Recent years have seen the MMO industry flooded with poor-quality clones attempting to emulate the success of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft but if those hundreds of failed attempts isn’t evidence enough to suggest the era of the vanilla theme park MMO has passed, Daybreak Games President John Smedley also gave his 2 cents on the topic today. Daybreak Games, formerly a studio under Sony known as Sony Online Entertainment, are the creative minds behind the recent beta testing release of the zombie survival game, H1Z1, a game that Smedley claims embodies many elements that future MMO developers will need to explore should they want a long-lasting product.
[quote cite=”John Smedley, Daybreak Games President “]”I firmly believe the days of the WoW-style MMO are over. And that means we have to change with the times. Luckily, we were kind of early on that bus as opposed to late. But we’re changing what we’re making.”
And I say that because the average life expectancy in H1Z1 might be 45 minutes, and that’s what today’s gamers want. How many people do you still know that are still raiding in WoW every night, or EverQuest and EverQuest II? It’s just the time commitment necessary has changed so much. That means we need to change with the times, and we are. So we’re getting interested in a broader array of games and gaming styles.”
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H1Z1 released back in January of this year and although it suffered the typical server woes at launch, it has championed through and sold in excess of 1 million copies. You can read Smedley’s interview in full at the link below:
Source: GameIndustry International