The Resurgence of the MMORPG

An Untapped Renaissance of Emerging Market Technologies

Introductions

Gaming, it’s a marvelous creation, spurned from the creativity of a few computer lovers thinking about how to utilize bytes of memory in fun ways. How far we’ve come.

From the creation of Pong to the renaissance of early gaming dedicated consoles. Spinning out Star Fox, 007: Golden Eye and Zelda, to the development of mobile gaming with the Gameboy. Seeing games like Pokemon grip a whole new generation of gamers this industry has come a very, VERY long way. Think about it. The gaming industry is huge now, and it’s all based on the entertainment and joy of consumers.

Many of us have become accustomed to games as a second nature piece of our reality. Whether you play Candy Crush or Clash of Clans on mobile, League of Legends or Starcraft on PC, or Call of Duty and Fortnite on console, you’re a part of the gaming industry. You’re the studio’s audience.

We’re here to discuss one particular kind of game. One which has fallen a bit to the wayside, resting in the shadow of more prominent gaming models. Specifically, the MMORPG, or Mass Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.

What is an MMORPG?

A mass multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massive multiplayer online game.

Like in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a character (often in a fantasy world or science-fiction world) and takes control over many of that character's actions. MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player online RPGs by the number of players able to interact together, and by the game's persistent world (usually hosted by the game's publisher), which continues to exist and evolve while the player is offline and away from the game.

The original popularity wave(2000’s)

There was a massive influx of the MMORPG model with the creation and release of World of Warcraft in 2004. It’s one of the tried and true, sufficiently sticky games that continues to have over 1 million daily active users(DAU) after 19 years of consistent updates, production, and up-time.

Many gaming studios tried re-creating this model, and to some moderate success. But the majority of that success sputtered out as the 2000’s came to a close and more attractive gaming models took hold(such as First Person Shooters and single player RPG’s, like Call of Duty 4(2007), Call of Duty World At War(2008), and Battlefield: Bad Company(2008) for FPS’ and Bioshock(2007), Assassin’s Creed(2007), GTA 4(2008), and Fallout 3(2008) for RPG’s). These models catered to a division between those looking for a personalized experience and those looking for a competitive multi-player experience without all the character building that came along with an MMO.

Why Did it Fade?

I believe that towards the end of the 2000’s, there was a massive dichotomy among MMORPG players regarding gaming models. There became massive preferences between PvP(player vs player) and PvE(Player vs Environment), Instances(dungeon grinding), and Pay to Win models(players pay for the best gear, weapons, etc and almost impossible to get without putting large amounts of money into the game).

I don’t believe that the hardware at the time was capable of perfecting certain events such as a truly lag-free PvP experience where a player’s skill takes the forefront over luck or connection speeds. Today, we see a much more seamless connectivity with servers, much higher bandwidths, and much more potential for rendering large worlds and player actions in real time. I also think that many of these studios saw that Pay to Win was a successful albeit short-lived model, where they could collect large sums at the cost of losing daily active users over frustrations with the mechanics and big spenders continuing to win over the player that grinds day after day.

These issues seemed to churn away most of the population of MMO gamers through about 2009/2010. This was mostly led by greed of studios and a lack of hardware to support expansion for the times. Studios doubled down on the money makers instead of that which made the players stick around. In the end, the target market was not the daily active user but the deep wallet player looking to buy their way to the top of the leaderboard. But times have changed, the market value of DAU has increased since the age of social media began. Facebook and companies like it showed that locking in a sticky user base can pay long term dividends, even if they don’t pay for every feature.

Comparables and Popular Similar Models

In recent years, particularly with mainstream popularity surrounding League of Legends, Fortnite and the like, we’ve seen a strong draw for MOBA’s, or Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas. Essentially these games do extremely well because they stand at a versatile middle ground between a large open world style multiplayer game and a small close quarters style multi-player game. Versatile meaning they can be top down, third person, or first person as well. They allow for short game multiplayer matches so players can step away at their whim and take a breather, and they can play as their attention span sees fit. If they lose too many matches, they can walk away easily(or not so easily) after a match is completed.

This map and game style is somewhat similar to an MMORPG, the main differences being start and end times per match and map size. There is also a fundamental difference in player progression, as an MMORPG usually relies on a leveling system that progresses over weeks-months and a grinding methodology for collecting gear and advancing player stats. Some MOBA’s adopt this model such as League of Legends, except the leveling progression is over the course of a game(25-30 minutes). FPS MOBA’s usually do not have a leveling system and rely on the player to collect loot in-game to progress ability.

Why would MMORPG’s come back?

The core concept surrounding MMORPG’s is that they tend to reflect reality in some way. The main character goes through dynamic growth over the course of their journey through the game. Though most all MMORPG’s take creative liberties, add in skills, traits, and the like that are fictional in nature. In a way, they are meant to complement the player’s life with daily quests and activities as well as progressive quests to complete over time. This genre usually attracts a daily user to chime in for an hour or two each day.

I think there are many big reasons to expect a return of this gaming model. First off, it is one of the most successful for social and relationship building online. You can befriend, continuously participate and grow with other players, performing activities that require teamwork and communication to succeed.

Also, there is such a concept as player identity. By picking classes, gender, and designing your character from a base model, you can create a unique online identity that people get to know. Are you the healer waifu or a brawny tank? Are you a PvP lover that silently sneaks up on players and assassinates them, or are you the prideful chivalrous defender? These virtues can be extrapolated into your gaming identity when the social aspect combines with player activities.

The reason for the original sunset can be attributed to a few core points mentioned earlier in the article. To be specific now, I think many of the designs of PvP vs PvE have become more well understood by developers and studios in attuning to player interest and needs.

In regard to Pay to Win, there are still many games that pursue this model, but just as they come in with a strong draw, they sunset quick enough.

MMORPG’s had a massive draw in the early 2000’s as mentioned earlier, so we know that there is popularity to tap into. And there is a cult-like gaming collective that enjoys MMORPG’s more than most any other gaming genre.

Emerging Technologies

We’re starting to see a new type of studio come into the fray. This studio utilizes cryptocurrencies to give players much more control over their hard-earned gear and weapons, turning their skills and time into a return on investment. Utilizing crypto currencies doesn’t necessarily mean we abandon the pay to win model. But I do think that we see a much stickier model develop as players can turn their efforts grinding into cash, and their accessories can be sold peer to peer or on marketplaces as digital collectibles, with the NFT being built to exactly match the in-game item. The way studios will still be able to collect their nut is by one of two things. One, having a partial hold-back on supply that they withhold and sell as the native gaming token becomes speculative by the nature of a bull run. Or two, they accept cash purchases for specific items. For the sake of immersion and speculation however, it would be better if all transactions were conducted in a singular currency, giving players a draw to hold and accrue the native token. The hope, eventually, would be that the currency has achieved such a speculative mass that the in-game economy can support “career gamers” with hundreds and for the best players, thousands of dollars per day in earnings.

We’re starting to see a few gaming studios implement this functionality and after a few years of development, release content and allow access that may very well issue in a grassroots campaign for crypto gaming. This potential will only continue to grow if the economics are modeled right until DAU capitulates and everyone is talking about grinding hours in-game to make some money.

Another crypto-currency utilization is NFTs that match in-game items. This goes well with a player-first economy. NFT’s are a nice mechanism for items, gear, accessories, skins, and weapons because they can take on many traits and characteristics and be shown to the market visually with the image of the NFT. These NFT’s have major capabilities. We’ve seen with OpenSea, MagicEden, Blur, and even the IMX bespoke gaming marketplaces that NFT’s can be bought, sold, and transferred easily. This component allows for players to farm end-market products such as top tier gear to then sell to other players. With this function, the game can take on pay to win characteristics without the studio gate-keeping and taking all of the profits for themselves. The studio can set a fee for transactions, even as specific as only on particular items, to collect their nut while still rewarding the most established players.

These models have had limited success in specific games already, such as CounterStrike with loot boxes and being able to sell weapon skins on the secondary market. But these markets will only become more common and perfected as we continue to utilize them.

The final emerging market technology that I don’t think we’re very close to achieving yet, but will begin to poke it’s head on the horizon is virtual reality. This function allows players to experience an ever-deeper immersion into these worlds. We may only be at “screen that attaches to your face” phase, but with Neuralink on the horizon and sci-fi examples such as Ready Player One and Sword Art Online, this future may not be so far away. Combining this immersive experience with the capability to be a career gamer, it creates a perfect storm of people spending hours, days, weeks, months, and even years committed to these games.

What’s changed since the 2000’s?

These emerging technologies are quite close at hand, at least the cryptocurrency utilities are. And the in-game economy, though it may be overlooked, is heavily important in MMORPG’s. The functionality of the economy and the depth of the game comes to balance out the social, the economic, and the potential of a player. As I said before, MMORPG’s simulate real life into a game and add some fluff and circuses to entice you into enjoying it. Why would it not make sense that an in-game economy is not important if the real world economy is just that important? Sure, you may not be sitting at a desk job in the game or surfing amazon in the game, but being able to trade and interact with other players economically for real world value changes the entire concept of what a game can do.

Not only that, but hardware technology has come a long way too. The bandwidth of a server in 2009 was miniscule in comparison to the capabilities of servers today. You can literally stream 100gb games from a server hundreds of miles away to a console in your living room and play it with minimal lag. And not only has server hardware become more advanced, so too has personal hardware. Being able to play a game on PC with 1ms lag and 20ms ping was never achievable in 2007. When you clicked to move a character, you would at times lag through a wall, or the connection would be bad and it would take 2-3 seconds for a character to respond once you start pressing a move key. And back in the day, you put up with it. It was what it was. But now, people have high expectations and studios meet those expectations. Look at League of Legends try hard players like Tyler1, raging at even a few milliseconds of lag.

Though these changes have occurred slowly but surely year over year, the difference between 2007-2009 and 2023 is vast, and this creates a ripe potential to disrupt the market once again. And the way for studios to do that? Put the player first.

Biggest Draws to a new MMORPG model

Putting players first happens in a few ways. Essentially first, a design feature should be that the best players can earn $100+ per day just by grinding out hours doing the top tier quests/instances/dungeons/mob bosses, whatever it may be. Rewarding a strong, sticky group of people that can profit off the game by putting in time and effort gives you an amazing foundation for both attracting new users and creating a sticky, retentive sandbox for them to play within.

Second, you need to give up the reigns of making money directly through microtransactions. Instead, allow players to be able to craft, build, and transact the most sought-after materials. Do not gatekeep essential items and goods. Giving them capabilities to craft complex items and then trade among themselves is really what a player wants.

A Better Approach

Just like real life, the studio can charge a sales tax via royalties on any NFT trades, while also allowing tokens to flow freely between players. The studio can also control the rarity of these items via drop chances and craft chances, etc. These mechanics make sense in a game built to challenge players while also allowing them to participate in the world economy. The goal of a studio should not be to achieve a cash cow business model, but to create a sticky environment with a humming economy that creates a return on investment through attrition on sales and velocity of transactions.

If a studio does decide to gatekeep certain items because it wouldn’t make sense to make them a drop, charge the in-game currency instead of a credit card. Force players to hold a balance of your native token. It’s better in the long run.

The studio should withhold a certain number of tokens for themselves. You should not want a studio to be looking for ways to exploit the system. A studio should be flush and incentivized with in-game assets so that everyone wins. Yes, they will likely sell peaks and buy valleys if they’re smart. But this is a much, MUCH better system than collecting dollars through microtransactions and destroying the immersion and in-game economy in the process.

In the instance of a gaming token, I do not think that an inflationary token to infinity should be taken off the table. I think that there is a realistic inflationary size annually that would support continuing to drop tokens to players without having to find innovative ways to recycle existing currency in a feedback loop. The inflationary mechanic supports the longevity of the game once you find a more static structure for the economy after scaling to critical mass.

Finally, I think that the goal post for the ceiling of a game should constantly be moving. You want to create a story and relationship with players that achieve the highest potential. You want to encourage people to hit that ceiling and begin having fun utilizing the game’s other competitive and social aspects as well as the career earning potential that comes along with the model described in this article. But you also want the player to stay hungry for new and exciting things. This means expanding the map, increasing the level cap or introducing new models for expanding character development, introducing new and stronger gear/weaponry, and creating new complex environments for players to compete, battle, and work together to complete. This allows for the players at the edge of the game to continue to grind and work towards achieving something new and shiny as well as continue to keep deep pocket players seeking the new items and gear in order to stay top-tier. If the goal post doesn’t move, it’s likely that your most committed audience will get bored and walk away as the social and competitive aspects wax and wane and then become mundane to them.

Final Thoughts

I will finish with a disagreeable take. Pay to Win is not a bad model. It just depends on where the funds of those willing to pay flow to. I think that in a game like real life, the best assets will be purchased and sold by those with deep pockets. I have a problem with Pay to Win when a studio is the profiteer. When another player is the profiteer, this model makes sense to me. In a truly unlimited MMORPG utilizing all the available technology, it would make sense that the players with the deepest pockets would accrue massive amounts of the native token and purchase the best assets in the game to pay for their way to the top. Essentially what this means is that the players who earn from this Pay to Win model are the 15 hour a day players that turn this game into their job and life. These players are the ones that spend hours grinding with a good group of teammates, getting the best materials and forging the strongest weapons in the game, edge-running the game’s ceiling every time it’s expanded.

The reason Pay to Win broke a lot of games back in 2007-2009 was because of how the economy was designed, with all of the profits of these models flowing directly to the studio. This should not be the case. This is a broken model that will fail every time because players realize the sham the second they click buy.

The reason this is a polarizing model is because players without deep pockets or who do not wish to spend thousands of dollars on a game are left without. The goal here is not to remove Pay to Win, but to bring it to a parity with the player who grinds day after day, investing his time and energy into the game when deep pocket players do not.