Comments on: Are MMO Gamers Getting Smarter?

By: Patrick

Patrick — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 05:20:20 +0000

Gamers may or may not be getting smarter but I think the shutdown of the WAR beta is due to the Vanguard. Vanguard stands as a great example of what “not to do” to Game Makers. The guys WAR learned from the VG failure.

It is simply really. Now all any MMORPG maker has to do it look at Vanguard and then do the opposite. Easy.

By: Ryan Shwayder

Ryan Shwayder — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:11:55 +0000

I still think that if you remove too much of the “grind,” a lot of the same people who complain about it will think it sucks more without it. If you shoot past content and are handed everything, would you really feel like you accomplished anything?

I personally think MY ideal leveling pace would be something like WoW divided by 2 or 3. Is that the ideal pace for people who actually play often? Maybe, maybe not.

By: mrwuss

mrwuss — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 18:15:24 +0000

Grinds are not marketed to ‘kids’. They are in the game to make sure they get the most amount of time frome each play style.

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:19:29 +0000

“How else can you explain continuing to make time-sink grindfests targeted towards players without jobs or children?”

Because when you have a subscription based game, the cheapest way to keep your subscribers is to draw out your content by placing artificial time sinks in your game play. And by cheapest, I mean the least challenging to the developer. The longer it takes your player base to move through content, the less time/money a game developer has to spend.

I think as the genre (and player base) matures however, developers are, or are going to have to, find ways to make the time consuming grind fest “fun”. Otherwise the players are at some point going to move on to a different game that provides them with the same things, only in a more fun or time-effective manner.

By: JuJutsu

JuJutsu — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:28:52 +0000

“I�m of the opinion that the market is much older than people realize or would admit to, but we still see games being developed for teens rather than adults.”

I agree. But there is a lot of inertia in the system, development teams can have a tendency to make the same sort of game today as they made 10 years ago when the market was younger. How else can you explain continuing to make time-sink grindfests targeted towards players without jobs or children?

By: Garthilk

Garthilk — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 07:01:25 +0000

Hmm,

Gamers are getting smarter, kind of implies that gamers are getting older more experianced. If gamers are getting older, why do we keep developing games for the players with little experiance. It would be interesting to see the demographics, I’m of the opinion that the market is much older than people realize or would admit to, but we still see games being developed for teens rather than adults.