Back in February, MOP’s Eliot penned a piece about the different types of MMO sunsets. I want to follow this thinking further and talk about what we even mean when we’re talking about MMO death.
Maybe it’s because I play a lot of rogue servers, but I’ve stopped thinking about MMO sunsets as being the death of the game. I don’t think the real death of an MMO is when a studio gives up on it; the real death of an MMO would be when MMO players stop caring. When there aren’t even enough people around who want it badly enough to risk an emulator. When nobody’s posted on the Reddit in five years, and the only time it gets mentioned is when someone starts a “what game was this I played when I was eight, it had neon elephants and samurai skateboarding class” thread. Or when it’s still technically up and playable, but it’s flatlined with 0 logins on Steam.
And then I guess there’s a stage even beyond that: when no one remembers the game at all and it falls entirely out of living memory.
When do you consider an MMO to be truly “dead”?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
