I guess one of the advantages of not going out on New Year’s Eve is that you get a chance to write that year-specific blog post… and no, it’s not 2010 yet, at least not by my watch!

Back in January I threw out a few predictions for the year. I’m sure if I could open a hole in time, stick my head through and say to my almost-a-year-younger self “By the time you look back at this post, you’ll be living in the US, in a job you don’t even know exists yet – oh and most of your predictions will be wrong…” Well I’d probably be half-surprised.

Let’s score me then – feel free to refresh your memory with the original post, although the important stuff is here anyway.

Known MMOG predictions

Champions Online will get released this year… but will still slip, probably to Q4. It’ll attract a solid 250K subscribers at launch. Oh: it won’t release on Xbox 360 at launch, either.

Well, it released, I’ll say that much – and in Q4, to boot – but boy is my face red about that subscriber figure. At launch? Maybe, perhaps that many boxes were sold, globally, at retail. But subscribers? Absolutely no way. I do have a smidgen of insider knowledge about this… but trust me. Champions Online has nowhere near 250K subscribers and never did. I guess I was thinking somehow they’d convert everyone then-subscribing to City of Heroes… and a few more, besides.

I was spot-on about the lack of Xbox 360 version, but honestly, that was sort of a gimme. Still, three-outta-four ain’t bad. Great start!

Final score: 3/4

DC Universe Online won’t get released, but will go into some sort of Closed Beta… probably about the same time Champions launches… and will announce a ’solid’ release date in 2010.

Oh dearie me… well, you would think that putting your superhero MMOG into some sort of Closed Beta at the same time as the new kid on the block launches would be a good idea, right? But whether SOE realised their game wasn’t ready for prime-time (which is what Beta is these days, make no mistake) or they had some psychic premonition that Champions wasn’t going to be much of a threat, I guess we’ll never know.

And a solid release date? No. I have ideas about DCUO in 2010… but we’ll leave that to the predictions post.

Final score: 1/3

City of Heroes will get a major product announcement. 5th anniversary aproaching? Rival super-MMOs releasing? Hel-lo, sequel.

Ohhh, I should have hedged my bets… and acted on my insider knowledge… ahem. Yes, I knew about the expansion. I guess I didn’t want to spoil the surprise. Or did I? Dun-dun-duuuuuhh… Strictly speaking I failed here. No sequel (yet) but we have an expansion to look forward to. I’m gonna say I scored zilch here, because otherwise feels like a cheat!

Final score: 0/1

Guild Wars 2 will finally get some marketing love; think videos, some press demos, at least. But no release date.

Damn close. The release of several Guild Wars 2 videos has everyone in a lather already. But… suspiciously… no press demos. Hmmm. (I actually had zero insider knowledge on this, although I had seen Guild Wars 2 footage a lot earlier than you did….) I’ll say that’s a…

Final score: 1/2

Jumpgate: Evolution will debut and attract a nice, solid 85K subscribers. We won’t be able to confirm or deny this though, as Codemasters are releasing it.

Ahem. Well, at the beginning of the year I had no idea I’d end up working for Jumpgate Evolution… without working for Codemasters. In fact that would have blown my tiny mind. Anyway, fair to say Jumpgate didn’t launch in 2009, although all signs did point to it for the first half of the year.

Further comment would compromise me professionally, so you’ll have to settle with my final score of.. dangit…

Final score: 0/2

Unknown MMOG predictions

Cryptic’s third, unannounced MMOG will be announced as a quasi-pulp game, set in the 1930s, featuring Indiana Jones style global hijinks and monster battling. Hey, I can dream.

Dreaming indeed. Struck out here.

Red 5’s unannounced MMOG will be announced as a… fantasy game! (Boy, I’m pushing the boat out.)

Red who?

38 Studios‘ ‘Copernicus’ will also be announced… as a dark fantasy game! (Yeah. I’m playing the short odds.)

Copernywhat?

NCsoft will finally take the wrapper off the Carbine Studios project.

Apparently NCsoft like to keep the wrapper on things now.

Blizzard won’t announce anything new. At all. Why bother?

I should have said ‘Blizzard won’t announce their new MMO’ because I could have told you the next expansion was coming… but I didn’t. So I guess I score a big, fat…

Final score: 0/5

Games industry predictions

The Wii will end up so far ahead of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in sales terms, industry watchers will stop even mentioning it in sales figures. (They’re practically doing this already.)

Yep, I think that’s fair to say. It’s pretty much like the Wii doesn’t exist to the average gaming site. Or at least not the ones I go to. They’ve successfully crossed the divide to ‘average consumer product’ – and more power to ‘em. I heard more about people using Wii Fit this year than using it to, you know, play games.

Microsoft will drop heavy, unsubtle hints about the next Xbox. But won’t announce it, officially, until 2010.

Errr… maybe they did drop some and they weren’t that heavy?

PlayStation Home will get a major revamp by Q4… but will still be a complete flop.

I don’t know if launching an MMOG counts as a ‘major revamp’… but I don’t see any press releases touting Home as a massive success.

Activision will announce a Guitar Hero product that’ll have a ‘massively multiplayer’ component. Think: your band versus everyone else’s band in the world. There will be additional fees involved.

Nope, but instead they’ll flog the franchise to death with many products with ‘Hero’ in the name.

No-one in the business of MMOGs will pay much attention to articles like this over at Massively. (Sorry, Massively.)

I’d say I get a big fat ‘check’ for that, especially considering the two ‘big’ MMOG releases of 2009 – Champions Online and Aion – both got ripped in various quarters for many of the issues described in that article. Go read it, it’s still very applicable… sadly.

Final score: 2/7

Personal, uh, ‘predictions’

I’ll end up moving to the US of A.

Check!

I’ll make a public announcement about why I’m moving to the US.

Check!

I’ll make a public appearance (Oooohh!!) at a US-based gaming show or two.

Well if you made it to E3 – check!

I’ll keep blogging here, perhaps not as often as in 2008 though.

Ahem – check??

I’ll keep playing World of Warcraft. I know! I’m sorry!

Well, I did until April, and then I got bored.

Final, final score for 2009

It seems a little cheeky to give myself a score for personal predictions, so leaving that section aside it looks like I scored a massive…  7/24!! So basically almost 1-in-3… not terrible odds at a bookies. Although basically, you should have put all your cash on me guessing easy stuff about Champions.

Fairly big things that I totally didn’t predict this year – Star Wars: The Old Republic becoming the only damn game that anyone talks about; my employer, Gazillion Entertainment, revealing themselves; Facebook games becoming so bloody massive.

I figure I’ve got three days or so to figure out 2010. Place your bets.