Den of Geek - Big Name RPGs & MMO Route

Den of Geek's writer Laura Hardgrave has a new article that asks the question why do big name RPGS always need to go the MMO route? Here is a short sample.

An unfortunate fate tends to follow the RPGs we love. Game developers often see their big, successful franchises as opportunities to balloon them into massive multiplayer online games that could go on for years. This might be World of Warcraft disease (and honestly, it must sound so enticing to follow in that phenomenon's footsteps), or it might be a simple desire to let fans romp around for years in a setting that constantly generates revenue, but it keeps happening. Cool RPGs are cool, but do the MMORPGs based on those franchises suffer?

Let’s write a quick list of the most recent candidates—Star Wars: The Old Republic, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, and finally—The Elder Scrolls Online, Zenimax Online Studio's MMO take on Bethesda's award-winning fantasy RPG franchise. 

The statistics tend to agree: lots of people love Star Wars, Final Fantasy, and The Elder Scrolls. So obviously, the MMORPGs based on these licenses are pretty popular. Despite a rocky start, FFXIV (especially, this one -- boy, oh boy, have they turned this one around) and SWTOR seem to be holding their own among their set franchise audiences, but ESO? That’s another story altogether.