In about two weeks the long, long wait will be over. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning will be released. But what if it isn't as good as we hoped? What would the failure of yet another MMO mean for the genre?
MTV's Multiplayer Blog has done a quick interview with Mythic's lead designer for Warhammer Online, Marc Jacobs. I have previously noted (in Swedish, sorry) that I think Jacobs is a master at games industry doublespeak, so I am always sceptical when I listen to the man speak. This time he is not talking about this own game specifically, but about Hellgate: London, why Flagship ultimately failed and why he would've liked Age of Conan to succeed.
To quote MTV Multiplayer;
"At some level I wanted ‘Conan' to succeed because for the last few years people have been saying it's all Blizzard and nobody else can do it," he said. "‘Only Blizzard can get those kind of numbers,' and so far they've been right. But now it's our turn."
which, just so you don't get any funny ideas, in no way means that he actually wanted Age of Conan to be successful. He just wanted that someone else, be it Funcom or Club Penguin or McDonalds, would be able to show Mythic's investors that they made the right choice when they agreed to put money into a MMO before WAR itself was released. And I certainly understand his worries.
Age of Conan did show that players wanted to try out a new MMO - that's why they managed to sell so many boxed copies at launch. But Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning does have one thing that Age of Conan doesn't have - a strong IP. The Warhammer IP is still alive and kicking, while most people today believe that Conan is the name of a bad Schwarzenegger movie and not based on a character created by a pulp fantasy author in the 1930's.
The Warhammer IP has also managed to stay fresh, modern and relevant, compared to Conan who repeatedly got kicked into the dirt during the 80's, which means EA and Mythic have the opportunity to sell even more boxes than Funcom did. They don't have to rely solely on the people waiting for a new MMO to try out, they also have a huge potential market in the fans of the Warhammer boardgame. Which also means that they run the risk of falling even harder if the game isn't good enough and being completely lynched by the Warhammer puritans.
Jacobs pointed out that;
"If we don't succeed with EA behind us, the ‘Warhammer' IP behind us, with one of the most experienced teams in the industry, that's not going to be good for the industry. We need to show the world that it's not just Blizzard who can make a great game, and that the audience is absolutely willing to try new things and to play a game other than ‘WoW.'"
And that's one of the reasons why I am so afraid that Warhammer Online is going to bomb. If the people at Mythic somehow fail and do not manage to get more than 1 million subscribers within a year (anything less would be a shame), or if they release a half-finished product (which WAR actually will be, no matter what Jacobs says, since they cut out so much of the content and called the game "done") that's buggy and does not have enough end-game or mid-game content, investors will become increasingly careful when it comes to investing in high-profile MMOs. They are scared enough as it is.
Investors wants money. If high-profile games, like Tabula Rasa and Age of Conan, keeps failing there's a change that they will seek profits elsewhere. And what a lot of us MMO-fanatics want right now is a new, good MMO that manages to attract and retain a large playerbase. Not a MMO to "kill" World of Warcraft, just a game that enriches our prefered genre and shows people that it can be done despite the 100 ton elephant taking up more than 80% of the current market. More variety. More to choose from. And the only game that is currently announced and in production that might be able to do exactly that is Warhammer Online*.
I am not saying that Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is the be-all or end-all of MMOs. That'd be insane. But I think that any company that puts that much effort into hype needs to feel some form of responsibility towards the genre and put their money where their mouths are. Jacobs, and his crew, should ponder for a long time on the quote above. "If we don't succeed [...] that's not going to be good for the industry." Feel the heat, Mythic.
I believe MMOs to be the future of gaming. Sadly, I don't have enough money to make much of a difference. With Open Beta starting next weekend, we'll soon find out if it's been worth waiting for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning for this long and if they will be able to show us at least a small glimpse of that future.
Please, Mythic. Don't mess it up. You are making me worried.
(Of course, if Age of Conan actually failed or not is still up to debate - let's have that discussion in a year or so. But Funcom are not doing as well as they hoped they would, that's for sure. They are absolutely feeling the heat.)
*) No, there's no way Star Trek Online, Bioware's KOTOR, Darkfall, Chronicles of Spellborn or Aion will be able to get even near the kind of numbers that Warhammer Online could potentially get. If 38 Studios ever announce what kind of game Copernicus really is I might or might not add them to that list.