Are Mobile MMORPGs The Future Of The MMORPG Genre?

So last week I published a video titled “Are MMORPGs Worth Playing Anymore? The State Of MMOs And MMORPGs In 2018”. In it, I went over the state that MMORPGs were currently in during 2017, and how I thought they were going to progress moving forward into 2018.

If you haven’t seen that video, then you may want to check the comment section for a pinned comment with the video link.

Regardless of whether or not you’ve seen the video, I went over how there were a significant amount of mobile MMORPGs on the horizon, and how the balance of mobile MMORPG to desktop MMORPG was shifting.
That is what I want to talk about in this video: The fact that the state of MMORPGs as a whole are now, more or less, very oriented towards mobile games and mobile gaming.

Every month there is news of new MMORPGs entering creation – and just as often, we’re hit with the fact that they are also targeted at mobile gamers.

Gone is the time when the majority of MMORPGs were designed for desktop gamers. These days, it’s all about them mobile games and the microtransaction business model.
Which I get – is a very lucrative model to pursue. Everyone and their great grandmother is pursuing the mobile genre – mobile games – mobile MMOs.

It’s honestly a little disheartening to see that so many MMORPGs these days are coming out exclusively for mobile devices.

As an example, we have Blade and Soul 2, Project TL, Final Fantasy XI’s upcoming reboot (which actually looks pretty good), Vindictus Eternal, Ragnarok Mobile, World of Dragon Nest, Black Desert Online Mobile,
MapleStory M, Aura Kingdom Mobile, Bless Online Mobile, Mabinogi, Albion.. And these are just a few off the top of my head.

Why are there so many mobile MMORPGs slated for future releases? Let’s see.

Games, especially MMORPGs these days cost an absolute fortune to create and maintain.
This was circumvented by companies by utilizing cash shops and pay to play business models in the past, something that has transitioned into the all to commonly known free to play/pay to win genre we have today.

Now don’t get me wrong – I don’t hate mobile MMORPGs. Not at all. I’ve only played one or two overall, and haven’t even delved too deeply into the entire mobile gaming niche, but I can see potential.

Square Enix, the people behind the incredibly popular Final Fantasy XIV, are recreating Final Fantasy XI – their previous MMORPG title and relaunching it onto mobile devices.
This is a company that has become known for somehow maintaining one of the largest MMORPGs on the market and keeping its pay to play business model.
This is a company that has kept Final Fantasy XI pay to play for 15 years.
Now, I’m not trying to suck Square Enix’s dick here by saying they’re infallible – they’ve made plenty of mistakes over the years. But they’re moving into the mobile MMORPG market, along with other developers of successful MMORPGs over the years as well.
What this means is that mobile MMORPGs may – sometime in the future – I can’t say when as I honestly have no idea – actually provide a quality experience for us to enjoy.

Currently, the mobile MMORPG genre itself just isn’t really doing anything to reinvigorate the MMORPG market – they’re instead polluting it with cheap cash grabs intent on driving players further from them.
This isn’t a good idea in the long run – not at all.

I am well aware that the mobile MMORPG market is new, but the current state of it is just terrible.
Developers are doing nothing new at all, and instead of appealing to an audience – instead of capturing their attention – they’re opting to provide low quality release after low quality release.
And I get that this can change. I get that it likely will change in the future when developers actually open their eyes.
But by then, the market may be beyond repair – people will have already made up their opinions regarding mobile MMORPGs, as I’m sure many already have.
Which, don’t get me wrong, they have every right to. I’m merely pointing out that the MMORPG genre is on a timer here. It’s essentially counting down – and when time runs out, either we will have an MMORPG market or we won’t.

You might think I’m being a downer, that I’m hating on mobile MMORPGs, or that I’m being overdramatic. Mobile MMORPGs aren’t the future and MMORPGs as a genre aren’t dying.
That is a falsity and what I’m saying is a reality.

So, then, you might be wondering – what exactly can we do? Can we do anything to prevent the market from shifting to a mobile model? Or should we instead be trying to shape the mobile market to appeal more to us?

The answer is – honestly – I don’t know.
I’ve been playing MMORPGs since I was a kid. They were my escape from reality when I had an otherwise shitty childhood. They were a world I could just.. slip into. A world I could immerse myself in; a world I could lose myself in.
I used to devote entire years to MMORPGs – something I no longer do. Something nobody really does anymore, with the exception of a small percentage of gamers – with a small percentage of games even worth investing that much time into.

There just doesn’t seem to be much reason to.
This is attributable to the fact that maybe MMORPGs just aren’t really worth the time anymore.
Maybe gamers these days are just no longer capable of investing large quantities of time into games.
It could be any number of reasons why people no longer put the same amount of time and effort into MMORPGs as they once did, but it is nevertheless something that developers can fix.

All we need is a game worth investing our time into. A game worth devoting time to.
Whether that is on a desktop PC or on a mobile device – the fact is that honestly, at this point, I would be happy just knowing we have another high quality MMORPG released worth playing.

People give mobile MMORPGs and mobile games in general a hard time. I feel like at this point in time that is perfectly warranted, but I don’t feel like it’s fair to assume that just because mobile MMORPGs right now suck, they will always suck.
There is time – and there are developers that care.

People no longer look at MMORPGs with anticipation. People have forgotten what it means to truly immerse themselves in an MMORPG world – many gamers never having even fully experienced what it means to play an MMORPG. A proper MMORPG, anyway.

Hopefully it’s possible for all of us to, sometime in the future, experience something new and exciting. Something that garners general interest – something that brings out that part of us that wants to dive head first into the game and forget everything else.
Whether or not that is possible remains to be seen, but we can still hope.

With all the mobile MMORPGs slated for release over the next few years, and all the indie desktop MMORPGs coming out over the next couple years, we’ll have plenty of opportunities to see this come to fruition.
Or, we’ll be doomed to repeat this year: Failed release after failed release.

Anyway guys – that’s pretty much all I have to say with regards to mobile MMORPGs and whether or not I believe that’s the future we’re all making headway towards.
Even if the future is mobile MMORPGs – it may not be as bad as you think. So make sure to keep an open mind and continue supporting the MMORPG industry in whatever way you can – because in the end.. we all love MMORPGs.

Thank you guys for watching – I’ll see you all next time