Elessina
Antares Fleet Yards
SMASH Alliance
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Posted - 2008.06.19 05:00:00 -
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Edited by: Elessina on 19/06/2008 05:00:54
Of all the MMOs currently in publication, I'd be willing to bet on only WoW and EVE (or their corresponding successor/sequel) insofar as long term future and success.
The way I see it, WoW will continue to attract mostly the younger generation of gamer looking for fun and easy gameplay, and the "I am a god" type experience. (WoW at the moment also attracts people of the older generation who are only just getting into games - but they can be ignored as they are a dying demographic). However, as these WoW gamers grow up, go to uni/trade school, learn various skills (accouting, economics, engineering, maths, science, etc.), enter the work force, and generally become more mature, a complicated, "sand box" game like EVE will begin to appear more appealing than WoW.
IMO, the relevance of real world knowledge and skills in a game, and the ability to apply such knowledge/skills in the game makes the game especially appealing/enjoyable to persons with such RL knkowledge/skills. For example, if one had a look at the Market Discussion sub-forum, some of the discussions there are so academically challenging that you literally need a degree in commerce/econ/accounting/finance to begin to make heads or tails out of it. And I am sure these people take great pleasure out of being able to apply their RL knowledge to EVE. Similarly, those EVE subscribers who have had military or para-military experience in RL would be attracted to the PvP aspects of EVE such as leading fleets and alliances, managing logistics/supply lines, defending territory, and military tactics in general.
As the population of most 1st world countries is generally aging, and as the education of children/teen agers/adults is become more and more accelerated, I reckon EVE is well placed to be a market leader in the coming years. The fact that EVE's subscription is lower than some of the other MMO's currently in publication, together with the fact that EVE is showing positive growth, means only that EVE has not yet peaked. Using the "buy low sell her" rule, EVE has basically identified an undervalued stock, invested heavily in it, and is now riding the upward trend.
My 2c.
--Ele
edit: typos + grammatical
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