Jack Emmert says MMOs need better progression, not more launch content

Jack Emmert is going after one of the MMO genre’s most stubborn myths: that a new online world needs hundreds of hours of handcrafted launch content to be taken seriously. His case is simpler and sharper than that. The real problem, he argues, is not the number of dungeons on day one. It is whether progression feels rewarding enough to keep players logging in, grouping up and sticking around long after the launch rush fades.

That argument matters because Emmert is not speaking from the outside. On January 27, 2026, Cryptic Studios and Arc Games announced his return as CEO, a decade after he left the studio in 2016. Emmert’s résumé runs through City of Heroes and City of Villains, Champions Online, Star Trek Online and Neverwinter, which gives him a rare view of how MMO communities form, stall and survive across multiple launch cycles.

His point also cuts against the industry’s favorite measuring stick: World of Warcraft. Blizzard launched WoW in North America on November 23, 2004, and the game did not become the genre’s benchmark because it shipped with an impossible amount of content in one shot. It grew into that role over years of iteration. Blizzard said WoW had passed 10 million subscribers in 2008 and reached a peak of 12 million in 2010. Guinness World Records later cited it as the best-selling MMO videogame, with at least 40.6 million copies sold across expansions as of November 22, 2023.

That history is why Emmert’s warning lands now. Studios keep being asked to deliver a World of Warcraft-sized fantasy at launch, even though WoW’s scale was built over time. The result is a launch model that can punish smaller teams before players have a chance to see whether the progression, social systems and endgame planning actually work.

The pressure on that model only got louder after Amazon ended active development on New World in October 2025, saying it was no longer sustainable to support with new content updates after four years of development. Emmert has pointed to New World’s sales as evidence that players still want MMOs, but not necessarily the impossible version investors keep demanding. Recent reporting says Cryptic’s three major live games, Neverwinter, Star Trek Online and Champions Online, have reached more than 32 million players worldwide. That is the larger lesson in Emmert’s return: MMOs do not need to arrive fully built. They need a launch that can actually live.