Is Everquest dead?

Tatiana sent me a link to the Everquest Newbie Forums where one newbie wants his money back, because he says the game is dead. Concurrent users estimated at about 5000 by one poster, although that might be too low. But even the semi-official subscription score keeper Sir Bruce on his MMOGchart.com site shows a big drop in EQ subscriptions from the over 400,000 it had for years to just 200,000 now, and that is probably counting every holder of a multi-game SOE Station all-access pass as EQ subscriber, whether they are playing or not.

The most favorable thing one can say about EQ is that there is still activity at the higher levels, from the older players. But given that leveling up in EQ is a lot harder and takes a lot longer than in World of Warcraft, you can feel the newbies pain when he can't even find enough people of his level to form a group. The only servers where there is still a population of lower level players are the new progression servers, where the expansion sets start out being turned off, and are getting added over time.

Now I can offer 3 explanations on why Everquest is dieing. The sensationalist one is that "WoW killed EQ", which is probably not really true. The more second realistic explanation is that EQ is getting old, with neither the graphics nor the gameplay being likely to attract many new players in 2006. Of course you can combine explanations one and two and say that many ex-EQ players moved on to newer games, not necessarily WoW, but there are lots of others. The final explanation is the negative network effect. If people play a MMO because of the other players, then everybody who leaves removes some motivation for the remaining players, until the whole enterprise falls together like a house of cards.

Of course Everquest is not technically dead until the servers are shut off, which could still be a few years ahead. In business terms it is a cash cow, the investment in EQ has been paid off long ago, and now subscription fees minus running cost result in pure profit. We will probably still hear some news next year of servers combined and other efforts to streamline the game and halt the decline. But in the end it isn't surprising that even a MMORPG ends. Sooner or later the players have seen all the content, and newer games are beckoning with better graphics and different gameplay. Even World of Warcraft will probably be in terminal decline after 7 to 10 years of existence. In a way that is sad, because you have to be there at the right time to experience a game. I can still read old books, see old films, or even play old single-player games if I can make them run on the new hardware. But you can't play old Everquest any more, because a MMORPG is mostly about the players, and the people have wandered off.