Why do so many MMO's fail?

[shadowfox]

i believe it's because the "mmo veterans" can't just stop and be realistic about new games. they believe that new games must automatically have the same levels of content and polish their 5/6 year behemoths have from the get go. it' just not economically feasible for any company to even remotely attempt that on a first game

and then when the new games get released "it sucks, no content, i'm a loser, bitch, whine, moan"

I actually think you have a good point there Tank.

One of the biggest complaints I see about Aion is the lack of content. And the people loudest about the lack are the former WoW players.

Lucky for me, the only pre-Aion MMO I've played is Guildwars - which has enough differences to make Aion something new.

As larch pointed out, there is no instant gratification, which might be a huge disappointment to people who try it out for the first time - especially if they've spent the majority of their time playing FPS or Racing sims.

For myself, I've always preferred slower paced games - I grew up playing games like Civilization and I've been a general fan of the RPG genre in general, so I don't expect quick developments.

Although, sockmonkey - just because a lot of people aren't happy with an MMO I don't think you can call it a failure. Not by a long shot. It would be like me saying Audi fails because I happen to like Opels - it really comes down to your personal preferences. Sometimes playing the game is the only way to find out you won't like it - and many people make the mistake of expecting too much from an MMO simply because its new.

Sort of like what happened to me when I went to watch Avatar

[tehNihilist]

I think everyone needs to stop expecting every MMORPG to be like WoW (but still different ), or a WoW killer. Maybe then they can enjoy it for what it is and not keep on thinking about how much better WoW did this or that, and proceed to moan about it. Peoples expectations have gotten too high and their attention spans have gotten too small. That combination equals disaster.

WoW made me lazy, physically and mentally. Took me a good few years to get that out of my system. That game created a mentality where if one encounters any challenge they just Thott it, or the like instead of working it out yourself. Lazy.