Mar 6
Rapid MMOG Turnover
Though I feel like I’m starting to disagree with some of Mr. Koster’s views on what exactly MMOGs are, he never fails to open up the door to an interesting discussion. I’ve had his Peering into China post open in Firefox since last week, and damned if I don’t look at those numbers and go ‘guhhh’. A few thoughts on the realities of MMO Gaming on the other side of the world after the cut.
There are a lot of things in there worth thinking about, but the part that grabs me is this:
- Chinese developers, because of the emphasis on lower-tech, simpler games, can produce an MMORPG for as little as 10m yuan (which is only around $1.25m  literally somewhere between 1/10th and 1/100th of the cost in the Western markets).
- But most of the games suck.
- This has caused rapid turnover even among hits  a game will reach 100,000 peak concurrent, then fade, but be replaced in a relatively short time. ÂÂ
That, of all the things on the list, is the most alien element discussed. DDO opened last week at the cost of well over 1.24 Million dollars to create, and was the first major launch of a brand-new MMOG since World of Warcraft opened in late 2004. City of Villains launched in 2005, to be sure, but it was an IP extension to a preexisting game.
The kind of rabid development and abandonment of MMOGs detailed above is even more alien when compared with the Western view. For criminy’s sake, I can still play Meridian 59 today if I want to, a game that was released ten years ago. Ultima Online and Everquest will both celebrate their 10-year anniversaries before the end of the decade, and the number of game worlds that have out and out closed after being developed by a Western company is so low I can count them on two hands.
The key here, I think, is that I think the Chinese model is healthier. Yeah, if your game is going to be closed in two years you won’t get as close to it as you might if you’ve been playing it since 1999. I’ve been thinking more and more that maybe that’s a good thing. The level of obsession some players get with their characters goes beyond my level of comfort. With more churn of games themselves, players would experience new gametypes and try out new modes of play. They’d be exposed to new people more often. An hey, maybe instead of playing a 7-year old game with a character you made when you were still in high school, they’d get out and see the real world some more.
Hell, if nothing else, it’d be nice to see a Western analog for the Hello Kitty MMOG or Audition. I like the Entertainer class, but if you can’t mention something without widespread derision there’s probably something wrong with your presentation.
5 comments5 Comments so far
your comments about meridian 59 remind me of subspace.
another game thats been around 10 years and is still going.
Damn it reminds me of a MUD I played… http://www.medievia.com/ — 15 years and counting! When I played was the time that guilds were just getting custom areas built for them. I wasn’t in a guild, but I remembered practically adventuring forever into new content -_- At one point I got lost so far into low level content that I thought I would never get into some harder stuff. Then bam a Black Dragon randomly dropped in on me and wtf owned me. Ahhh nothing competes with my MUDding days.
You almost make it sound like having Meridian 59 still around is a bad thing. :P
There’s actually been quite a few commercial games closed down, more than 10 by my count. I suspect you aren’t considering pre-M59 games like Islands/Legends of Kesmai, Shadows of Yserbius, or quite a few others. You also forget the large number of games that don’t even get released like Dark Zion or Imperator, to name a few higher profile ones. I know of dozens of games that have never seen the light of day.
Heck, M59 would be one of those games gone forever if we had not bought the rights to the game from 3DO. We were lucky in that we were able to pick it up at a decent price. Our main goal was to keep the game alive so people could go play the game, instead of the game being consigned to the dustbin of history like the other games I mention above. I think this is very important for the industry, because the more of our own history we lose, the harder it will be to eventually claim the mantle of being “art”. I support true “abandonware” sites for their work for the same reason, even though most industry people demonize them as being “pirates”.
It’s also a bit of a shame that you fall back on needless stereotypes about online gamers not seeing the “real world”. This is nothing new, as some of the original M59 ads from a decade ago contain the copy, “Next time someone tells you to get a life, tell them you’ve got one. Meridian 59.” I don’t see you heaping the same amount of scorn for people who, say, continue to play football just like they did in high school. I figured you would recognize the fact that people can make serious friendships with people online, and they can last a very long time.
All that said, I think it would be interesting to see more games that follow what you call the “Chinese model” here in the U.S. in addition to the traditional types of games we have today, including Meridian 59. Having more experimental types of games would be nice, allowing for people to build a quick game, try out some out-of-the-ordinary gameplay, but not be stuck with the game forever if it turns out not to be popular. You could also iterate the game design easier, allowing for the creation of new games without the hassle of supporting poor design decisions made in the distant before the game launched. However, this would take a considerable change in attitudes from our audience. I’m sure you’ve noticed that one of the most common complaints about paying a subscription for an online game is, “What happens if they shut the game down?” The assumption here is that they will want to play the game forever, and that shutting the game down deprives them of that.
Some thoughts,
Hello sir! I’m pleased you thought to write here, as I always enjoy your commentary elsewhere in the universe.
As for your comments -
Of course I’m not going to tell you I want your livelyhood to shut down. :) And I’m aware of the stillborn deaths of a number of massive titles. I wrote a little bit about Mythica before that one took the axe, and I actually had the chance to lament its passing Wednesday on Slashdot.
What I intended to get across was that I think (from a player’s perspective) staying with the same game for years and years is a form of stagnation. While I say ‘go out and see the real world’, I agree that real relationships are quite possible online. In fact, unless I’m misremembering, Mr. Yee’s work has shown that many player begin fresh MMOGs with pre-existing social networks.
That is what I think is important. Playing new games, with old friends or new ones. I think it’s great that M59 is still alive; I’m sure you’d agree, though, it would be nice if some new people played the game.
My frustration and lack of understanding comes from people who started playing EQ at launch and are still doing it lo these many years later. SOE has released expansions, sure, but the fundamental nature of the game hasn’t changed.
One of my favorite little addages is ‘If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.’ Instead of raiding Time for the 500th time, why not grab your not-crazy guildies and go see what M59 is like? Or Puzzle Pirates? or ATITD?
That’s the ‘healthy’ element to the Chinese way of thinking I was referring to. A willingness to try new things. :)
Well, I like to try to read a variety of sites. Sticking to the same old sites can be a bit, well, stagnating. ;) I don’t have as much time as I might sometimes like, though.
I guess I did get a bit defensive with the term “see the real world”. That usually has connotations of online games and the communities within them not being “real” and all that. I was a bit extra shocked given your usual insight, but I can see what you were trying to say now.
But, I agree with you. As I said in the post above, variety is good. I wish the market would support games that could be made cheap and only run a few years. The problem is, however, that the market won’t support that. M59 is profitable, but only because we got most of a fully functional game for very cheap. If we had spent a million dollars on development, we’d still be in the red. It’ll take a serious change in attitudes before we see this happening in the U.S. I fear.
Look forward to reading more of your stuff. :)