Why MMOs take so long to make

[Morreion]

Timesink: Why MMOs Take So Long
MMORPG.com contributor Shannon Drake has been in and around the game development business for a while now and today begins his journey of answering the question: Why exactly does developing an MMO take so long when the final product doesn't always seem perfectly polished?

It's easy to get impatient for an MMO to release, but there is a lot that goes into making an MMO, as this article points out. It can be easy for devs to get wrapped up for years in something that makes sense to them, but turns out to not click with customers. Production consists of thousands of decisions that can add up to who-knows-what as a result. Makes you realize how fragile the whole process is!

[Regolyth]

They still take entirely too long to produce an MMO, and then it doesn't work properly once it's out. It's like the beta still continues on for another six months to a year after it's release. I know it's complicated and complex as to what all goes into a MMO, but there are single-player games that have a lot more depth to them that come out in a quarter of the time, and I know their studios are smaller on top of that.