GDC: 10 Reasons NOT to Make MMOGs

Warrior-GS writes "Gordon Walton, who helped create such games as Ultima Online and the Sims Online, is at the Game Developers Conference giving a seminar on "Ten Reasons You Don't Want to Run a Massively Multiplayer Online Game". GameSpy has been providing coverage of GDC, with several game previews and several conference reports. They also have a hands-on report of the Nokia N-Gage from four of their editors, and a somewhat unorthodox report of the Game Developer Choice Awards, where Metroid Prime was named Game of the Year. The convention continues through Saturday."

Comments

And his most compelling reason...

[NerveGas]

"Please don't make them, because we don't want any more competition."

Re:And his most compelling reason...

[feepcreature]

Funny :) But this quote from the article suggests otherwise, if you agree with the analysis.

Walton wasn't giving the talk because he wanted the industry to quit trying. In fact, just the opposite: he expressed an inherent human need for community that goes unfulfilled in modern society, and how online games can fill that basic need while uniting people with similar interests.

However, he expressed his fears that the market is stagnating, and a series of poor product launches could make it even worse...

Which seems like a reasonable concern!

Its like any other product!

[grahamsz]

If you are only going to make a half-assed attempt then you may as well not bother.

Surely the brightest minds in game development dont need someone standing up there telling them that massive online multiplayer games aren't as easy as single player ones?! .. if they do then we're probably all doomed

MMOCR

[Joe the Lesser]

Massively Multiplayer Online ChatRoom ;)

Seriously, these games need to be made so they have a real point, and so that people will not get so attached to them. I'm sick of seeing my friends drop out of classes because they'd rather wait two hours for an imaginary dragon to spawn so they can cast the same spell over and over again and after another half hour they die and sit around waiting for someone to resurrect them.

I have a friend who's 65th level on EQ. (Currently the highest possible so he says proudly). He's also a year behind in his studies, and has had bouts of depression and alchololism (due to his lack of social life) for the past three years.

Pardon the sudden rant, but why can't there be an actuall MMOG that people can spend, oh, 1-3 hours on a week instead of 10-30 hours a week and still have fun.

Re:MMOCR

[Geaty]

I strongly agree with you here. What is needed is a more "casual" MMOG, where you don't need to stop eating to become successful in. There was something in the article about UO and EQ being developed for users to pay on an hourly basis, so perhaps long spawn times are a relic of that system.

If you make it too "casual" however, and people can pop in and out at will, you lose some of the point of the game, the community and the relationships needed to succeed. In a game like this, they only groups you'd see doing things would be people that know each other from RL, so whats even the point of playing? Hey that sounds like Diablo 2, huh?

Using the wrong business model??

[reality-bytes]

He mentions in the article how 'old business models' aren't suitable for online games; reffering to the pre-packaged product.

Surely the answer then is to develop a new business model adapted to the new market?
Is this too blindingly obvious? (I would think he mentions this in the seminar although its not in the article)

"And don't call me Shirley!"