Longtime MOP reader Miol recently wrote us a long email inspired by a non-MMO stream he’d been watching during which the streamer went off over one viewer’s genuine excitement at grinding legendary gear in MMOs.
“Check out my rare purple super sword,” the streamer said sarcastically, making barfing noises. “I had to farm f***ing Grave Dog 50 times, but finally it dropped the rare epic purple super sword! Hehe, yeah! Isn’t this sick? Now I can finally do 10k damage instead of 1k damage! And the enemies, they have 10k more health, so it’s perfect!” Another viewer lamented, “Remember when a game was made to be fun and not just a void of dailies and other grindy bullshit, that tries to keep you in their metaphorical casino?”
The conversation stunned Miol, who wasn’t expecting to see MMOs slammed on the stream. “I was caught off guard, while watching it, of how much such a single sentence can infuriate someone and simply comparing MMOs in general to a living hell,” he wrote. And yet he also wasn’t sure the streamer and his guests were wrong.
“Playing MMOs for so many years myself, I feel like I’ve been slowly boiled alive like a frog. Yet the latest Massively Overthinking article (Every MMO inconvenience is someone else’s game) shows clear examples of many even enjoying those very mechanics, perceived as exploitative by others! How can we actually qualify something detrimental to the reputation of MMOs, when human brains are really that malleable? Or are we just at the cusp of another ‘E.T. game release‘ moment, when suddenly the majority of players had enough, bringing a downfall to many practices and a new dawn for MMOs?”
I don’t know the answer, so this seemed like perfect fodder for the team in a fresh Massively Overthinking. Are MMO gamers just frogs sitting in a cookpot, heedless of the genre boiling over around us? Are we to the point that we should be jumping out of that pot, if not to protect our own skins then to revolt against exploitative mechanics and monetization? What exactly is the boiling point for MMO gamers, the tipping point for change in the genre – or have we already seen it?
Andrew Ross (@dengarsw): It’s funny, I actually just had this conversation with someone, except this was someone who mostly experienced online games via Blizzard starting with World of Warcraft.
Don’t get me wrong, old-school MMOs weren’t exactly different, but when loot was highly randomized and level gave minuscule power, fun often came from spending that time with other people or participating in a new, limited-time event/story arc. It’s why I’ve largely kept to games other local people can enjoy with me, so that even if things go south, leaving the game only means leaving the game. Loot is lost to expansions, and friends who are no longer friends when you leave the game were only game friends anyway. Once you realize that most modern online games seek to put you on a treadmill, you either need to make the most of that treadmill or jump off, not just for yourself, but so devs have to come up with better models. Or, you know, maybe revisit and refine previous ones.
Andy McAdams: The first thing I thought of when I read this was Louis C.K.’s bit Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy. That whole bit applies to MMO players too. Think about the options we have in games to play, the options of how we play those games, how amazing the technology is that we can play a graphically intensive game with someone halfway across the world in so close to real time that it’s indistinguishable from real time. MMOs give us spaces to experience fantastical stories, develop friendships with people that we’d never meet otherwise in real life, give us the chance to save the world, to feel strong and accomplished — and the genre is drowning in people complaining about how terrible everything is. Despite better graphics, better gameplay, better systems, better technology, better stories, better everything – MMO players go to phenomenal lengths to find the single spec of dirt on the miles of pristine game.
Let me be clear: This is not to say that we can’t expect MMOs to continue to grow, that we shouldn’t hold MMO developers accountable when they go all Blizzard on us. But we should hold that at the same time as we acknowledge that the MMO space is objectively better than it was 20 years ago. It’s not always better in the ways that we want and we always want more, but it’s amazing. This whole genre, this whole space is amazing – mind-bogglingly complex and beautiful and a hot mess mired in a dumpster fire. But if you can’t take a step back and acknowledge how crazy amazing these games are, I think you are doing yourself a disservice. They aren’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they are still wonderful and amazing experiences.
So this frog isn’t boiling. The water may be a little bit warmer than I’d like on occasion, but looking over the landscape we’re a part of, how imperfect and crazy amazing it is… there’s no place I’d rather be.
Ben Griggs (@braxwolf): I don’t think there is a tipping point for the genre, just a tipping point for each individual game. Call it grind, call it “gameplay loop” – it’s the exact thing MMOs are designed to do. Once the grind is accomplished, the bar is raised so it can begin again. Either that, or a new system with an alternate grind is introduced. There’s nothing wrong with this, as most players enjoy the grind for some period of time, be it a few weeks after new content releases or 10+ years. But once that tipping point (burnout) is reached, the gameplay loop becomes a chore and the player moves on to a different game with a new grind.
Brianna Royce (@nbrianna, blog): My first instinct is to roll my eyes at the streamer; mainstream gaming outlets have been using MMOs as their punching bag for decades, so I expect no less from influencers whose audience engagement depends on the punching. It isn’t as if non-MMOs aren’t also loaded with grind. Have you ever built a house or become the Thieves Guildmaster in Skyrim? Hunted for set gear in Diablo II? Yeah. That’s a problem with games, not MMOs alone.
The other thing worth pointing out is that there are plenty of MMOs that aren’t dependent on exploitative grind and aren’t just luring you into a casino. I don’t know why we would let our worst examples define us. And even then, grind isn’t necessarily exploitative. We all know that different types of content appeal to different types of gamers. Some people want to get into the zone. Some don’t. Same as real life: Some people run laps or fish or paint tiny figures. It only makes sense that gamers have different preferences about accomplishment and time to task. I don’t think there’s a contradiction there. Your tolerance for grind may even change from game to game.
But really all that is preamble to the real question here. I admit to my own frustration about some of the genuinely exploitative elements of our genre. I mean, I can link to all the articles we wrote 10, 11, 12 years ago when we saw what was happening to the genre with F2P and lockboxes. We – and many other gamers – shouted our warnings from the rooftops, but it didn’t have any effect. Those things planted stakes in the industry anyway, and by the time gamers finally fought back – Battlefront, Diablo Immortal, and so forth – it was pretty much too late.
That hasn’t been the case for blockchain, crypto, and NFTs. For the most part, gamers have shown these hucksters the door. So that gives me a tremendous amount of hope that change is finally coming – that the frogs are finally feeling the fire and are up for a fight.
Justin Olivetti (@Sypster, blog): I have no doubt that sometimes we push ourselves to stay engaged in a game past our interest or benefit for social connections, habit, or Skinnerbox design pressures. And I’ve always advocated being aware of those moments so that you can step away and take a break for your mental well being. Games should never be something you “have” to do, but we often get so immersed in these long-running titles that we can be burning out on them a long time before we finally recognize that fact and jump out.
That said, this can apply to pretty much any hobby or video game genre. It’s a pet peeve of mine to see people in other video game quarters throwing shade at MMORPGs in a very biased way that only sees the bad and never the good. It’s irksome because most of these accusations can apply to almost any video game out there, whether single, multiplayer, or massively multiplayer. MMOs are grindy? What do you think your Xbox achievement score is conditioning you to do, exactly? MMOs have bad business practices? Let me introduce you to EA, Ubisoft, and many others that love putting this crud in their games as well. So, y’know, don’t throw stones.
Sam Kash (@thesamkash): I like the analogy and think it does hold some… water. At least to the extent that we still play these games. Many of us are aware of the situation and our gaming habits have shifted.
There were times, even in my “grown up” life where I’d play 3+ hours an evening of a single MMO. Now I don’t mean to say that there weren’t exploitative mechanics back then too, but if I felt like I was making progress and achieving something, then the time was well spent even if it was a bit of a grind. But I don’t do that anymore. Usually I’ll play an hour doing something specific I enjoy, like a festival, then I’ll call it quits. Then I’ll jump into an arena game or singleplayer one.
As someone that literally played an hour of The Witcher 3 before putting it down because I wondered why would I craft, spend time leveling, or do random quests there when I could be online gaining power; my priorities have just changed. The monotony of spending hours doing one thing only to crawl ahead just doesn’t work for me anymore. I need to feel like the time I spent wasn’t a waste.
So I still play MMOs, but I’m not going to spend much time on ones that don’t respect my time. Or rather than just doing the next achievement to do the next one I’ll do tasks I actually enjoy. And when I’ve hit that limit, I’ll log out and play something else.
Every week, join the Massively OP staff for Massively Overthinking column, a multi-writer roundtable in which we discuss the MMO industry topics du jour – and then invite you to join the fray in the comments. Overthinking it is literally the whole point. Your turn!
