Most PC MMO's are quite profitable. WoW has been a runaway success, but that doesn't mean other MMO's don't make any money. Most of them require only about 80,000 to 120,000 subscribers to make back their development cost and keep the game running, and most of them actually do have this number of people playing.
It's a myth that WoW is the only succesful MMO, it's just a warped image of the numbers presented. In the same way, Madonna (or whoever is more relevant today) could be the most succesful singer in the world, that doesn't mean she is the only succesful singer. Opera singers get comparatively much less exposure and (frankly) do less work, but they still get a pretty good handful of cash for every time they play even though no one knows who they are. People would also argue that they're better singers than Madonna, but "how could this be if she makes so much more money"?
Actually, EA/Dice announced in november last year (iirc) that Bad Company 2 PC slightly outsold the 360 and PS3 versions (seperately though). Portal 2 was always going to be a huge PC favoured game obviously.
Most games do sell better on the console though, but that's usually because they're, well, console games. PC sales are hampered somewhat by disproportionately high prices for games which aren't very well suited or adjusted to the platform, which leads to piracy and reduced sales (bad console ports).
PC gamers right now are swarmed with F2P games and very low cost alternatives to AAA titles, aswell as the relative ease to download something illegally which does not use any form of DRM, which is usually more harmful to the legit customer than the pirate. Very few games are able to break through this rather bad situation, however, there are a few that do, like the ones i mentioned earlier.
@DevilSei The Unreal Tournament games have always been pretty packed with maps. As for games like Battlefield, the number is pretty low simply because the maps are massive amounts of data, and it and CoD-like games like to keep more maps for DLC's.
@(Unverified) EVE is dying *because* CCP is focusing on WoD and Dust. CCP is not actually iterating on EVE - Even bugfixing isn't getting any budget at the moment and the reason Incarna even gets anything at all is because it's an offshoot from the WoD development. This is why EVE players are leaving.
@(Unverified) It's neither trying to be 'PvP' or 'PvE' - That's not the game's focus. Tornquist wants to make it story focused, but in how far that works out, we shall see.
Ship design is already in EVE, though only rudimentary in the form of Tech 3 ships. Making your own ships entirely though is a balance nightmare, nice for a singleplayer game but not multiplayer, especially given the cruel market.
"I should be able to play and grow at my pace." - but you want to train just as fast as the people who's pace is a lot faster than yours? This doesn't make any sense to me. Having to log in to the game to keep training going at certain times is a good thing. Your WoW character doesn't level itself up either when you're logged out, but your EVE character does. It's not a disaster if you miss a few hours or even days That, and after a few weeks you won't even "need" to log in every day since the skills will take longer and longer to train in the first place.
Having more pilots pilot one ship is a neat idea, but not in EVE - The player is a captain, not a crewmate. That, and pods! Aside from the backstory problems you'd also have simple gameplay to worry about. EVE already encourages teamplay strongly by way of fleets, there's no need to push people into (even more) micromanaging.
I'm an EVE fan but i will readily admit that the game is nowhere near perfect. Still, it fills it's niche nicely and managed to maintain a lot of players despite it's faults. The game has to be improved, but not at the cost of it's soul. You have to remember that EVE is incredibly cruel, especially to new players, and this is the intent of the developers (well, the cruel thing, they do want new players of course). It's not for everyone. It's a game where you have to deal with other players every single time you log in, you can't just log in for a bit without having to worry about others. Losses can really hurt you and especially early on you will have to get over the very harsh 'death' penalty. EVE will never get "millions of players, but it doesn't need to either. CCP just lost their way a bit and WoD and Dust did not help that in the slightest by draining EVE's resources quite a lot.
DUST 514 could be the PS3's 'most important game'
Oct 25th 2011 11:58PM (Massively)Most PC MMO's are quite profitable. WoW has been a runaway success, but that doesn't mean other MMO's don't make any money. Most of them require only about 80,000 to 120,000 subscribers to make back their development cost and keep the game running, and most of them actually do have this number of people playing.
It's a myth that WoW is the only succesful MMO, it's just a warped image of the numbers presented. In the same way, Madonna (or whoever is more relevant today) could be the most succesful singer in the world, that doesn't mean she is the only succesful singer. Opera singers get comparatively much less exposure and (frankly) do less work, but they still get a pretty good handful of cash for every time they play even though no one knows who they are. People would also argue that they're better singers than Madonna, but "how could this be if she makes so much more money"?
I hope you get what i mean :)
DUST 514 could be the PS3's 'most important game'
Oct 25th 2011 11:54PM (Massively)Actually, EA/Dice announced in november last year (iirc) that Bad Company 2 PC slightly outsold the 360 and PS3 versions (seperately though). Portal 2 was always going to be a huge PC favoured game obviously.
Most games do sell better on the console though, but that's usually because they're, well, console games. PC sales are hampered somewhat by disproportionately high prices for games which aren't very well suited or adjusted to the platform, which leads to piracy and reduced sales (bad console ports).
PC gamers right now are swarmed with F2P games and very low cost alternatives to AAA titles, aswell as the relative ease to download something illegally which does not use any form of DRM, which is usually more harmful to the legit customer than the pirate. Very few games are able to break through this rather bad situation, however, there are a few that do, like the ones i mentioned earlier.
DUST 514 to be the 'biggest multiplayer FPS on the market'
Oct 11th 2011 5:27AM (Massively)So long and thanks for all the pics: One Shots favorites
Oct 2nd 2011 12:12AM (Massively)MMOs may be on the horizon for OnLive
Sep 24th 2011 12:19PM (Massively)Glassfibre 20+ mbit. Pings of 5 or less to any multiplayer game out there.
Onlive is pretty much unplayable for me. Input lag + network lag = lots and lots of lag.
Yoogames yoinks assets from EVE Online and others, faces retribution
Sep 16th 2011 1:42AM (Massively)'Blow your minds': The Secret World dreams of large-scale PvP
Aug 23rd 2011 1:01PM (Massively)Single-player games will be dead in three years, says industry analyst
Aug 17th 2011 3:56PM (Massively)Notch just raised my faith in humanity, this post lowered it again.
EVE devs brainstorming nullsec changes
Aug 3rd 2011 3:39PM (Massively)Nullsec is where "the real EVE" is played, though opinions will differ on that i suppose.
EVE devs brainstorming nullsec changes
Aug 3rd 2011 3:38PM (Massively)Ship design is already in EVE, though only rudimentary in the form of Tech 3 ships. Making your own ships entirely though is a balance nightmare, nice for a singleplayer game but not multiplayer, especially given the cruel market.
"I should be able to play and grow at my pace." - but you want to train just as fast as the people who's pace is a lot faster than yours? This doesn't make any sense to me. Having to log in to the game to keep training going at certain times is a good thing. Your WoW character doesn't level itself up either when you're logged out, but your EVE character does. It's not a disaster if you miss a few hours or even days That, and after a few weeks you won't even "need" to log in every day since the skills will take longer and longer to train in the first place.
Having more pilots pilot one ship is a neat idea, but not in EVE - The player is a captain, not a crewmate. That, and pods! Aside from the backstory problems you'd also have simple gameplay to worry about. EVE already encourages teamplay strongly by way of fleets, there's no need to push people into (even more) micromanaging.
I'm an EVE fan but i will readily admit that the game is nowhere near perfect. Still, it fills it's niche nicely and managed to maintain a lot of players despite it's faults. The game has to be improved, but not at the cost of it's soul. You have to remember that EVE is incredibly cruel, especially to new players, and this is the intent of the developers (well, the cruel thing, they do want new players of course). It's not for everyone. It's a game where you have to deal with other players every single time you log in, you can't just log in for a bit without having to worry about others. Losses can really hurt you and especially early on you will have to get over the very harsh 'death' penalty. EVE will never get "millions of players, but it doesn't need to either. CCP just lost their way a bit and WoD and Dust did not help that in the slightest by draining EVE's resources quite a lot.