In our MMO talks on Twitch during the Grindfest 2026 we discussed the past, the status quo, and the future of the MMORPG genre. One part of the industry really took a hit.
What is the thesis and who comes up with it? During the Grindfest 2026 we hosted multiple talk rounds on the GameStar Twitch channel where we talked about the past, the status quo, and the future of the MMORPG genre.
There was always the question of why there have been so few successful, large theme park MMORPGs from the West in recent years and whether the future of the genre lies in Asia or in trends like the less risky MMO Lite.
Our guest, the YouTuber and MMO enthusiast Entenburg, emphasized that one cannot really say that new theme park MMORPGs from the West have not been successful enough in recent years.
The problem is more, as Entenburg stated, that there has only been one case study from the West in 12 years: New World. The MMORPG was immensely successful at launch, reportedly selling more than 10 million copies and was able to create positive momentum with the last season, seeing an increase in players.
What is now primarily needed is the courage of western studios (and money) to say: We are developing an MMORPG. Because there really are no fails. […] Actually, there haven’t been any flopped MMORPGs from the West in the last 12 years that were AAA. […]
My thesis is: If anyone from the West were to make a really good, well-crafted MMORPG, the likelihood of it being accepted would be quite high. The one time it happened, it was accepted despite many, many problems.Entenburg in the MMO talk of GameStar and MeinMMO on YouTube
In addition to New World, it also has a completely new IP that couldn’t attract a large fan base to the servers. The anticipation stemmed from the exciting setting, the well-produced trailers, and the fact that behind the game is a well-known studio from the West, Amazon Games, with a lot of money.
If Amazon Games were to release the originally planned MMORPG based on The Lord of the Rings or if industry veteran Jack Emmert had the opportunity to finalize his prematurely buried dream of the Warhammer MMORPG, record launch successes would be a foregone conclusion – solely because of the community’s hunger for new, western theme park MMOs combined with the highly popular license.
With Aion 2 we can soon expect a delightfully classic theme park MMORPG:
What is urgently needed today, according to Entenburg, are developers who can carry such a project through to the end. This is precisely what has been lacking in the past 12 years. His criticism is primarily directed at the western industry:
We have no problem with a player base that wouldn’t accept it anymore. We get nothing. […] I won’t take the blame as a player, saying: Players need to change, MMOs are no longer accepted. None are coming. In my opinion, the industry is denying itself a relatively large target group because it is risky, expensive, and many things can go wrong.
Entenburg in the MMO talk of GameStar and MeinMMO on YouTube
On the second stream day of the Grindfest, Entenburg will be even clearer. On Twitch he adds: “If classical MMORPGs should become niche, it is not because of the players, but because the industry is simply failing.”
You can find our talk on the biggest MMO fails on YouTube or below – feel free to regularly visit the GameStar Talk channel for many more exciting discussions about the best hobby in the world:
MMORPGs are becoming seasonal
We players are changing too: Just as the gaming landscape has changed over the years, so have we players. We have grown older, have families, time-consuming jobs, and significantly more media offerings than 20 years ago. Naturally, this inevitably affects how we consume MMORPGs and what content MMO developers offer in their respective games.
An effect that has been observed for some time: Many players no longer focus entirely on their favorite game, but jump back and forth between different MMORPGs depending on where there are new contents. Entenburg builds on this with a thesis he formulates as a question:
Will the classic MMORPG become seasonal? And I think: Yes, it will. And I think it is good that it will. We now have an incredibly differentiated MMORPG scene, we have so many good games. Nowadays, WoW players also know that there is a Guild Wars 2, and Final Fantasy 14 players know that there is an Elder Scrolls Online. And so on. […]
You have your handful of MMOs that you like, and when new content comes out, you play for a few months, only to move on again. […]
Entenburg in the MMO talk of GameStar and MeinMMO on Twitch
Entenburg finds this trend good because it gives players more freedom to try more games and look beyond their horizon. At the same time, this doesn’t necessarily have to be bad for the operators, as players return whenever there is exciting new content. And especially the big ones – like WoW, ESO, FFXIV – have shown for some time that this can work very well.
What do you think? Do you also jump from MMORPG to MMORPG or are you loyal to one online role-playing game? And how do you assess the fact that we have only received one major theme park MMORPG from the West in 12 years? As a failure of the industry? As a sad but hardly avoidable consequence of the many MMO failures over the past decades? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments! You can find more from Entenburg here: The future of MMORPGs is multifaceted like never before!
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