Kirun nobody cares about you rants on mmo markets. This is not a big studio trying to make a AAA game. This is a small team doing a passion project. They want 2-5k subs to build their game around. Which they are doing more than that atm during playtests. Sorry man but you strike me as the dude that has no time to play thus is mad a game he likes won't cater to his playstyle. Mnm is fine and will be fine the way it is. The beauty of this all is that you nor I have to play it if we don't like it.
Monsters and Memories (Project_N) - Old School Indie MMO
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Kirun
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Let’s be real: even if they somehow hit 8,000 subs and not the 2-5k like you're suggesting, that’s $120k/month. This is 2025. Servers, legal, customer support, marketing, taxes, none of that is free. A "passion project" doesn't magically turn into a sustainable MMO business.
Saying "we're just a small team" doesn’t erase the math. Nostalgia and love for the craft aren't currency. You can't live off warm fuzzies, and the harsh truth is that unless they massively scale or start cutting corners, this "niche dream" is financially doomed. Small teams running a live MMO in the modern world? That's a bet that's already stacked against them before day one. There's a reason this genre is dying. They are expensive as hell to make and expensive as hell to keep running.
The more you analyze this whole thing, the more it starts to feel like these guys are the epitome of "vibe coding."
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Gravel
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Bro, I am retiree no-lifer with no responsibilities, and I can't get over those barriers.
I even chose a solo class so when other people aren't online during the day (which is almost always) I could still progress. Yeah, no thanks. It's just too punishing, and as you said there are so many other options out there that aren't.
Hell, I could go pick up any number of other MMO's that also have less than a few thousand players and get the same experience but have more fun.
Kriptini
Vyemm Raider
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They can absolutely make it work on that budget. It just means that they'll all be part time on the project or exclusively on profit-sharing plans while they continue to work their day jobs, which is essentially what they're doing now. From a business standpoint, that wouldn't be super successful, but they would be able to keep the game running and keep development up. They've already proved they can do that.
Development Costs — Monsters & Memories
monstersandmemories.com
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Hadden
Trakanon Raider
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Yeah, the team has been entirely self-funded for the entire span of it's development - I don't understand the logic of adding not-enough income to the equation somehow dooms the project. If they are smart about allocating any income, they should only be adding more hours to the project than they can currently. I would imagine they would adapt to however much they can raise and continue pressing forward
Kirun
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On paper, that sounds scrappy and admirable and good for them. But in the context of a live MMO, it's not even in the same ballpark as sustainability.They can absolutely make it work on that budget. It just means that they'll all be part time on the project or exclusively on profit-sharing plans while they continue to work their day jobs, which is essentially what they're doing now. From a business standpoint, that wouldn't be super successful, but they would be able to keep the game running and keep development up. They've already proved they can do that.
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Development Costs — Monsters & Memories
$100k spread across four years is basically hobby project money, not MMO development money. That's roughly $25k a year. A single mid-level engineer at Blizzard, Riot, or even a mid-tier indie pulls down more than that annually. That number doesn't even cover one person's salary, let alone servers, licensing, software tools, QA, art assets, music, customer support, legal, or the dozens of moving parts that keep a live MMO from collapsing under its own weight.
And here's the kicker: that was the cheap part. Development costs are nothing compared to ongoing live operations. Once you launch, you need consistent server uptime, constant patching, moderation, community management, bug fixes, billing infrastructure, payment processing, legal compliance (especially for subs), and on and on. The costs only go up once the game is live.
In other words: spending $100k to get here doesn't prove "we can run a sustainable niche MMO." It proves that they've been running on fumes and goodwill, and the moment they flip the switch on a live service in 2025, they're going to collide with the hard financial reality that the MMO genre isn't forgiving. Unless you have consistent cash flow that dwarfs that burn, you can't keep the lights on, no matter how much "passion" is in the tank.
That's why comparing MnM to "big bloated AAA studios" misses the point. This isn't about being greedy or inefficient. It's that even the bare minimum viable MMO is a cash furnace once it's live, and $100k spread across four years doesn’t demonstrate sustainability, to me it just shows how under-resourced they really are.
Gravel
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Speaking of bug fixes, their whole part time thing is definitely working against them. Know how many patches they did between the two open tests? Just one, a couple days before the test.
I'm not sure why they're pushing changes so slowly, or what purpose having a test server is when they don't actually push the changes.
I'm not sure why they're pushing changes so slowly, or what purpose having a test server is when they don't actually push the changes.
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Did you see the size of the patch? Frequency doesn't matter only the amount of fixes and content
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Quaid
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I think they have many financial outcome scenarios they’re willing to accept, which i find somewhat commendable. I certainly don’t have the balls (or means) to do exactly what i want with zero concern for financial results in the restaurant space.
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Kirun
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I really do wish MnM the best and I’d love to see an MMO succeed that recaptures some of that "old school" charm without just rehashing tedium for its own sake. But looking at the design choices, the financial realities, and how out of step a lot of these systems feel with the modern MMO landscape, I just don't have much faith. I'd love to be proven wrong. It'd be awesome to see MnM pull it off. But as things stand, I'm not optimistic.
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Kriptini
Vyemm Raider
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That's just a normal part of game development, man. There are a lot of issues that you just don't see until you bring in players, and even then, there's the matter of triage. If these bugs persist for long times, then I agree that's an issue, but I think it's reasonable to be more lenient during tests. With specific respect to mobs being stuck in terrain, it was really bad three playtests ago (particularly around north gate), and a fix was applied in response. The fix didn't quite address the issue, but things were better two tests ago. After that test, another fix was applied, and in the last test, there were no mobs stuck in terrain at north gate.
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I think as long as you accept that this is a 2 man, fan made amateur passion project, a money pit that has zero commercial value, then its fine.
4 tests to fix mobs getting stuck in the environment in 1 specific location in the world? so like what, 6 months, a year? and that's with them working part time shoveling in their own money to cover development. can you imagine how fast it's going to be when this launches not on steam to 300-500 players who wont even cover the now 24/7 server requirement costs and this is still just a money pit passion project for 2 men still working part time but now with 100% more headaches and demands on their time?
probably at least a year to 18 months.
4 tests to fix mobs getting stuck in the environment in 1 specific location in the world? so like what, 6 months, a year? and that's with them working part time shoveling in their own money to cover development. can you imagine how fast it's going to be when this launches not on steam to 300-500 players who wont even cover the now 24/7 server requirement costs and this is still just a money pit passion project for 2 men still working part time but now with 100% more headaches and demands on their time?
probably at least a year to 18 months.
Kriptini
Vyemm Raider
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I really don't think server costs are going to be as high as you guys think they are. Scaleable server tech allows them to only pay for as much oomph as they need, so if they end up only having 5,000 players, they'll only need to pay for servers that host 5,000 players.
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i'm just going by their own numbers, they claimed 12% of their cost (12k dollars) has been servers and I assume that's an internal test server for just the 2 of them to access 24/7 and the very sporadic weekend tests they've done public testing on. Maybe the bulk of the cost is the spin up/spin down costs?
if they aren't utilizing a private test server and that 12k is just for their test weekends/stress tests then i'm not sure how low those prices are going to scale down? When they only end up with 500 players I don't see either of them quitting their day job or patches/fixes getting released any faster....no it will be slower. more noise, more demands, less time
if they aren't utilizing a private test server and that 12k is just for their test weekends/stress tests then i'm not sure how low those prices are going to scale down? When they only end up with 500 players I don't see either of them quitting their day job or patches/fixes getting released any faster....no it will be slower. more noise, more demands, less time
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Gravel
Mr. Poopybutthole
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There's a test server that's always on (except during the public tests). That's why when I said they released a single patch just before the open test. Otherwise that wouldn't make any sense, because obviously they'd only have one.
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Quaid
Trump's Staff
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Whoever the animator is that they brought on does great work. I find the low-poly style combined with some of the smooth motion animations real real satisfying. The bear movement in the latest patch notes looks superb. Love the Giant death and greatsword swing animations too. Really excellent.
Also night view of the wood elf area looks magical af. Ewok vibes getting me right in the yub yubs.
Also night view of the wood elf area looks magical af. Ewok vibes getting me right in the yub yubs.
GuardianX
Perpetually Pessimistic
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Seems pretty consistent then, the same ratio of people seems to be stopping prior to the 5 hour mark.
Last test:
Prior test:
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Interesting that the amount of people is staying roughly consistent for the pre 5 h mark, if not growing a little.