So Epic Games announced the closure of Paragon, their free-to-play MOBA this week. With servers finally shutting down on April 26, 2018, fans are understandable distraught at the news, with a lot of venom going Epic’s way. Now, it hasn’t always been free, and paid early access was an option early on, but Epic has offered a refund for everyone, something almost unheard of in the industry.
The reason for a lot of people’s anger is that Epic has started to allocate more resources towards its highly successful battle royale mode in Fortnite – its third person game that is also in an early access state. The multiplayer add-on has far surpassed its PvE in popularity, and its success seems to be growing day by day.
But how successful can the game remain? With PUBG a main competitor, and a huge array of shooters saturating the market, can a simple arcade style third person shooter really become a console and PC leader?
It’s currently the most played on Xbox, surpassing the likes of Call of Duty: WW2, Fifa 18, and other heavy hitters, in part due to its free download. With it being financed by cosmetic items, the barrier to entry is not likely to change, and its campaign mode will be moving from paid early access to free to play this year. Even more bang for your buck? Or not buck, in this case.
But what about longevity? Afterall, Epic have just shut down Paragon after a couple of years of progress for greener pastures? Well, Paragon’s official twitter page has 89k followers, which could explain the belief by Epic that there was no “clear path for us to grow Paragon into a MOBA that retains enough players to be sustainable.”. By comparison, Fortnite’s boasts over a million. Their Facebook page has more than twice that of Paragon. And their subreddit? A familiar story, with 167,000 to Paragon’s 40k, and the mods even noting that they receive between 500,000 and 4 million pageviews a day. Fortnite currently has a substantial number of active players after just 6 months, and has gameplay that is very true of the motto ‘easy to learn, difficult to master’.
That gameplay is at the core for why it’s so successful. It’s casual! Well, casual friendly. The game rewards the ability to shoot precisely, to build quickly and efficiently, and to consider time management. All whilst allowing newer players to succeed if they get some lucky shots off on a group already in conflict. And even if you’re not the best, there’s lots of fun running from the storm, or dancing with the various cosmetic dance off items available. It’s ridiculous, it’s arcadey, but it’s tonnes of fun. For those who dismiss it as not as good as PUBG, I’d say it definitely is more fun, if not as in depth.
For now, Epic continues to thrive on a simplistic concept that has sufficient depth to provide a competitive game for even hardcore shooter fans, whilst maintaining a simplicity that won’t overwhelm a mainstream audience. It’s the winning combination that will see it struggle to crumble under the pressure of more hardcore games like PUBG or Rainbow Six Siege.
