It is a great time to be a MMO gamer. We have a lot of games to choose from and many more on the way. Just look at September, three major releases in that month alone (Champions Online, Fallen Earth and Aion).
In the coming year we will see a large number of new games and expansions. Can the MMO market handle all of these competing products? The development of many of them dates back years when WoW's numbers attracted all kinds of attention. Investors saw that there was money to be made and now we have a ton of MMO's (present and future).
One reason for this is that many thought they could grab a piece of WoW's playerbase. This does not seem to be how things work unfortunately. A significant amount of people like playing WoW and may not be swayed to these other games. There is a portion that will leave, but is it enough to go around?
The market will soon be saturated with MMO's and not enough players to go around. Once investors expectations are not met, we will see shrinkage (Do women know about shrinkage?) as MMO's close down, change payment models or shed employees. This will lead to investors being less willing to fund MMO's in the future.
As much as I like MMO's, I see the bubble bursting at some point down the line. Some games will be fine (i.e. WoW, TOR, Eve and others with a built in fan base). I think it will lead to more focused and efficient MMO's as they truly embrace their niche nature.
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