The short answer, no. The long answer:
What is an MMO? Multiplication Meets Octahedrons? Many Monkeys Observed? MMO stands for Massively Multiplayer Online game, a genre of gaming that delivers a breathtaking world or concept to thousands of players simultaneously. There are multiple sub genres of the MMO, such as MMORTS (Massively Multiplayer Online Real-Time Strategy) games and the famous MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). The MMO genre comes in all shapes but only one size: massive.
For decades MMO developers have had to dish out games that players could completely immerse themselves in, games that gave life to breathing, tangible worlds, games where you could interact with thousands of other players as they carved their own destinies out in the world. It was a tall order and we’ve seen some games never live up to their expectations and some that blew the competition out of the field. Of the latter “World of Warcraft” comes to mind, the giant, monolithic MMORPG that was responsible for things such as “enchanted dust”, “Ashbringer” and other such terms and names that makes the ordinary human being scratch their head. Yet even Blizzard, the creators of World of Warcraft have met difficulty when it comes to MMOs, cancelling their World of Warcraft successor “Titan”, after 7 years of development. What’s more their subscriptions for World of Warcraft are at an all time low, down to 5.6 million subscribers, their lowest since 2006.
World Of Warcraft’s Subscriber count has dropped over the past few years
Over the past months websites have hailed that these turn of events, in addition to lacklustre performances from other MMOs such as SWTOR (a game which cost $200 million to make), as the sign that MMOs belong six feet underground.
However, I disagree. MMOs aren’t dying, they’re transforming and adapting with the times. Yes, the age of the Pay-To-Play Model for MMOs is dead but the age of the Free-To-Play MMO is dawning. Now you may be thinking, free to play? How on earth do companies make money of MMOs if they’re free? Free-To-Play (F2P) MMOs actually consist of two categories, those which you can download and start playing straight away (Clash of Clans, the popular mobile app comes to mind) and those which you pay once for and then play forever, without having to pay a monthly fee. In fact some MMOs, such as Guild Wars 2, have gone from the Buy-Once-And-Play model to the F2P model. But how do they make a profit?
Three words. In App/Game Purchases or IAPs for short.
Again, taking Clash of Clans, or in fact any mobile based MMO, there’s always a special currency in the game taking the form of a precious stone or metal, invariably always called “gems”. How do you get gems? Why by paying with real money. What’s the benefit? With gems you find that playing the game is far more easier, or you get access to special items that help speed up your progress in the game. But here lies a dangerous line that game developers have to be wary of crossing; the line that makes a game Pay-To-Win. Some games will offer exclusive weapons such as Excalibur if you transfer $10 from your bank account, making the half-an-hour you spent crafting your wooden sword look utterly pointless.
But most game developers know where to draw the line. Take Guild Wars 2, a personal favourite of mine, Gems (the purchasable form of currency in the game) will only let you aesthetically upgrade your character. Having a blank cheque doesn’t mean the game is unfairly balanced in your favour, if anything it’ll just make your character look more pleasing to the eye. Guild Wars 2 even lets players who don’t have that much real life money to convert some of their ingame money to Gems.
As you can see from the graph, Free-To-Play MMOs are clearly getting their money’s worth. But the future of the MMO is in mobile gaming. With smartphones becoming widely prevalent, data rates going down and the abilities of our phones growing by the day, it’s easy to see why mobile gaming is the new home for the MMO. I mentioned Clash Of Clans, a game that made such a profit it was able to play an advertisement (starring Niam Leeson no less) during the Super Bowl in the US, a highly sought after ad slot. But that’s just one of more than a hundred thousand MMO games available on app stores, another great example of a F2P mobile MMO game making great profits would be Game of War.
