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MMORPG: Money, Money, Money
JTacomis writes "There's an
interesting
article up at Business 2.0 magazine about Sony Online and EverQuest.
It says that EverQuest makes Sony over $5 million a month. Star Wars
Galaxies is expected to make even more than that. It's a long and in-depth
articles that takes us through the whole back-story to EverQuest. One
interesting fact: EverQuest almost didn't get made. According to the
article, the idea was originally turned down inside of Sony."
Since everyone hates him, I can see a long queue forming just to kill him off in the game...
I'm just not sure whether 5 million a month is a lot ... it doesn't seem like it would be a lot for a company the size of Sony. And if the Star Wars game gets popular, you have to expect that a lot of it will come at the expense of cannibalizing the Everquest ranks. MMORPGs, like MUDs, after all, require a very particular type of person to pay to play.
With all the MMORPGs in development, I think people are going to play more diverse games. And since, playing a MMORPG takes a lot of time, people aren't going to play more than 1 or 2 at a time. So either all those new MMORPGs aren't going to be popular or the current big ones are going to lose a lot of customers.
True warriors use the Klingon Google
Or, more likely, you will be able to play as a Gungan (or whatever he is) Imagine it - hordes of little kids with their parents credit cards, swarming you with their characters, blocking the only way out with their dead bodies. I'd pay a lot of money to see loads of dead Jar-Jars.
Would you rather pay $150-$200 for a game and not have monthly charges, or pay $40 for a game and $12.95 a month to play it? I think MMORPG's would be more successful, in the terms of user numbers, if they would stop charging by the month. Maybe that's why some people are still playing MUD's and MUCKing around....
-Tolerate my intolerance
Blizzard is on the other side of the spectrum in terms of how they make profit. They initially charged $60 for Warcraft III.
It reportedly sold one million copies, which means roughly $60 million - about as much as Verant makes in a year with Everquest.
If Blizzard plans to sell Worlds of Warcraft, their massively multiplayer version of Warcraft for about the same retail price, they've got a huge cash cow waiting for them, especially with the current trends of higher monthly pricing for MMORPGS - from $10 to $12.95.
(Assuming they can get it out before the market becomes stuffed with major contenders such as Star Wars, Everquest 2, and Asheron's Call 2)
Same with EverQuest. Honestly I'm glad they charge for it because otherwise people would be changing their name daily, which really makes it hard to keep track of who is who. $30 is enough that it would discourage people from doing it casually, but not so much that it would keep people who have a dumb name and are truly unhappy with it from availing themselves of the service.
rooooar
When the whole concept of MMORPGs was explained to me, I thought "Wow, this is pretty cool!" But when I was told that I would have to pony up $10 a month after paying $50 for the game, as long as CS and Battlenet are still out there, I think I'll pass.
Don't get me wrong, more power to these guys, but really, we're talking about the same mentality behind selling heroin, except that the first hit isn't free. Now if the game was a free downloadable, I might consider it. Hats off to these guys for the scam of the century, but my money is going towards something without ongoing expenses.
Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
Any death is tragic, any death. Are we to now limit our lives because of some that are irresponsible and undisciplined? Look at automobile fatalaties, should we all walk (it would do us fatties some good :)
I don't think that saying anything related to your statement is fair or accurate, as it implies that the existence of the game killed that kid. While sickenly enough it might testify to the power of interactive gaming, the reality is that it did not _cause_ any harm (the game that is). Plus, we are not talking about anything that is inherantly dangerous in and of itself. You take motorcrossing, that is rather dangerous but many do it (it's loads of fun). You have your skydiving, skateboarding, baseball, softball, swimming, diving, hiking, camping, etc.
I think you are making the same mistake many of the gray haired gentlemen on the hill make, that of confusing something new with being a totally new idea instead of a new implementation. Even once we get full immersion (VR and the like) with full sensory i/o, that will be just a new implementation.
The real problem with ideas as yours are that it also implies that humans are incapable of thinking for themselves and acting in their best interest. Perhaps what we should all focus on is teaching our youth the lost art of responsibility and accountability that the baby boomers sold out for orgies and drugs. When a society trully cherishes the individual above all else, then as a consequence it will fight harder to protect the individual. The individual will be stronger (sort of a learned social darwinism) and synergistically add to the strength of the whole society. However if we sell our individuality for rhetoric, sound bites and temporary convenience then we become like the sheep who is stalked by the wolf. The sheep better hope that shepard can be all places at all times.
I seem to remember a case where a mother sued MTV over Beavis and Butthead because of Beavis's constant infatuation with fire (more often the word than anything he himself did). one of her kids set fire to the house and died along with a brother and the remaining brother had severe inhalation and burn damage. Sadly for the kids (and this sets a precedence), the children were left unsupervised OFTEN like this while the mother was either trolling for that week's latest boyfriend, or was busy testing the mattresses with said boyfriend in another room. An avid smoker and drinker, there was not a place in the house that lighters, cigarettes and highly flamable spirits were not easily accessable. The children, whom never should have been allowed to watch the show in the first place, had a short history of near arson accidents before. However that stopped not the flagrant negligence of the gold digging demon that was their mother. Some day she will wake up in her cozy bed, in her well equiped bedroom which overlooks her swimming pool in the lush neighborhood all bought for by the MTV winnings. She will wake up and scream until someone stops her. She will scream because it will dawn on her what a terrible monster she is.
However, back to earth now. The point is self reliance and responsibility. The game is no more at fault for anything like this, than is the drugs at fault for the addict.
However, I have noticed that IMHO, persistent world games are released half (or less) baked. This can be a QA issue and/or content. It seems the working strategy is to release a partially completed product so that you can recoup some costs while building up a following (this is the hope at least), while further development is touted as 'additional content' and modifications. Sure it is nearly impossible to balance a game until it really goes live, so I am not really referring to that. (although like many other software products, it is better to produce a well designed and robust system that can better adapt internally and externally (meaning programming changes) as well as design the SYSTEM to be more 'realistic' in its modelling of real world adaptations and balancing) Visiting the many forums of these games, you find that while you have the assortment of fanboys and trolls the normal folk have issues with the system as a whole. I believe it falls under the catagory of 'better to spend more now and save later.' It seems to me at least that often, the designers take short cuts in the name of expediency and cost cutting, that ends up costing much more when the very innevitable changes are required. (DAOC is a perfect example of this, they seemed to forget all knowledge of what has been learned to date about MMOG's and made many poor design decisions). Think about car manufacturing. If the designers made a less standard (if only by their internal definition) car that was less modular and adjustable and merely hacked it together, then that would indeed save a lot of initial cost. However, how much more will that design cost in the mid to long term when you factor in things like customizations, retoolings required for various packages (perhaps they want to make a 4x4 model), fixes to the design and then ultimately quality for the customer. If the customer pays for a vehicle that does not work reliably, then they will loose business. If the vehicle is so unreliable as to cause accidents, then they will now have more bills to pay from the litigation... and more bad publicity. Then what about next years model. Can they reuse this years design as a starting point? Probably not if it is poorly designed (except as a lessons learned).
Other costly factors could be the growing trend of dead weight inside the companies. Management that absorbs tremendous resources while producing very little except frustration, inconsistency, and a destruction of team work and collaboration. Much like a cancer in the body, these management tumors seem to always take more blood and internal nutrients (resources) that since are not finite, must be starved from working areas of the body, like brain, muscle, GI, bone, etc. The result is a body that functions less than it should and could possibly die. However, this model is inaccurate becuase the brain (parts of it) and endocrine system are the bodies decision makers and they probably did not create (hire) the cancer. So that means it is even stupider when these organizations willingly hire those, and create a fostering culture, that only destroys itself from the inside.
Imagine if your body wanted to get some more oxygen to a particular area. Well through the magic of biology it increases blood flow in the area and perhaps changes the chemistry a bit to be more conducive to 02 exchange in that region. What about signatories though. What if the body used the mindless bureacracy of many organizations. We would never live past birth (which creates an intersting paradox I suppose). Sure many bureacrats will get angry and defend their policies, yet when they do so they themselves create a paradox. They claim to have those policies for a particular reason (the spirit behind the rules if you will) yet if confronted on the gross negligence those policies produce _FOR_ said reason, they ignore it and say 'nothing is perfect.' (reminds me of many voters) Nothing is perfect, that is true... but are we to always make excuses for processes simply because we are too lazy to change them. What if the airports said, 'nothigns perfect' and never tried to improve security. They would just sit by while armed terrorists boarded the planes, all because it would be too much trouble to change the policy.
Anyway, to end my rant, I will just say that if I was a major stock holder of a company that produced these games I would be very intersted in an internal audit of the company to find out where the innefficiency was. While often it is the lower end workers that are let go, the irony is that the decision makers that often caused the problems the company has (and are the cause of the layoffs of course) are kept. Isn't that unwise? Government and large corporations have become a haven for stupidity, waste, and inefficiency in a way that totally reverses social darwinism. The higher up in the chain you go, the more your stupidity will effect. It would be better to prune from the top as that will have the effect of setting a good example to follow. As it is, you learn from the bottom that it is not hard work or competence that is cherished as much as BS'ing skills and the ability to confuse and hide your stupidity with an array of buzzwords and paperwork.
Would you deprive hundreds of thousands of people of years of safe entertainment, and thousands of people of employment, and millions of investors of a good return (for providing the entertainment and the jobs) just on the off-chance that this incident could have been prevented?
I wouldn't.
If too many people make _your_ choice, life's going to be a lot less worth living for the rest of us who don't have Shawn Wooley's problems.
The article gave a false impression of what the future holds for MMORPGs, by focusing on the success of Everquest. Yes, this genre is coming out of it's infancy and there is potential there, however you have to keep in mind that these are still games. And if it's a poor game, it will not sell well and it will not succeed. i.e. Anarchy Online from Funcom, one of the newest MMORPGs, has failed. The company had to close down their other divisions in order to keep the game running longer.
I think EQ's success has to do more with timing than anything else. They came into the scene right at it's sweet point. Nobody else had a 3D MMORPG out there and Ultima Online, The Realm, and Meridian59 had already paved the road of making the public aware for this type of game. Had EQ not snatched most of the players 6 month before Asheron's Call was released, we could be very well to this day be reading articles on how Asheron's Call is the #1 MMORPG.
SageMadHatter
You're right about EQ being terribly unfun to anybody not hooked to it and how it's like crack to most of the regular players.
My personal addiction to EQ lasted 2.5 years - from launch in March of '99 to 9/11 of last year. Yes 9/11 was the event that made me realize what EQ really is: a banal, empty escape from reality.
I played on Mithaniel Marr, which is home to 'Afterlife', one of the most powerful guilds in the game. I wasn't in AL, but I used to visit Afterlife's website just to check out their accomplishments.
Afterlife is for hardcore addicts only, the degree of their addiction must be mind boggling considering most of them play every single day 6 to 8 hours a day(or more). They literally have thousands of hours 'invested' in addiction, and it wouldn't surprise me if some of their characters had a 'played' time of 300 real world days or more.
True to form they held a raid on the evening of 9/11, as nothing was going to keep them from their addiction, not evening the most horrifying attack on this country since Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on 12/7/41.
Something about that really disgusted me, as it made it painfully clear for once and for all that EQ is an addiction that's just as harmful as an addiction to alcohol or drugs.
I never mentioned this to anyone on the discussion boards. I just quietly came to the conclusion that for the sake of my own health and welfare I needed to leave the game.
Initially I considered just taking a break for a couple of weeks, but I never played EQ again after 9/11. In early October I logged on for the last time and gave all of my items and wealth to a couple of my closest in game friends. Once my characters were stripped I said my goodbyes and bid the world of Norrath farewell. I immediately camped out and deleted my characters(56 War, 56 Shm, 46 Mnk) to make sure I wouldn't be tempted to come back.
It wasn't easy, but it turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made.
Its been nearly a year since I left behind the world of Norrath. I don't have too many regrets since I always had a love/hate relationship with the game. In the end I decided the negative aspects outweighed the positive and that it just wasn't worth wasting my time.
Since then I still occasionally play computer games, like Civ III, Medal of Honor, or RTCW, but they don't take over my life like the way EQ did. I started riding my bike again in March for fun/exercise, which helped my lose about 30 lbs of mush that I put on while playing EQ. I'm generally much more social with my friends in the real world, and I've even started dating again. I read a lot more and find it much easier to think clearly now that my mind isn't in a constant EQ induced haze.
Being away from EQ has made me realize that reality is infinitely much more interesting and bizarre than anything I ever did in Norrath. Addictive MMORPGS such as EQ are ultiamtely a poor substitute for 'reality', 'community' or 'relationships'.
This more than anything is the reason why I think MMORPGS will always be a niche category. Americans are already overworked and suffering from a society fraying at the seams. The last thing we need is a mass escape from reality that encourages people to once and for all drop out from society.
Will most people will realize that it just isn't worth it?
I'm not so sure..