GotMMOG?

So, Gamasutra reported today that Mythic’s shutting down 63 servers (I didn’t even realize they’d gotten up to that many) given declining subscriber numbers. Nothing new, especially in this economy and with the layoffs EA forced on them a little while back, it’s not unexpected either.

They’re supposedly down to about 300k subscribers. In the days of EQ and UO, those were hefty numbers. In the post-WoW days, it’s considered a drop in the bucket. Still, compared to others (Tabula Rasa, Age of Conan) they’re still going strong. I guess the question is, when (or if??) the first expansion comes out, will they see a resurgence and maybe find themselves maintaining that 300k number for a while or are they just going to fade slowly into niche-dom like SWG and EQ? PQs and RvR are nice and all but with the majority of people through the main content and at the end game, much of that is pointless. They’ve basically painted themselves into a corner where they force people through the long march up until the level cap…there the remaining 300(k) stand along the cliffs high above the churning sea…waiting for the transport that’ll take them to the next expansion’s content!

Something tells me, this economy and EA’s terrible management intelligence will lead to the demise of this game. Ideally, they could go the route of Guild Wars and offer up expansions (granted, not because they’re going for the free-to-play market) to keep the game alive but with staff cuts, you know it’s going to be a buggy slab of tripe that’ll feel worse going down than menudo.

Here’s to hoping that Mythic can pull the plane out of it’s tailspin and keep the game alive…I may get bored with it faster than WoW but it’s still got some good stuff in it…

grieger afk