Whispers on the Wind

A Ten Ton Hammer Editorial
on MMO Rumors

By
Garrett Fuller


May 8, 2007

Despite the claims of “saturation” by many
in the gaming field, the MMO market continues to grow at a rapid pace.
If you have been following the industry you have heard loads of rumors
and stories about upcoming announcements slated to be released this
spring. With the wind taken from E3’s sails, there still
seems to be a lot of companies hoping to announce large new projects
that could take several years to finish. Rumors abound, yet no one is
talking.

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style="font-style: italic;"> style="font-style: italic;">SOE used one of the biggest IPs
in the Sci-Fi genre when it made Star Wars Galaxies.

However, it seems that the newer studios are hoping to get
away from the saturated fantasy market and move into a new setting with
their upcoming MMOs – science fiction. Now this
isn’t a virgin market; arguably the largest IP out there,
Star Wars,
is a sci-fi product.  However, SOE’s
effort was poorly executed; the game has become an example of what not
to do to your player base.

EVE Online
is an example of a sci-fi game that has done very
well for itself. Continuing to grow its player base despite a hesitant
launch, the EVE team continues to add new features and the game has set
a strong precedent on how to bring MMO style game play into the sci-fi
genre.

Another contender to the sci-fi crown is the long-running,
Anarchy Online. While this title also suffered from a sloppy launch,
the game continue to bring in players with it’s free-to-play
business model and refined, in-depth content. Although it’s
prime was in the early part of this decade, style="font-style: italic;">Anarchy Online is
still
holding onto one of the few spots in the sci-fi genre.

As we stand there are two or three major players in the sci-fi
genre, yet with this current crop of rumors, the horizon is glowing
with the future of potential sci-fi MMOs.

Blizzard holds all the cards in the MMO world right now. They
have the biggest game even after two and a half years on the market.
World of Warcraft
dominates the market, no questions asked. Keep in
mind Blizzard’s older games also remain some of the most
popular PC games of all time. Diablo
2
and Starcraft
still are
regularly played by on Blizzard’s Battlenet. Speaking of
Starcraft

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style="font-style: italic;"> style="font-style: italic;">A Starcraft MMO would be hugely
popular in the U.S. as well as overseas.

If you have not heard, there’s a rumor spreading
across the internet of the announcement of a style="font-style: italic;">Starcraft MMO. And
it
makes absolute sense. It is an IP that Blizzard controls entirely. It
has a strong history among gamers. Last of all, why not make a sci-fi
MMO when you already have the top selling fantasy MMO? The biggest
thing about the Starcraft MMO is the time it will take for the game to
come out. Remember, World
of Warcraft
had a long development cycle, and
the developers at Blizzard are perfectionists when creating a product.
We’ll just have to wait and see what happens with this title.

The next huge rumor circulating the ‘net is the
Bioware MMO. Many web sites are already saying that a style="font-style: italic;">Knights of the
Old Republic MMO is expected to come out from Bioware. Is
there any
truth to this? Well, Bioware certainly is not giving anything away and
they have been working on an MMO for some time now. We’ll
just have to wait and see what the announcement is over the next few
months.

The third game that is expected to compete in this sci-fi MMO
market is coming from THQ and Vigil. Games Workshop’s hugely
popular Warhammer
40,0000
universe is set to be created in MMO form.
Now the game and plan for development have already been announced. The
contract was been signed by THQ after the success of style="font-style: italic;">Dawn of War. Any
news people hear concerning this game is very speculative, since the
licensing deal was only signed a few months ago. That being said, there
are a ton of 40K fans out there and loads of options for players in
this vast universe. Keep in mind, Warhammer 40K has an over twenty year
history.

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style="font-style: italic;"> style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars: Knights of the Old
Republic could be the biggest Sci-Fi MMO of them all.

So will these games be the big three of 2010-2011? What about
the endless original IPs that we will see from studios like Red 5, 38
Studios, and Colony Studios? What will those companies bring to the
table in the ever growing game market of the next five years? The other
issue is that MMOs are already making their way into the console wars.
With consoles starting to host more and more multi-player content,
games will have to adapt across platforms.

For us old timers in gaming, I want to mention the years
1981-1982. This was an interesting year for RPG gamers in the old days.
Dungeons &
Dragons
became a huge deal throughout the end of the
1970s. It dominated the market of RPG titles. By the time 1982 hit, you
saw the impact on popular culture. Movies like style="font-style: italic;">Conan the Barbarian
and Dragonslayer
were hitting the theaters. In those years, a flood of games hit the
market trying to capitalize on the popularity of RPGs. There was a
strong explosion of games that came out of the late 1970s which
flourished in the early 1980s. As a gamer – and a kid at the
time – it was great to be around for those years. In video
games and MMOs, we are starting to see a revolution on a much larger
scale. Games have become a mainstream form of entertainment in our
culture. Hopefully, we will see the sci-fi MMOs take us in a new
direction of game play that will make us feel like kids again. 


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source for informative articles
and editorials!


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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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