The MMO Industry in 2007by: Michael Lafferty
An overview of the year past and a tiny look ahead The past year was rather a tumultuous one in the massively multiplayer online genre, but then that is par for the course when considering the relative youthfulness of the game category. After all, 2007 marked only the 10th anniversary of Ultima Online, a game that really was at the forefront of the modern era of MMOs. The past year saw a few big mergers that could well have a major impact on the genre as the years roll on. EA not only added Mythic to its stable, but also bought up the parent company of BioWare, a studio working on an MMO. The addition of Mythic was substantial enough news. Not only does EA gain Dark Age of Camelot, but the anticipated Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is now part of EA's gaming lineup. Warhammer was delayed and is now slated to release in 2008, but in early September, applications for beta were taken and on Sept. 5, EA announced that more than 400,000 had signed up for the beta.
And speaking of delays, Funcom and Eidos announced that Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures - another anticipated title - is on track to release on March 25. Another huge merger, at the end of the year, saw gaming section of Vivendi Universal Games and Activision become Activision Blizzard (Blizzard was the most successful of VUG's dev studios, and is honored with its name in the new moniker of the combined company). Activision Blizzard and EA are the top two third-party publishers and if the competition heats up for the MMO space, that should only spell good things down the line for gamers. Blizzard's World of Warcraft had another banner year, topping 9 million subscribers worldwide in late July. A WoW expansion hit shelves in '07 and Blizzard's revenues continued to soar. When it came to expansions, some titles came out of the blocks firing, one stumbled initially and another tried a new gaming take by combining two genres. NCsoft's Lineage II, one of the top subscription titles in the world (when you consider its solid Asian gamer base) launched its Kamael expansion, which is one of the biggest expansions in the game's three-plus year run. EVE Online's Trinity updated the graphics of one of the industry's best-looking titles, but had a small problem with an errant file that removed the boot.ini file from computers. The program was an early version of the Trinity expansion and CCP reacted quickly when it discovered the problem and posted a wealth of information, both on its Web site and with pop-ups in the game itself, to instruct players on how to fix the problem. Sony Online continued to grow EverQuest II and incorporated the ability for players to indulge in a trading-card game through its client. Legends of Norrath even had starter decks as drops in its world, and players could challenge other players in-game. A pair of top-tier MMOs released in 2007 and have met with acclaim. Lord of the Rings Online hit shelves in April and has had successful updates in the short time it has been online. Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa was released in early November and the sci-fi based shooter introduced new concepts (like control points that can change sides during the course of the game) that should give developers fresh ideas in the future.
But the year was not totally kind to NCsoft. In August its auto-combat based title, Auto Assault, dimmed its headlights. The game, to its credit, did bring a different approach to the MMO genre, but just did not draw in the numbers it needed to keep its servers running. Auto Assault was not the only casualty of 2007. Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising, developed by Perpetual for SOE, was a much-hyped title that never saw it past closed beta. Perpetual, already working on another project, decided that it could not bring the game about in the manner they wished it to be and development was stopped. Subscriptions continued to be a hot topic in the genre. Codemasters' Archlord joined a growing contingency that are adopting a free-to-play model, one that was forged successfully by NCsoft's Guild Wars. In August, NCsoft announced that the GW franchise had broken the four-million units sold mark in a little more than the two years since the launch of the initial game. Freestyle Street Basketball incorporated a bit of the free-to-play idea, initially allowing players to jump in and play for free until they reached level 15, at which time a subscription fee was to have kicked in. Ultimate Baseball Online continues to stay afloat and adjusts to try to bring a more complete baseball experience to gamers. A host of titles still are in a holding pattern as far as release dates are concerned. WEBZEN has an anticipated pair of titles, Huxley and SUN, with no solid release dates and while Chronicles of Spellborn seems to have set a European launch date (the first quarter of 2008), no word yet on when the title might see a launch in North America. Asian MMOs continue to flood the North American market but are, for the most part, the same game with slightly different locations and different names. All in all, though, 2007 was a very good year for the MMO industry and promises to set the foundations for a very successful '08.
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