MMOs seem like a very easy sell. They are either F2P or otherwise relatively cheap for the potentially hours of content, that allow you to make fun memories with either friends or just random people online. At the same time, despite being the king of the roost over a decade ago, now it seems like a dead genre with nowhere to go, despite the fact that games are getting more advance, internet usership is skyrocketing, subscriptions are so normalised, and the demand for fun multiplayer experiences is at an all-time high. So what exactly is going on? Well let's start by talking about what worked for MMOs.
Examples of What Works
For me, thinking about larger multiplayer experiences really brings back memories of those old multiplayer browser games for kids, that were basically MMOs. They were giant, online sandboxes with thousands if not millions of other users . For me it was watching their decline which has been really sad, despite it seeming like something that kids these days would love. They were fun, online games where you could do a lot. However they certainly had their issues. Monetising a game like that was hard, as most of the time it came down to "unlock these epic items by begging your parents to buy you a membership", and the popularity of these titles meant that the server costs were much higher than any subscription revenue.
Then there are other approaches to MMOs that are not struggling. Probably the best example is Wynncraft the MMORPG built in Minecraft, which I once played pretty heavily and got involved in the wider community, and the rather heated and complex nature of guild politics. And beyond the server just being good with fun quests and features, it was that community element that I think made me realise why MMOs like Wynncraft work long-term, and that is that extra layer of freedom. Sure, in those kid browser MMOs I mentioned you did have community elements: fanart, RP, and other activities put together by community members (I mean my whole online career started from a fan blog I ran for one of these games), but in the end it was extremely limited in terms of what can be done. It was a mix of both loving what was there, but also annoyance I couldn't get more involved. So much of what I and others wanted to do was just left to head-canon due to the limitations of the core game, with the development of new features for these browser games always being extremely slow.
In Wynncraft on the other hand, you have pretty much the best of both worlds, both fun moment-to-moment gameplay and mechanics (ok there's still a lot of grinding and button mashing but that's just a curse MMOs can't seem to escape), while also having so many player-driven elements you could get involved in.
Of course that's something that a lot of MMOs do, things like WoW and ESO with its factions, but it's the level of customisation and in-depth escapism is what makes people involved and makes them stay. Look at something like Eve Online, a game kept alive by its basically being a whole alternate universe for people's power fantasies to go wild, with stuff like Star Citizen also building up hype on a similar promise. As much as we like to make fun of the idea of a "metaverse MMO", it's hard to deny that its the elements of those that keep people interested in MMOs. It's not just about the moment-to-moment gameplay, the minmaxing of items and builds, but also about the greater picture, and what else is possible to fully immerse yourself and do stuff you can't do in real life, letting your power fantasies flow.
MMOs are Intimidating
On the other hand, for others it can be so insanely intimidating. They go to an MMO like Wynncraft, or anything else like that, they see all the various menus and sub-menus, stats and items to track, they see the heated community and politics, and they just get scared off. While naturally most MMOs provide tutorials, they often either scratch the surface or what's possible, or they're in themselves so overwhelming that they make many people leave. Then add the community element on top of that, with webs of community politics, player slang and abbreviations, the game's meta, and players complaining about every minute change, and it's very easy to see how players can get scared off. Especially for people looking for something easy to get into, because between works and other responsibilities they don't have much time to play games, it can be almost impossible to get into anything more complex.
When they're not being intimidating, they can be just flat-out boring, a nasty reputation they have earned in the past decade or so, with samey activities, plenty of grind, long travel, and failing to make the stakes feel high, when you see thousands of other players trying to solve the same problems in the world as you.
Marketing
In a world of live-service, multiplayer-only, and otherwise hard to categorise games, MMOs have become clearly a lot more difficult to market. That is why in more recent times we have seen the trend of labelling things as a "metaverse", that even a few short years ago would've just been called an MMORPG.
For many years, MMO marketing was simple in theory, yet still something many people failed at. There were two big questions the devs had to answer when pushing the game:
Why MMO?
Why not just play WoW?
While easy in theory, it's something that they failed at answering over and over and over again, making people uninterested or confused by the genre as a whole. And that certainly only got worse when the MMO flood began.
Nowadays, the concept of MMO can just seem weird, especially to younger players. How can you explain the differences between that and something like Fortnite, or some live-service slop with micro-transactions? In this day and age, the term almost feels foreign, and like a relic of the ancient times, even if many of the core elements remain the same. Now, new buzzwords are coming in to try and replace it, and breathe new life into the concept, like how nowadays people are making AI products of everything, that just a few years ago would've just been called "Smart", rather than "AI-powered". By that definition, with the marketing terms always changing, you could say MMOs never died, just evolved (or devolved, depending on who you ask).
Popularity Was Its Downfall
Seeing the unprecedented amounts of money WoW has been bringing in for Blizzard, like some evil genius scheme to make every gamer with too much time on their hands into a walking ATM, made every money-hungry developer jump on the opportunity to try and create their own digital addiction. And that was even before the current even more dystopian era of live-service, believe it or not! History does truly repeat itself.
This lead to a deluge of MMOs both completely new ones, but also ones based on recognisable IPs to try and a get an advantage when trying to dethrone WoW with the help of that franchise's existing communities. You had MMOs from the usual suspects like Star Wars, Star Trek, and of course The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, but even things like Conan the Barbarian got not one, but two attempts at an MMORPG. And almost all of them failed at answering those two basic questions when attempts to actually promote those games began. To many people, they seemed like either just reskins of the same basic activities, run around, grind, level up, buy new gear, rinse and repeat. They became formulaic, with only the slight differences each franchise brought to the table offering anything new. The overexposure lead to so many sub-par products being released that the genre as a whole was tainted in the eyes of the general public. The last hurrah that most people cared about was ESO and Fallout 76, but they quickly went from last hurrah to the final two nails in the MMO coffin, and the excitement anyone had for them.
However, at the same time, something else was happening. Multiplayer games were still successful, more than ever in fact. Battle Royale games became a thing, not to mention all the one-off hits across the past few years, most of which emphasised some multiplayer element: Pokemon Go, Animal Crossing New Horizons, Among Us, Lethal Company, etc. The love for multiplayer experiences never went away, the lover for the core elements that make up an MMO never went away, but the amount of games that actually put all of those elements together went down to almost zero. Who wouldn't love games that took elements from all those titles I just mentioned, but put them into a grander setting, with more to do, and large lobbies with many more people with them. And whilst we were always able to do that, we can now make games on an even larger scale, with even more people involved. Especially with how prevalent the internet is now, getting people involved in new properties and making them aware of awesome new worlds to explore, is now easier than ever.
Summary
Overall, most of what makes the few rare examples of MMOs succeed in recent years can really come down to how involved they allow a person to be.
Just look at Minecraft as a whole, for example. Even as the world's biggest introvert and misanthrope, I can confidently say that multiplayer Minecraft is always better than singleplayer. That is because so much of what we do in such games benefits from that external validation from others. Building large buildings, transportation systems, and other amenities in a survival world just feels hollow and empty and fake if there aren't other, real people to make use of all of it. And no, NPC villagers don't count.
For me and many others, seeing other people use it, is what makes it worth it, what makes it make sense, what makes me want to put in the time and effort. A lot of that just reflects so much else of what we do as well. I wouldn't probably be making videos if there weren't other people watching them. Even in primary school, sure I was a shy kid who mostly didn't speak to anyone, but I was also the kid that was constantly coming up with playground games for others to play, and being the one dictating the rules and gaining respect for coming up with fun ideas was always worth the effort to talk to people. And while everyone requires different levels of external validation, that is the essential difference between all singleplayer and multiplayer games. Multiplayer games aren't just about collaborating or talking to people, you could hate talking to people, or just people in general, with the greatest passion possible, but still enjoy multiplayer games. Why? Because you get to be seen and show off. You get to kill someone with an insane shot in an FPS, outmatch them with great strategy in an RTS, etc. You can even play with just random people, or in a group with friends as a bonus.
So as much as we make fun of these metaverse promises and all the other overhyped MMO promises in the past few years, we can't deny it's that depth that provides a strong foundation for an MMO. Don't get me wrong, trying to sell your MMO on all those buzzwords makes me gag as well, and it's still very cringey, we are still in the stage of experimentation in that area in what we can get away with. Long-term, I think we will just go back to older styles of marketing for MMOs, but I think with the advances in technology, with games now potentially being bigger than ever, it's time for a potential MMO revival, with the scale and scope that makes people care. Because in the end that's what people want, something that's worth caring about, that is a unique-enough experience that connects them with others that gives that external validation, and provides those epic, natural moments of cooperation, rivalry, what feel like fun random moments that happen in real life that contribute to something greater in the virtual world.
MMOs never lost their core appeal, they just stopped being good. In a similar spectacle to the console crash of 1973 (yeah history runs in cycles and so on), a large quantity of low-quality cash-grabs has tainted the experience in the eyes of most people, and all it will take is just one new breakout hit to potentially get the genre back on track. There's still plenty of great examples out there are still getting a lot of fresh content and active communities, and I would recommend Wynncraft to anyone interested in an actually good modern MMORPG. And if such an amazing experience can be made in Minecraft, they can also be made in all the fanciest game engines and other tools available to devs nowadays. They just need to sit down, remember what people play these games for, and craft something with some actual care for once, breaking away from the reputation of grinding and running around like a headless chicken. However, in this live-service hellscape, that might be too much to ask for. I still hope that if there's anything could that could come out of the current live-service craze is the return of good massively multiplayer experiences, but I'm still hesitant on that.
At the same time, what if scale is the issue. If I were cynical (well ok I'm always super cynical about everything but still you get my point), I would say that if the pandemic didn't bring back the MMO, nothing could. However, that's not really a fair statement. There was of course not enough time to make a whole new game in that window, and stuff like Wynncraft saw huge increases in player counts during those dark days of COVID, as people looked for entertainment and connection with others. Instead that time period saw the explosion of games that were already planned for release, like Animal Crossing or Among Us. However that got me thinking: what if that's what people want instead of MMOs for their multiplayer hit? Again, it's difficult to test this theory to the fullest given how rare good MMOs are nowadays, but during the pandemic, people mostly engaged and had fun with these experiences that are limited in scope. Gamers nowadays want to engage in some murder mystery with friends in Among Us, show off their interior design skills in Animal Crossing, or experience some co-op horror in Lethal Company. They may not want the extra fluff or baggage that comes with a full-on MMO, and these short, sweet experiences might be enough to most. That is why things like Minecraft and Roblox work so well, as gateways into near endless small yet fun multiplayer experiences, and why Fortnite is also taking that approach now as well. Again, it's almost difficult to prove if that's the case, if gamers just want to hop and have fun in these small experiences, but they're also always hungry for more. Since day 1 mods began popping up for all those games, expanding the scope, adding more people, more chaos, more fun elements. Perhaps there's a balance that needs to be reached, we just need studios to give MMOs another go to figure out the answers to all of this though.
