjacent topics, this post is more about, what is the "next big thing" to satisfy the current generation of gaming audience to provide the same level of magic that MMOs once did to us older folks.

We all know that the MMORPG genre, at least the way it is shaped up today, doesn't work. There has never been a success formula for MMORPGs, and developers have yet to find one. Let's say that a design and development genius comes along the industry comes along, and based on a lot of MMORPG elements, introduces a brand new evolution. Let's dub this fantasy the "neo-MMO". This series of blog posts will explore some examples of design elements, along with some case studies, to see what this "neo-MMO" will look like.

Key traits of an MMO

There are few important pillars of an MMO that you can't remove, or it will no longer be an MMO. This means that these are the characteristics that our "Neo-MMO" must have.

1. Massively multiplayer. What does this exactly mean? Well, there is no clear definition. But for now, let's just say that the game is designed for hundreds of thousands of players to be participating in the same world at the same time. Whether it be in the same world, or separated by different instances or servers, there should be some kind of element that binds all of these players together, such as a player driven economy, guild wars and tax systems, player driven stories, etc. While the game may still allow you to play as a lone wolf, there should be elements that are obvious to the player that they are participating in a larger world full of other players, and that the action of one person can influence another, either intentionally or unintentionally.
2. RPG elements. Classes, skills, health, mana, builds, theorycrafting, min-maxing, party compositions, holy trinity, gimmicks, stats, set bonuses, etc. RPG elements also include things like personalization, customization, role playing, etc.
3. Co-op. The game can have design elements that necessitate co-op (raids, party compositions and matchmaking, GvG/WvW PVP, etc), or elements where co-op is intentional from the game design perspective but unintentional for players (ie: monsters in the open field that can be targetted by multiple players, regardless of if they are in a party or not). Or unintential from game design but intentional from player perspective (ie: asking a random high-level stranger on how to beat an obscure quest, and that stranger decides to help you clear it)
4. Essentially a metaverse. Your character is your avatar, and that character is essentially you. When you log into the game, "you" are not the player, but you "are" the character. This is unlike other games that can technically be categorized as an "Online RPG", such as League of Legends, where you are the "summoner" giving commands to a character that you have summoned from a given roster, where you might choose a different character the next game.

These I believe are the 4 main genre defining non-negotiables. As long as you have these four, any kind of game can be considered an MMO.

Now let's explore what are some issues that these pillars bring, and some examples of games that have solved these problems, and lastly what it would look like in this theoretical "Neo-MMO".

Massively Multiplayer - the playerbase is the genre

For a multiplayer game to be massively multiplayer, you need a large playerbase. When MMOs were new, the playerbase was almost granted for free (and this is why I believe no developer has actually solved this problem yet).

MMOs arrived when households just started to get personal computers in their homes, and people were all trying to find new interesting things to do on their computers. And I strongly believe that MMOs just landed at the right place at the right time. It was a public chatroom, an interactive experience, a place to brag about in-game achievements, all in one. Everyone was talking about it, and everyone wanted to experience the magic. The sense of adventure, the quest rewards, meeting new people and adding strangers to your friend list - all of these were magical during the early days of MMOs.

But as every entrepreneur jumped on the MMO bandwagon, the "MMO formula" started to become repetitive, and players began to build expectations. The same old grind, same kind of fetch quests, same kind of classes, etc. So many new MMOs were being launched, and players were starting to begin MMO hopping to find the best interactive experience. And that's where WoW came in - backed by the world's most admired game studio, it had the largest world, the most in-depth story, a huge IP, a shit-ton of content, and lots and lots of polish. To give credit where credit is due, WoW focused heavily on co-op PvE, and essentially defined the PvE Co-Op MMO genre - and they did it really really well.

Back to topic - the metapoint here is that the "MMO magic" no longer exists. A playerbase is not guaranteed to flock to your new game just because it is an MMO. Not only that, player trends have changed. There are way too many games to play - once players exhaust the game's core content, they drop the game and move on to the next big thing.

And as a game developer, how the hell are you supposed to compete with all of the new games launching, and convince your players to stay on your game and in your world, for essentially forever? Developers of single player games have the ease of mind where it just needs to sell copies - concurrent players, average daily users, and these other metrics are not a concern. You beat the game, you move on. But as an MMO dev, as you see your playerbase decline, you're not going to be able to sleep at night. So how do you do it?

And I don't think you can. It's a problem that doesn't have an answer, and I don't think it ever will. The only MMOs that are considered "alive" these days are the classics. Games that launched during the early days of the golden era. This includes WoW in the west, Maple Story in Korea, Dungeon & Fighter (also known as DFO in the west) in China, etc. They might not be doing anything particularly well anymore, full of messy convoluted systems that have aged poorly, tons of predatory monetization, and gameplay that probably hasn't changed since for the last two decades. But due to part nostalgia and part there are no other alternatives that offer the same size of playerbase, it's natural that the "classics" are what remains.

So if you are not a "classic" MMO, how do you stay relevant?

Marketing - It's now a minimum requirement

First is marketing. Obviously the easiest way to keep a playerbase is to have new players come in when old ones leave. But if you also need to read this statement backwards - the easiest way to lose a playerbase is by having gamers not know that your game exists. And the unfortunate reality is that marketing costs for games have skyrocketted. You need a shit ton of capital to make it work, and the success of newer popular MMOs like FFXIV and Lost Ark is partly due to the capital spent on marketing. I'm not trying to argue that capital is the winning formula. But it definitely is the minimum requirement for the modern day. New World is the prime example that capital won't win you gamers. But every other dead MMO out there shows that with the lack of marketing, you just cannot maintain a healthy playerbase count.

I've played a relatively small MMO called Tree of Savior, and it had a tiny playerbase. Maybe around 2000 total unique players per week, and probably a maximum 500 concurrent players. It was quite sad to see the game slowly dying, and it was obvious that there was no way for the game to revitalize. There was just no exposure - no marketing. There was just not enough budget for a small studio and a small team to afford any kind of marketing.

For an MMO to not die, you essentially need to market your game... forever. MMOs is a genre that is not meant to die, and players expect servers to be running until the end of time. And this means that any studio or publisher readying the next biggest and greatest MMO must have deep pockets to budget for eternal marketing.

There are other forms of marketing that we see from time to time - social media and viral marketing. There has been so much indie success stories on how a relatively unknown game became huge due to one particular youtube video or twitch stream. All you really need is one popular streamer and your game may be a breakout hit. But for a youtube video or a twitch stream to become viral, or for the number of views to translate into player count, the game needs to be exciting and entertaining for the viewer. And this is another damn issue that works against the MMO genre.

A game needs to be entertaining to be marketable

MMOs by nature are not really exciting anymore. Killing 20 wolves for an NPC chicken farmer for a reward of 200 exp and 3 potions, and then repeating a reskinned version of that quest for another 7 hours is not going to be engaging.

Back when MMOs were new, "kill 20 wolves" was fun. Waiting 30 minutes for a named mob to spawn was fun. Spending hours trying to find the NPC without any kind of fast travel, map icons (or even maps in general), fan wikis or other sources of "convenience" was fun. But they aren't fun anymore. It's not entertaining. People don't like "slow". The world these days prefer 20 second tiktoks over 20 minute documentaries. Players don't even have time to play a new title because they haven't yet beat the old one - if you are a new MMO, your game needs to be that much more convincing to get these kind of gamers onboard.

Quests or content that exists just to artificially inflate the play time (aka filler content) is only going to harm your game. As the game slows down, or as the game starts to feel like a boring chore, more prospective players will nope out.

The game needs to be flashy. Cinematic. Visually appealing. Fully dubbed. Fast-paced. When I mean "cinematic", I'm not talking about 20 hours of boring gameplay followed by 5 minutes of movie-grade cutscenes. I mean that all 20 hours of gameplay needs to be as entertaining as back-to-back youtube shorts. This is partly why I think Lost Ark was able to catch on, its primary story line was just really really fun to play through, and "fun to watch".

On the other hand, FFXIV is the total opposite - it's slow, not flashy, not cinematic, and as much as there are people who still love the game, these traits are a huge barrier of entry for many who find the Main story quest just not appealing. "Why is this game so slow" has been a common question asked since the launch of the game. As someone who has played through the hardest raids of ARR through Stormblood, I do know that "it's slow" is not really true. But I do agree that everything other than end-game raiding is just so damn slow.

FFXIV is not a streamable game. The game has a ton of depth, but the shallow parts are not entertaining. Depth keeps existing players interested. But the shallow waters are what new prospective players see, and they will turn their heads around if what they see does not meet their expectation.

But FFXIV is a successful game. And this ties back to marketing - the developers/publishers are experts at marketing, and it works. Square Enix is able to keep FFXIV in everyone's radar, and there is also a lot of natural exposure due to its IP. But this is a really unique case study that I don't think any other studio can replicate. The way that I see it is that if FFXIV was a new game released today without the FF branding, it just wouldn't have made it. But FFXIV and Square Enix were able to play by their strengths, and that's how they are able to sustain a playerbase without having to be "flashy, cinematic, visually appealing, and fully dubbed".

By no means do I want to offend any FFXIV players - there is so much that the game does right. As mentioned multiple times, marketing is just the minimum. An MMO needs to do 99 other things right to stay relevant, and FFXIV does those 99 things really well. I just wanted to use the two polar opposites as examples: A game that excels at traditional marketing (FFXIV), vs a game that is designed to be marketable (Lost Ark).

So what's the takeaway here?

Let's say that you are a game studio and want to be the next big MMO hit. Obviously you need to make the game marketable, and you need a strong marketing strategy. You also need deep pockets for "eternal marketing", or your game is able to generate enough revenue to be spent on the next advertising campaign.

The main differentiating factor between the "classics" and "non-classics" is that people return to the "classics". Tired of the new game you were playing for the last 3 months? Let's go back to WoW. Phew, I had a really fun time playing Elden Ring, but I miss gaming with other people. Alright time to boot up Maplestory and see what my old guildies are up to.
With these classics - you never have to worry about a lack of players. You can always expect that someone within your friends list will be online, regardless of if you log in today, 3 months from now, or 3 years later.

Only once your game is at that level - where there is just so much natural exposure out there that the game can essentially self-sustain - only then you can wind down the marketing expenditure.