I’m sure that many will disagree with my title for this post, but I stick by it 98%. A poor launch has to be beyond abysmal to truly screw up an MMORPG. As long as the problems are fixed, the game will stand on the merits of its gameplay.

The 2% exception: Anarchy Online still holds the title for worst MMO launch because not only was it messy, it involved registration issues (and related credit card fears) that left some players allergic to MMOs altogether. Yet even though AO’s launch scared off customers in large volumes, it still survived and is running to this day.

Every major MMO has launched with problems, either technically on the launch itself or lacking significant content / features.

The real test is how the developers respond in the months that follow.

The WoW example

Blizzard’s launch for World of Warcraft was an epic mess. Game awards were retroactively revoked and servers commonly had downtimes measured in days. Blizzard’s immense and stubborn fanbase probably helped, but more importantly Blizzard stepped up and did what they had to do to recover from the failures. WoW still has the odd bad patch but they always rebound with the game stronger than before.

WoW launched with less pre-orders than Aion, Warhammer Online or Age of Conan. Astonishing when you think of how much (and how quickly) it grew once it stabilized.

WoW did have over 600,000 subscribers after the first month, but here’s something that’s rarely mentioned: Their subscriber base dipped before climbing again. Blizzard literally stopped selling the game until they could sort out the significant problems. Many players left during long queues, disconnects and all sorts of bugs and downtime, but when Blizzard consistently added fixes and content: New players flocked into the game in droves. It was later, months after launch that WoW hit critical mass into millions of subscribers. An even larger bulk of WoW players arrived in its second year.

Past Examples and the Present

Perseverance after launch pays off. EVE Online didn’t get over the hump until after CCP bought it back from their publishers. Dark Age of Camelot spiked its largest numbers after 2 years with its Trials of Atlantis expansion. City of Heroes has restored most of its population after 5 years. Notably, most of the rebound examples predate WoW.

Recent MMOs have tried to copy WoW’s success in a myriad of other ways, but they’ve unfortunately been slow to get their wheels moving after launch. New content and zones often get mentioned early but then pushed back, sometimes longer than a year, or in worse cases earmarked for an expansion. Big necessary changes don’t get made for fear of upsetting the playerbase. Server infrastructure is often skimped on, planning for population decreases instead of increases. Some notable games have been flat out shut down.

The MMO playerbase is incredibly resilient to changes as long as they’re necessary and well designed. More content is always welcomed. Many players wait until after launch just to see how the game pans out.

On the other hand players only tolerate broken for so long and once the smell of stagnation sets in, they’ll leave in bulk.

The months after release = more important than the launch week.

That’s difficult to master for most game studios. After a few years of development, I’m sure they just want to get the thing out the door and take a deep breath or even a (well deserved) vacation. Burnout at this point is probably the biggest risk at such a critical time.

Not every studio can afford to keep up development either, costs are soaring in the age of HD visuals. Betting on a big launch to restore dried up funds doesn’t usually work out. Running under big publishers has its risks too, they’re accustomed to games making or breaking on initial box sales and they’re not known for being patient if a game doesn’t score big right away. These are company health and business issues regardless of launch issues though.

Bad launches suck, but on their own they don’t break a game into failure.

IMHO, it’s all about ramping up the game after launch.