GaaS took all the profitable pieces of the MMO model, and left the entire genre a desiccated husk populated with zombie games that refuse to die from the 90s, 00s, and 10s. Other than a couple Asian market games (because that market is a lot more accepting of extreme monetization in MMO) and New World, I literally cannot think of a single MMO released in the 2020s that wasn’t just a kickstarter scam, and even those are less common now.
Comment on The best MMOs in 2023 - PCGamer
Goronmon@lemmy.world 7 months agoMMOs are definitely on the decline at this point. They are too big and expensive to make, and companies think GaaS setups are more lucrative.
wombatula@lemm.ee 7 months ago
rbar@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I don’t know. As a fan of the genre there seems to be renewed interest from some very grass roots developers. I would have agreed with your take in 2020, but in 2023 we have announcements of:
- the Riot MMO
- Ashes of Creation
- The Ghost studios MMO
These are all still in development, some still in the very early stages. But I would say there appears to be renewed interest in the genre by developers. These projects are major investments by industry veterans. There is more hope for a major new game.now than there has been in the last decade.
Goronmon@lemmy.world 7 months ago
There has always been a steady stream of “promising” MMOs from smaller developers over the past couple decades. So that’s not really a new phenomenon.
As for the Riot MMO, I’ll believe that when they actually have something that people can play.
Zahille7@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Which seems ironic right? You’d think the type of game best suited for a “games as a service” style would be MMOs.