Look, okay. I understand that League of Legends is one of the most popular games in the world and that Riot-slash-Tencent could literally build a city out of money.
Tencent, which is now the third largest company in the world, bought Riot Games for 400 million USD a few years ago. I can’t even imagine the money they’re rolling in now — but that doesn’t mean everyone else is going to have the same luck.
Why do we need all these MOBAs on the market?
Between League of Legends and Dota 2, what consumers do publishers/developers think they’re going to grab? People who have never played one of the two previously mentioned games? People who want the MOBA experience but are tired of Riot’s massive balance hugbox? People intimidated by Dota 2‘s angry community?
Oh man, these are a lot of questions with no answers! But man, we need them.
Who do these companies think they are going to pull in? You can get some IP’s fanbases on board but that never goes very far. You are only going to pull in so many players and you are only going to make so much by catering to any individual fanbase, and you lock out uninterested parties.
It’s disgusting to see all these newly announced MOBAs trying to bandwagon off the success of League of Legends. Here is a list of MOBA titles trying to hope a ride on that big, fat wagon:
- Merc Elite
- Guardians of Middle-earth
- SMITE
- Core Masters
- Infinite Crisis
- Dungeon Defenders 2 (Half-MOBA. But still. Seriously?)
- Strife
- Prime World
These are only the games off the top of my head. There are so many of them I couldn’t begin to recollect them all, nor would I want to.
Even if you bring in unique gameplay elements, it’s still hard to imagine getting but so much of a playerbase interested in one of these games. All of them try something new, but does the genre really need all of the bells and whistles each of these titles tote? That is a debate for another day.
Rinse and repeat
Let’s all look back to the 90’s for a bit. Just hop in your time machine if you’re too young to remember the ‘grand old days’ of 3D platformers.
3D platformers were all the rage around the time of the Sega Saturn, PlayStation, and N64 were on the market. Some were really great (any Rare game, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot), and some were just too bad to exist (Gex, Bubsy).
I am sure that if you are above the age of 20, you have some fond memories of the truly stellar platformer games. Who wouldn’t? A good game is a good game — but all those other ‘not good’ platformers made companies lose (sometimes massive amounts of) money and are long lost in time, hopefully never to be spoke of again sans the above paragraph.
What I’m getting at here is that all these studios are putting out these games that no one is going to remember in five years. More than half of just the MOBAs listed above will probably make far below anticipated, and they won’t even be remembered fondly. They won’t even be remembered at all.
DotA blood transfusion
The whole reason League of Legends and Dota 2 have been made and balanced so well is because they both had people who worked on the original DotA on their development teams. Hell, even Heroes of Newerth has some DotA blood in its veins.
It’s hard to imagine any of these MOBA games making any sort of real impact on the industry, besides passively encouraging other developers to start making their own. It may as well be set in stone that these games are not out to compete, they are out for quick money.
You can look to bring new elements to the genre all you want, but the MOBA community isn’t really looking for that. No one but people who don’t have any interest in these games is looking for that, and they are better off going with another genre. This trend needs to be put down as quickly and silently as possible.
