12-26-2011, 01:16 PM
Slamz Wrote:But if, culturally, it was all about individual achievement, then few would be playing football or soccer and everyone would be doing track or gymnastics. And really, I think the fact that team sports games remain popular as spectator sports suggests that millions of people understand and can enjoy the concept of team play. Maybe if there was a game that let them experience that sort of thing first hand, without a ton of PvE bullshit in the way, they would play it.
The majority of people who play sports do it for individual achievement. When you are young your parents or peer pressure put you into it, when you are old you do it as something to dick around with. Very few people actually play team sports and put tons of time and energy into it because it is not a mass market thing (except to sell watching it). I don't put tons of effort into my softball team because its a personal diversion. Sure, its a team sport - but so is Arathi Basin.
MMOs have to compel subscribers, people who will come out month after month. Precious few "team based" games without any sort of personal carrot manage to do that, because human nature is fairly selfish and they realize for most people the personal carrot is far more appealing than a "team" most casual players dont give a flying rats ass about.
I know your view of MMOs is that if the dirty masses just tried your idea for a game they would never touch anything else, but I am of the mindset that appealing to the lowest common denominator is done for a reason.
Hell, we're talking about a society where The Wire almost got cancelled every season but American Idol is going strong for a decade