Final Fantasy XI has *only* made a profit on the PC.
Hense why it still hasn't been released in europe for the PS2, it quite frankly has flopped in America on the PS2 but is doing well on the PC.
This is the trend, Phantasy Star Online is the most successful console MMORPG (just ahead of ./Hack) but even that is getting too costly for Nintendo to keep up and why they have said 'The Console Market is just not profitable enough to warrent an Online Service of this nature.'
That was actually a quote in the 10week (5pages per week) History of MMO Games and thier place in the world.
There are alot of these games because they can make alot on thier initial release just like any other game and they're highly popular.
Problem being is unlike other games the cost of upkeeping them is extreme.
You'll noticed this is why Expansion Packs are released often, so that you don't get bored with the game which make it popular for newbies... but at the same time curbing the fact that it is a money loosing industry.
X-Box Live! is fantastic an all... however most of it's severs don't have to handle MMORPG numbers of people in games, which means they don't have to be large or particularly structured.
Halo, Dead or Alive Extreme, Midnight Racer 2, etc... They're all games which benifit from the low cost Live! service, but players will only be on those servers for an hour at most.
Usually those games are for letting of steam and just shotting people particularly without a viable way to communicate and chat.
(I know there are mic games, but take some time to play them on std connections. Most aren't good enough unfortunately)
MMORGPs however people aren't just there to play. You chat, you trade, you make friends. It's an extremely social experience.
As such you find you spend hours and hours in the game and so the servers much be designed to cope with huge numbers.
A good example of an online game which is good but is struggling is TheSimsOnline.
The game is expensive to start with, the subscription is $10/month however the game content is free.
When it was first released EA made *ALOT* of money. Something around 350,000 sales within the first month. Problem is alot of players played until the free trial is up then most just decide not to carry on. EA have the servers running to handle the *potencial* number of gamers that can enter each of the 6 Cities, which I believe the Max is around 400,000 per server. However the problem is there just aren't that many people there now because interest has waned.
The following would still be *more* than enough to make a sequal and have it popular and make alot of cash. Problem stands with the server costs. You'll see servers for games like that just kinda drop off once the initial buzz has gone.
Which as I said means add-on packs to keep interest and revenue.
Within a year of Final Fantasy XI being online...
I will have spent:
$50 on the game itself. $19 on the new Addon pack. $20 on special quests plus $140 subscription costs.
This is beside the fact that in order to play it, my low-end system had to be upgraded as my Processor wasn't fast enough and I needed a larger Hard Disk for it.
This is all totally ridiculous because gamers just keep on paying and paying. Although this year is the 'year of the mmorpg' it is just a gaming fad. Back in 97-98 it was the 'year of the FPS' and in 2000 it was the 'year of the mods'...
They're fads which companies are trying to ride the wave of to make money.
At the end of the day I think Microsoft are clever to have canned a game which would've not only become obsolete with the comming FPS fad. But more so that they're not trying to compete in an over-saturated market.
