Massively multiplayer or massive tool?

Games
61

“Free” TV and “free” radio are subsidized by advertising. You want your games to be interrupted with commercials in between levels? To be precise, radio stations pay metered “subscription” fees to the content providers.

Free online games are subsidized by ads too. Well, are if they can MAKE any money from Internet ads. And the vast majority of them are therefore either loss leaders (in the case of packaged game online play), casual games (cheap to make), or amateur.

As to when–who knows. No time soon, that’s for sure. The main pressure is the fact that games are easily copied and easily distributed, and it’s going to be easier. Digital intellectual property is in a bad way, and it’s going to get worse, that’s all. The last refuge for monetizing it is to store the valuable parts on a secure server, and sell a valueless thin client front end. Radio is showing glimmerings of going subscription, it’s rampant among the video/film industry, with examples ranging from pay per view to the sneakernet version called Blockbuster (regular movie renters are paying MORE than they would for cable!).

As far as getting 47 games for $40 a month–that’ll happen too. Watch for it, particularly as the current subscription MMOs start fading and move to niche audiences. Bundle packages will emerge, I’m sure. Three games for the fee is an intermediate step.

What game company spends as much as HBO on content? Well, it’s a bad analogue, since HBO recycles content whose development is already paid for, but take an MMO company that makes say $1 million a month. They are almost certainly putting at least a quarter of it back into the content in various fashions including customer service, staffing for ongoing content generation, etc. That’s not peanuts.

62

Clearly, the answer is to socialize the gaming industry. Pilot programs such as America’s Army show how successful a game can be when development is paid for by the government and the end product is given away for free. Games are a right, not a privilage!

63

As long as single player focused games are non subscription based I’ll be fine. I think its good that the mmrpg franchises so far, have done pretty well (except for AO and WW2OL). And I DO like my mmrpg’s to be character based with either skills or levels (preferably skill based with levels as well). I think there has to be both. And in the case of attracting ‘casual’ gamers, well that depends if the game they’re making is worth playing at all. I think multiplayer (not mmrpg) subscription can work if they offered a game experience that was worth it. I would bet a deeper Diuablo Online experience, just keeping the same gameplay, but with more stuff WOULD sell at a subscripotion rate, or something like it. A NWN with a semi persistent online option (from the devs not the fans) or something similar. Basically a smaller focused semi persistent online game that WASN’T just focused on crpg gameplay could still sell I think.

But in the end, I dont care what sells or doesnt sell, yes it helps to advance the industry… but I just want to play a cool game either it be online or off, and hopefully its worth the cash… anyway…

etc

64

Sparky, how about an itinerant elven paladin with a strong code of ethics, the enbalming skill, and an urge to help the poor with their recently departed? When you finish with the movie monster game…

65

I think you’re far too focused on PC gaming Raph. This statement doesn’t hold much water…

The main pressure is the fact that games are easily copied and easily distributed, and it’s going to be easier.

…in today’s console world. Nintendo’s proprietary disc has stopped large scale piracy of Gamecube titles. Sony and Microsoft have also seen very limited piracy due to the DVD format and the lack of burners out there and dealers of these games.

You don’t have to send games over a wire to keep people from copying them, you have to make it inconvenient. All the console makers did that in this round. The PC is an entirely different world and if it goes to games by wire, the amount of people playing is going to shrink dramatically. I don’t “need” games enough to pay monthly fees to play them. For the majority of the game buying public, it’s more of an impulse purchase when they buy a game anyway. You don’t create a new bill for yourself on impulse buys.

–Dave

66

The other thing is that if the piracy is really people trying to save a few bucks, the last thing they are going to do is start paying a monthly fee.

Also, setting up and maintaining a server farm is an expensive anti-piracy measure.

67

Piracy is people really being cheap bastards! and with an eyepatch…
yeargh and stuff.

etc

68

I don’t get people bitching about $10-15 a month for a game you will spend, even as a casual gamer, 20+ hours on in that month. I don’t see cost as a realistic objection especially if you really start to look at dollar per hour rates. I have spent 144 dollars on DAoC (box + monthly fee for 8 months with first month free). My two top characters have 25 days and 20 days played with works out to 1080 hours played which works out to 13 cents an hour. Compare a game like Freedom Force where I paid $40 and played maybe 10-15 hours tops. That is $2.66 an hour. NWN $55 for 40 hours played. $1.37 an hour. JK2 probably abour 30 hours with the ladder map plus the full single player for $55 dollars or $1.83 an hour.

No one is going to sign up for MMORPG and play it less than 20 hours a month unless they are going to cancel their account. So really if the cost is an issue then you are just fooling yourself because you pay far more than this to play pretty much every game you ever buy.

– Xaroc

69

“No one is going to sign up for MMORPG and play it less than 20 hours a month unless they are going to cancel their account. So really if the cost is an issue then you are just fooling yourself because you pay far more than this to play pretty much every game you ever buy.”

The cost of one game isn’t an issue, but if PC games do go the monthly fee route as Raph suggests, than the cost of PC gaming will be an issue. How many monthly fees are we willing to pay? Thirteen dollars a month ain’t bad, but multiply that by four – let’s say Jedi Knight Online, NWN Online, Morrowind Online, and DAoC. Either we’re going to start paying more or some game companies are going to be hurting because we won’t be buying as many games if there’s a monthly fee attached to each.

I understand why Raph thinks as he thinks – but the marketplace decides these issues, not the game companies.

70

If you’re playing 20+ hours/month, I don’t see how you’re a casual gamer. I’ve sort perforce become a casual gamer over the last few months (my wife is really sick, so between taking care of her and the kids, I play maybe 1/2 hour a night, and some nights not at all).

I’ve got a few games that I rotate through, some a number of months old. If I were paying $10-15/month for each one, I’d be going through a fortune for a few hours a gaming a month.

I, on the other hand, have had FF for a few months now, and haven’t finished it yet; I do another mission every so often. So, at $10/month, I’d have ponied up a lot of money for it.

Gav

71

Based on some ideas here, maybe the mmrpg in its current state goes AGAINST casual gaming. I mean, most of them need a couple hours a day of your time to have some fun. Thats not casual to most people I think.

I think the Sims Online will be the test. If it proves to be fun and affordable, it will prove that non crpg online mmrpgs (huh?) are doable. I think they are… just matters what the game is…

etc

72

Hey Ralph or -Raph (whichever the case may be),

As an obvious devotee, what is it that you still get out of the Sims and what are you looking forward to in the Online iteration?

I am actually seriously curious. :)[/quote]

I’m not a devotee of The Sims nor of Sims Online. I’m a devotee of massively multiplayer, and I can’t wait because of its potential to expand the market, and finally successfully bring the traditional other half of the online gamer marketplace (the MUSH/MOO/MUCK crowd) to the commercial graphical arena.[/quote]

Raph is too modest. If you don’t know who he is, he is recognized as the among the finest (if not THE finest) of the MMORPG designers today and is currently Creative Director for Sony/Verant, spending his time on Star Wars Galaxies.

Which is, of course, another game we all have high hopes for, in the sense of opening online gaming to people who might not otherwise take a look.

73

I remember Raph from the UO boards… he knows art and literature and hes cool. 8)

I hope he gives SWG that needed ooomph, because Verant can use some of that UO magic imo.

etc

74

I think you can count on it; I’m already pretty excited about some of the game mechanics that are being talked about for SWG. To me, the only question is whether the casual gamer (versus the mass market gamer, whose price point seems to be “free or less”) and Star Wars fans will be hooked enough to stay involved in the online community.

That’s a pretty big question and SWG will be a test. Those Star Wars fans are not afraid to spend money or time on their hobby. This is a pretty good chance to see if a mass market universe can translate over to the niche market of subscription games in a huge way. I don’t think anyone believes it won’t be a huge financial success; the real question for those of us in the industry is whether they can snag and keep 1 million monthly home subscribers. That’s an important psychological barrier for us to break.

And MMOs are definitely niche; they ain’t for everyone.

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one thing I’ll give SWG over Sims Online and WoW is that it doesn’t appear to be ‘dumbed down’. Its trying to add ‘casual player’ things while keeping the mmrpg aspects that hardcore players like. WoW sounds cool, but it looks like a lite mmrpg or a massive online version of Diablo … I like choices in a game I’m spending cash monthly on, and SWG looks to be pretty deep.

I hope SWG succeeds, but I’ll have to admit that the SW universe is one of the ‘fantasy’ universes I think is kinda cheesy! :) Actually most crpg worlds are cheesy, so I shouldnt be complaining.

etc

76

If you’re playing 20+ hours/month, I don’t see how you’re a casual gamer. I’ve sort perforce become a casual gamer over the last few months (my wife is really sick, so between taking care of her and the kids, I play maybe 1/2 hour a night, and some nights not at all).

[/quote]

That is probably true but at 20 hours/month you are a definitely a casual MMORPG player I would say under that there is little or no point in playing an MMORPG at least the way they work now. I can understand casual gamers maybe having an issue with the monthly fees but I was talking about people I see here who are hardcore gamers bitching about monthly fees.

But even $13 by 4 is $52 a month. I tend to buy over a game a month as it is so $52 a month is nothing. The biggest issue is not the money it is the time. To do “well” in any MMOG up to now you have to spend an inordinate amount of time in it. I couldn’t play more than maybe 2 MMOGs at a time and even that would be stretching it. Anyway my comments were really aimed at the hardcore gamers who balk at paying for even one MMOG because of the cost.

Incidentally, I don’t think we will ever get to the point where you have to pay a monthly fee to play things like Quake3 or Morrowind or any other game that is self hosted or single player. I wouldn’t pay for that. They aren’t doing anything for you beyond release and don’t have a big infrastructure to support.

– Xaroc

77

The only thing I want to see is more designed opportunities to interact with other players in situations other than combat and trading. Right now, that’s pretty much all people can do together and I think that’s what contributes most to the hatred of the level treadmill. There are a few emergent behaviors,-- very few-- and zero canned behaviors.

You have to level because if your friends level and you don’t, you can’t do combat with them anymore and therefore don’t have much of a reason to do anything with them except chat over the guild channel. Players need more of a sense that they don’t have to level to keep their friends, and that there are other opportunities for socializing above what you can get on IRC.

I have about zero interest in any upcoming MMORPG, because none of them have given any indication that they won’t be 99% combat-focused. Final Fantasy XI is one MMORPG I’m actually interested in simply because it has a card game that you can play with other players. That’s it. A card game. There could be so much more, but Final Fantasy is the only one I’m aware of that has even one thing like this. One measly ‘friendly PvP’ mini-game. Well, there’s ToonTown, I suppose.

Does Galaxies have anything like that? I thought I had heard something about the holographic chess game from the first movie. What else does it have? What can I do with other players besides shoot banthas and emote at them?

78

I’ll let Raph give a more definitive answer, but from what I’ve read so far, such activities as creating cities, interacting through meaningful craft and trade skills and enhanced guild/Team activities will have as much importance as just going out and lopping a bantha. The idea is to create a virtual world more than just a game.

79

Hey Ralph or -Raph (whichever the case may be),

As an obvious devotee, what is it that you still get out of the Sims and what are you looking forward to in the Online iteration?

I am actually seriously curious. :)[/quote]

I’m not a devotee of The Sims nor of Sims Online. I’m a devotee of massively multiplayer, and I can’t wait because of its potential to expand the market, and finally successfully bring the traditional other half of the online gamer marketplace (the MUSH/MOO/MUCK crowd) to the commercial graphical arena.[/quote]

Raph is too modest. If you don’t know who he is, he is recognized as the among the finest (if not THE finest) of the MMORPG designers today and is currently Creative Director for Sony/Verant, spending his time on Star Wars Galaxies.

Which is, of course, another game we all have high hopes for, in the sense of opening online gaming to people who might not otherwise take a look.[/quote]

I realized that only after I looked like an ass with my prior posts.

I played UO for around six months (when Renaissance came out), enjoyed it and got out when my wife and I had a kid. I would call myself a casual gamer, but play single player games around 20-25 hours a week. If I am paying a monthly fee, I feel compelled to play that one game to assure I am getting my money’s worth. This quickly becomes a chore rather than a hobby.

Plus, there is the risk of spending 2-3 hours and having a miserable time because you do not know what you are going to get when you jump in to a pesistent world and are not a hardcore player. I spent a lot of time sewing and chopping in UO. At the time I really enjoyed even that. I liked UO’s whole system and could make it on my own pretty well. Also, I would occasionally stumble on a party to hack around with. Many times the outcomes were irritating or just plain boring.

Today, I cannot do that. I have less time to spend leveling and building skills. I need to be able to sit down and know I am going to get enjoyment out of time spent in front of my screen. Not to mention the fact that I cannot pause to feed the baby, see why she is crying, or has awakened at midnight (which is about the only time I can get some uninterrupted free time).

I would imagine that the other hallowed half that has not ventured into the MM world is in roughly the same boat. If the games change to take this into account, maybe I will join back up. I miss UO and would love to see the innovations and changes in DAoC has brought to the table. Maybe when SWG comes out I can find a way. Sims Online…uhhh, I’ll pass.

80

“The biggest issue is not the money it is the time.”

Ok, but you were the one breaking down the cost per hour for playing DAoC and citing that as an advantage.