New World Proved That The Hunger For A Modern Mmo Is Clearly...

You can't become a titan if you never get time to grow.

There's a feeling I've been trying to shake off, as I write about MMOs for this very site—that MMOs are a relic of the past. Dying not just to our shared lack of time, but also to an era of player that has aged out of its prior old school tendencies, like the elves sadly getting on a boat for the west. And while part of that's true, the recent spate of MMO news has me wondering if it's entirely our fault no new MMOs are coming out.

Corporate wisdom (which is oftentimes an oxymoron) would have you believe that live services are the new moneymaker (sure, if you hit it big, if you don't, you die) and that MMOs are unsustainable. To be fair to that wisdom, there are nuggets of truth in it. I don't mean to say that MMOs are a sure bet, far from it. MMOs are expensive, require constant maintenance, and competition is fierce because we don't like trying new stuff.

But also, Amazon kinda messed New World up, and its shutdown is more about mismanagement than anything else. Contrary to hindsight, New World is not, on paper, a failed MMO. It did so well on launch that it had Amazon salivating over game development for a minute.

Even when things quietened down, it still wobbled around 10,000 players on Steam (keep in mind it was eventually ported to console, too). Which is pocket change compared to a giant like World of Warcraft, sure, but it is entirely possible to make money from an online game with 10,000 players.

The real question is 'how does Amazon not keep New World profitable?' and the answer is: It probably had no idea what it was doing with it. This is, after all, the company that thought it could compete with Steam just by showing up.

I don't mean to pay lip service to the monetisation models of most MMOs, but the fact is they do work even if they annoy the pants off everybody. Final Fantasy 14 rakes in enough from its cash shop to keep half of Square Enix propped up.

New World, on the other hand, was a buy-to-play game with no subscription and a cash shop that mostly just… sells cosmetics. For a game where you play not a catboy who could really use a maid outfit, but Adventurer McAdventureson.

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Which I think is the wrong way to go, not ethically, but logistically. As pointed out by our own Fraser Brown back in 2021 with his New World review: "It is an MMO in desperate need of an identity." FF14

Source: PC Gamer