Review: Dragon Ball Z – Ultimate Tenkaichi (PS3)

Earlier this week, Auran Games laid off most of its staff that were assigned to the MMO game, Fury. In August, we had Auto Assault close up shop due to a lack of subscribers and poor initial sales. Tabula Rasa has also started with technical issues and less than expected subscriber numbers. Looking at the last few years, it seems that everybody has announced one or more MMO style games. Most have sat in development, for years, only to be released to lackluster sales and subscribers. I think it is time to call for a moratorium on MMO development and have developers take a hard, honest look at whether their product will really sell to consumers.

In 1995, Ultima Online, ushered in the modern version of a multiplayer Dungeons and Dragons experience where everyone made and played the story. From fighting to crafting and everything in between, it promoted players working together to battle the foes around the land. It was not without its share of bugs, including a horribly broken economy and the lack of notification to customers that they would be charged a monthly fee to play the game. Not a great start, but it ushered in a new style of play that only had appeal to hardcore fans of the series and genre. Twelve years later, the community still lives on, although not as dominant as it was in prior years.

A few other games came along and tinkered with the format, like The Realm and Meridian59, but sales were slow and did not really appeal to the masses until a little game called Everquest. Sony developed the game with combat and level grinding in mind, and when it was released, it sucked in a whole new generation of players that had never really played an RPG or MMORPG at the time. Subscriber numbers went through the roof and more companies saw a way to make gobs of money. Every serious game company immediately opened an MMO division and started crafting original games or licensing titles to use in games.

For the next few years, Everquest ruled the roost, with other titles being released along the way, but at a lesser success rate, like Earth and Beyond, EVE Online, Anarchy Online and Need for Speed Motor City Online. Star Wars Galaxies made the most of a license at the time, and had good numbers but nothing like the numbers Everquest was pulling in. Not even Everquest II could totally overshadow its parent, doing good business, but never great business.

The MMO games still only appealed to a dedicated fan base due to the time that you had to put into a game to be successful. A friend of mine spent hundreds of hours playing Everquest to level up to the highest levels through all of its expansion packs. A little game called World of Warcraft redefined the landscape and set off the events that caused the gluttony of MMO development that we see today. World of Warcraft made it easy to level and killed a lot of the level grind that you found in most games. Instantly achieving success, the game now boasts over nine million subscribers and is still growing.

With World of Warcraft, we saw every company get MMO madness, trying to turn every concept into an MMO type game. Remember the Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon MMO that was proposed? Or how about the more recent Gods and Heroes MMO game that was planned and then shelved due to funding issues? Auto Assault was a great concept, but poor advertising and a lack of support from parent NCSoft killed the game from the start. Star Trek Online is now in a trust awaiting sale to the highest bidder. It just seems that every company thought the road to riches would be easily paved by making an MMO game. Most of these companies did not learn from the failures of others, like The Matrix Online, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Fury and others. The landscape has become too crowded with companies trying to reach for dollars that are not there. And none of the companies have bothered to see if there product is even viable in the public