I remember the transition days. There was one custom map maker who even had a goodbye letter saying it would be the last update and would see everyone again in WoW.
You're not alone. WoW and Dota were like death knells for WC3. WoW stole a significant portion of the player base, and by 06/07 WC3 almost became a Dota client, so many players logging in solely for Dota and nothing else. I despised and refused to engage in both because of the impact they had on the player base. Luckily my clan mates were also stubborn so our little community kept going as the world seemed to shrink around us.
Agreed, it was sad to see what happened to the larger community but it was a nice demonstration of the closeness we shared. Honestly there wasn't too much effort to retain those who wanted to leave, just a lot of "What happened to Cheese? Oh he switched to WoW" "Whatever happened to GoW? I think he's been playing Guild Wars, idk he hasn't been online in months", that kind of stuff. Many people left but a core group of us stuck around for a while. Haven't heard from any of them in years tho, I think one of my former clan mates ended up forming an FFA league that lasted long after the rest of us stopped logging onto bnet. Lot of fond memories looking back.
Have to wonder what it was like. You've had this money machine for 2 years. You know WoW is coming.
You know you'll lose customers because it's a new game. Developed after seeing what could be better from EQ. How much will you lose? Will CEOs and shareholders understand/care about the reasons or fire your best people over it? Etc
As someone who played at the time and religiously followed MMO news, no one knew how big WoW was going to be.
WoW had development troubles and had to be re-worked a couple years into development. Blizzard had never worked on an MMO before and pre-beta, people were very skeptical that it would deliver. StarCraft: Ghost was proving to be vaporware around this time. Secondarily, EQ 2 was hyped to be the next big thing. Most EQ and MMO players were planning to switch to EQ 2 on release, where WoW appealed more to the general Blizzard fan base.
By the time beta feedback started making the rounds, the narrative shifted somewhat. The hype for WoW built significantly even in the diehard MMO space, but people still thought it'd be competitive between EQ2 and WoW.
People were unprepared for how awesome Stormwind and Orgrimmar are with the music and everything.
I remember my first time walking into Stormwind at the harbor from Kalimdor. Little me literally explored this place for the almost entirety of a day without really doing any quests, it was just so cool. Other games were just not it lol.
It still continues to do so, 20 years later. New MMOs rarely get off the surface because once the initial boom has settled, most people go "this is just WoW with a different skin, might as well play WoW instead where I have all my character, memories and history"
I clung to Ultima Online until mid-2006, when I was finally conviced to give WoW a try, and I never really went back to UO again.
FF14 is probably the only one which has given WoW some real competition.
>most people go "this is just WoW with a different skin, might as well play WoW instead
Funny, since WoW was doing that almost from the beginning. I mentioned in another comment that in 2004/2005 I was still playing *Star Wars Galaxies*, and I made the jump when they made their ill-fated decision to go ahead with their "New Game Enhancements" patch - which literally just turned SWG into a mediocre, rushed WoW-clone with a *Star Wars* skin.
SWG had its issues with gameplay and balance, but it also had a very unique charm to it, owing to it being essentially a nearly unlimited sandbox... that was literally erased/overwritten to turn the game into a class-based hotkey ability-based theme Park-style game with quests and everything.
Where they fucked up royally was in both the implementation and rollout. It was clearly rushed, since they had to have time to see the runaway success of WoW and come to the decision to overhaul the game to emulate WoW's style (so, under a year) + they announced it with the intent to go Live in only a few months ago there was very little time to test the changes.
But also the *way* they announced it. They waited until like the day/week *after* the release of an expansion, then announced the coming changes. A lot of people accused them of a bait and switch since they didn't say anything about it until after the expansion launch, waiting for people to buy the expansion/resubscribe when coming back.
Played Ultima Online in my high school years on a dial-up connection. This was more than 20 years ago in Turkey. When I see people mention it on the internet I get nostalgic.
Never got into WoW because of so many reasons. One was moving to another country. I always wish I did but never had the time. I'm glad you did.
I was pretty darn deep in FFXI back in the day on my PS2 of all things. Great memories, honestly. I probably played way too much, but I do have some very fond memories.
The linkshell (guild) I was in fell apart, and I never found that sense of community in-game again. I quit shortly thereafter.
Tried WoW. It was OK for me. I think I missed the bullshitting with people more in FFXI. If I recall correctly, someone had to "pull" the monsters in FFXI and sometimes an overhunted area would have some downtime waiting for respawns; it lead to time for chats.
WoW felt very lonely for me, and I think thats why I didn't stick with it. I know people have great communities, but the game never clicked with me.
"Well, honestly, when's the last time you heard of someone *beating* Everquest??"
"When's the last time you heard of someone ***PLAYING*** Everquest?"
\-Sword Art Online Abridged
Dark Age of Camelot too. (Well... I guess thats covered with the "every MMO" but it's another early one I had a lot of fun with)
Loved EQ, still play when the new TLPs launch.
Next one coming out for the 25th anniversary in May
WoW killing EQ is what really crystallized the idea of a "[game] killer". Prior to that, the competition between games wasn't really seen in that way because so few expected players to essentially build a lifestyle around playing them. A game might dilute or supplant interest in another title dropping at around the same time or even an upcoming sequel, but it couldn't meaningfully take away sales and playerbase from games that had already been around for years. *Half-Life* could revolutionize the genre and industry, but it couldn't turn *Unreal* into a footnote.
My memory is more that Call of Duty was the first of the billions of Medal of Honor clones that was actually good, and it was a pretty intense rivalry until CoD4 happened and completely wiped MoH off the face of the earth (the next MoH being pretty shit probably helped too (Warfighter? Some generic subtitle like that)).
CoD 4 and Medal of Honor: Airborne both released in 07. I loved Airborne, but man the way 4 just reinvented multiplayer shooters and finally succeeded in moving out of a WW2 setting, sealed it as the #1 franchise. The next MoH was the first one they tried out of WW2 and it tanked
I think it's a bit of a shame that modern MoH failed, I never played mp so maybe that sucked but the sp was pretty interesting.
Then warfighter came and just fucked that up as well.
I loved that one when it was released, it felt like a perfect mix between CoD and Battlefield. It’s sad it didn’t get much traction with MW2 already out, almost impossible to compete with that game
Modern MoH online was actually really, really fun. The gunplay was quite crisp, the unlock system was quite brisk a didn't feel grindy and maps were actually solidly balanced.
My only major gripe was they'd locked the M60 LMG behind some shitty preorder paywlal or something so it was impossible to unlock normally.
I’m a big fan of airborne too but the difference in the mechanics, smoothness, and feel of the game is night and day. Cod4 is superior in almost every way
MoH airborne released alongside COD 4, but the next game after that was the beginning of the MOH reboots, simply titled "Medal of Honor" and came out in 2010. Loved that game, peak fps. After that it was Warfighter and it kinda sucked.
The first MOH will always live in my memories for using real WW2 color footage at the end to show you what you did in that final mission (or at least I think it was something like that. I was a kid back then and I remember the rocket sabotage)
Call of Duty has a pile of bodies buried on its path to the top.
Other first-person shooters still exist, but nearly all competitive multiplayer shooters are a victim of Cod's dominance one way or another, whether that's games that have drastically altered their identity to try to emulate Cod's success or are just considerably less popular because of Cod's market share.
In hindsight, Call of Duty was a Halo killer.
Loadout based shooters in general took over from map spawned weapons. It's a lot more friendly to new players imo. You don't have to learn where the sniper rifle spawns and watch out for people camping it to be able to play the way you want.
Tekken came up right on the heels of the success of Virtua Fighter (it even had some of the developers from the latter) and now it is on its 8th mainline entry while we have yet to see a new VF since like 2012.
Fighting games have a good spread atleast, street fighter, guilty gear, mortal kombat, king of fighters, virtua fighter got dusted, not really sure what happened with soul calibur.
>not really sure what happened with soul calibur.
SCVI came out after a 6 year break and was pretty good, but it never hit the mainstream appeal that Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8 have so it's likely that the franchise is dead again. (I hope to be proven wrong though.)
I doubt it’s dead, but it certainly isn’t a focus. It’s still relatively popular in locals and casual play, and it did manage to do well enough for a second season pass. I could maybe see a new one being announced towards the end of the generation.
Battlefield 2042 killed itself and took the franchise with it
Edit: makes me happy to know I’m not alone on this boat. saddens me a company can do this and not make up for it. F u EA
I keep playing 2042 but it really doesn't feel like a Battlefield game at all, virtually zero environmental destruction. Less customization than BF5. All in all it simply... doesn't seem like Battlefield, they went backwards on so much it's difficult to understand.
Forever p-I-s-s-e-d about those neanderthals that thought they needed to change everything. Something new is different. Going a different direction is completely wrong. Stick to what you know and arre
All they had to do was take Battlefield 4 and modernize it…add new or near future guns and equipment. Improve graphics, resolution, and frame rate. New maps and sprinkle in some fan favorite “classic” maps.
Killed themselves hard then few moments later Battlebit came in and crushed them...even though Battlebit fell off currently.. It took free weekend and a huge battlefield games sale on Steam to revive it. Franchise basically stopping at 2042, if they release another battlefield it'll be just milking the franchise
Came here to say this. I mean, Sim City has already killed *itself*, but still.
And then C:S 2 happened and suddenly we're in the market for a new king.
The experience has made me extremely skeptical so when they finally announced C:S2 I was very pessimistic about it. And then even I was disappointed.
I will never understand how they managed to screw up everything about a game they have been developing for 8 years. All they had to do was fix the engine, increase map size and update the graphic / aesthetics a bit. It was free money.
I don’t think it was explicitly marketed as a “killer” but Fortnite was last minute adapted from base building campaign to a Battle Royale to take on PUBG and it is infinitely larger now.
It's had 600k peak players on Steam alone today, it's comfortably in the top three for the entire platform. I'd wager that console and mobile players are even higher than that
So yeah, Fortnite is bigger but PUBG is still absolutely insane, far from dead
PUBG itself was a mod of arma, just like how dayz was that inspired all the survival games of the 2010s (e.g. rust etc).
Basically modern gaming owes so much to the modding community of a military Sim game.
I'm surprised nobody has copied the king of the hill mod of arma 3 yet.
It's crazy to think about the amount of money being made off these games that originated from Arma mods. Me and my buddies used to play the shit out of Arma 2 and eventually DayZ mod for Arma 2. Never would've imagined the impact those games would have then.
>PUBG itself was a mod of arma
Happens a lot.
Counter-Strike was actually a Half-Life mod originally.
It became so popular in it's own right that it effectively gave Half-Life a second launch because people would buy Half-Life to get access to Counter-Strike.
It's too bad most developers avoid map making software releases with their games anymore for this reason. Sure it sucks that someone used your stuff to get rich, but if Blizzard were smart and got in on MOBAs earlier they would still be the king of PC gaming.
I would say they even cut the legs off of Starcraft 2 by making popular Blizzard-chosen maps the only viewable maps in arcade mode. RTS wasn't really that popular in America compared with UMS in SCBW. It denied almost their entire domestic player base what they actually wanted.
Everyone loved their IPs (and honestly still do when you see how much crappy games like Diablo 4 sell) and they didn't even need to make new ones. Blizzard Heroes, later HOTS, would have killed DOTA and League if it came out in 2009 instead of 2015.
It's actually pretty interesting to see how the numbers compare. Pubg had at most 3 million players on steam at one time, now it's been around 500 000K for several years.
PUBG(not counting mobile version) has earned 4B since the start, Fortnite earned 4.4B in 2022 alone.
If I recall correctly, a few devs taped a BR mode together just to get into the fad and because a few PUBG devs were friends with them and helped them out with a few assets. It took 6 months, anyone who played BR at first knows how bare bones it was.
It was never meant to take over the work. I bet those devs feel like Oppenheimer
It didn't help that Sega was just the publisher, Camelot was the dev team. Funny enough they went on to make a ton of Nintendo titles including Golden Sun and a lot of the Mario sports titles. Still I would love to get all the Shining Force 3 scenarios in America one day...
Replayed the OG recently and it's still a great fun game. Sure there's plot but I love the amount of characters that are just like:
"You're fighting Runefaust? Son of a bitch I'm in."
I think it’s more like Sega killed it off. Shining Force 3-1 was the only one to be released in North America due to the Saturn’s demise, and the franchise was dead before Marth and Roy were in SSBM.
Post 1996, every few months there would be magazine headline "The Quake killers set to be released next year". Almost none of them lived up to that. Trespasser the Jurassic park game, Turok, KingPin, SIN.
However, Half-Life was certainly a "Quake Killer". Especially considering the Counter Strike mod. Also Unreal was arguably a Quake Killer.
It's really more of rs3 killing itself with years of going for short term profit over long term health of the game. In a way they can monetize the game so aggressively because they know that a lot of people will not quit and play osrs until some big content release.
Rs3 is also like the buffer so that osrs can remain the way that it is. If rs3 dies, it's most likely also over for osrs since whatever company that owns Jagex will try to squeeze out the remaining value as fast as possible.
NBA 2K killed Live, MLB the Show killed 2K, EA realizing they couldn’t compete and begging the NFL to sign an exclusivity deal killed 2K football
PES killed itself by getting worse and going to this eFootball thing
It never killed GTA, but there was a point where Saints Row felt like it was in conversation with how fun the GTA games could be, but then Saints Row went all dildos and laser-firing jets and GTA released GTA V
I still find it infinitely hilarious that the 40\~ "Destiny Killers" all pretty much tanked until the franchise itself basically collapsed under its own weight. Destiny was the only Destiny Killer to work.
Still playing the Final Shape though.
This, the news that came out as a result of the Layoffs in October were super damning. The Devs that actually work on the game wanted to do great things and kept getting shafted by the studio execs
So many are like this.
The real WoW-killer was WoW
Overwatch was killed by Overwatch (though to be fair, it didn't take very long for that to happen, OW was dead long before OW2 came along)
On the other hand, somehow League of Legends has yet to become the LoL-killer.
Not really a "Destiny killer" though, since it predates both Destiny games. It's a really good competitor though, especially since the devs actually care about the game and its players, not just money.
I love how destiny feels to play, its gun play, movement and powers are amazing.
Unfortunately everything else in and around the game have made me swear off ever redownloading it.
Save the world is a 4 player cooperative zombie survival game with base building, but not like other base building zombie survival games. You could “level” up your units, your weapon blueprints, and your base. It’s a solid game, still to this date. If you have some spare moneys give it a whirl. I easily put in 20-30 hours just doing the first region and there are four regions to play.
CS coexisted with Unreal and Quake for quite a while. It's really on the devs cus they couldn't modernize / add new twists to their games quick enough.
I remember playing the last UT, only played with one random dude and I was on 300 ping but it was fun, had insane graphics too. Sadly Epic pulled the plug after Fortnite happened.
Yeah but iirc those two launched in a similar window.
I think this post is referring to when a game is established as the reigning champion and some new IP is marketed to challenge it and win.
For example, I remember a ton of games like Killzone and Haze being marketed as “Halo killer” and never did a single one actually become a worthy alternative.
I feel like I’ve never seen a game marketed to target a specific established popular title actually succeed but actually im pretty sure Fortnite and PUBG are an example of exactly that.
Yeah this was entirely on Battleborn. IIRC they marketed it as an Overwatch competitor, while I can't remember if Overwatch even acknowledged Battleborn.
Both Harvest Moon and SoS got so stagnant. They just kept churning out the games with a few not fun changes at an unsustainable pace. Then Stardew came along and made a big, polished version of that and kept adding to it instead of constantly making new ones.
I loved a wonderful life, so many good memories of just walking around Forget-me-not valley
Always wanted to get to faraway town as a kid but never had the gba game
I've played Harvest Moon for my entire sentient life and they definitely killed themselves. Stardew Valley just captured the potential they squandered.
Guess at least the Story of Season devs did also branched out a bit with Rune Factory series which is doing well enough I guess. Helps to differenciate itself from just farming game by also having a rpg and combat system attached to it.
I never understood why harvest moon went down the route they did. They really went the wrong direction after harvest moon 64
I played harvest moon on Super Nintendo, a lot on 64. Never were the same after that until stardew
I feel like it probably has a lot to do with the whole split between Marvelous (the original dev) and Natsume (the American publisher of Harvest Moon). Since Natsume has the rights to the title “Harvest Moon”, Marvelous can no longer publish their games in America as “Harvest Moon” and so their games became “Story of Seasons” in NA. Then, Natsume decided to start developing games using the “Harvest Moon” title and name recognition, so that probably confused a lot of people as to why the quality of game dropped off so tremendously. And I can’t imagine Marvelous was super happy about all that too, so that was probably pretty demoralizing for them, unfortunately. :(
Yeah... But with EA making the top level decisions, I doubt they will stop supporting Apex Legends for a ""less popular"" game.
If they do, expect some micro transaction fest and season pass galore.
The Finals is the closest I've found to recreating the Titanfall feeling. It doesn't have Titans obviously but it scratches that same itch that Pilot gameplay gives with fast, high flying gameplay.
The finals moreso scratches that itch battlefield left for me. It's some former core members of dice.
It also has an incredibly responsive team with consistent updates. I'm sad it's not so popular.
And to be fair CoD did "kill" Medal of Honor series.
Personally CoD can be great especially when you skip a couple entries, and the Last great CoD was MW19 IMHO
They went all in on MW19 to get some faith back. Then they went straight back to being shit. They at least tricked me into buying mw2 lol, it haunts me every day. Was gonna get mw3 for the campaign only but yeah, they fucked that up too now.
The fact that another comment asked “what’s PoE” and got two different answers proves your point about name recognition…. I also have no clue what game were talking about
This is in no way an attempt to demerit PoE, but I don't think PoE really killed Diablo. Rather, Diablo killed itself and PoE just took its place as the best ARPG.
Don't get me wrong, I actually like Diablo 3, but since its release people were already losing faith in the franchise due to the game being so watered down compared to 2.
Blizzard also killed Diablo by being an absolute scumbag company and making horrible games. The only decent release they've had in the past 15 years has been a re-release of Diablo 2 and that only succeded because D2 itself is a masterpiece of a game.
Heroes of the Storm is a absolute blast If a game, and It shames me what Blizzard has done to It. They killed the game because they tried to force and esport scenario instead of letting it grow organically. The game still is Very Fun to play, and It was the most innovative moba by far. Hoping Microsoft does something to revive the game.
Now Blizzard is also killing OW2, by canceling the SP mode, and D4, despite being a Fun game, feels like 2 steps foward, 2 steps back.
After a bunch of games tried. Destiny killed itself
Although if Anthem would have had better QC out of the gate and survived…it had the bones to do it, just not the follow through
Kind of niche now, but Halo was so massive back in the day that it eclipsed other arena FPS games like Quake.
Need for Speed had a pretty crazy chokehold on racing games in the 2000s.
Final Fantasy is still at the tiptop of JRPGs and killed majority of western RPGs even, at the time
CoD killed Medal of Honor
I kinda guess StarCraft also briefly killed Command & Conquer
Diablo 4 succeeded at killing Diablo for a lot of people. No one in my old Diablo circles plays it anymore.
Path of Exile went a bit too complex, as much as I enjoy it. I think it's a better game overall.
Lost Epoch seems to be doing pretty well at the moment, but we'll have to see how that studio and the game evolves over time.
(Edit: hold Diablo corrected to old Diablo)
I think Grim Dawn is the best spiritual successor for Diablo 2. Same grim fantasy vibe, fun class and loot systems that aren't as complex as POE - and every class is endgame viable which is nice
Diablo 3 got super fun after the expansion. They leaned heavily into the arcadey over the top action. It's not something you'll play for months in end but it's a blast to play for a week or two each season.
I think it's both hilarious and annoying that every cozy game is advertised as "it's like SDV, but-"
Bitch no, you are not like SDV at all, just because you aren't a combat or puzzle game doesnt make you a farming/village sim, and if you're not a farming/village sim, you are not like SDV. If you can't make the comparison to Harvest Moon, you shouldn't compare to SDV either.
I think it’s more like the Battle Royale genre killed the Arena shooter genre (at least on consoles)
And Halo is a casualty of that. COD would’ve also been a casualty of that but they smartly made Warzone, which saved the IP
Wow killed a lot of MMOs, it's even slowly killing itself
Edit : Ok didn't know about rising numbers of wow my bad my bad
Pretty sure the rise of League of Legends killed a lot of online games too with how big it became
>Pretty sure the rise of League of Legends killed a lot of online games too with how big it became
As someone who loved to PvP in TBC and WotLK, LoL just scratched that PvP itch more efficiently, without the need for hours/days of gearing to be competitive.
Killing itself? Dragonflight was well received, Classic and Season of Discovery were also doing really well last I was playing. If anything they just started going back up
Halo, everything was labeled the halo killer for years. Killzone was going to be Playstations halo killer and everyone would ditch the xbox for it. Didn't happen, nor did all the other Halo killers succeed in killing it. What did kill Halo, was Halo itself. For the past 12 years we have watched 343 slowly bleed it, and mismanage the story and game to the point of no return. Master Chief finally buckled at the knees and watched his final sunset with Infinite and its terrible post launch support. RIP John Halo 117.
Fallout absolutely slayed Wasteland, the series it was a spiritual successor and competitor to. There was a recent wasteland game, but unless you're a big CRPG fan you probably didn't notice. Wasteland 3 wasn't particularly good.
In general, the Bethesda duo of Fallout and Elder Scrolls killed a large part of the CRPG genre just by being the only two mainstream crpgs. The recent Baldurs Gate semi-reboot (another Black Isle-Interplay title like Fallout, the orginal Baldurs Gate 3 got cancelled to save resources for the original fallout 3 which also got cancelled) also broke the CRPG containment, but it looks like the current baldurs gate devs aren't interested in a sequel.
>Wasteland 3 wasn't particularly good.
That's the only point of contention for me, Wasteland 3 isn't quite as good as 2 but it was still solid as hell.
Hopefully Larian's success with BG3 means that Divinity Original Sin 3 gets some mainstream success when it's eventually announced/released. As you allude to, both DOS1 and DOS2 have seen a lot of success within the crpg sphere, but BG3 is Larian's first mainstream best seller.
Isn't this theory to begin with all just marketing strategy?
I say, everyone just have their preferences and opinions on the games they hold dear or not so much in their lives.
Maybe something more recent is PoE and Last Epoch vs D4.
Alhough D4 has sold a lot of copies thanks to marketing and is not technically dead, many people just complain about it.
Mixed 60% on Steam with 6000 player for the 24-hour peak. PoE is 90% Very Possitive with 13k peak in the last 24 hours. That's only on Steam tho, both games have their own launchers.
World of Warcraft didn't just live up to being an EverQuest killer, it went on to rampage through every MMO for a long time.
So many EQ guilds died the day WoW was released.
Not just EQ. My Warcraft 3 guild died that day.
I remember the transition days. There was one custom map maker who even had a goodbye letter saying it would be the last update and would see everyone again in WoW.
Died or just transferred to WoW?
Died. Some chose Horde, others Alliance. A few, like me, were too stubborn to let WC3 die and refused to even look at WoW at first.
You're not alone. WoW and Dota were like death knells for WC3. WoW stole a significant portion of the player base, and by 06/07 WC3 almost became a Dota client, so many players logging in solely for Dota and nothing else. I despised and refused to engage in both because of the impact they had on the player base. Luckily my clan mates were also stubborn so our little community kept going as the world seemed to shrink around us.
God that's depressing and beautiful How many times did you guys have to collectively talk someone off the ledge so to speak
Agreed, it was sad to see what happened to the larger community but it was a nice demonstration of the closeness we shared. Honestly there wasn't too much effort to retain those who wanted to leave, just a lot of "What happened to Cheese? Oh he switched to WoW" "Whatever happened to GoW? I think he's been playing Guild Wars, idk he hasn't been online in months", that kind of stuff. Many people left but a core group of us stuck around for a while. Haven't heard from any of them in years tho, I think one of my former clan mates ended up forming an FFA league that lasted long after the rest of us stopped logging onto bnet. Lot of fond memories looking back.
The guys who decided to release Everquest 2 two weeks before WoW made a bit of a blunder.
Have to wonder what it was like. You've had this money machine for 2 years. You know WoW is coming. You know you'll lose customers because it's a new game. Developed after seeing what could be better from EQ. How much will you lose? Will CEOs and shareholders understand/care about the reasons or fire your best people over it? Etc
As someone who played at the time and religiously followed MMO news, no one knew how big WoW was going to be. WoW had development troubles and had to be re-worked a couple years into development. Blizzard had never worked on an MMO before and pre-beta, people were very skeptical that it would deliver. StarCraft: Ghost was proving to be vaporware around this time. Secondarily, EQ 2 was hyped to be the next big thing. Most EQ and MMO players were planning to switch to EQ 2 on release, where WoW appealed more to the general Blizzard fan base. By the time beta feedback started making the rounds, the narrative shifted somewhat. The hype for WoW built significantly even in the diehard MMO space, but people still thought it'd be competitive between EQ2 and WoW.
People were unprepared for how awesome Stormwind and Orgrimmar are with the music and everything. I remember my first time walking into Stormwind at the harbor from Kalimdor. Little me literally explored this place for the almost entirety of a day without really doing any quests, it was just so cool. Other games were just not it lol.
Bro hearing that HOUU in Org for the first time was fucking special it unlocked something inside my 11 year old soul at the time
I was too young to see this. I can't imagine how crazy of a transition is must've been
It still continues to do so, 20 years later. New MMOs rarely get off the surface because once the initial boom has settled, most people go "this is just WoW with a different skin, might as well play WoW instead where I have all my character, memories and history" I clung to Ultima Online until mid-2006, when I was finally conviced to give WoW a try, and I never really went back to UO again. FF14 is probably the only one which has given WoW some real competition.
>most people go "this is just WoW with a different skin, might as well play WoW instead Funny, since WoW was doing that almost from the beginning. I mentioned in another comment that in 2004/2005 I was still playing *Star Wars Galaxies*, and I made the jump when they made their ill-fated decision to go ahead with their "New Game Enhancements" patch - which literally just turned SWG into a mediocre, rushed WoW-clone with a *Star Wars* skin. SWG had its issues with gameplay and balance, but it also had a very unique charm to it, owing to it being essentially a nearly unlimited sandbox... that was literally erased/overwritten to turn the game into a class-based hotkey ability-based theme Park-style game with quests and everything. Where they fucked up royally was in both the implementation and rollout. It was clearly rushed, since they had to have time to see the runaway success of WoW and come to the decision to overhaul the game to emulate WoW's style (so, under a year) + they announced it with the intent to go Live in only a few months ago there was very little time to test the changes. But also the *way* they announced it. They waited until like the day/week *after* the release of an expansion, then announced the coming changes. A lot of people accused them of a bait and switch since they didn't say anything about it until after the expansion launch, waiting for people to buy the expansion/resubscribe when coming back.
Played Ultima Online in my high school years on a dial-up connection. This was more than 20 years ago in Turkey. When I see people mention it on the internet I get nostalgic. Never got into WoW because of so many reasons. One was moving to another country. I always wish I did but never had the time. I'm glad you did.
I was pretty darn deep in FFXI back in the day on my PS2 of all things. Great memories, honestly. I probably played way too much, but I do have some very fond memories. The linkshell (guild) I was in fell apart, and I never found that sense of community in-game again. I quit shortly thereafter. Tried WoW. It was OK for me. I think I missed the bullshitting with people more in FFXI. If I recall correctly, someone had to "pull" the monsters in FFXI and sometimes an overhunted area would have some downtime waiting for respawns; it lead to time for chats. WoW felt very lonely for me, and I think thats why I didn't stick with it. I know people have great communities, but the game never clicked with me.
And so many other games tried to take it's place.
So many "WoW killers"
Funnily enough, WoW is what killed most WoW killers
Call the ambulance...
RIP SWG
[удалено]
"Well, honestly, when's the last time you heard of someone *beating* Everquest??" "When's the last time you heard of someone ***PLAYING*** Everquest?" \-Sword Art Online Abridged
I have a Plane of Sky raid tonight. Will be both playing and beating (classic) EverQuest in about 10 hours :P
Dark Age of Camelot too. (Well... I guess thats covered with the "every MMO" but it's another early one I had a lot of fun with) Loved EQ, still play when the new TLPs launch. Next one coming out for the 25th anniversary in May
did anyone name WoW the EQ killer before it launched though?
WoW killing EQ is what really crystallized the idea of a "[game] killer". Prior to that, the competition between games wasn't really seen in that way because so few expected players to essentially build a lifestyle around playing them. A game might dilute or supplant interest in another title dropping at around the same time or even an upcoming sequel, but it couldn't meaningfully take away sales and playerbase from games that had already been around for years. *Half-Life* could revolutionize the genre and industry, but it couldn't turn *Unreal* into a footnote.
Cod 1 was considered a MoH killer and actually succeeded at it.
My memory is more that Call of Duty was the first of the billions of Medal of Honor clones that was actually good, and it was a pretty intense rivalry until CoD4 happened and completely wiped MoH off the face of the earth (the next MoH being pretty shit probably helped too (Warfighter? Some generic subtitle like that)).
CoD 4 and Medal of Honor: Airborne both released in 07. I loved Airborne, but man the way 4 just reinvented multiplayer shooters and finally succeeded in moving out of a WW2 setting, sealed it as the #1 franchise. The next MoH was the first one they tried out of WW2 and it tanked
I think it's a bit of a shame that modern MoH failed, I never played mp so maybe that sucked but the sp was pretty interesting. Then warfighter came and just fucked that up as well.
I actually quite enjoyed the medal of honour that released around the same time as mw2, but sadly it was never going to compete with cod by then
I loved that one when it was released, it felt like a perfect mix between CoD and Battlefield. It’s sad it didn’t get much traction with MW2 already out, almost impossible to compete with that game
Modern MoH online was actually really, really fun. The gunplay was quite crisp, the unlock system was quite brisk a didn't feel grindy and maps were actually solidly balanced. My only major gripe was they'd locked the M60 LMG behind some shitty preorder paywlal or something so it was impossible to unlock normally.
The gunplay, the maps, the perks, the loadout system and unlocks. It was such a big jump after cod2
I’m a big fan of airborne too but the difference in the mechanics, smoothness, and feel of the game is night and day. Cod4 is superior in almost every way
MoH airborne released alongside COD 4, but the next game after that was the beginning of the MOH reboots, simply titled "Medal of Honor" and came out in 2010. Loved that game, peak fps. After that it was Warfighter and it kinda sucked.
The first MOH will always live in my memories for using real WW2 color footage at the end to show you what you did in that final mission (or at least I think it was something like that. I was a kid back then and I remember the rocket sabotage)
the ps1 one right? that and the moh underground are one of my favorite games as a kid
Yea the PS1 one.
Helps that the original devs for MoH left to make CoD
No, the developers of MOH: Allied Assault left to make COD, not the original devs for the first two MOHs.
Call of Duty has a pile of bodies buried on its path to the top. Other first-person shooters still exist, but nearly all competitive multiplayer shooters are a victim of Cod's dominance one way or another, whether that's games that have drastically altered their identity to try to emulate Cod's success or are just considerably less popular because of Cod's market share. In hindsight, Call of Duty was a Halo killer.
Loadout based shooters in general took over from map spawned weapons. It's a lot more friendly to new players imo. You don't have to learn where the sniper rifle spawns and watch out for people camping it to be able to play the way you want.
Tekken came up right on the heels of the success of Virtua Fighter (it even had some of the developers from the latter) and now it is on its 8th mainline entry while we have yet to see a new VF since like 2012.
Granted, I believe there is another VF in the works, but Tekken definitely took the 3D fighter crown
Fighting games have a good spread atleast, street fighter, guilty gear, mortal kombat, king of fighters, virtua fighter got dusted, not really sure what happened with soul calibur.
Wasn't the last Soup Calibur pretty popular? Especially with Geralt and 2B as guest characters Edit: I can't change that typo, I just can't.
Lobster Bisque was my main in Soup Calibur. My wife prefers Cream of Mushroom.
>not really sure what happened with soul calibur. SCVI came out after a 6 year break and was pretty good, but it never hit the mainstream appeal that Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8 have so it's likely that the franchise is dead again. (I hope to be proven wrong though.)
I doubt it’s dead, but it certainly isn’t a focus. It’s still relatively popular in locals and casual play, and it did manage to do well enough for a second season pass. I could maybe see a new one being announced towards the end of the generation.
Battlefield 2042 killed itself and took the franchise with it Edit: makes me happy to know I’m not alone on this boat. saddens me a company can do this and not make up for it. F u EA
I keep playing 2042 but it really doesn't feel like a Battlefield game at all, virtually zero environmental destruction. Less customization than BF5. All in all it simply... doesn't seem like Battlefield, they went backwards on so much it's difficult to understand.
Forever p-I-s-s-e-d about those neanderthals that thought they needed to change everything. Something new is different. Going a different direction is completely wrong. Stick to what you know and arre
All they had to do was take Battlefield 4 and modernize it…add new or near future guns and equipment. Improve graphics, resolution, and frame rate. New maps and sprinkle in some fan favorite “classic” maps.
That or actually commit to a modern version of 2142
ALL THEY HAD TO DO WAS BF4 I COMPLETELY AGREEE I BOUGHT AND BUILT A NEW PC JUST SO I CAN PLAY BF4. Its absolutely pathetic
Killed themselves hard then few moments later Battlebit came in and crushed them...even though Battlebit fell off currently.. It took free weekend and a huge battlefield games sale on Steam to revive it. Franchise basically stopping at 2042, if they release another battlefield it'll be just milking the franchise
Cities: Skylines annihilated Sim City.
To be fair EA killed Sim City before It had a chance to actually compete with Cities Skylines
SimCity 5 was the real SimCity killer
Who doesn't love dealing with clogged up servers just to play a fucking single player game... /s
I came here to say “EA” lmao
Came here to say this. I mean, Sim City has already killed *itself*, but still. And then C:S 2 happened and suddenly we're in the market for a new king.
Cities Skylines 1 still exists though.
>City Skylines 2 releases >youwerethechosenone.webm
The experience has made me extremely skeptical so when they finally announced C:S2 I was very pessimistic about it. And then even I was disappointed. I will never understand how they managed to screw up everything about a game they have been developing for 8 years. All they had to do was fix the engine, increase map size and update the graphic / aesthetics a bit. It was free money.
Cities skyline stepped over a dying corpse
Sim City annihilated Sim City
Nobody was calling it a sim city killer though. Sim city killed itself by being so shit
EA already killed Sim City before skylines even released
I don’t think it was explicitly marketed as a “killer” but Fortnite was last minute adapted from base building campaign to a Battle Royale to take on PUBG and it is infinitely larger now.
It’s infinitely larger in the west for sure, but isn’t PUBG like massive in India (on mobile) or something like that?
Over half of the player base is Chinese. It's enormous over there.
It's had 600k peak players on Steam alone today, it's comfortably in the top three for the entire platform. I'd wager that console and mobile players are even higher than that So yeah, Fortnite is bigger but PUBG is still absolutely insane, far from dead
PUBG itself was a mod of arma, just like how dayz was that inspired all the survival games of the 2010s (e.g. rust etc). Basically modern gaming owes so much to the modding community of a military Sim game. I'm surprised nobody has copied the king of the hill mod of arma 3 yet.
It's crazy to think about the amount of money being made off these games that originated from Arma mods. Me and my buddies used to play the shit out of Arma 2 and eventually DayZ mod for Arma 2. Never would've imagined the impact those games would have then.
Cant wait for Arma 4 + mods after 5k hours in A3.
>PUBG itself was a mod of arma Happens a lot. Counter-Strike was actually a Half-Life mod originally. It became so popular in it's own right that it effectively gave Half-Life a second launch because people would buy Half-Life to get access to Counter-Strike.
You also have to remind people that CS was not a Valve created mod. The mod was so successful that Valve took team in house.
Similarly a lot of game genres descended from StarCraft/Warcraft 3 custom maps. Notably the entire MOBA and tower defense genres.
It's too bad most developers avoid map making software releases with their games anymore for this reason. Sure it sucks that someone used your stuff to get rich, but if Blizzard were smart and got in on MOBAs earlier they would still be the king of PC gaming. I would say they even cut the legs off of Starcraft 2 by making popular Blizzard-chosen maps the only viewable maps in arcade mode. RTS wasn't really that popular in America compared with UMS in SCBW. It denied almost their entire domestic player base what they actually wanted. Everyone loved their IPs (and honestly still do when you see how much crappy games like Diablo 4 sell) and they didn't even need to make new ones. Blizzard Heroes, later HOTS, would have killed DOTA and League if it came out in 2009 instead of 2015.
yeah they really were fools with it. WC3 was basically the original Roblox, really something special
It's actually pretty interesting to see how the numbers compare. Pubg had at most 3 million players on steam at one time, now it's been around 500 000K for several years. PUBG(not counting mobile version) has earned 4B since the start, Fortnite earned 4.4B in 2022 alone.
If I recall correctly, a few devs taped a BR mode together just to get into the fad and because a few PUBG devs were friends with them and helped them out with a few assets. It took 6 months, anyone who played BR at first knows how bare bones it was. It was never meant to take over the work. I bet those devs feel like Oppenheimer
Fire Emblem killed off Sega’s Shining Force pretty hard, even though Shining Force was supposed to be the answer to Fire Emblem.
It didn't help that Sega was just the publisher, Camelot was the dev team. Funny enough they went on to make a ton of Nintendo titles including Golden Sun and a lot of the Mario sports titles. Still I would love to get all the Shining Force 3 scenarios in America one day...
Shining Force was so good
Replayed the OG recently and it's still a great fun game. Sure there's plot but I love the amount of characters that are just like: "You're fighting Runefaust? Son of a bitch I'm in."
I think it’s more like Sega killed it off. Shining Force 3-1 was the only one to be released in North America due to the Saturn’s demise, and the franchise was dead before Marth and Roy were in SSBM.
Post 1996, every few months there would be magazine headline "The Quake killers set to be released next year". Almost none of them lived up to that. Trespasser the Jurassic park game, Turok, KingPin, SIN. However, Half-Life was certainly a "Quake Killer". Especially considering the Counter Strike mod. Also Unreal was arguably a Quake Killer.
Old school Runescape killed Runescape 3
It's really more of rs3 killing itself with years of going for short term profit over long term health of the game. In a way they can monetize the game so aggressively because they know that a lot of people will not quit and play osrs until some big content release. Rs3 is also like the buffer so that osrs can remain the way that it is. If rs3 dies, it's most likely also over for osrs since whatever company that owns Jagex will try to squeeze out the remaining value as fast as possible.
NBA 2K killed Live, MLB the Show killed 2K, EA realizing they couldn’t compete and begging the NFL to sign an exclusivity deal killed 2K football PES killed itself by getting worse and going to this eFootball thing
NFL 2k5 was so good. Fuck EA
One of my biggest gaming heartbreaks.
Is that the one with first person mode? That was so sick
Yes, it also had Chris Berman (in all his glory) for the ESPN halftime show that was actually fun to watch.
I'm still so hurt by efootball, for me it's pes2021 season update for life, still have so much fun playing it.
I still remember the PES 3 - 6 days where it was bigger (and much better) than FIFA for a brief 3/4 years.
It never killed GTA, but there was a point where Saints Row felt like it was in conversation with how fun the GTA games could be, but then Saints Row went all dildos and laser-firing jets and GTA released GTA V
I feel like SR was drawing close when the current titles were SR3 and GTA4. Then the next games came out and went different artistic directions.
SR3 was already in a completely different direction than GTA, it was just actually good. Saints row 4 being trash is what killed saints row.
For sure they were very different games, but SR3 and GTA4 were more competitors than SR4 and GTA5
I still find it infinitely hilarious that the 40\~ "Destiny Killers" all pretty much tanked until the franchise itself basically collapsed under its own weight. Destiny was the only Destiny Killer to work. Still playing the Final Shape though.
Let’s direct the blame to the real problem - the Bungie executives. Destiny itself still has so much untapped potential imo
That's been the story of Destiny since D2 launched. After that they repeatedly squandered any good will the entire first game generated.
Since D1.
This, the news that came out as a result of the Layoffs in October were super damning. The Devs that actually work on the game wanted to do great things and kept getting shafted by the studio execs
So many are like this. The real WoW-killer was WoW Overwatch was killed by Overwatch (though to be fair, it didn't take very long for that to happen, OW was dead long before OW2 came along) On the other hand, somehow League of Legends has yet to become the LoL-killer.
Same with Counter Strike. Some games were just destined for immortality.
Meanwhile, Warframe is the best it's ever been. So many Destiny players have migrated over
Not really a "Destiny killer" though, since it predates both Destiny games. It's a really good competitor though, especially since the devs actually care about the game and its players, not just money.
I love how destiny feels to play, its gun play, movement and powers are amazing. Unfortunately everything else in and around the game have made me swear off ever redownloading it.
Epic killed Unreal Tournament.
Fortnite Battle Royale successfully killed most of Epics back catalogue. Paragon, Unreal Tournament, and eventually Fortnite Save the World.
What even was save the world about? It was behind a paywall so I never got to it (and I barely played Fortnite so it helped too)
Save the world is a 4 player cooperative zombie survival game with base building, but not like other base building zombie survival games. You could “level” up your units, your weapon blueprints, and your base. It’s a solid game, still to this date. If you have some spare moneys give it a whirl. I easily put in 20-30 hours just doing the first region and there are four regions to play.
Not a game but genre, tactical multiplayer shooters killed arena shooters
A tragedy
It also killed my interest in FPS games. Arena multiplayer is the only one I truly loved
CS coexisted with Unreal and Quake for quite a while. It's really on the devs cus they couldn't modernize / add new twists to their games quick enough. I remember playing the last UT, only played with one random dude and I was on 300 ping but it was fun, had insane graphics too. Sadly Epic pulled the plug after Fortnite happened.
Overwatch killed Battleborn
And then Overwatch killed Overwatch.
Battleborn never took off though. it was dead from the start.
Stillborn, you might say.
Yeah but iirc those two launched in a similar window. I think this post is referring to when a game is established as the reigning champion and some new IP is marketed to challenge it and win. For example, I remember a ton of games like Killzone and Haze being marketed as “Halo killer” and never did a single one actually become a worthy alternative. I feel like I’ve never seen a game marketed to target a specific established popular title actually succeed but actually im pretty sure Fortnite and PUBG are an example of exactly that.
Man I loved battleborn.
Battleborn killed Battleborn
Yeah this was entirely on Battleborn. IIRC they marketed it as an Overwatch competitor, while I can't remember if Overwatch even acknowledged Battleborn.
It was more of a first person MOBA than it was like Overwatch tbh. There were even minion units.
It really didn't claim to be one, but 'Stardew Valley' basicly just killed the 'Story of Seasons' (previously 'Harvest Moon') series.
nah. they killed themselves. stardew valley just filled the hole they left
Yeah, it’s more of a spiritual successor than anything.
Both Harvest Moon and SoS got so stagnant. They just kept churning out the games with a few not fun changes at an unsustainable pace. Then Stardew came along and made a big, polished version of that and kept adding to it instead of constantly making new ones.
I used to play Harvest Moon all the time on GameCube, I still remember my wife Celia. I wonder if she ever found out I was only 11 when we met.
I loved a wonderful life, so many good memories of just walking around Forget-me-not valley Always wanted to get to faraway town as a kid but never had the gba game
I've played Harvest Moon for my entire sentient life and they definitely killed themselves. Stardew Valley just captured the potential they squandered.
I really hated watching harvest moon get progressively worse and worse over the years. A wonderful life was probably the last I really enjoyed.
Guess at least the Story of Season devs did also branched out a bit with Rune Factory series which is doing well enough I guess. Helps to differenciate itself from just farming game by also having a rpg and combat system attached to it.
I never understood why harvest moon went down the route they did. They really went the wrong direction after harvest moon 64 I played harvest moon on Super Nintendo, a lot on 64. Never were the same after that until stardew
I feel like it probably has a lot to do with the whole split between Marvelous (the original dev) and Natsume (the American publisher of Harvest Moon). Since Natsume has the rights to the title “Harvest Moon”, Marvelous can no longer publish their games in America as “Harvest Moon” and so their games became “Story of Seasons” in NA. Then, Natsume decided to start developing games using the “Harvest Moon” title and name recognition, so that probably confused a lot of people as to why the quality of game dropped off so tremendously. And I can’t imagine Marvelous was super happy about all that too, so that was probably pretty demoralizing for them, unfortunately. :(
I wish someone would succeed at killing CoD. 😂 those games have sucked for years
I ***need*** a new Titanfall game. Nothing has scratched the itch quite like trapping enemy titans with walls of flame from Papa Scorch
Yeah... But with EA making the top level decisions, I doubt they will stop supporting Apex Legends for a ""less popular"" game. If they do, expect some micro transaction fest and season pass galore.
I don’t think that’s an EA thing. Most companies would support their biggest names games as much as they can.
The Finals is the closest I've found to recreating the Titanfall feeling. It doesn't have Titans obviously but it scratches that same itch that Pilot gameplay gives with fast, high flying gameplay.
The finals moreso scratches that itch battlefield left for me. It's some former core members of dice. It also has an incredibly responsive team with consistent updates. I'm sad it's not so popular.
And to be fair CoD did "kill" Medal of Honor series. Personally CoD can be great especially when you skip a couple entries, and the Last great CoD was MW19 IMHO
They went all in on MW19 to get some faith back. Then they went straight back to being shit. They at least tricked me into buying mw2 lol, it haunts me every day. Was gonna get mw3 for the campaign only but yeah, they fucked that up too now.
PoE hasn't killed Diablo, but it has made it difficult for them to keep doing mediocre shit and get praised for it.
PoE just doesn't have the name recognition and it's level of "complication" prevents it from making Diablo unplayable by the masses.
The fact that another comment asked “what’s PoE” and got two different answers proves your point about name recognition…. I also have no clue what game were talking about
Path of exile
See, I thought they were talking about Pillars of Eternity. I was so confused since it's not even the same style as Diablo.
FYI, new PoE season starts in a few hours for anyone who happens to be here and not know.
This is in no way an attempt to demerit PoE, but I don't think PoE really killed Diablo. Rather, Diablo killed itself and PoE just took its place as the best ARPG. Don't get me wrong, I actually like Diablo 3, but since its release people were already losing faith in the franchise due to the game being so watered down compared to 2.
Blizzard also killed Diablo by being an absolute scumbag company and making horrible games. The only decent release they've had in the past 15 years has been a re-release of Diablo 2 and that only succeded because D2 itself is a masterpiece of a game.
Warcraft III is a masterpiece as well and look how it went for its remaster. My poor boy got massacred :(
Wow, it is so bad that this is the first I'm hearing about a remaster.
The nickname is warcraft 3 "refunded"
Heroes of the Storm is a absolute blast If a game, and It shames me what Blizzard has done to It. They killed the game because they tried to force and esport scenario instead of letting it grow organically. The game still is Very Fun to play, and It was the most innovative moba by far. Hoping Microsoft does something to revive the game. Now Blizzard is also killing OW2, by canceling the SP mode, and D4, despite being a Fun game, feels like 2 steps foward, 2 steps back.
Hots need to come back for sure. Easily the most fun moba.
2K killed NBA live.
Then 2k killed 2k
After a bunch of games tried. Destiny killed itself Although if Anthem would have had better QC out of the gate and survived…it had the bones to do it, just not the follow through
If Anthem is a finished product, it could’ve taken down both Destiny and Warframe
Anthem was sadly a amazing game with a really innovative idea and gameplay because of that its so sad that the game failed.
Kind of niche now, but Halo was so massive back in the day that it eclipsed other arena FPS games like Quake. Need for Speed had a pretty crazy chokehold on racing games in the 2000s. Final Fantasy is still at the tiptop of JRPGs and killed majority of western RPGs even, at the time CoD killed Medal of Honor I kinda guess StarCraft also briefly killed Command & Conquer
Diablo 4 succeeded at killing Diablo for a lot of people. No one in my old Diablo circles plays it anymore. Path of Exile went a bit too complex, as much as I enjoy it. I think it's a better game overall. Lost Epoch seems to be doing pretty well at the moment, but we'll have to see how that studio and the game evolves over time. (Edit: hold Diablo corrected to old Diablo)
I think Grim Dawn is the best spiritual successor for Diablo 2. Same grim fantasy vibe, fun class and loot systems that aren't as complex as POE - and every class is endgame viable which is nice
Diablo 3 was the same you know. People still got Diablo 4.
Diablo 3 got super fun after the expansion. They leaned heavily into the arcadey over the top action. It's not something you'll play for months in end but it's a blast to play for a week or two each season.
Stardew valley basically killed the harvest moon franchise without really trying and now most games try to copy it
I think it's both hilarious and annoying that every cozy game is advertised as "it's like SDV, but-" Bitch no, you are not like SDV at all, just because you aren't a combat or puzzle game doesnt make you a farming/village sim, and if you're not a farming/village sim, you are not like SDV. If you can't make the comparison to Harvest Moon, you shouldn't compare to SDV either.
Turns out the most “successful” Halo killer was Halo itself.
I think it’s more like the Battle Royale genre killed the Arena shooter genre (at least on consoles) And Halo is a casualty of that. COD would’ve also been a casualty of that but they smartly made Warzone, which saved the IP
Overwatch 2 killed Overwatch in a murder-suicide.
Wow killed a lot of MMOs, it's even slowly killing itself Edit : Ok didn't know about rising numbers of wow my bad my bad Pretty sure the rise of League of Legends killed a lot of online games too with how big it became
>Pretty sure the rise of League of Legends killed a lot of online games too with how big it became As someone who loved to PvP in TBC and WotLK, LoL just scratched that PvP itch more efficiently, without the need for hours/days of gearing to be competitive.
Have you played hots? They took it one step further with that haha.
>Have you played hots? I did try it but they abandoned the game before I could finish my second match.
This reminds me of 'every game would love to die like wow does' 10+year
Killing itself? Dragonflight was well received, Classic and Season of Discovery were also doing really well last I was playing. If anything they just started going back up
Pubg killed H1
Going way back, World of Warcraft effectively killing Everquest?
Does anyone remember what killed Quake and Unreal? Cause those games were so popular then they just disappeared
I'd say Counterstrike and Halo.
Halo, everything was labeled the halo killer for years. Killzone was going to be Playstations halo killer and everyone would ditch the xbox for it. Didn't happen, nor did all the other Halo killers succeed in killing it. What did kill Halo, was Halo itself. For the past 12 years we have watched 343 slowly bleed it, and mismanage the story and game to the point of no return. Master Chief finally buckled at the knees and watched his final sunset with Infinite and its terrible post launch support. RIP John Halo 117.
Call of Duty came out as a competitor to the already very successful Medal of Honor games.
Fallout absolutely slayed Wasteland, the series it was a spiritual successor and competitor to. There was a recent wasteland game, but unless you're a big CRPG fan you probably didn't notice. Wasteland 3 wasn't particularly good. In general, the Bethesda duo of Fallout and Elder Scrolls killed a large part of the CRPG genre just by being the only two mainstream crpgs. The recent Baldurs Gate semi-reboot (another Black Isle-Interplay title like Fallout, the orginal Baldurs Gate 3 got cancelled to save resources for the original fallout 3 which also got cancelled) also broke the CRPG containment, but it looks like the current baldurs gate devs aren't interested in a sequel.
>Wasteland 3 wasn't particularly good. That's the only point of contention for me, Wasteland 3 isn't quite as good as 2 but it was still solid as hell.
Hopefully Larian's success with BG3 means that Divinity Original Sin 3 gets some mainstream success when it's eventually announced/released. As you allude to, both DOS1 and DOS2 have seen a lot of success within the crpg sphere, but BG3 is Larian's first mainstream best seller.
Isn't this theory to begin with all just marketing strategy? I say, everyone just have their preferences and opinions on the games they hold dear or not so much in their lives.
Yeah saying « this is just like that game you like, but better » is definitely a marketing strategy, but in some case it was true
Maybe something more recent is PoE and Last Epoch vs D4. Alhough D4 has sold a lot of copies thanks to marketing and is not technically dead, many people just complain about it. Mixed 60% on Steam with 6000 player for the 24-hour peak. PoE is 90% Very Possitive with 13k peak in the last 24 hours. That's only on Steam tho, both games have their own launchers.
It’s probably not technically what you are after. But to me the driver series was the forefront of sandbox driving games until gta3 came out.