[10 Years of World of Warcraft]

In honor of World of Warcraft's tenth anniversary, Raph Koster has written an essay on the inspirations behind and the affects of this massively influential MMORPG:

"These days, so many more people have passed through the gates of Azeroth than ever played its antecedents that many don’t even know the deep wellspring sources from which it came. Most of the defining characteristics of WoW are from a long tradition that started around 1990. WoW represents the (perhaps final) evolution of theDikuMUD model."

WoW was my first MMO, and my first real foray into PC gaming from my gaming origins with single-player games on consoles. I played it for 7 years, with the same guild of friends, some of whom I am still in contact with today. If it wasn't for WoW, I wouldn't have experienced the full range of good and bad online experiences that eventually shaped my views on feminism and gaming inclusivity. For most longtime MMO players, love it or hate it, it's impossible to deny what an impact it's had on millions of people and the genre as a whole, beyond simply as a market and genre force but also in terms of human relationships. My various experiences in WoW inspired me to start blogging about MMOs to begin with, so it seemed fitting that it also be the topic of my final post on this blog.

[Growing Pains]

"Today, videogames are for everyone. I mean this in an almost destructive way. Videogames, to read the other side of the same statement, are not for you. You do not get to own videogames. No one gets to own videogames when they are for everyone."

About damn time, too. These recent fiascoes simply being the last gasps of a sick culture is the best we can hope for.

When I started this blog 8 years ago, this crap still happened on the regular but there was barely ever a ripple of kickback when it did (or else outright denial that it was even happening). The fact that in the past few years it seems there is more controversy erupting amid the gaming world whenever a high profile example of misogyny crops up and more guys willing to stand up against the loud pockets of anxious dudebros still running amok, has to be some sign of progress.

Related Reading:
The Extinction Burst of Gaming Culture
Why Are Gamers So Angry?
GamerGate's Original Sin
We Cannot Allow This to Become Gamer Culture
GamerGate is Running Out of Heroes

[Because Not Everyone Stays With One Game for 10 Years]

"My simple heresy that I would like to propose for online game development is this: we should be comfortable with customers leaving. For the right reasons, not because we messed up a patch and destroyed all their characters, but because they’ve played the game, they’ve had fun, and they’re done, and ready for our next game. If you believe in what you do, and why you do, it’s not only destructive to your game’s bottom line, but simply wrong to keep them longer than they want to – than they should be there."

Amen.

  I notice this philosophy seems built into many F2P MMOs. These games were not built for people to live a decade+ in (though I'm sure there are people who do). They are, perhaps, the MMORPG version of 'casual games', and their devs seem to be at peace with that pattern of player gain/loss. Some people may call that shallow, but maybe it's a healthier pattern for many players to move on once that novelty is gone for them, rather that stay in one game past burnout and boredom out of some variation of sunk-cost fallacy, being enabled by devs who also seem to think that's what the life cycles of all MMOs should aspire for (though this would also call for people not being fixated on AAA budgets for everything, as well).

[Why I'm Not Talking About What I'm Playing]

  In recent months I've had trouble drumming up the effort to bother posting my views on the games I've been playing. Since its release last year, I've been really enjoying Final Fantasy XIV, but it seems most MMO bloggers never gave it much of a glance, or simply dipped a toe in and moved on to Wildstar or hopped on the ArcheAge hype train. Perhaps the majority of players of FFXIV, as producer Yoshi-P has claimed, are new to the genre after all.

  For many MMO oldtimers (who seem to be the majority of bloggers), it just didn't have the hooks that they've been looking for. Personally, a MMO's lore/world building and dungeon/raid encounters are the dealbreakers for my own investment in it and FFXIV has excelled in those aspects. Even the small 8-man endgame raid size has just fit so well into my playstyle that I'm just not interested in looking around for a game to jump to later. My style of MMO monogamy is the sort that sticks with what I'm happy with instead of constantly shopping for something 'better' in the future. I feel that having that sort of attitude sabotages long term commitment to any game, yet also seems to be endemic among many MMO players.

  It took about one year before I started to get disillusioned with GW2's Living Story format, but my interest in FFXIV has been relatively stable since its release. Perhaps because I made the effort to plug into various Linkshell and Free Company communities in FFXIV that meshed with my playstyle, I've maintained a core community of folks that I enjoy playing and talking with, which as many MMO vets will tell you is the backbone of having roots in any game long term. It's also something that takes a lot more effort to achieve, since modern MMOs do not really force people to form significant social bonds (another thing MMO vets often complain about).

  It just seems pointless for me to wax on about the eloquence of the game's localization, or complement the art direction and character design and music, the fun boss mechanics, the classic Final Fantasy homages, or any of the other systems that I'm sure are pretty irrelevant to people with no interest in the game, or who love the game but don't read MMO blogs.

 Maybe I'm just getting old, but I care more about investing in and playing the games I'm enjoying rather than writing about them for others anymore. Perhaps it's just a sign my blogging is finally at an end, after all these years.

[In Defense of Escapism]

I recently came across an essay by Katherine Addison, defending the value of fantasy as a genre and escapism in general, and I think it's relevant to MMORPGs (and RPGs in general) as well:

"The denigration of 'escapism' comes from an implicit belief that it is brave and necessary and heroic to face 'reality,' where 'reality' is grim and dark and nihilistic ('solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,' as that tremendous pessimist Thomas Hobbes puts it), and that if you turn away from that 'reality,' you are a deserter and therefore a coward. 

There are a number of fallacies here. One is the claim to the exclusive right to define 'reality.' Second, if this is an accurate definition of 'reality,' it is a fallacy to believe that it is even possible to desert from the front lines by anything short of suicide. Even if your consumption of fiction takes you away from 'reality' for an hour or two, you’re always going to have to come back. Clearly, if we accept this definition of 'reality,' 'escapism' can only be the most tremendous blessing fiction has to offer."

Read the rest here.

[Pantheon Has Fallen, But McQuaid Can Still Go Lower]

Color me completely unsurprised:

"It's widely agreed upon by all parties that this project took in roughly 145 thousand dollars. A large chunk of that money, 35k, came from a single individual who promised another couple hundred thousand once he cleared it with his trust. Brad was having personal problems at the time and needed to take a cash advance from the project. He took roughly three months pay in advance which equaled roughly 38% of the funds that were left. Brad thought the rest of the money would come in, but the trust supervisor declined without even looking into the project. Reason being, he didn't want to be sued if the start up failed. Brad admits that it was a mistake and wishes things worked out differently but the money is spent and there isn't anything he can do. He then went on to express that he was sorry for how it happened and is planning on liquidating personal assets to put the funds back into the project."

 Why on earth are so many fanboys still willing to give this nostalgia-exploiting hack their money? He did NOT single-handedly build EverQuest and Vanguard, despite what so many fanboys seem to believe. Teams of hundreds of other talented people put their real work into those games (as opposed to just loftily spouting 'Visionary' ideas around, which are worth exactly squat without actual effort behind them), and in the second example McQuaid was the one who ran that real work into the ground and lied to and exploited everyone around him the entire time.

This cult-attitude many oldtime MMO fans have of deifying this man as some kind of visionary who single-handedly makes 'dream MMOs' baffles me, particularly in the light of everything we know about how he mismanaged and destroyed Vanguard. Despite so many fans' attempt to rewrite the history of that debacle as being everyone else's fault but Brad's, the real facts of the matter are still public online for anyone who cares to see them. Which I hope people will do before tossing any more cash in this guy's direction.

But then on top of this all, he skims almost 40% of Pantheon's Kickstarter money to cover his own personal bills. Nobody should give this joker a dime for any future MMO project ever again, no matter how many nostalgia-tinged PR shills or game concept mockups (or tiered monthly subscription plans for the ability to post on the game's forum) that he rolls out.


Related Reading:
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen's Financials Under Scrutiny
Brad 'The Vision' McQuaid, Round Two

[Brad 'The Vision' McQuaid Round Two: Rise of the Fallen]

   So it seems Brad McQuaid is done with that vanity-position he's had in EverQuest after that little Vanguard embarrassment of his and has moved on to a new Vision! I assume he figures it's been long enough now that most folks will have forgotten the messy details of his last epic failure as a boss and developer and will be willing to fund this new Kickstarter project out of idealistic nostalgia and the belief that putting their faith in one guy whose last successful game was made 15 years ago (which was hardly a one-man project anyway) will finally pay off this time around.

I'll be busting out the popcorn for this one.


Related Reading:
Brad McQuaid: Cult of Personality or Friends in High Places?
Brad McQuaid Abandoned Sigil

[Consumption vs Naturalism in Animal Crossing]

via Gamasutra

"Animal Crossing deploys a procedural rhetoric about the repetition of mundane work as a consequence of contemporary material property ideals. When my (then) five-year-old began playing the game seriously, he quickly recognized the dilemma he faced. On the one hand, he wanted to spend the money he had earned from collecting fruit and bugs on new furniture, carpets, and shirts. On the other hand, he wanted to pay off his house so he could get a bigger one like mine. Then, once he did amass enough savings to pay off his mortgage, the local shopkeeper and real estate tycoon Tom Nook offered to expand his house. While it is possible to refrain from upgrading, Nook, an unassuming raccoon, continues to offer renovations as frequently as the player visits his store. My son began to realize the trap he was in: the more material possessions he took on, the more space he needed, and the more debt he had to take on to provide that space. And the additional space just fueled more material acquisitions, continuing the cycle."

  One thing that I have never seen anyone else notice or remark on about Animal Crossing, is the fact that all the housing items in the game are represented by a leaf icon whenever dropped  on the ground outside a building. The significance of that may be lost on most Westerners who aren't familiar with the Japanese mythology that surrounds the animal that Tom Nook is -- which is to say he's actually a tanuki, and not a raccoon.

  Tanuki are known for casting enchantments on things like leaves to make them look like treasure, and tricking stupid humans with it. When the tanuki magic wears off, the objects are revealed to actually be worthless. In other words, signs may be pointing to Tom Nook's entire business being more of a scam than Crazy Redd's black market. =P

  The fact that this tanuki trickery seems to be alluded to in Animal Crossing is very interesting, and even more so in the context of the above article, in my opinion.

[Some RPGMaker Game Recommendations]

  Here's an interesting post at Border House about the culture of preemptive judgment surrounding RPGMaker games (and other 'accessible' dev toolsets), with a list of examples of the quality results that are possible from it.

  I personally think being able to affordably build smaller games is a great way for developers to perfect new ideas and try innovative concepts on a smaller scale, particularly when compared to the stifling risk-aversion you'll see from AAA side of things. I think with the rise of the indie scene in recent years, there may be less stigma surrounding these kinds of games than there was in the past.

 The only RPGMaker game I've played is Embric of Wulfhammer's Castle, which I thought was rather good, so any recommendations as to other gems out there is appreciated, as well. :)

[Are There Just Fewer Stories to Tell?]

  I've been musing over the recent wave of posts from some of the more established MMO bloggers decrying the death of the 'MMO blog', but after reading various bloggers' takes on the issue and watching this (rather brilliant) presentation on the culture of narrative and player/content dialogue in games, I think I understand a large part of the issue (and it's the culmination of something I started feeling dissatisfied about years ago back when the only MMORPG I had ever played was WoW).

  It's not that the MMORPG genre in particular is dying per se (the term 'MMO' has expanded to include so many variations of games precisely because it's grown so much). I think part of it is that nowadays there are fewer stories you can tell within it. Why blog about your experience doing heavily scripted/cut scene'd content that will be experienced in the exact same way by everyone else who's ever done it (or watched a Let's Play)? That doesn't lead to interesting or compelling player stories. Aside from navel-gazing and pontificating on one's personal taste in gameplay or following the latest dev studio drama, perhaps the recent field of MMORPGs just doesn't lend itself to much in the way of compelling personal material of the sort that inspires people to want to write much about it.

  This is not an issue unique to MMORPGs. Modern games have been struggling with this issue of how to engage players and bring more meaningful experiences for years now. So far, the idea has been to 'AAA' up the game and make it as cinematic as possible (apeing movies) and completely overlooking that the procedural aspect of 'worldy' MMORPGs is what makes them so compelling to people in the first place. The result is a heavily homogenized experience that may be fun enough for the individual, but without those unique, unpredictable flashes that make recounting the experience to others interesting.

  It's only natural that as most games have moved toward a painstakingly streamlined, heavily-guided game experience, that bloggers would find less incentive to talk about it. Generic gameplay info and reviews are better presented via YouTube videos and fan forums. Individual dialogues on a specific game or essays about one's adventures in it are harder to present in a unique or interesting way. The fact seems to be that there are now thousands of perfectly adequate MMOGs out there lately, but few that are worth regularly blogging about.

Related Reading:  
The Blogs Reflect the Genre
Retro Servers and the Light at the End of the Tunnel
I Don't Care What You're Doing In Your MMO

[Some Recommended Reading]

Too busy playing games (or being under NDA) to write about them lately, so here's some other worthwhile reads in the meantime:

Why Online Games are Tanking [Gamasutra]
Systems of Control in F2P [Gamasutra]
Exploitative Game Design: Beyond the F2P Debate [Gamasutra]
The Increasingly Twisted World of Promotional Screenshots [Edge]
Writer of SystemShock & Dishonored: 'Videogames Taught Me How to Write' [Polygon]
Why Your Games are Made by Childless 31-Year-Old White Men  [PA Report]

[The Corruption of AAA and What it Means for 'Games as Art']

A harsh excoriation on the decadence of the videogame industry (and why it means 'games as an artform' and respect for the medium is actually undermined by it), via Medium Difficulty. 

   Really sums up how I've been feeling lately (particularly on the issue of lack of accountability). Between the above article and John Teti's takedown of the PS4 reveal, there's not much else I can add to the generally-unimpressed feelings I've been getting from a lot of industry news lately. Though it was reassuring reading these pieces with feelings so similar to mine and realizing that it's not just me becoming an insufferable gaming hipster (though that could be part of it too, I suppose). =P

  Regardless, the problems of budget bloat, overhype, creative stagnation, technology-fetishism and fear of straying too far out of the box are all things that have plagued most post-WoW MMORPGs as well, so I feel this topic is worth bringing up in a context beyond just console games.


Related Reading:
What's Wrong With the AAA MMO Industry?
The Folly of David Cage
Dev warns Against Economically Unviable Next Gen

[Stop With the Pointless CGI Trailers, Already]

I am seriously tired of cinematic MMORPG trailers. Sick of them. The recent trailer for The Elder Scrolls Online just summed up all my annoyances with these things:

  Sure, they look really cool, and can thrill the imagination. But they have ZERO bearing on the actual game, and they show nothing of significance about the gameplay (you know, the bit that actually matters?). The more slick and impressive one is the more I think "How much money was wasted on making this rather than being invested in something useful for the game?" Rather than getting me interested, these things are starting to actually turn me off. They seem to be more of an advertisement of how much a game studio's priorities are in the wrong place; how they want flashy imagery to excite people's interest rather than the merits of the game speaking for itself.

  And in the case of TESO, especially, when so little of what we've heard about it is anything significantly concrete about the actual game. When your potential playerbase is already skeptical and more interested in finding out whether or not your game is yet another amalgam of tired MMO cliches in a new skin, showing off a fancy 6 minute cutscene trailer illustrating cool stuff that nobody ingame can actually do, most likely, is not a good idea in my opinion. What does this stuff have to do with what people will actually be able to experience? This looks like it'd be a cool movie but tells me jack about whether its an interesting game.

  Overall, though, MMO studios need to stop with the gimmicky PR garbage and focus on the quality of their product, not the volume of their hype. Because as excitable as many MMO players can be, I think we've reached a critical level of jaded low tolerance for the same old crap in a different box. No amount of fanciful CGI shenanigans is going to save your game if it can't actually deliver. I swear the priorities of AAA MMO studios nowadays are really backwards.

[The Folly of CRPGs in the West and Japan]

  Via the Insomnia blog: an interesting article dissecting the chronic design failures of the CRPG genre, and why the result is that people have a hard time pinning down just what exactly a 'RPG' even is anymore.

  As someone whose first experiences with 'RPG's were of the Japanese variety (on the SNES) their criticisms of the genre are hard to hear but I have to admit they make a lot of sense (particularly in explaining why as a genre JRPGs have have been in decline for years now).


Related Reading:
R.I.P J-RPG

[Let the New Ones In!]

 via The Mary Sue:

"Gamers are so quick to lash out against those who don’t understand our hobby. We go non-linear when people claim that games aren’t art, or that games cause real-world violence, or that we all need to grow up and stop wasting our time. In a general sense, I don’t see any major difference between the art critic who says games don’t belong in museums, the family friend who immediately brought up Sandy Hook after I mentioned that I write about games, or the parents convinced that their kids won’t learn anything useful from digital play. We roll our eyes and complain about how such people just don’t get it, but that’s exactly it — they don’t get it, and so often, we fall short when trying to explain. When we make arguments about the cultural importance of games, are we making an effort to reach out to those who have no experience with the medium? Or are we just talking to each other? When we sneer at casual games or easy mode, are we remembering that all of us needed to start somewhere, too?"

   A great anecdote about reaching a non-gamer through gaming, and asking if the rest of us really have the patience and desire to connect with 'outsiders' and 'newbies' in order to share our love of games.


Related Reading:
Learning the Language

[When Fandom Turns Toxic]

  The lead writer for the Dragon Age series on why they avoid the forums for their own game:

"I imagine that can happen to any online community. Eventually the polite, reasonable folks stop feeling like it’s a group of people they want to hang around. So they leave, and those who remain start to see only those who agree with them— and, because that’s all they see, they think that’s all there is. Everyone feels as they do, according to them. Once the tipping point is passed, you’re left with the extremes… those who hate, and those who dislike the haters enough to endure the toxic atmosphere to try and combat them. Each clash between those groups drives more of the others away."

  It's been years since I've played WoW, but so far as I know their boards are also still highly toxic environments. The Battle.net community was famous for being awful even before WoW.
I know that even ArenaNet didn't want to host an official forum out of similar concerns that it would be too difficult to keep it from becoming an echo chamber of negativity and hostility. What is it about gaming communities that allow us to treat such awful communities where people dump inordinate amounts of vitriol on the devs and each other as normal and par for the course? It's been said that only a tiny percentage of a game's playerbase ever sets foot in a game's official forum (or any forum), so at least we can believe that it's just a minority responsible for the majority of this problem, but it still doesn't remove the bad taste.


Related Reading:
Taming the Forum Tiger

[Do MMOs Really Need to Be Saved?]

via Tadhg Kelly at What Games Are; a rebuttal to the idea that modern games need to be 'saved':

"It's a rite-of-passage thing. Also an age thing. You're probably around 25, have jumped, slaughtered and strategised your way through at least 1000 games, and found them amazing and entertaining. Then something happens.

  You start to get bothered by the sameness. You start to notice that games recycle the same ideas on a generational timeline, that every 5-7 years or so game developers repackage the same concepts for new platforms. And also keep making the same mistakes. Over time, you start to think that games need to be saved.

  Your attention span shortens. You struggle to remember the last time you had a gaming all-nighter and you look on Skyrim not as a challenge, but rather as a task. A drudge, even. You wonder just how long games can get away with that sort of thing. You also start to be much less tolerant of the first hour of a game: if it doesn't absorb you then you dump it."

  Sound familiar to anyone? =P

  I think the fact that many of the current MMO bloggers fit squarely into this description explains a lot about the tone many have towards the games today. For example the whole '3-monther' label being used by many as proof of the genre's failings rather than a hint that something has changed in the player.  I also agree with Tadhg that perhaps we 'old timers' may be able to get games more in line with our desires by focusing on indies rather than the mainstream gaming industry, since the mainstream studios don't really seem to be serving our demographic.


Related Reading:
The Dark Side of Happy Memories

[We Can't Have It Both Ways]

 via Real Talk: Videogames:

"The gaming community, or let’s say the ones with voices -popular developers, media, and maybe celebrities if we have those- have a cake eating problem. We want to be taken seriously as an artform but don’t often value critical analysis. Game criticism and academia are held in disdain and shoved in corners, dubbed inapplicable. Recycling the same themes, mechanics, and ideologies of game design passes through reviews and feature articles without scrutiny."

   On the one hand, we gamers want our games to be respected as 'art'. On the other hand, the minute any sort of critical lens is placed on themes or mechanics of a game, the cry from many corners is "It's just a game, why are you taking it so seriously? Get a life!"

  But you can't have it both ways. The more that games develop in complexity and scope of their content, the more they will be measured for cultural relevance and judged for their themes. And we'll have to accept that such a development means we gamers need to start seriously examining what and why we play and be prepared to offer better in reply to serious analysis of them other than "It's just a game."

[How Predatory is F2P?]

Another quote from the F2P Ethics panel at GDC:

"We like to think that the ones spending vast sums on these games are sons of Dubai oligarchs, but we have the data to prove that they're not, and that they probably can't afford to spend what they're spending. We're saying our market is suckers - we're going to cast a net that catches as many mentally ill people as we can!" ~Nik Davidson

  Are some cash shops predatory? Yes. Are many sub games skinner-box grinds designed to milk monthly fees? Yes. Are there some people who should probably stay away from any game (sub or F2P), because they can't control themselves (either time or moneywise)? Yes, but whose job is it to police those people, the game company's?

  Should games (or laws) put limits on how much money a player can spend in a F2P per month? What kind of mechanics can drive 'too much' spending (are they the same mechanics that, in a sub game, encourage 'too much playing'?), and how does worrying about people spending large amounts of money conflict with the 'A few big spenders pay for everyone' structure F2P games are built around?

  And what even IS the monetary definition of a 'big spender' in a F2P game? 20$? 1000$? I've heard that only 5-10% on average in any F2P game spend money, and the definition of 'the average big spender' is a lot less than you'd think. But there is still very little public data about this (at least in English) that I could find.

  There's also this fact to consider -- F2P originally arose in Asia because of the extremely high software piracy rate there (in other words, selling a box would be financial suicide), so from the start there has never been a 'baked-in' requirement for a cash shop-model game to be exploitative or a cheaply-designed money pit rather than a quality game. A F2P game can be both a good game and have a fair cash shop.

  There is a real need for legitimate debate about what 'fair' monetization models for F2P/Freemium games are. I think that it's hard to pin down exactly, because no two games (or cash shops) are the same. I think the Western MMO market is still trying to figure this one out.


Related Reading:
F2P is Not Exploitative
Free vs Pay Games [DICE 2011]
$100k Whales: Intro to Chinese Browser Game Design

[F2P Is Not the Problem, and it's Also Not the Solution]

Karen Bryan at Massively posted on 'The Ethics of Gaming', questioning if the fad for F2P over subs that companies are rushing to embrace might be a Bad Idea. As someone who made peace with F2P games years ago, I actually agree with her, but for different reasons:

"In order to succeed, MMOs need players, but over the years there's been much more of an emphasis on how to monetize games and generate even more revenue. Back when the western MMO market was largely subscription-based, the key was to get players signing up and sticking around. It didn't necessarily matter how much you played, just that you kept coming back. And players did come back because they were compelled to, not because they were swayed by marketing."

  It's a fallacy to say the only reasons why people stay with F2P games (though 'F2P games' are far from all the same so they shouldn't be lumped together as if they are) is just because of marketing rather than content quality. This might shock some 'sub zealots', but tons of F2P games are succeeding because PEOPLE LIKE TO PLAY THEM, not because cash shops hold some kind of mind-control power over the 'stupid casuals' (which, let's face it, tends to be the stereotype in many anti-F2P players minds of the sort of person who would play a F2P MMO).

  My worry is that instead of learning the lesson as to WHY so many sub MMOs have failed in the wake of WoW's success, these companies will only come away with 'Subs are no longer popular for some reason, we just need to change our monetization scheme!' rather than the core issue which is PEOPLE DIDN'T FEEL YOUR GAME'S CONTENT IS WORTH BOX+15$ A MONTH. That is the true core of the problem here -- if people aren't willing to stick with a MMO with a monthly fee, it's because they don't feel like it's worth that investment of their time or money, and that is a serious issue that being F2P will not magically solve, and neither will 'slick marketing'.

  Why is Rift (which is far from 'revolutionary') still alive after so many other sub fee games failed all around it? Could it be that the frequency of content updates and quality the service it offers its players is considered by them to be 'valuable' enough to be worth paying a monthly fee for? Is this why WoW succeeds where other games who tried to ape it's 'popular gameplay style' failed -- because it provides CONTENT of sufficient concentration that players feel it's worth 15$? Is the reason why people left SWTOR in droves because they felt that what the game offered at level cap was not worth 15$ a month to be allowed continued access to? What is it about a F2P that makes people WANT to buy stuff in the cash shop? What is it about ANY MMO that makes it compelling to players longterm?

  Simply grabbing onto F2P as the savior (or doom) of MMORPGs is a fallacy. Companies are missing the lessons that the market has tried to teach them, if 'trying a new monetization scheme' is their best idea for how to survive in the current MMO environment.

  Players are not seeing these games as having enough gameplay & content value to justify a sub fee. The reason why many sub MMOs are doing poorly is not simply because those games were using an 'obsolete payment model'. If the latter is what all these 'AAA' studios have come away with as their lesson after seeing years of post-WoW MMO failures, then maybe the genre is in peril after all.


Related Reading:
SWTOR's Failure Was Not 'Random Chance'
Should AAA Game Studios Die?