Looking beyond 2008

John Maynard Keynes, an economist, countered some argument on some expected development in the long run with the words "in the long run, we are all dead". That is certainly true, but shouldn't be used as excuse to only look ahead for a very short period. In his own slightly crazy and rambling way Jeff Freeman writes an excellent parody on the current frequently heard assumption that WoW is the end of MMORPG development. Some people assume that WoW lifted the barrier of entry into the MMORPG market so high that nobody will be able to overcome it. People decry the subscription model as dead, and suggest we should head for the hills of cheap free-to-play virtual worlds. Can that be the future of MMORPGs?

I don't think so. The lure of big profits will be too great. Yes, making another World of Warcraft might cost $50 to $100 million of investment, but what is that compared with WoW's current $500 million of annual profit? There aren't all that many projects with a possible annual payout of five to ten times the investemnt. Just like Jaws or Titanic didn't kill the film industry, World of Warcraft won't kill the MMORPG industry, just the opposite. We will see lots of failures like Vanguard on the way, from people thinking that because all subscription based MMORPG cost about the same monthly fee they can make a game with a fraction of the budget that WoW had and still rake in millions. Some games, like LotRO will be small successes, making a decent profit compared with their investment cost. But sooner or later we will see another big budget MMORPG with millions of subscribers. The idea that one company, Blizzard, could hold the financial and skill monopoly on making successful MMORPGs forever is laughable. Half the people who made WoW are already working for other companies.

When you hear people telling you that another blockbuster MMORPG is impossible, have a look at their background. Maybe they already produced games that weren't quite as successful, and need a good excuse to explain why they couldn't succeed. Or they have some free-to-play game, in-game advertising model or microtransaction platform for sale, and try to distract your attention from the fact that none of these business models has ever made that much money as the monthly subscription fee model. They'll tell you about the 11 million "residents" of Second Life, failing to mention that the peak concurrent user number is 55,000, or 1/200th of the number of residents. You'll make more money showing your ad in the commercial break of a TV emission of Plan 9 from Outer Space (supposedly the worst film ever) than from putting it up in Second Life!

Meanwhile Brenden from Another There finds this gem of current bestsellers at Gamestop.com, showing 7 out of 8 games in the list being MMORPGs with a monthly subscription fee. Many companies have MMORPGs that are selling well enough to make a good profit, so they are gaining both expertise and money, which they might want to invest one day in a bigger game. Even if you remove World of Warcraft from the equation, there are currently more MMORPG players than ever, and MMORPGs are one of the major contributors that keep PC gaming alive against the competition of console gaming. And while we don't know whether Warhammer Online will really be released in 2008, nobody really expects that game to flop.

World of Warcraft might be called the first blockbuster MMORPG, but it certainly won't be the last one.