"We're not focused on bringing new players in for our current products. But for future games, we definitely want to bring in a whole new audience. Let's be real: our core audience does skew a lot older than most other games. They maybe have a greater amount of disposable income, while younger players might not have as much money to spend on something frivolous like a mount. In a free-to-play world, we do rely heavily on people spending money on stuff like this. So in the future we'll need to engage new players to extend the brand, and give it new life with a younger audience. A staggering number of players have passed through EverQuest in the last 20 years, and we still get new ones who have been drawn in by the nostalgia of the classic servers."
Potentially good news for p99 as far as green, but I can't help but wonder what this means for live.
They are trying to "lure" old players into playing classic servers, while whatever the future of Everquest holds is aimed at a completely new audience, presumably based around a f2p aspect aimed at people without disposable income. Now I'm not against f2p or anything, but designing f2p games for children doesn't sound very promising. I mean not many kids today would like Everquest. I loved it as a kid but would I if I was in todays video game saturated world? Probably not. Although I'd like to think I wouldn't be doing the floss in a video somewhere on youtube. Sounds unfortunate for preexisting fans in any case.
Interesting use of the word 'lure' in this article. Generally a lure isn't meant to be beneficial to the one lured.
*They also imply that any future iterations of Everquest (or whatever) will force grouping, by claiming that kiting was an unintended mechanic and in the next project people will need each other. I'd really like to see a f2p social MMO. I doubt it would work in today's climate but who knows.
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03-12-2019, 02:15 PM
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