The end of the MMO boom, and the next step

Tobold speculates, as only he can do, on "the future of MMOs." If you listen to what he says, we've basically just experienced a boom in the MMO market-- after the huge success of World of Warcraft, tons of MMO makers sunk tons of money into making new "WoW-killer" MMOs, and they've all started falling apart (Vanguard, Gods and Heroes) due to lack of resources. But that doesn't mean things are over. It only means that developers are starting to realize the truth: starting up a successful MMO is a huge undertaking.

Starting up a successful single-player game can be a very cheap undertaking-- I'm currently going at it with Puzzle Quest on Xbox Live, and it is a successful single-player game that didn't require much more than the intuition to combine addicting puzzle gameplay with addicting RPG gameplay. But an MMO doesn't work that way-- the more popular you get, the more it costs you, and the more games you sell, the more you have to work to deliver even more content. Tobold is exactly right: it's tough, if not impossible, to run a lower tier MMO, just because even the lower tier games require an upper tier budget.

But he doesn't end on a cynical note, fortunately. There are definitely videogame companies running around out there that have $50 million dollars to really invest in a great MMO (EA is one of them, and now they've got not only Mythic, but another great RPG company under their wing). And when they do, we the players will benefit. As Tobold puts it so succinctly: "MMORPG history doesn't end with WoW, it begins with it." Excuse me-- the future's so bright, I gotta wear shades.