Despite a valiant patch-up job from its developers, it never recovered. The game was broken and there wasn't enough to do. But Funcom's management, nervous that it appear as big as WOW, artificially inflated the size of the game and stretched its content way past breaking point, then rushed it to market before it was technically ready. Essentially the "mature WOW", this blood-and-guts fantasy game boasted handsome graphics and relatively fluid combat. Just a few months after I started my job, Age of Conan was a perfect case study, but everyone learned the wrong lesson from it. Age of Conan was among the first and most conspicuous failures, but the industry didn't learn from it. WOW's competition has been weak and derivative. Innovation stifled while designers and financiers alike chased unreachable targets of size and opulence. Through no fault of Blizzard's or the brilliant game it built on the shoulders ofĮarlier pioneers like EverQuest, World of Warcraft has held an entire sector in its thrall. Subscription MMOs are failing in slow motion. Meanwhile, World of Warcraft's fortunes have begun to turn, albeit with the ponderous speed of an oil tanker. The announcement that it was going free-to-play followed seven months later. Their story was repeated again and again, to greater apathy each time, while floundering games turned free-to-play.Īt the end of last year BioWare made one last push with the gigantic Star Wars: The Old Republic, certainly the most expensive game ever made.
The signs of what was to come were clearly writ in that first year, when Age of Conan and Warhammer Online launched to considerable fanfare and big sales, but failed to sign up long-term subscribers. Instead, we've had almost five years of stasis. I was convinced that exciting things were about to happen in this booming genre. World of Warcraft was still cresting its phenomenal wave of success and a crowd of high-profile new massively multiplayer games was forming in its wake, heading for release. Back in early 2008 I joined Eurogamer's staff as MMO editor.
0 kommentar(er)
