Scott Hartsman pontificates on the future of MMOs
We hadn't heard a peep from Scott Hartsman after he left his position as executive producer at Trion Worlds... until now. The former EverQuest II and RIFT lead spoke with Forbes not about where he's going but about where he thinks the MMO industry is heading.
Hartsman sees the increased cost and competition of MMOs becoming a major problem as more time goes by: "Can companies keep up with the expectations and each generation of MMOs costing more and more? It's an arms race that no one can win, it's not sustainable in its current direction."
He also thinks that we've hit a cap on the number of people willing to subscribe and that the newer (read: free-to-play) models are providing attractive, flexible alternatives for a wider playerbase. "It's all about finding business models that serve larger numbers in a fair way," Hartsman said, pointing to League of Legends as an example of how "friction-free" an entry to a game can be.
