Back in 2016, we asked our commenters to propose new awards categories for us here on MOP, and while we didn’t go with this one from MOP community staple deekay as a formal award, it’s become an amusing but sobering annual tradition to bring it back to the top anyway.
In past years (here’s 2016 and 2017 and 2018) lots of folks have picked World of Warcraft since so many MMO gamers hold it responsible for sending the genre off course 15 years ago. That’s fair. But I’m not positive it deserves the crown; I’m not really sure WoW had much influence on other games in the genre in 2019, if I’m honest. Other MMOs, for example, had been putting up legacy servers long before Blizzard got around to it. And I have a feeling games beyond our immediate genre borders might be bleeding us more than anything.
So let’s revisit the topic with 2019 in full view. Which game, MMO or otherwise, made the biggest contribution toward killing the MMORPG genre specifically in 2019? Is some other genre to blame, or are the calls coming from inside the house?