MOP commenter deekay_zero proposed this week’s Daily Grind in a roundabout way, and fair warning: It’s a bit of a downer. He semi-jokingly suggested that we give an award to the game or studio that made the biggest contribution to killing the MMORPG genre in 2016, but instead, we’re going to hash it out right here before it ruins Christmas.
I suspect that opinions are going to be sharply divided on this, depending on what you see as the principle cause of the erosion of the core genre; even as the genre appears to be gathering steam and pulling in big bucks, anyone looking ahead a year or two knows that not much is in the works for traditional MMO fans, and the 2010-2012 peak has come and gone.
So is it down to a game’s addition of lockboxes, a game’s unwillingness to hang onto the term “MMORPG,” a game’s persistent pandering to e-sports, or a non-MMO game stealing all our people and resources? Time to pick a side. Which game made the biggest contribution to killing MMORPGs in 2016 specifically?