Jan 20
Let Everquest Go
VirginWorlds has a post up with a well-considered argument for reducing the fee on Everquest Live, to allow folks who might not otherwise play one of the aging dames of MMOGs to do so.
I say, it’s time to put that dame on a boat. Let EQ1 go.
A post over on Aggro Me, about Aggro’s year playing Everquest II, caught my eye a week or two ago. His good, bad, and ugly analysis is fairly spot-on, with Everquest II being nothing but a big ball of potential going into 2006. One of the elements he touches on that I want to get into is Sony Online’s public image nowadays.
From his post:
Let me clarify. In terms of brand recognition, SOE is doing great. Most people have heard of SOE and Everquest. But in terms of brand image, there is a problem. The SOE brand image was not a positive one before this year and it has only gone downhill. While the amount of updates the EQII team has put forth this year has done some good for the whole brand, it is hardly enough to stem the tide.
…
To clarify again: It does not matter for the sake of brand image if SOE is actually “evil” or not. I’m talking about perception. I truly believe that the EQII team cares deeply about the game. And I’m sure the vast majority of SOE loves gaming and cares about gaming. But if SOE is perceived to be evil, whether it is true or not, you have a problem. And you can’t just say, “Well, we’re not evil.” You should set about fixing that problem with a solid record of doing the right thing instead of digging yourself a deeper hole.
Public image management is difficult for any company. Sony Online is in a uniquely difficult position, placed there by a number of factors. First and foremost, they’re in a service industry. The programming, the marketing, the design, and the in-store boxes all add up to SOE’s actual product: the game service. A customer’s enjoyment of the game is what the monthly pays for, as is customer relations in the forums and an expectation of new experiences. The problem is that customer service sucks. Ask anyone behind a counter or answering a phone. A bad day at work can lead to a forum-based jihad as one player sparks a march on another server. Poor interpersonal skills on the part of one player can result in lost subscriptions as other players storm off in frustration. Even alluding to company involvement in a player’s misconduct could result in angry emails and /quits.
Secondly, managing a MMOG successfully has proven to be a remarkably difficult thing to do. While customer service issues seem to be what is cited most often technical hurdles, logistical issues, and financial problems have all caused major trouble for companies brave enough to attempt to make a world. SOE isn’t managing one world, it plays god in (at the moment) five very different realities (six if you count EQOA). Every game has to be staffed, receive developer attention, and be marketed. When even the current title holder in the American market can get bad press for server instability, multiplying the probablity for failure by five has to keep folks like John Smedley up at nights.
Third and finally, they’re a target. Though Blizzard has obviously supplanted them as most recognizable MMOG-maker, SOE and Everquest are still very well known both in the gaming community and in popular culture. Prior to WoW, all of the ‘horrible thingie happens because of a MMOG’ articles centered around Everquest. If the major media is willing to report on EQ Widows and children left to die because of a Time raid, how harshly will the gaming media treat such a target for far lesser infractions?
All this said, I think Sony Online has screwed up bigtime this past year. Big enough that if 2006 doesn’t see some major changes, I feel I’m going to be writing about at least one game closure before the end of the year.
I’m not going to lay all of this at Smedley’s feet, because SOE is a big company, but he said something in a recent interview that illustrates what I see as the groupthink over there.
From the article: “One thing that I love about our company is that there is no ‘quit’ in this company. It’s about making sure that we have pride in what we do. People within the company feel so much pride in this game that they want it to beat the crap out of World of Warcraft. That’s something we feel very passionate about. We know we are capable of making the best stuff out there, and I’m proud to say that with the changes we’re making in Galaxies, I think we’re headed in the right direction.”
I think it’s hubris-tastic to say something like ‘beat the crap out of World of Warcraft’ in public. The CEO of a company should not be making claims like that to an interviewer. Besides making him look foolish right now, when they don’t ‘beat the crap’ out of WoW (which they won’t) players and journalists alike will refer back to this article and marvel at the gall of his claims. Arrogance is dripping from almost every sentence of the interview, and his arrogance leads to some frustrating questions.
More from the article: “From our perspective, we think that cross-platform means cross-platform and we see a bright future ahead for console online games, but I doubt you’re going to see a world where the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox 360 player is going to be playing together. Not only do I doubt it, I’m positive that that won’t happen.”
From an article I posted to Slashdot Games recently: “When [the Xbox 360 version of FFXI] goes live in May, Xbox 360 players will be able to rub elbows and swap healing potions with their PlayStation 2 and PC counterparts.” PC and Playstation 2 players have been playing together for over two years now, and SquareEnix is sucessfully adding an entire third platform to their playerbase with reportedly very few problems. While he may have been speaking specifically about his plans for Sony Online Entertainment, the fact that he made this claim in a public venue shows (if nothing else) a lack of imagination.
For a company built on the imagination of its paying customers and paid employees, the fact that the CEO makes such a cheerless comment in an interview is telling. I’ve read a lot about the early days of Everquest. Brad McQuaid may be uber now, but when he and the other folks behind EQ got started they had little more than a Vision and the support of some brave money men at Sony.
If SOE is going to survive another year of expansions, angry players, and questionable business decisions, it’s going to have to make some choices. It’s going to have to do something really different in order to start winning back some goodwill.
My suggestion: Pick an Everquest and stick with it.
Closing EQ or EQ2 would further infuriate the players who subscribe to Sony Online games, open a floodgate of harsh criticism from all corners of the interweb, and exacerbate talk that “SOE is going down the tubes”. In the long run, I think it will come down to this sooner rather than later. The closure of Asheron’s Call 2 was sad, but in the end I think Turbine made the right decision. By releasing a sequel to a gameworld, all you do is dilute your brand.
SirBruce hasn’t put up any statistics recently because of RL issues, but his last chart indicates that Everquest Live was hovering underneath the 500,000 player mark and EQ2 was at around 250,000 players. I just can’t imagine that’s accurate anymore. Lineage and Lineage 2 might be good examples, further up the chart, as two successful MMOGs within a franchise. One supplanted the other not too long after its launch. Everything I’ve heard from the EQ1 community indicate to me that populations are not tanking, but I simply can’t imagine EQ Live is still pushing 500,000 players. By focusing their marketing, development, and most especially community building efforts on one title (Everquest 2), SOE would be saved the embarrassing final days of AC2. Server consolidation has already happened a few times since WoW launched, and they’re shutting down the Legends server soon. These are signs.
Instead of doing what Turbine did, flailing wildly about in a desperate attempt to allow AC2 to live, shut down EQ gracefully. Announce a full year ahead of time that the game will be closing, and then make that last year count. Community goodwill about the game’s closure is key to retaining those players in other games. Don’t make any more expansions, but focus all of your development efforts on bug fixes, end-of-days events, contests, holidays, and things that will make your players happy. Increase the rate at which players gain experience. Vow to keep the EQPlayers site active in perpetuity, so that even without the game around players can still have mementoes of their play experience. Invite everyone who has ever had an account with the game back for the last six months, and make it free. Really sell the last hardcore holdouts on EQ2. The old-timers like the folks on Mobhunter, venerable guild leaders, and forum magnates are powerful voices in the community. If they can be convinced that Everquest 2 is a worthy successor to the original, they’ll move and bring hundreds of people with them. To facilitate this in the final months of Everquest, gift players with EQ2 accounts. A free download of the core game and one month of service for every Everquest player would be something of a financial loss, but would be more than made up for by having a unified community with newly rededicated players.
Sony Online is no longer looking at a situation where they can talk about ‘kicking World of Warcraft’s ass’. Their best move today is to refocus their energies and make the games they have the best that they can. Everquest is a strong brand with hundreds of thousands of loyal customers. Now, while EQ2 is still finding its identity, is the time to have EQ Live fade into the sunset. A touching sendoff for the original version of Norrath would draw together players and respark fond memories from the last seven years. It’s far better to make the choice now and have the last days of EQ Live be fondly remembered, then to give players a few month’s worth of warning and create ill-will.
Here’s hoping they make the right decision.
10 comments10 Comments so far
What people like about EQ1 and what others like about EQ2 may be too different to find commonality. It’d be a huge risk to try and drop one game to focus on another. Server merges are risky enough, but at least it only affects people who are already fans.
SOE can’t really afford to drop more players at this point. Across their entire library, they’re not even at the 1mil mark based on how they’ve changed how they report numbers in press releases.
MxO is what can be affectionately referred to as a flop.
AC1 never was huge anyway, so I don’t imagine the expansions are selling like hotcakes.
ToonTown is probably never going to be large.
SWG is in slow decline until they finish washing the mud off their face and actually finish what the NGE started.
PS is, well, let’s just say I’m happy for the fans that SOE can still afford to keep it going.
That leaves the Everquests. I basically feel WoW is more of a sequel to EQ1 for EQ1 fans than EQ2 was. It’s the sort of game people *like*, scaled for the time compressed, with greater appeal for that reason alone. As such, if they nuked EQ1, chances are those hangers-on would feel more at home in WoW than EQ2.
They’re different enough to co-exist, even if I wish the second one was just another world or continent in the same timeline. They’re both solid games with ardent fans, so there’s no real business reason for SOE to cut either one.
A few points.
As long as EQ1 is making a profit, it’s not in Sony’s interest to cancel EQ1 simply because they have EQ2 now, or even because WoW is the flavor of the month. Even if EQ1 has only 500,000 paying customers, that’s still 500,000 x 14.99 = $7,495,000 PER MONTH. What company would give up that kind of money-maker willingly because someone feels it’s better to go out with a bang than a whimper. For this, I think your argument is fundamentally flawed.
Another point is that many MMOGs continue to exist, even thrive, when the spotlight is no longer upon them. Some examples that come to mind are Simutronic’s Gemstone III, now over 10 years old, and EA Games’ Ultima Online, also over 10 years old. Both have very active player communities and developer relationships. So even if you can overlook the amount of money these games make, realize that games don’t die when they’re no longer #1.
Yah, I agree. I won’t take the time for an eloquant response, but the author is a kneejerk dumbass. Yes, EQ1 is past it’s twilight, that is no reason to throw away money or still respected game.
Martin Mayer, an guy funded by the advertising dollars, wrote about the power of ads back in the early 90s. I found a review of his book ‘Whatever happened to Madison Avenue?’ on the NYT site which illustrates what I’m talking about. From the article:
This langauge, while talking about ad usage for retail stores, applies just as well to game publishers. The sequelitis currently plaguing the games industry as a whole is a direct result of this. Mario’s 100th game won’t be a spiritual successor to the original Super Mario Bros., it will be ‘Mario Tennis 3′ or ‘Mario Party 12′.
In order to make your product pop and, less cynically, offer your customers the full brunt of your support, you need to focus. EQ has had its day in the sun. Why not start the shutdown with grace and dignity now, and save yourself from the torch weilding mobs later?
Sounds like a typical response from the marketing department. Real businesses aren’t run that way. Following your logic, McDonald’s should discontinue the McChicken because it’s being outsold by the McWhatever, or because Burger King has a new competing sandwich. When you have a cash cow like EQ or the McChicken, it doesn’t make good business sense to fold up shop on one or the other, at least not if you want to run a profitable company.
True, but (to use your fast food analogy), Burger King changed their fries in the face of McDonald’s fry dominance. They changed the reciped and prep method in an effort to compete. Now, a lot of people I know don’t like their new fries, but the point still stands. Just because you’ve always done something one way doesn’t mean you shouldn’t change things up.
Actually, that would be cool. If Everquest changed signifigantly, I could see that as a great reason to keep it alive. With the now-smaller populations per server, perhaps they could attempt to incorporate more RP aspects back into the game. Do some server consolidation, and then make an effort to have live events and scripted events running most of the time.
While my argument is ’shut down EQ’, my intent is ‘do something different’. The company is already getting a rep for shaking up the status quo (Planetside, SWG). It would be nice if they poured some of that newfound spirit into their original baby.
Michael,
You’re totally off the mark on EQ1/2. I’m still in an endgamish raiding guild in EQ1, and we’re currently suffering from overpopulation due to returning players pushing us way over the cap for instance limits. From what I’ve seen, the pull for leaving has been from WoW, with a slight hit from CoH. We’ve had one person leave for EQ2. From what I’ve heard within the community, if EQ1 goes down, nearly no one I’ve talked to will play another SoE game. People don’t play EQ1 for the cutting edge gameplay, they play it for the social structure, the familiarity and because they already have so much time invested. They play it because that’s what their friends do, and because it’s nice being able to log on and see 60 people you know in the guild and another 30 online from your friends list. They play it because they have a solid main character, a cleric bot and access to a friend’s shaman when they need it. They play it because they have 600 DKP in the bank. People that don’t have these connections and this sort of base mostly already left for WoW.
Unless SoE gives the equivalent of thousands of hours of time in EQ2 character development and transfers servers (or at least guilds) intact, there’s no reason for people to move there instead of to WoW. Even if they do, they’ll lose most of their players. If EQ1 closed down, I’m pretty sure no one from my guild would switch to EQ2. We’d all move to WoW, which has all the shinies of EQ2, a dozen or two old guild members (many still active on the guild boards) and none of SoE’s shameful customer service legacy.
Your example of SWG is poor. SoE has developed a reputation for shaking up the status quo, but only because they made SWG into a ghost town and doubled the population in EVE[1]. Generally, the less involved SoE is in the game world, the happier the players are.
What they should do is update the world and story of EQ1 with the tech from EQ2, and close EQ2 down. There’s no reason for EQ2 to not go the path of AC2.
That said, they’ll probably try what you suggested. Once they do, expect massive layoffs within a year, as most of their customer base leaves for greener pastures.
[1] Speaking of which, Jeff, Tyler and I are playing now. Come join us!
Frankly, from the people I know that played Everquest, they all switched to WOW. I had never played a massive online game till I got sucked into WOW just by watching someone else play. The 5 guild members that used to play EQ never play anymore, they said WOW is so much better. So perhaps it’s time for both EQ to go?
Well, EQ 1 has declined. I am sorry to say it but server merges and such have pointed the way all along. Although I doubt Sony will drop EQ1 (It has a loyal following) it will never recover with the rate they use. Lets not look at X numbers of players in WoW we all know it is huge, but WHY its so huge. It simplified fighting (OUTSIDE of instances) where a hugely casual player can sit back and level to 60 (now 70) without having to be forced into groups. But for those adventurous types dungeons provided nasty traditional dungeon crawls (AKA: LDoN which is actually a highly respected expansion), and scripts where you have to think.
EQ followed camping to recover the original “Vision”. It just doesn’t work vs a giant like WoW. Would you rather kill the same mob for hours or quest and dungeon crawl through a deep cavern only to end up fighting a HUGE statue that summons minions to aid him? Yeah, get the point now? It is simple design failure. Don’t focus only on raiding and give the “Noobies” a chance to feel as if they accomplished something.
Now TSS EQ’s new expansions gives that a chance…
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