The MMO Crash of 2008

[Morreion]

Hellforge: The MMO Crash of 2008

The year 2008 had to be the worst year for the MMO market. Games like Pirates of the Burning Sea, Tabula Rasa, Hellgate: London, and Age of Conan made their debuts in this year and two of them are still hanging by a string. While Hellgate and Tabula Rasa were released in 2007, I still count them towards the 2008 year, as it was their chance to redeem their selves from poor launches and they were nearly launched in 2008 anyways. However, when one of these MMOs launched is not the question; the question is what the hell happened?

Hat tip to Oatik on finding this thoughtful article!

[Gidgiddoni]

I am only vaguely familiar with the games mentioned. I considered Pirates and Conan but hear such bad things I steered clear.

I think his mention of Warhammer as almost a post script is sort of poor reporting. I think that Warhammer was probably the biggest disappointment of the year for a lot of people. Mythic was supposed to know better, but they have turned out a piece of crap.

[Morreion]

Overall the year 2008 was a disappointment. Age of Conan and Warhammer were hyped over the years, and they are struggling. Pirates was more of a niche game, though it was a unique idea, but it is struggling too. Tabula Rasa was almost DOA (and as a beta tester I told the devs that's what would happen). They should have went with a free-to-play-by-buying-the-box model.

It seems that the further we get away from the classic 1st-generation graphical MMORPGs the tougher it gets to find a good game to play for years at a time. That may have a lot to do with the lack of a general community in games these days.