Massively Multiplayer Online Games

[nobbie]

With Blizzard's "World of Warcraft" coming SOON™ (= ~1 year), some of you may find this article - what looks to be part 1 of an eight part piece on the foundations of the MMORPG genre as it exists today - interesting. The article series can be found over at Gamespy.com:

Massively Multiplayer Online Games - The Past, The Present, and The Future

[--Pete]

Hi,

Enjoyable.

BTW, "With Blizzard's "World of Warcraft" coming SOON™ (= ~1 year)"? You clearly don't know Blizzard's meaning of "SOON". :)

--Pete

[TaMeOlta]

You clearly don't know Blizzard's meaning of "SOON". :)

--Pete

"Soon" is a new unit of measurement , eerily similar to "Pi" and "Infinity" ..... :P

[nobbie]

SOON™ > REAL SOON™ > VERY SOON™ > NOT A TOPIC AT E3 ANYMORE™©® :P


Anyway, it will be interesting to read what they predict for the future of MMORPG's and the business model in general.

[channel1]

I saw the future, but they recalled it.

When Toontown Online was still being developed by Disney Imagineering, they had big ideas for the direction that they wanted to go with a persistent, interactive world. Can you say Disneyland Online? How about ALL of the Disney parks online, as well as historical versions of the parks (i.e. Disneyland when it first opened, DisneyWorld in 50 years, DisneyMoon in 2999 A.D.)

In other words, a direction that goes beyond the strictures of a gaming environment, and moves to pure entertainment. Many of the games today are much like that anyway, as the gaming elements become less important than the sparkle and flash or cut-scenes, storylines, and interaction with other players within the world.

Unfortunately, the Bossbots at Disney took Toontown Online away from the Imagineers, and a bunch of them quit over it. Disney got very conservative with the project, and turned it over to DIG (the game development folks). They have shown no intention of being innovative anymore, developing the game in pretty much the same direction as the other mainstream games out there. Replace the characters with medieval types, or soldiers, or aliens; and replace the Gags with weapons and it would be almost indistinguishable from the rest of the mob.

An interesting omission of the GameSpy article was the online service Games People Play (GPP), from 1984-86. GPP was the first totally graphic-based online service, where you moved your avatar to different areas in the online city. There was a library for research, post office for email, and of course a games room. In fact, Toontown Online looks very much like an abbreviated version of GPP, but with better graphics.

I guess that my point is that these folks who are limiting themselves to online games are missing the point. Games are only one type of entertainment, and if someone could manage to put out a really comprehensive online environment that builds on the strengths of the medium, instead of spending much of their development resources to work around the shortcomings, they could define the direction that online entertainment will take over the next decades.

-rcv-

[nobbie]

Part 2 of the article series Massively Multiplayer Online Games - The Past, The Present, and The Future has just been posted.

Two "Blizz quotes" from this week's article:

Bill Roper, the former Blizzard ingénue who recently set off on his own, agrees that player attachment is critical in online games, but feels that players' initial experiences need to be much more accessible for MMORPGs to appeal to broader audiences. "We build these highly complex models, but there's not a lot of thought given to how we can introduce people to them," he observes. "These games are still directed at a very niche market. Every single game has a steep learning curve and tons of statistics. I find myself getting frustrated, and I'm a core, core gamer. How is a casual player going to feel?"

Roper, who personally admits to falling head-first into Ultima Online and EverQuest before getting completely hooked on Dark Ages of Camelot, occasionally wonders why game developers have consistently chosen EverQuest as the model for their online games while ignoring Ultima Online. "Maybe UO's early launch difficulties compared to EQ discouraged people, but who knows? It's just one of those things. Why did VHS get chosen over Beta?"

[Guest]

I think his first quote is right on.

But as for models, I think SWG followed the UO plan. I think the game is terrible, but at its heart it much like UO in space.

[nobbie]

Part 3 - Design of the weekly article series Massively Multiplayer Online Games - The Past, The Present, and The Future has just been posted.

[Walkiry]

Heh, I liked this part:

When it comes to subscription fees, price is only one of many concerns. Analysts worry that mass-market consumers do not understand why they should pay a retail price for a game then pay a subscription fee to play it.

I understand it allright, it's because it's a ripoff. Either the client is free and I then pay monthly for the server usage, or the game offers the possibility of playing also offline. But paying for something that cannot be used unless I continue paying? I'll go for the alternatives that can be played offline :)

[nobbie]

Heh, I liked this part:

When it comes to subscription fees, price is only one of many concerns. Analysts worry that mass-market consumers do not understand why they should pay a retail price for a game then pay a subscription fee to play it.

I understand it allright, it's because it's a ripoff. Either the client is free and I then pay monthly for the server usage, or the game offers the possibility of playing also offline. But paying for something that cannot be used unless I continue paying? I'll go for the alternatives that can be played offline :)

Yes, I too think that the prices and fees for current MMO(RP)G's are luxury. I've been staring at all those screenshots, gameplay trailers and infos of the upcoming big games in this genre (WOW, Ultima X, Lineage II, EverQuest II, etc) and thought this is all really cool, but when I was off the PC for a while and thought again about the fees and profits, I came back to my senses. What's also still stuck in my mind is the controversial Vivendi/Blizzard vs. the free Bnetd project case. Of course, this free Battle.net-clone project was canceled via cease-and-desist letter with an eye on the sales of WOW, which had an announced release date for Q4/2003. Diablo II/LOD - albeit far from being a perfect (online) game - still keeps me playing because it's FREE. That's the main incentive, and I cannot deny that. The current fees for MMO(RP)G's are too high in my opinion, and I believe the producers are not quite honest about the costs involved vs. profits made ratio. At the current prices (about 10$ to 15$ per month in addition to the costs for the base game client and expansions), there is a 50% (likely a lower) chance that I will get hooked and ever play one of these costly games in the near future. I hope that the strong competition in this sector will lead to much lower playing fees in the range of 50$ per annum (and low-cost client software), but until then, it is very likely that I'll stick with single-player or cost-free online games. I still haven't play Diablo I and Baldur's Gate II, so the time might have come now :)

[channel1]

Interesting that they made a point about the problems with the payment option of monthly, online credit card payments, but (again) ignored an existing alternative.

Disney began selling AT&T "game cards" this month for Toontown Online. The had announced that they would be doing this several months ago, so the information was available when the article was written.

The game cards are $10 and give a $10 credit for Toontown. That is one month play for normal users. The package also includes a CD with the Toontown install on it, to make things easier for those who have slower internet connections.

Another change to the monthly pricing model that Disney introduced is a discount for 6 month and 1 year pre-paid subscriptions. Six months costs a bit less than many over-the-counter games, and 1 year costs a bit more. Most people could probably complete most of the existing content (i.e. "finish the game") within the 6 months, so it's not a bad deal compared to buying a conventional game.

Another thing that I find interesting is the mention of number of subscribers to the games. Those numbers are going to be provided through the companies running the games, so they may be a bit questionable. Perhaps the reason that Disney is being largely ignored by the media is that Disney has been very tight-lipped about the number of subscribers on Toontown. There has been a large surge in users on Toontown since TV advertising began in August. Besides the obvious increase in numbers online (usually between 1,000-5,000 depending on time), we can see exactly when the TV ads started on the Toontown fan site. Between July 14th to August 3rd, we got between 1-17 new users per day. On August 4th, we got 146 new users. The site continues to get about 300 new users per week. Since the site is not promoted by Disney, it is pretty safe to guess that there are many more people playing Toontown than ever find the fan site.

-rcv-

[Mithrandir]

The price for the monthly fee is easily justified, you just have to examine it from an objective point of view instead of just repeating "I paid for this game, there's no reason I should have to keep paying for it!" :) The fact is, in the monthly fee you're paying for server maintenance, CSRs (in-game assistance), a regular stream of patches, and new content. There is not a single game ever created that has offered all of these features and not required you to pay for them. How could any company be expected to have full-time content producers, full-time CSRs, full-time customer service reps, full-time teams working on patches, etc. and not go under in 30 seconds if they just relied solely upon the box price?

I have a feeling people are going to point towards Blizzard and Battle.net now and say "But they didn't charge a monthly fee!" - well, they also did absolutely nothing about hacks and cheats for years (and curiously, they start deleting accounts of hackers and cheaters soon before their own MMOG is expected to go into beta... hmmm), their patching cycle was... atrocious... to say the least, they cared little about balance, they did not add a single new piece of content except in an expansion you had to pay for, the servers were often down or when they were up very laggy, etc.

But seriously folks, the average MMOG costs about $12 or $13 per month - that's less than it costs to take two people out to the movies around here. The movie provides, perhaps, 2 hours of entertainment and the MMOG provides an entire month's worth. No real contest there.

[Refrigerator]

But seriously folks, the average MMOG costs about $12 or $13 per month - that's less than it costs to take two people out to the movies around here. The movie provides, perhaps, 2 hours of entertainment and the MMOG provides an entire month's worth. No real contest there.

Wow. :blink: I never thought about it that way before.
Views...
are...
shifting...
:blink:
You do have a very good point there. Blizzard should pay you.:P Right now I'm much more inclined to buy that game. I really wasn't sure before, but... that was a very good comparison! WoW

[nobbie]

But seriously folks, the average MMOG costs about $12 or $13 per month - that's less than it costs to take two people out to the movies around here. The movie provides, perhaps, 2 hours of entertainment and the MMOG provides an entire month's worth. No real contest there.

You are comparing apples and oranges here from a financial standpoint. Your average sfx-packed Bollywood Blockbuster costs around ~100 to 200 million to produce and will be viewed just ONE time by each consumer (maybe another time when the video release is out), whereas serious MMORPG-subscribers will pay for ONE game about 15$ per month for about 2 years (that's 24x 15$), plus the costs of the base client plus the costs of the expansion(s). The (successful) MMORPG's of the near future are - with the current pricing scheme - the license to print money.

full-time teams working on patches

You know the size of Blizzard's 1.10 "patch team", do you? ;)

[Mithrandir]

You are comparing apples and oranges here from a financial standpoint.

No I'm not, I'm comparing how much entertainment you get from each. 2 hours verse 1 month, for the same price. Profit margin has absolutely nothing to do with it, only the ratio of amount of entertainment to price.

You know the size of Blizzard's 1.10 "patch team", do you?

Exactly my point. You didn't pay for B.net, so you got crap service. All the MMOGs, on the other hand, have entire teams dedicated to doing nothing but chruning out patchs.

[nobbie]

No I'm not, I'm comparing how much entertainment you get from each. 2 hours verse 1 month, for the same price. Profit margin has absolutely nothing to do with it, only the ratio of amount of entertainment to price.

The pricing still doesn't fit for me considering how many hours entertainment I can get from Baldur's Gate II or Diablo II :) Also, MMOG's - like any other game - will get repetitive at some point.

Regarding all those MMOG "support teams" and "superior service" - I'm currently at a point where I don't trust any game producer's promises anymore :)

[Mithrandir]

The pricing still doesn't fit for me considering how many hours entertainment I can get from Baldur's Gate II or Diablo II  Also, MMOG's - like any other game - will get repetitive at some point.

That's just the point - I have been playing DAoC for about 2 years now and am still having fun :) They just added a completely new PvE zone for each realm (and a new lvl 51 BP quest to go along with it), redid keep layouts, added some siege weapon models, added /hood, improved some combat lines, buffed up some spell lines, etc. all in one patch. MMOGs are dynamic worlds, but for the world to be constantly changing and evolving, programmers, CSRs, and developers must be paid :)

Don't get me wrong, DAoC (and all MMOGs) have their problems, but the monthly fee is hardly anything worth wasting your breath over when there are so many other things that deserve your "attention". The money for bandwidth, CSRs, developers, PR, server maintenance, porgrammers, etc. all devoted to ONE project and ONE game has to come from somewhere.

Edit:

Regarding all those MMOG "support teams" and "superior service" - I'm currently at a point where I don't trust any game producer's promises anymore

Mythic employees regularly read and comment on various DAoC boards. I have never had any complaints about the CSRs (other than the occasional fact that I didn't like the answer they gave me :) ), Feedback forms are easy to find and regularly cited as reasons why certain things were changed, and the patch schedule has always been exceptionally stable.

/shrug :ph34r:

[nobbie]

Well, there are more updates and patches in MMOG's, and there are also more costs for support personnel, hardware, ISP's, bandwidth etc. Still, there is a huge profit left once the sales reach the 400,000-500,000 mark or more. Sales over 1,000,000 grant immense profits, provided the monthly fees are about 10-15$. Bolty has put the catch of MMOG's nicely in the intro to his UXO Event article, and here is the quote again:

I'm not much of a fan of this new-fangled fad known as massively multiplayer games. Not that they're not good games; it's just that I've always been against the pay model that they all adopt. You pay money to buy the game - and then you pay money on TOP of that, every month, for the right to play the game. I have yet to see one of these games that warrants my shelling out monthly bucks. Much of their profit system seems to come from the fact that you get addicted, and the time/money investment you have already put in to the game will force you to keep playing, long after you've grown tired and bored of it all.

I agree 100% with that opinion, especially with what I have marked in bold.

[swirly]

All this talk about not liking the current system. I'm curious as to what you all think is a fair payment method?

The first problem seems to be the paying twice thing. People don't like paying for the product in the store and then again in order to actually play it. So how about if some play time is included with the purchase? You buy a game and when you install it and register (or whatever the process is) you get like 2-3 months of play time with no added cost. (or maybe an amount of in-game play time so that its fair for those who don't play as often. Like maybe a certain number of hours of in-game play for free.) In effect this play time would have been part of the purchase price. So then if you like the game and want to keep playing it after that there can be a monthly price for you to pay beyond that free period.

This allows people to feel like they are getting their money's worth out of the initial purchase as well as provides the company a way to pay for the services they provide with the monthly fee for those who wish to keep playing. Also if you go with the method of the game having a certain number of hours of actual play time that you get with registration then it also makes it so that if you play it once and then stop for a period of time, you can still come back and have the time you paid for. The system of so many months free on registration means you have to play it at that moment, if something comes up that keeps you from playing then your money could be wasted.

This brings up another point. What is the better way to charge? Do you charge by monthly fees or by certain amounts of actual play time. They both have their plusses. Charging by play time is good for the user who just plays off and on, while per month is good for the person that plays all the time. I'm thinking the best system would be a combination of the two. When you buy the product you get a certain number of free hours of actual play. Then once those are used you can continue to play for a flat rate monthly fee.

So what do you all think is the best way for the companies to charge? What is the correct balance between the user's needs and the company's needs?

[nobbie]

So what do you all think is the best way for the companies to charge?  What is the correct balance between the user's needs and the company's needs?

Easy: Dynamic monthly fees. Adapt the fees according to the copies sold, or the paying active customers. More customers = lower fees, fewer customers = higher fees.