One of the more exciting panels at the Austin Game Conference was a panel simply called “MMOG Rant” as Gamespot reports. On the panel were representatives from several different MMORPG publishing houses, including NCsoft, Bioware Austin, Sony Online Entertainment, and former employees of Turbine Entertainment and Mythic Entertainment.

While Blizzard wasn’t represented directly, World of Warcraft certainly received a lot of attention from the panel. Complaints ranged from problems with post-sale service to issues with copycats, financing, innovation, and execution. Other than the post-sale service, the issues the MMORPG development community seems to be facing is similar to the game industry as a whole. While venture capital seems to be flowing into genre developers seeking to build the next World of Warcraft, the big problem seems to be that investors are literally looking for the next World of Warcraft. Getting funding for innovative or unique projects seems to be as much of a problem in the MMORPG realm as it is in console or PC gaming. The article offers an unvarnished look into the frustrations of MMORPG developers.