Has this ever happened to you?
Seems like an all too common occurrence anywhere FFXIV discourse happens these days, especially on the forum.
And, yeah, I get it. A game isn't fun for you anymore? Common sense reaction would be to stop giving them your money. The game changes? Cool, maybe they've earned your money again. They don't? Oh well.
Except.
The MMORPG genre is dead.
...and it has been for a while now.
Back in the ye olden days, MMORPGs were super popular because they were an easy way to hang out with, chat with, and play games with friends.
The first MMORPGs came out at the start of the century, before most common ways of communicating over the internet had released. Skype was still a few years out, and even TeamSpeak was just starting to see the light of day. You had AOL and you had Yahoo, and maybe email or forums if you were freaky, but that was about it. As a result, MMOs became popular, and companies saw this popularity and started to throw their hats into the ring.
They may not have known at the time, but MMOs are high risk/reward ventures. Multiple persistent game worlds have a cost to maintain, usually by people paying a subscription fee for playing the game. If you can get people to pay this fee, perfect, you're raking in the dough. If not, you crash and burn, hard.
So, MMOs would rise and fall, some would rise for longer than others, and eventually people would understand that they should leave persistent world games to people with more financial wiggle room. And thus we end up with a genre full of 10-20 year old games with aging audiences.
Which leads us to today. Let's take a look and see what other MMO games there are for these casuals to play?
What MMOs are there for these casual players to go to?
"ahh negative you fool, there are other games out there than mmos, checkmate, i will now completely disregard the point of the post and act very aloof and pseudointelligent in my reply"
Yeah, I know. But MMOs offer a very unique experience.
It's a second world--a second life--for people to escape to. You assume the role of an avatar in the world, and get to see them grow and develop alongside the changing world. You get to see other people grow and develop alongside you, at the same time. You can go meet up with friends without having to wait through lobbies and matchmaking, or you can just stand around in a city and meet people. Watch them interact. It's a living, breathing game world.
You can't get an experience like this in pretty much any other game genre.
And you can't get a casual experience like this in pretty much any other game, period.
FFXIV is the only MMO game that fits these following critera:
So, obviously, when people see that FFXIV, the one remaining casual MMO, begins to deviate away from being casual... they become afraid.
And, yea, I don't blame them. Personally if I wanted to raise my blood pressure in a high-stress gaming environment, I'd go download League of Legends and hate myself there.
Much easier to stay here and complain and hope that the game course corrects than to either go to another game and bother them to conforming to their standards or wait for another flash-in-the-pan MMO to be born and die within the span of a year.
And, yea, virtual housing rent probably has something to do with it. But it can't be the only factor, because FFXIV didn't invent FOMO and people have no problem dropping other games with it.
FFXIV is the last bastion for casual MMO players.
Continue reading...
Seems like an all too common occurrence anywhere FFXIV discourse happens these days, especially on the forum.
And, yeah, I get it. A game isn't fun for you anymore? Common sense reaction would be to stop giving them your money. The game changes? Cool, maybe they've earned your money again. They don't? Oh well.
Except.
The MMORPG genre is dead.
...and it has been for a while now.
Back in the ye olden days, MMORPGs were super popular because they were an easy way to hang out with, chat with, and play games with friends.
The first MMORPGs came out at the start of the century, before most common ways of communicating over the internet had released. Skype was still a few years out, and even TeamSpeak was just starting to see the light of day. You had AOL and you had Yahoo, and maybe email or forums if you were freaky, but that was about it. As a result, MMOs became popular, and companies saw this popularity and started to throw their hats into the ring.
They may not have known at the time, but MMOs are high risk/reward ventures. Multiple persistent game worlds have a cost to maintain, usually by people paying a subscription fee for playing the game. If you can get people to pay this fee, perfect, you're raking in the dough. If not, you crash and burn, hard.
So, MMOs would rise and fall, some would rise for longer than others, and eventually people would understand that they should leave persistent world games to people with more financial wiggle room. And thus we end up with a genre full of 10-20 year old games with aging audiences.
Which leads us to today. Let's take a look and see what other MMO games there are for these casuals to play?
- WoW: Has long since collapsed into a 'compete or die' black hole. Dubious past, future after TLT uncertain.
- GW2: Actively being smothered by ArenaNet. Future uncertain.
- SWTOR: Maintenance mode.
- EVE: Anyone attempting to play EVE for a casual experience is will find themselves immediately possessed by the ghost of Gene Roddenberry, never to be seen again.
- OSRS: Simplistic to its own detriment, limited player expression, and supremely grindy.
- BDO: Nothing to do? [citation needed, does anybody even play bdo?]
- Honkai/Genshin/etc.: Yeah okay buddy whatever you say
- Everything else: Very low quality, very low population, or maintenance mode
What MMOs are there for these casual players to go to?
"ahh negative you fool, there are other games out there than mmos, checkmate, i will now completely disregard the point of the post and act very aloof and pseudointelligent in my reply"
Yeah, I know. But MMOs offer a very unique experience.
It's a second world--a second life--for people to escape to. You assume the role of an avatar in the world, and get to see them grow and develop alongside the changing world. You get to see other people grow and develop alongside you, at the same time. You can go meet up with friends without having to wait through lobbies and matchmaking, or you can just stand around in a city and meet people. Watch them interact. It's a living, breathing game world.
You can't get an experience like this in pretty much any other game genre.
And you can't get a casual experience like this in pretty much any other game, period.
FFXIV is the only MMO game that fits these following critera:
- Game is still receiving updates, and isn't actively being sunset.
- Game has a substantial pool of people to interact with.
- Game actually has an immersive world to engage with.
- Game has a substantial amount of avenues for player expression.
- Game isn't gacha/P2W garbage.
- Game has a reasonable amount of (non-completionist) content to interact with outside of the progression treadmill.
So, obviously, when people see that FFXIV, the one remaining casual MMO, begins to deviate away from being casual... they become afraid.
And, yea, I don't blame them. Personally if I wanted to raise my blood pressure in a high-stress gaming environment, I'd go download League of Legends and hate myself there.
Much easier to stay here and complain and hope that the game course corrects than to either go to another game and bother them to conforming to their standards or wait for another flash-in-the-pan MMO to be born and die within the span of a year.
And, yea, virtual housing rent probably has something to do with it. But it can't be the only factor, because FFXIV didn't invent FOMO and people have no problem dropping other games with it.
FFXIV is the last bastion for casual MMO players.
Continue reading...