The bubble bursts:
In addition to people that try every new MMO that comes out, any players drawn in by over-hyping are unlikely to stay for more than the initial free month. It's therefore important to plan for a decrease in player numbers, either by having a backwardly-scalable server structure or by announcing several temporary servers for launch that are expected to be merged later. This is even more important for games which rely on a certain level of player density to function well, a problem Warhammer Online faced when the lack of players forced many PvP instances to grind to a halt during off-peak times. After dragging their feet on the issue, Mythic eventually had to begin server merges.
Common sense and personal experience suggest that players who feel let down by an MMO are significantly more likely to quit than those that seek out and try the game of their own volition. They are likely to be resentful of the game and may even regret their purchase of the game at launch. People that have made a more informed choice which isn't driven by advertising and hype may still be disappointed with the game, but they're far less likely to immediately quit and be resentful. The result then of over-hyping an MMO's launch may be to dramatically increase the number of angry vocal players and the number of people quitting the game within the first few months of launch. In turn, ordinary players that are only slightly dissatisfied with the game may think they're seeing a mass-exodus of players and follow suit. Potential signups may also see forums full of complaints or blog posts deriding the game, which could deter them from signing up. This could be very destructive for an MMO as a botched launch can spell disaster for long-term subscriptions and takes a long time to recover from.
Conversion rates:
A commonly used concept in business is the idea of the customer conversion rate. This is the percentage of potential customers that move from one phase of product ownership to another. An example would be the conversion rate between people who see an advert for World of Warcraft to those that buy the game. Another would be the conversion rate between people that buy the game and those that pay for a second month. Whatever the metric being examined, there is one universal constant that is absolutely unavoidable – no conversion rate will ever be 100%. At each stage in the marketing, sales and subscription pipeline, some people will invariably choose not to continue with their purchase. Whether that means deciding against buying the game in the first place or deciding to cancel their subscription after four months, at each stage some people will inevitably bleed out of the pipeline.
The only way to have reliable, consistent playerbase growth in an MMO is to have more players coming in than going out. The number coming in can be increased through marketing but as was discussed earlier, those players may not be retained for long. Heavy marketing strategies used with games like Age of Conan have proven themselves to be effective only in the short-term. The best strategy then is to increase the player retention rate as much as possible. If players leave at a slower rate than they enter the game, it will have consistent growth in the long-term. MMOs that have successfully used this strategy include EVE Online, Runescape, Second Life, Dofus, Tibia and possibly World of Warcraft, almost all of which have higher than average player retention rates and have shown consistent growth over time.
Summary:
In today's market, it's becoming more common for millions to be spent on advertising and hyping up a game for launch. While this is a good strategy for popular single-sale games, over-hyping may actually harm a subscription MMO's launch. All too often game companies have used heavy marketing in the short-term as a substitute for compelling gameplay that retains players in the long-term. But what will happen if a game comes along that finally lives up to its hype? Perhaps then we'll see the birth of another giant in the MMO genre.
