The world of gaming has seen a huge shift in recent years as mobile gaming has become the most popular platform, and with this a changing genre in popularity as more casual games have taken the mantle. Most recently the popularity has largely fallen on online gambling services during lockdown as a growing number of online casinos find a surge in players, despite recent changes to initiatives such as Gamstop aimed at reducing participation options for players, but as a growing number of operators choose to register outside of the regulation, a growing number aren’t part of the Gamstop initiative and CNOG have a great list of these available to players.
But there has been recent movement in one of the biggest genres of all time in Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games – initially gaining mass popularity in 2004 with the release of the biggest MMO of all time in World of Warcraft which to this day continues to pull in big numbers, and with the release of the next expansion in Shadowlands just a few months away, there is some more hype building around the game, but this isn’t where the movement within the market is being seen as two new players have entered with one of them gaining a lot of traction over the past few days.
The first has been within the offering coming by way of Amazon Game Studios which has unfortunately found another delay in its release – the game titled New World had originally been set to launch a little earlier this year which had then been moved to August following delays brought around by the spread of the pandemic, but was moved yet again until Spring of 2021. There is still a lot of excitement for this game despite the delays largely in part because Amazon will be behind it, with MMO’s being so expensive to develop and maintain there’s a big hope that there will be plentiful updates and good changes made.
The other and the one that has gained a lot of traction over the past week or so has been with the game Ashes of Creation, initially securing private funding with more funding being pumped in through a kickstarter campaign, the game entered development in 2016 and boasted a huge list of features with sieges, custom nodes, and a huge number of variables that impact the world as a whole. Although there’s no expected release date, a developer interview that took place with a couple of popular streamers has started to build hype for the game and a purchase option to ensure alpha access has definitely helped build the hype.
Recent years have been a bit of a struggle for the genre as it is shrinking in the west – the lack of interest and huge costs involved have turned many developers to different prospects, but with the resurgence in interest with these two titles and upcoming releases mentioned for the likes of World of Warcraft, it’s an exciting time to be an MMO fan.
