Not all MMOs fade away. WoW still has over ten million subscribers and doesn't seem to be fading at all. And I'm not surprised changes they made in 2005 took so long to kill SWG. People who have put literally years into a game are emotionally invested and have online relationships they don't want to abandon, at least not casually.
What actually kills a game is the lack of new serious players to balance out the slow attrition of the veterans. The temptation for companies running these games is to make them more "accessible" to more casual gamers. But there's a fine line between "accessible" and "not addictive enough to flip people into paying customers".
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Not all MMOs fade away. WoW still has over ten million subscribers and doesn't seem to be fading at all. And I'm not surprised changes they made in 2005 took so long to kill SWG. People who have put literally years into a game are emotionally invested and have online relationships they don't want to abandon, at least not casually.
What actually kills a game is the lack of new serious players to balance out the slow attrition of the veterans. The temptation for companies running these games is to make them more "accessible" to more casual gamers. But there's a fine line between "accessible" and "not addictive enough to flip people into paying customers".
SW was a case study of what never to do in an MMO. Its pretty much necessary knowledge when designing a game of the type.