MMOs don’t have to be time-consuming
MeinMMO: An MMORPG no longer competes only with EverQuest or World of Warcraft, but also with Fortnite, TikTok, streaming services, and the Game Pass. How does an MMORPG in 2026 justify the enormous entry barrier and time investment it demands from players compared to fast, instant-gratification-based alternatives?
Benjamin Zuckerer: MMORPGs can offer something that few other media can: a community. TikTok delivers entertainment for minutes. An MMORPG can create memories that last years or even decades.
Many Tibia players still remember their first guilds, their first big battles, or the people they met there. Of course, MMORPGs need to become more accessible today. But I don’t believe they can win by trying to copy TikTok.
They win by playing to their own strengths: persistence, social bonds, identity, and meaning. The core idea behind Persist Online arose from exactly this thought. We liked the excitement of games like DayZ or Escape from Tarkov but wanted to create a world where progress is preserved and players can build something over the long term.
Greg Street: The unpopular answer, I think, is that they can’t. You can’t make a game where it takes 200 hours to really get good and 1,000 hours to master it and then expect players to just try it out.
Your game needs to be good quickly, and it needs to offer interesting activities in small time frames – let’s say in the 45 minutes someone has before going to bed.
An MMO can and should still have the lengthy content – I’m a fan of 3-hour raids. But they need more than that, and I actually think it’s the wrong approach to condense the raid into 15 minutes. Instead, just offer different experiences for short and long time frames. In many MMOs, the activities for short time frames are pretty lame, like checking the auction house or gathering some resources.
Jack Emmert: I’m not sure I agree that an MMO requires either a high entry barrier or an enormous time commitment – I believe that if a modern MMO goes down that path, it will fail.
In my opinion, an MMO should recognize the different player types and ensure that there is an easy, accessible, and rewarding progress path for everyone.
I try to imagine the different player types – the casual player, the hardcore player, the one who would like to be a hardcore player but doesn’t have time anymore, the casual player who only plays because their friends do, etc. And then I try to design the rewards that each individual values the most – and make those achievable within their respective limits.
In recent years, Emmert has been working with his own studio Jackalyptic Games on fulfilling a lifelong dream: the development of an MMORPG for Warhammer. However, due to a cost-cutting measure, the Chinese company NetEase halted financing for the project last year.
With his return to Cryptic in January 2026, the MMO expert can leave this unfortunate chapter behind, look ahead, and make a fresh start. He spoke with us about his plans here: “A new MMO is coming from me” – The failed game for Warhammer brings genre stalwart Jack Emmert back to Cryptic
Moritz Bokelmann: MMOs have always been in direct competition with other entertainment budgets – both monetary and time budgets. It has always been a competition with cinema, TV, board games… There will always be an audience willing to invest more for great entertainment. Just look at the still booming Warhammer 40K.
The answer, or at least part of it, is probably: “Your game is not made for everyone. And that’s okay. You don’t need everyone – you need some.” And if “some” is a large enough group and you develop a game tailored to them, made for them – then they will come. And if you’re lucky, they’ll break down your doors. A clear vision, a clear target audience, a clear implementation – those are necessary and perhaps even sufficient prerequisites for delivering a good or even great game.
But to return to the question of “how does…” : No other type of game will ever work as well as a means for social interaction and as a foundation for communities like an MMORPG. It is, potentially, an endless source of entertainment where you achieve goals and forge social connections at the same time. Is that for everyone? No. But it doesn’t have to be.
Although Albion Online is from Germany, the MMORPG only got an EU server in April 2024 – here is the trailer:
Raph Koster: The most important thing is that MMOs, in my opinion, don’t have to have such a high entry barrier! Many of the factors leading to this are decisions we often make automatically. For example, if the gameplay is heavily group-oriented, the game sessions will naturally be longer because people have to take time to form groups.
And if you don’t allow solo play, it means that a fixed group of friends is already part of the entry barrier. But that’s a conscious decision that we don’t have to take for granted. You can support group and solo gameplay in a single game!
One of our core principles from the beginning was: “You should be able to log in, be with your friends right away, and have an enjoyable gaming session in fifteen minutes.”
Rich Lambert: People play games like Skyrim, Hades, and Pokémon for hundreds of hours. How is that fundamentally different from playing an MMO for hundreds of hours? I don’t believe the issue is the amount of time. It’s about whether that time feels rewarding.
Modern MMOs have already put a lot of effort into making the genre more accessible, respecting players’ time, and ensuring players can achieve meaningful progress even in shorter play sessions. You can see that in the current generation of MMOs.
Are we perfect yet? No. But there has been a tremendous shift, and the development teams are still pushing this evolution forward. In my opinion, the problem isn’t asking players for time – the problem is wasting it.
On the next page, we discuss the issue of the payment model and how to reconcile rising costs with a fair system.
Your opinion is important to us!
Do you like the article? Then let us know!