2010 Predictions
by RJO on Dec.31, 2009, under Industry Musings
Since everyone is doing it I figured I’d throw my 2010 predictions out there… Let’s start with my biggest hope for 2010:
Final Fantasy 14: The game will release in late summer (September) and will be a surprising success in terms of first month sales. Cataclysm will hit in November causing a tourist exit from FF14 but when the dust settles FF14 will be the first post WoW MMO to have >500k stable subscriptions six months after launch. 2010 will see much written about the impending death of FF11 but that we will have to wait until 2011 to see. What prolongs the life of FF11 is a hard core player’s rebuke of FF14’s more casual feature set.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will hit in November. The sales will break previous records held by blizzard but this will be the last WoW expansion to see record breaking success. The churn cycle behind the expansion will be faster then usual for two reasons:
1) The dungeon finder and frost badge gear reset will have pushed a gear cycle too quickly (and for the third time within a single expansion) … this will cause the predictable “same old, same old” criticism of the expansion to gain traction with more people as they realize they are back on the gear treadmill again with a smaller amount of content to consume rehitting level cap (most folks will quickly point that there is new content in the form of the new races but I think wow’s “Core gamer” crowd (those players just short of hard core due to life style, time available to play, etc) will be less interested in this content once they get out of the starting areas)
2) Viable alternatives will exist with FF14 and more importantly with SW:TOR releasing Q1 of 2011
Star Wars: TOR: The game will not see the light of day in 2010. EA will do the math, reflect on what happened to WAR when it went up against a WoW Expansion and quickly make a strategic decision to launch post WoW:CAT.
Richard Garriot: The spiritual successor to Ultima Online will be announced with very little detail attached in 2010. Richard Garriot will be at the helm and some familiar faces will return (Koster, Vogel?, Long, etc). My long shot guess with this one is that EA will be involved and this will be Paul Burnet’s next project.
Blizzard’s Next MMO: A maybe for the next Blizzcon. I give this low odds of being announced in 2010.
Everquest Next: A maybe for the next Fan Faire. I think we might start seeing details this year…
Closures: 2010 will not be as brutal as 2009 for MMO closures however some will fall. Lineage 2 will be the largest closure. SWG, to everyone’s surprise, will survive to see 2011. 2010 will be more about closure speculation within communities which will set the stage for self fulfilling prophecies in 2011: Warhammer Online, City of Heroes, Dark Age of Camelot, Vanguard, and Pirates of the Burning Sea will all have rough years in this regard. (If I have one long shot prediction here it is that Vanguard closes this year after the community more or less implodes in Q2 after their dev support almost completely dries up)
There it is… what are your thoughts?
December 31st, 2009 on 3:08 pm
Good predictions all around, I’d say. I definitely agree that we’ll be seeing a heavy churn with Cataclysm, a surprise (to some) hit with FFXIV and some manner of Ultima Online 2 announced or at least teased.
I’m convinced Blizzard still has a few aces up their sleeve with Cataclysm that will make it more attractive to the end game-focused crowd and keep them subscribing, but we’ll have to wait and see.
I’m not getting my hopes up for seeing Garriot or Koster involved, but I would love to see it. I think Barnett would be a no brainer on the project, for sure.
I think STO is going to be DOA for the most part, and it will probably spell the end for Cryptic as we know it. I don’t wish it on them, of course, but they’re pushing these products out the door too quickly. It’s a pity studios didn’t learn anything from the Vanguard fiasco: you don’t come back from a bad launch.
Given Blizzard’s full plate with CATA, Starcraft and Diablo I’m doubtful we’ll see anything regarding their next MMO besides “leaked” concept art or minor setting details.
It’s going to be a interesting year for online gaming. Between Runes of Magic and Allods proving that Free 2 Plays can be well polished and enjoyable, we’re going to see an increased interest in that arena, and a larger embrace of microtransactions in traditional pay to play MMOs. For better or worse.