EA's Sims Online Is A Flop And Other MMORPG Musings

Ignorant Aardvark writes "Wired has an article out about the upcoming Multiplayer Games Summit at E3. Some of the interesting parts of the article: 'The Sims Online has sold 125,000 copies retail, has been discounted from $50 to as low as $20 on Amazon and has 97,000 active subscribers.' Compare that to EverQuest, with 470,000 subscriptions. Investment analyst Michael Pachter says of TSO: 'They took a very popular franchise that's a single-player game in which you play with dolls, and when you play with dolls, they follow rules and behave in predictable ways. With The Sims Online, you're playing real people, and real people don't behave the way you'd expect them to.' And here's the gem of the article: 'Consumers might not be responding well to paying individual subscriptions for single online games, but might react better to cable TV-like pricing in which they get access to a number of offerings for a flat fee.' Does anyone see this pricing system as being more successful?"

Comments

MMORG Bundles

[DrSkwid]

quite a good idea

I expect you'll see this as the MMORPG portfolios start to saturate.

It'll take a few years.
Easy to charge per game when you've only got 3 titles.

The strive for customers brings innovation and then multiplication.

We have to wait for the supply / demand curves to cross.

Or maybe they'll die a death.

so : catch the wave or wait for a bigger one

don't insult role-playing.

[Joe the Lesser]

The company also has a follow-on to its hugely successful medieval role-playing game EverQuest.

Correction: It's hugely successful medieval chat room game EverQuest.

Re:don't insult role-playing.

[analog_line]

Psssssssst... Your prejudice is showing...

Re:don't insult role-playing.

[entrager]

As a former EverQuest player and an avid RPGer (AD&D and ShadowRun mostly), I have to take issue with your comment. EverQuest is not a "chat room." It's unfortunate that some people treat it as such, but the game itself is designed with the RPGer in mind. Role playing is encouraged, and I think I'm not alone in saying that the people the remain "in character" while playing have the most fun.

Re:don't insult role-playing.

[Fembot]

I think they're missing the point... the people who spend hours online playing everquest are undeinably hardcore gamers. The people who play the sims are people like my little sister, who enjoy a half hour bash at it, but dont take it anywhere nearly as seriously as some people do an RPG or FPS.

Could be....

[lanej0]

Used to be I would go shell out $50 for a game and I could play it single player. I could play it multiplayer on the LAN or over the Net. Now companies want a subscription rate on top of it all?

Maybe people have had enough paying for every aspect of the experience. I pay for the hardware, software and bandwidth. O/S the server and let people run them themselves....

Re:Could be....

[eggstasy]

lanej0 said:
"Maybe people have had enough paying for every aspect of the experience. I pay for the hardware, software and bandwidth. O/S the server and let people run them themselves...."

Exactly. We really need to tell the powers that be that distributed computing is the future. In a world where end-user resources are rapidly becoming superfluous, someone's bound to come along that will notice that the client-server model is obsolete, for the usual centralized view of client-server interaction assumes that the clients have far less resources than the server, which just isn't true anymore.

Anyone can run a server. Most people don't use any of their bandwidth, because all they do on their multi-megabit internet connection is download email off a POP server and browse the web.
Turn the usual protocols into P2P already!
Why should I have to rely on my crappy ISP's slow email server and faulty DNSs when I could just do the same job myself?
Why can't we just have everyone run a server?
Bundle the damn things, activated by default, make them invisible with automatic updates and the millions of end-lusers will never even know that they're running a mini-ISP.

Re:Could be....

[Bokonon]

Distributed computing isn't a satisfactory answer for most of these types of games. You need a single arbiter to decide what happens when player A swings his sword at player B, and vice versa, but player A has much more net lag... Does player B slow down, player A not swing, or do you assume player A is going to repeat their last action. Not to mention, if you distribute the judging rules, then that means each copy of the game has the judging rules built in, which makes it orders of magnitude easier to hack and tweak to your advantage.

Re:Could be....

[eggstasy]

Don't be so quick to dismiss an idea just because it's a rough draft that purposely ignores future implementation details... There's always more than one way to skin a cat.
Just assign a given region to each server... that's how Second Life works.
When you have a lot of servers, you can just make regions smaller. Dealing with edges is not an issue since the adjacent servers could very well decide among themselves that when two players on different servers begin to interact they are automatically put on only one of the servers.

Re:Fuck MMORPG

[eggstasy]

Original AIDS Monkey said:
" The worst part about these games is their difficulty to pirate. Subscription? F that. Give me a free ISO and a CD crack."

Although you may be better known for your frequent trolling activities you have a very interesting point there.
I know this isn't necessarily the case in the USA, but in many many countries piracy is the standard way of getting a game and most people never bought a single box! People who buy games are actually mocked: back in 92 when I was in high school, there was this guy who always bought every game he wanted. We sort of had a love-hate relationship with him, we laughed at him for wasting so much cash on a couple of floppies plus a crappy black and white manual when he could buy a dozen floppy boxes for the exact same price, and just download the game off a BBS or get it from a friend.
Nevertheless, we loved the fact that we could get new games off of him for free, and to this day he is still the only person I ever met who actually bought most of the games he ever played.
There is no such thing as Everquest addiction around here, and I wonder if it isn't exactly because of ubiquitous, socially-condoned software piracy.

Juggling between games with a flat fee?

[mivok]

I can only see the cable method of pricing (multiple games, one price) hurting gameplay. Theres a lot of people who are dedicated so much to a single game partially because they pay for it (and of course the fact that the game is addictive). Having multiple games would make each player less enthusiastic about each individual game, and consequently the community wouldnt be anywhere near as thriving.
As an example, imagine trying to play everquest, ultima online, sims online, a tale in the desert, and a few others all at once. (neglecting the fact that it is different companies and a flat fee wouldnt work too well).

Re:Juggling between games with a flat fee?

[Murrow]

Sony/Verant has made noises that there might be a discount for EQ players that also subscribe to the new Star Wars MMORPG.

I'd much prefer a flat cable fee scheme, and they'd make more money from me at least that way. I'm a current EQ player, but can't justify to myself (or the wife!) more than one $10/month time and money sink. When SW:G or EQ2 or whatever else comes out, under the current pricing I'd have to switch completely (and they'd still be getting $10/month from me). With a cable scheme they might get, say, $15/month from me with no additional load on their servers (I still would have the same number of available play hours as before).

Re:Juggling between games with a flat fee?

[limekiller4]

mivok writes:
"Having multiple games would make each player less enthusiastic about each individual game, and consequently the community wouldnt be anywhere near as thriving."

I don't think this would happen. People tend to find a game or two that they like most and then play that. This is because of two factors; there are only so many hours in a day and the games are goal oriented. Me, personally, I'm going to concentrate on Planetside (and drop Army Operations) because I'd rather have a really good character in Planetside then two middling characters in both.

Well, that's half-true. Your player doesn't get much better in A:O. Your honor goes up but that just gives you preferential selection of weapons and I like the standard-issue stuff better anyway.

So even if you rolled them up under one hood, I can't think of anyone I know who would feel compelled to play more than their top one or two faves.

Re:Juggling between games with a flat fee?

[macrom]

I think the cable pricing scheme also doesn't adapt well to gaming due to advertising. I currently pay around USD$75/month for my Dish Network service, including a few pay channel packages. I question how much of this charge goes to individual channel operators. Excluding companies like Showtime, HBO, et al, most channels make their money on advertising between shows and programming breaks. There are some games where that may adapt, such as a military MMORPG where the various armed forces around the world pay for recruitment advertising. Sci-fi MMORPGs may benefit from book publishers that can advertise in-game or from advertising movies like Star Wars, The Matrix franchise, etc. Games like Everquest would be highly difficult -- I can't see people enjoying their next iron ration coming from Taco Bell. Then again, maybe Coors could sponsor the next beer-making party outside of Freeport.

I think the real success from integrating multiple game access for one flat rate would come from a seamless integration of advertising, some model that doesn't detract from the gameplay.

Re:Juggling between games with a flat fee?

[jhoffoss]

I dunno about anyone else, but with the way I play*ed* EQ, I'd have to stop eating and sleeping altogether to get another game in, ESPECIALLY if it's even close to as large as EQ is. When you can play [at a sane rate] for 6 mos. and not have maxed out your levels, or even reached the half-way point, can many people really afford to do this with multiple games, while still enjoying themselves? Aside from this, part of EQs success is the game's content, namely very similar to a classic fantasy RPG, one which most "RPG-ers" have played (e.g. DND) so the interest was already there. You don't hear too often of people playing a Sims-esque RPG apart from playing "house" or cops and robbers when you're ten years old. Or even Star Wars, for that matter...

Of course that will be better

[jvmatthe]

And here's the gem of the article: 'Consumers might not be responding well to paying individual subscriptions for single online games, but might react better to cable TV-like pricing in which they get access to a number of offerings for a flat fee.' Does anyone see this pricing system as being more successful?

Of course that will be more successful, and that's exactly what Microsoft understands and is trying to promote with their Xbox Live service. Charge people by the month ($6/month) or by the year ($4.17/month) and give people access to a range of online products with no added fees. The question, naturally, is how much more successful and is it the most successful model?

I can see one big "gotcha" with this plan. Cable sells access to the stations but then (most stations) run advertisements in with their programming. So you still pay, by watching commercials, and the individual stations can still make money from ad revenue. It isn't clear how online gaming, as an ongoing revenue stream, pays off for the developers. We don't know how much, if any, of the Xbox Live fees go back to individual developers; my guess is that none of it gets back to them. So that means they make money off the initial sale of the game, and that's it. This doesn't seem to work as well for games as for cable.

They may be able to layer premium games (like MMOGs) on top of the ho-hum online games (like shooters or Tetris) and charge extra for those, as cable companies do with HBO, but it isn't clear that they've got a strong enough user base to support such a move. After all, they're already in uncharted territory trying to charge regular fees for online gaming. Maybe in a year or two, but by then we're looking at a second generation of hardware waiting in the wings, which could keep people from jumping.

Also, Xbox Live will, for the short term, have to compete with the choose-your-own-adventure world of Sony's PS2. Sony's haphazard approach has made it a platform on which anyone can make a game and charge whatever they want. This seems good for the developer, if they have a hit game that pulls in regular subscribers, but then they also have to bear the brunt of the infrastructure costs. It's like network television where you don't put much into it and you don't expect a lot out of it either, but you also don't have to pay monthly for it if you don't want to.

Re:Of course that will be better

[geddes]

I can see one big "gotcha" with this plan. Cable sells access to the stations but then (most stations) run advertisements in with their programming. So you still pay, by watching commercials, and the individual stations can still make money from ad revenue. It isn't clear how online gaming, as an ongoing revenue stream, pays off for the developers

However, Cable channells need to pay to keep their station up and running. They need to always be producing or purchasing new content. An online interactive game, assuming microsoft is paying for the servers, has no continuing costs which the publisher needs to make back. (other then patches and other maintence releases, but those don't happen on console games... yet). What microsoft's xbox live service allows is for publishers to add an online gaming "feature" at no cost to them, and at no benefit other then increased initial sales.

Re:Of course that will be better

[jvmatthe]

Microsoft is pushing for add-ons and patches, things that will cost a developer money in the long run. Splinter Cell, Mech Assault (to name two) have already had such add-on content and Unreal Tournament has also had patches. There may be others.

I'd be cautious before I said that online service could be added at no cost to them, since Microsoft seems to be pushing for additional work after a game's release.

Re:Of course that will be better

[geddes]

Point well taken, I guess I am thinking from the point of view of the PC gaming industry. Patches have been supplied for free in the PC Gaming industry for years, and developers still seemed to be able to turn a profit. Add-on content shouldn't be free, and traditionally hasn't been (all the blizard game expansions come to mind).

There is no doubt that online services will cost extra for the developer (just the development costs alone are substantial) but I guess I feel that online play is a feature that will increase a games appeal and will thus help to sell more copies. X-Box live, I think, would be liberating to these developers. They can implement the feature and not worry about the costs and logistics of actually running a server. Their ongoing costs would be no more than if they were developing a PC game.

125,000 copies - 97,000 active subscribers = ...

[josephgrossberg]

28,000 people that haven't even opened the box yet?

Can you even play Sims Online in single-player mode?

Also, I'm not sure if this has anything to do with game quality or the fee structure; maybe people are all Sim-ed out after the seemingly endless number of expansions? I mean how many times can you trap your Sim in a doorless room and watch him pee himself, before it gets tired?

Re:125,000 copies - 97,000 active subscribers = ..

[Obiwan Kenobi]

28,000 people that haven't even opened the box yet?

More like 28,000 that played for about a month and realized what a terrible game it was. No time-altering means if your sim has to read a book to learn something, and that book takes 5 minutes to read, expect to twiddle LOTS of thumbs while trying to up their skills in a particular area.

Can you even play Sims Online in single-player mode?

*Notes the "Online" in the title, as opposed to the lack of such in "The Sims"

Bad Comparison

[TexVex]

The Sims Online has sold 125,000 copies retail, has been discounted from $50 to as low as $20 on Amazon and has 97,000 active subscribers.' Compare that to EverQuest, with 470,000 subscriptions.

EverQuest has been around for several years; The Sims Online has been around for several months. EverQuest didn't just jump up to 400K+ subscriptions right after launch. No game of that genre has. If a MMO game gets 100K+ subscribers on launch, it's doing great. At $10 a pop, that's a cool million in gross revenues per month. So long as there's a decent profit margin in there, that's not an amount to sneeze at. But what is important here is the growth curve, not the subscriber numbers at any given time.

The retail price for the box is also not really relevant either. That is a one-time sale. The monthly subscription is recurring revenue.

Re:Bad Comparison

[Cheeko]

Actually EQ has been losing users for the last year or two, from its peak of over 500k. Generally they see a spike with each new expansion. It is true that EQ took time to build to that 500,000+ users, but its initial sales, before its first expansion gave it well over 200k users, and that was in about a year. The problem with EQ these days is that its getting a little bit dated, and hence the planned release of EQ2. IMO the 97k users for the Sim's online is a GIANT dissappointment, both because those ARE weak numbers for an online game (though not terrible), and are compounded by the phenominal success of the single player version, which lead to the assumption that this interest would carry over to the multiplayer version. Of course I'm too lazy to get links to any of this, but a simple google search should turn up a fair amount of the info.

Re:Bad Comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

Everquest may have 450k subscriptions but that certainly doesn't translate to 450k players. It's not uncommon for one person to own multiple accounts.

Re:Bad Comparison

[TheLostOne]

Too true.. I've been flirting around with the second string mmos lately and there seems to be this impression that EQ is an evil unstoppable behemoth. Not true, EQ has been declining in popularity and quality (this part being mho) since the last 3 or 4 expansions (well, loss of quality came first, then lack of pop.. just around the time of PoP ;) Walking around the old world, even the old expansions, the world is just empty. At primetime expect to see three people in your fav newbie zone... and as the above poster indicates one of those is probably a dual boxing pler. Yea sure there are still thousands of players fighting for caming rights of Plane of Spoiledshorts.. but these are hasbeens.

But more then anything... the biggest proof, check your email. Twice now in the past few months EQ has given me free play time. I used it to give away whatever gear I had left to strangers (as my friends were long gone) but ya gotta ask yourself.. is EQ really doing so bad they have to beg people to come back?

And as for the future.. it seems the community is making the same blunder it did with SWG.. hope. A year ago or so we saw SWG and held it up as our savior... THIS is the game that will revolutionize, this is the one that will replace everything. Now that its coming and half the features have been cut and the beta is less then promising we've passed our hopes to the next great contender... WoW. Something about the EQ/mmorpg community likes to hold up an unfinished game we know so little about and declare it as our savior. 'It's blizzard, they CAN'T screw up.. right?' In any case.. SWG will sell big but I don't think it will have quite the hold on people EQ did. The EQ bug catches you by surprise.. you aren't ready for that. After getting away from the addicton once you put a bit more time into choosing your game. When I started EQ it was 'ooh gee this looks fun'... now when I start an mmorpg its 'is this really worth donating 6 months of my life into'? In any case.... the world is waiting for WoW just like they were once waiting for SWG... SoE is scared. Very scared.

Forgive my ignorance

[Loosewire]

But why would i want to pay $50 or even $20 for a game which i then have to pay more per month to play? it would have to be a damn good game. - Give the game away free with a months free sub (You have to give your credit card details so you cant just keep getting freebies) so theyre hoooked and you now have $10 per month off em :-)

Re:Forgive my ignorance

[MindStalker]

Actually there are a few like that, I believe anarchy online if free for a month and except the download time the software is free too :)

Double pay?

[BigNumber]

I'm sure I'm not the only person who sees problems with a system where you first pay for a game and then pay to play it. It would make more sense if there were single player versions included with the game but for the online-only stuff the games should be free to download if they are going to charge to play.

What other product sells you something that is absolutely useless without paying a subscription fee? Tivo comes to mind but at least you're getting hardware with your initial purchase that can concievably be used for other purposes. I can't think of another example of this type of system where you don't get something for your up front money. Anyone?

Re:Double pay?

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as there is a boxed product, you are paying for the media distribution. Keep in mind that purchasing the product box often gives you a free month or so. I think the retail price is still too high, but you've got to pay to play - remember quarter-sucking arcades? How much did you drop there?

Re:Double pay?

[Anonymous Coward]

A satellite dish, a telephone(both landline and cellular), (usually) a modem.

There's lots of stuff where you buy the "equipment" or software or distributable and still have to pay another (recurring) fee, just to use it. These things are (mostly) useless without the "access" subscription.

Note I say "mostly" useless. You can still use a modem as an answering machine(if you have the software) and the extremely DIY-ish can find something to do with a sat.dish. But generally, without the subscription fee, you're high and dry. You're being charged for both the access mechanism(phone, sat.dish, software) and the access. It's a good scam, really.

And on the note that when you pay for the game on MMOGs you are paying for media distro - that's a load of BS. Media distro for a software CD is nothing near $50. How much can you buy one of those old shareware CDs for at CompUSA/MicroCenter/Fry's/BestBuy? Less than $10.

Games charge $50 because that's what the market will bear. less than 10% of that is "media distribution" costs.

Re:Double pay?

[nvrrobx]

Sirius Satellite Radio. XM Satellite Radio.

DirecTV. Dish Network.

AT&T Wireless. Cingular. Sprint PCS. Nextel. (insert your carrier here).

Enough said.

Now, on the other hand, I do agree with the fact that I don't want to pay $50 for the game, then $10 a month. How about $15 for the game, then $10 a month? I'd be okay with that. Hell, make me pay $50 for the game, and include like three free months of service with it. That's okay with me.

EverQuest turned me off at the idea of $50 per expansion pack, on top of the $9.89 a month to play it. No thanks.

Re:Double pay?

[PurpleFloyd]

Sirius Satellite Radio. XM Satellite Radio.

DirecTV. Dish Network.

AT&T Wireless. Cingular. Sprint PCS. Nextel. (insert your carrier here).

Enough said.

For all these products, you recieve a physical device; the games one could download it for free over the Internet and get the same product, sans manual and other in-the-box goodies. I'm suprised that Everquest, Earth and Beyond, and others don't carpet-bomb the world with their CDs like AOL; the profits from additional users "hooked" on the game would almost certainly outweigh the lost profits from selling a boxed game.

In my opinion, game distributors should adopt the extremely sucessful methods of drug dealers in this area; provide a free sample, "hook" the user, then charge a fee for users who want continued service.

While Everquest has hit upon an interesting method (charge a service fee as well as a regular $30-50 charge for expansion packs), this has also turned off many other users. If they were to charge a slightly larger monthly fee with free content expansions on a regular basis, they would be able to maintain the same cashflow while attracting new users and keeping old ones interested with new areas to explore, more monsters to fight, and graphics and interface upgrades.

Star Wars

[kmellis]

The Star Wars MMORPG will be very successful. Count on it.

It's just silly that some people are claiming that only sword and scorcery style games can be popular as MMOGs. That this has been the case is an accident of history. Someone could have said the same thing (and probably did) about SF themed RTS games until Warcraft came along.

Re:Star Wars

[binaryslave]

Star Wars will be a sword and scorcery style game. Look at Anarchy Online and WWII online. Both have had very hard times.

Re:Star Wars

[MrSelfDestruct]

Star Wars Galaxies is never going to be released, so the point is moot.

Re:Star Wars

[Anonymous Coward]

Very few new MMORPGS are having an easy time. Shadowbane, with it's mountains of hype, is floundering like crazy.

I think that a lot of it comes from the fact that there is a much smaller player base then the developers would like to believe. There are only so many people willing to get into the arena.

Re:Star Wars

[InfoVore]

The Star Wars MMORPG will be very successful. Count on it. It's just silly that some people are claiming that only sword and scorcery style games can be popular as MMOGs.

Yes Star Wars Galaxies(SWG) will be very successful right out of the gate (once they get past The-Never-Ending Beta). However, it won't be successful IN SPITE of being a Sword & Sorcery game. SWG IS a sword (lightsaber) and sorcery (The Force) game. If anything, its success will build on that sword and sorcery foundation.

Star Wars is very much in the Science Fantasy genre, with heavy emphasis on the Fantasy side. (Most 'space opera' stories are...) Change the starships to sailing ships and you could set it in any pre-industrial epoch.

Regardless, it will be fun to run around dodging Bounty Hunters, fixing droids, and so on when SWG comes out.

Cheers,
I.V.

Flop?

[lightspawn]

I don't know that a subscriber base 20% the size of the market leader's necessarily a flop. If an installed base of, say, 20% that of microsoft windows a flop?

P.S. It's certainly better than Sega's old online model - charge $30-$50 for game with free online play, then make some games fee-based and shut down the servers for others altogether (anybody interested in starting a class action thingy?)

Alien Front Online was online less than ten months, although according to the company the problem was that the server's IP address was hard coded in the client with no way to change it, the company lost control over the (outsourced?) IP address, there was no system to distribute patches, and sending customers updates was too costly. Yet the company felt no need to compensate customers in any way, since the game had an offline mode too.

Re:Flop?

[amaprotu]

I agree. The accessment that it is a flop I think is offbase. They are basically saying for a game not to be a flop it has to get subscriber numbers in the first 6 months that are close to that of a 4 year old franchise with 5 expansions/extensions???

I don't even buy into a MMOG until its been out 6mo or more. Gives them time to fix it and hopefully add some content.

Here, I don't like Sims Online, I was in the beta and the game is not for me. But I have to admit it isn't a flop. In 6 months, less than 1/8th the time EQ has been around gathering players, Sims online already has 1/5th the number of subscribers. What I would be interested in seeing is numbers of what EQ was at 6mo.

Re:Fuck MMORPG

[Dot.Com.CEO]

I see you are writing from Portugal. Well, so am I - and I have to agree, the piracy thing is truly phenomenal in this country. I have met nobody, NOBODY who actually buys their games here. PS2 sold like crap. Then the neo2 chip came. People started buying them from one moment to the other. Xbox, ditto. Gamecube has NO market in this country even though the best gaming gems of 2003 are coming out for that platform. Why? Well, because you cannot go to pt.mercado.informatica and hunt down a friendly Gamecube pirate. But you can get pirate ANYTHING here for more or less 3 euros. Yes, I know, it is truly stupid to buy something for 50euros when you can get it for 1/10 of the price, but believe me, the experience is not the same...

Now, regarding MMORPGs, in Portugal, well, frankly, the level of English of the average Portuguese gamer is not good enough so they can feel confident to invest their time in the game. I have never seen any MMORPG being marketed here either, but as I don't really buy any game magazines I am reporting my own experiences from mega-stores. It is simply not mainstream in most countries.

Re:Fuck MMORPG

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool, I have a "neighbour" here in slashdot. Where do you live btw? I'm in Lisbon, near Amoreiras. Would you care for a chat over ICQ or something? =)
My UIN is 3873864

Dialog with the Sims Online

[cgenman]

Sims Online: Hi! I have a great licence! I'm a game you can play while going to get a sandwich. My creator appologized for me, but we promise I will get better! Wanna play? I'm only $10 per month.

Consumer: Umm... So I sit around and click on a book for six hours until my character gets reading +3? No thanks.

Sims Online: No really, I will be a great game someday. You will be able to pick your character's color while clicking. Yay! Doesn't that sound like fun? Hey, where are you going? Awww....

Analyist 1: Hmm. The Sims Online is a terrible failure, only raking in one million dollars per month. I wonder what it could be?

Analyist 2: They have a great licence. They're positioned well to get the elusive 20 to 40 year old female market. We spent 20% of the budget on advertising. Yet we aren't seeing the return expected.

Consumer [knocking on window]: Dude, your game sucks!

Analyist 1: The market must not be ready to support online gaming. Everquest, Asheron's Call, and all of Korea must be a fluke.

Consumer [knocking on window]: Dude, take this crappy thing back!

Analyist 2: People just aren't prepared to pay monthly fees. Perhaps if we abandoned the service-provider model and moved to a cable TV model we could see synergies dwarfing those of AOL Time Warner.

Analyist 1: A 50 dollar a month fee to play a catalog of online titles... That just might fly. We just need to hire a college intern to program an emulator in Java and we will have all of the content we need!

Consumer: Dude, this Sims thing is worse than Clippy. Get it off me!

Sims Online: No, just give me one more chance! I swear I can change!

Analyist 1: Yes, the industry is headed for dark times indeed. How's your golden parachute looking?

Re:Dialog with the Sims Online

[The Evil Couch]

the quote's modded funny, but it's pretty insightful, too. people will do what it takes to get a game, if it's fun. people will make mods, hacks and ports to get their hands on it and play it on their favorite system. but if it's not fun, no one's gonna play it. it's a really simple concept, but some people just don't get it.

I don't have a problem with

[Tarindel]

paying for an online subscription when the game requires persistant servers, as most MMORPGS do. It takes money to buy the servers, and there's a significant cost to maintain them. Not to mention bandwidth costs.

What I find interesting is the recent emerging trend of games charging for online-play that require only minimal hardware company-side. For example, the forthcoming Settlers of Catan PS2 is rumored to use such a pricing scheme (http://ps2.ign.com/articles/391/391005p1.html). In that case, you're basically paying for someone to match you up with another human player, as all the games are transitory, and the PS2's can do all the requisite processing themselves. Somehow, that doesn't seem as compelling a reason for me to be spending $7 a month or more per month to play.

But I suspect we'll see more and more of that -- it's obvious consumers will be more willing to try a game that they can get for free and pay a small monthly fee if they like it as opposed to paying a large up-front cost and then getting the online-time for free. And companies will like it too, as it means potentially wider exposure for a game, and a more steady revenue flow. Not to mention they still get their money when used copies of the game trade hands over eBay or people figure out how to copy it.

This is why PC gaming is not taken seriously.

[Inoshiro]

For every person who is not a thief, there are quite a few people who have their stories which end with, "and to this day he is still the only person I ever met who actually bought most of the games he ever played."

With console gaming, the piracy problem is greatly reduced. You still have people who don't like the idea of paying to support the games that come out, but at least they can rent it from Blockbuster.

That's also why the console revenues always outpace the PC revenues, and why consoles have more than 2 genres of game.

Re:This is why PC gaming is not taken seriously.

[nexex]

wait which 2 genres is the pc limited to? action, adventure, puzzle, racing, rpg, simulator, sports, or strategy?

Re:This is why PC gaming is not taken seriously.

[eggstasy]

Uh, i think you have it in reverse, consoles are actually severely lacking in my favorite types of games, which usually require a mouse in order to be played well. Sure, Dune 2 came out for genesis, and Dune 2000 did come out for the playstation, but most console games are shallow action thingies... show me a console with a game like Pontifex and I'll buy it today.

Valid question.

[Inoshiro]

] Can you even play Sims Online in single-player mode?

*Notes the "Online" in the title, as opposed to the lack of such in "The Sims"

It's a valid question. Phantasy Star Online has an offline, single-player mode (as well as an offline, multi-player mode).

On the Dreamcast, Next Tetris Online Edition worked fine offline as well (it had online features to suplement it, though).

Just because something has online in the title, doesn't make it an exclusively online game. Which is why that question is valid, and should be replied to seriously.

Re:Fuck MMORPG

[Anonymous Coward]

:-) Do you work at Novabase then? Email me at spyros at daskaleas.com or MSN same email... I hate ICQ (sorry!)

Sega Channel

[Disoptic]

Sega Channel had at least 20 great games playable at all times. The games would change each month with a few of the best kept over. Beta versions, unreleased titles, etc would appear in a special section that only Sega Channel members would ever see. The download speed for a game was minimal (a minute maybe) and all play was infinite and unrestricted for a cheap monthly fee ($15 USD).

Here's an old article about the service.

P.S. It of course failed in the end even though it gave a lot for very little money.

Re:Sega Channel

[dpete4552]

Sega Channel was the shiznat.

RIP Sega Channel ;(

Re:125,000 copies - 97,000 active subscribers = ..

[DarkFencer]

The 97,000 active subscribers means how many are currently paying the monthly fee. The 28,000 others could have bought the game, used the free month then canceled because they didn't like it.

The "all-in-one" content distribution service...

[Blingin' AMD]

Is already alive and kicking. Forgive me for being a TFC fan, but Valve came out with Steam, which was a server browser for essentially all of the "in-house" mods of HL (CS, TFC, OpFor, Ricochet, DMC, etc) yet faster and leaner than GameSpy (Also: No ads!). Given, this is only for HL and its mods, and only mods under the auspices of Valve (or Sierra? I'm not clear on that) yet the ability for a company to offer one server browser/launcher for all their games, as well as updating capability is there. I got Steam off my campus' gaming club FTP with CS 1.6. (Counter-[Racial slur meaning 'one who is Jewish or of Jewish or Hebrew heritage or descent'] is the name around here) It seems to me that Sierra is planning on making this a service extended to any pay-to-play online games of theirs because thay have a "price" column in the "my subscriptions" browser.

Profits

[decairn]

Sony are in a good position to move to a combined pricing scheme - they have EQ and its various franchises, Planetside and Star Wars Galaxies. It would make some sense to have a subscription across all, after all you want your customers locked into your content. Older games, such as Ultima Online, Everquest maybe, have already payed for their hardware and development. Ever dollar income now is just gravy in the corporate profits.

Wouldn't work....

[DarkFencer]

You talk about scrapping the whole client-server model all together. There are a LOT of problems with that.

Do you want to trust 'joe user' to have an SMTP/POP server installed, configured correctly, and patched? The average person doesn't/can't patch their system as is, even when they aren't running a server. Activating things by default as you propose is what gets systems hacked.

Also, most people do not leave their computers on all the time. Where would their e-mail go then when the computer is off?

Not to mention most people have asymmetric internet connections with much less upload then download capacities.

The client-server model will never be obsolete unless everyone can run their computers as well as a systems administrator, OR they give complete control of their computers to an outside source (Microsoft would love this option, I'm sure).

And also, if you have a crappy ISP with a slow e-mail server and faulty DNS then get a new ISP!
I NEVER have DNS problems with my ISP at home, and we almost never have DNS problems on campus at my university.

Re:Wouldn't work....

[eggstasy]

FUD, FUD, FUD... why are people always worrying about nonexistent problems?
For god's sake, do you use TCP/IP? I'll just assume you do ;)
At the router level, IP is exactly like a P2P application. Works, doesnt it?
Of course, it doesnt guarantee reliability and stuff like that, but who cares? You have TCP on top of that to take care of the retransmissions that guarantee reliability.
You seem to not have read my post. I said, it would be invisible to the user, and self-updating. If there was only one person on earth with the ability to setup a server correctly, you could just ask that person to make the setup program that would automagically install all the server software.
Besides it's not like what I propose is something revolutionary. Servers already work like that. But, if everyone ran a server, the massive redundancy and parallelism would give us a huge increase in speed and reliability, eliminating traditional choke points, slashdot effects and DDoS attacks.
Furthermore, if everything ran on top of a demand-based dynamic content relocation P2P algorithm (Freenet-style), we would be using the available bandwidth much more efficiently, thereby greatly reducing traffic in the extremely congested transatlantic cables, among other things.
There's thousands of ppl out there shouting "Everything over P2P!", I don't know why I'm the only one getting dissed. Must not be explaining it very well.

Why Sims Failed

[Kethinov]

I was a pretty regular UO player for a while, also an EA game, and if there's one thing I can remember more than anything it's how much we all made fun of The SIMS players. Just about everyone who played that game was considered an instant pansy and no one wanted to associate with them. It was almost like that one kid in every high school who comes to school dressed like a 50s child.

There's nothing wrong with dressing like that, or playing the Sims online. But the game just has this bad blood; a bad reputation. Kinda like the bad reputation Everquest seems to be getting with all these anti MMORPG articles popping up.

Re:Why Sims Failed

[Doomsnight03]

"I was a pretty regular UO player for a while, also an EA game, and if there's one thing I can remember more than anything it's how much we all made fun of The SIMS players."

I'm not sure that anyone who calls themselves a "regular UO player" is in any position to make fun of someone else, SIMS player or not. The "regular," i.e. daily, UO players that I know personally have all suffered from work-related, financial, and social difficulties due to their game-playing. We know that all people who play MMORPGs are not necessarily addicts who can't bring themselves to go to work in the morning, but I think any RPG player does know one or two. As far as the "anti-MMORPG" articles popping up, have you ever flipped on the TV at night and watched the news? The press reports on bad news much more than they do on good news. MMORPGs are a relatively new concept and these articles do the best they can to describe them and the ramifications that they can have on the people who play. If EQ is simply a computer game, then why is there such thing as an "EQ Widows" group?

Re:Why Sims Failed

[Kethinov]

If EQ is simply a computer game, then why is there such thing as an "EQ Widows" group?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to deny the fact that there are people out there who get addicted to games, but they are quite a minority in comparison to casual players. Personally, I played UO regularly for 2 years and eventually quit because the changes no longer suited me. I remember some people who fit your stereotype, but most people didn't and that was that.

Furthermore, there's nothing wrong with a massively multiplayer game. The consensus for the non-players out there seems to be that it's a drug like heroin and it's not. I really get tired of people who try to claim otherwise. Using your own argument, if EQ et al is such a problem then why are there so many people like me who've played massively multiplayer games and will honestly say its some of the best gaming they've ever done in their life?

Answer: Take MMORPGs with the good and the bad. There's just as many people, if not more, addicted to Quake3. You just don't read about it in the news.

Re:Fuck MMORPG

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish. What, you work there? A friend of mine knows a bunch of ppl working in Novabase... He warezed me your copy of TOAD thanks to them :D
I just added you to MSN, hope to catch u online one of these days :)

How about NO SUBSCRIPTIONS.

[LazyBoy]

'Consumers might not be responding well to paying individual subscriptions for single online games, but might react better to cable TV-like pricing in which they get access to a number of offerings for a flat fee.'

What happened to NO SUBSCRIPTIONS? I'm still enjoying Tribes 2 online for only the cost of being online. I'm not sure I'll ever buy a subscription online game.

skotos.net has 7 games 1 price

[herderofcats]

I noticed that Skotos www.skotos.net has 7 games now for a single montly subscription price. These games include two 3D graphic games, three 'prose' games (two are MUD-like, one is MUSH-like), a strategic space war game, and a multiplayer card game. They have also announced more on the way, including a horror game called 'Lovecraft Country'.

The first month is free, so you can try all the games before you commit.

-- Herder of Cats

Simple Math

[AvantLegion]

There is a finite number of people willing to spend monthly fees to play online games.

Very few people are willing to pay monthly fees for multiple games. Most choose their favorite and become dedicated to that game.

Every online game released since UO and EverQuest has struggled, to some degree, to gain an audience. New games have to either succeed at pulling gamers away from other games, or by bringing its own separate audience. Warbirds can succeed because the hardcore flight-sim audience has very little crossover with the online RPG audience. A game like Star Wars Galaxies will succeed on both fronts: pulling RPGers away from other titles AND bringing in a new audience that had no interest in Rat Hunter 3D but would love nothing better than to play in the Star Wars universe.

At first glance, you would think The Sims would bring its own audience. But take note that the average Sims player is not a Sims junkie. Out of the bajillions of copies sold, only a small percentage are owned by the kind of junkies that might be interested in paying for an online game.

THEN take into account the various problems with the online game. Pushing a shoddy product onto a smaller-than-estimated audience is a good formula for, well, exactly what's happened.

Why The Sims Online Failed

[PepperedApple]

I'm one of the 28,000 who bought the game and then canceled my subscription. I actually beta tested it for a few months before it came out.

TSO failed because it eliminated all the things that made The Sims popular:

1. Designing your dream house - without cheat codes designing a house was unaffordable, and earning money in the game was a boring waste of time.
2. Designing custom material - if you search google you'll find hundreds of sites with downloadable skins, furniture, decarations and houses. People made objects with photoshop and mesh editors, and people loved them so much they would pay real life $$ to download.
3. Playing God - in The Sims you controlled a character or family in a god-like way. Sometimes they would ignore your commands, and if you didn't tell them to do anything they would manage on their own - eating, peeing, going to work. In TSO you are your sim. If you don't tell it to do anything it'll just stand there.

When I called up to cancel they offered me a free month, but I declined. It was an unrewarding waste of my time.

They lack strategies..

[Inoshiro]

But you'd be hard pressed to find the variety of shooters (not 1st person), Japanese RPGs, simulation games (Harvest Moon!), action games, etc, on the PC.

Plus, with the exception of strategy games and possibly some 1st person shooters, the keyboard/mouse combination isn't the ideal.

Re:They lack strategies..

[digby_ttf]

I agree the PC lacks some Console genres but conversely I'd say console games lack an equal number.

Could you please specify which first person shooters arent better on a mouse and keyboard. How is it not better to be able to just move your hand and be instantly looking in the right place. Also by using 2 different control methods for the two different planes of movement (instead of 2 sticks) control is made easier; due to them being further sperated in your brain instead of left hand, right hand.

You then have all the keys around the cursor keys to be used for jump, duck, use, reload..... not to mention the 3 buttons and wheel on the mouse.... sure its a little more complicated than button x,o etc...

Console gamers all prefer pads and when they try the mouse and keyboard they cant get their head round it and immediately switch back rather than putting in the time and learning the better system.

Incidently the Halo team have had to make the game harder on the PC to compensate for it being easier on a mouse and keyboard, its also one of the reasons there are two versions of Medal of Honour (I'm UK and I refuse to mispell honour even if it is being used as a noun)
The 3rd person games, GTA3 and Max Payne being the ones I've played on both formats, are both far easier with a mouse and keyboard.

Anyway sorry about the rant, it's well rehearsed from all the Console only people I know. I could go into why consoles are better in some regards but it would go even further off topic!

It's not a matter of better.

[Inoshiro]

It's just different. I think the separation is fine (on Xbox/GCN more than PS2, since the PS2 sticks ace lined up, making them harder to use). The only thing that would make it easier to line up shots on the console versions would be some sort of smooth resistance when moving. The same deceleration you get from a mouse ball. Incidently, that's why I own a wireless ball mouse for gaming (rather than an optical), and only use my optical mouse for office work.

Even if you don't agree, the Dreamcast (huzzah, huzzah) had a keyboard and mouse to go with it, and games like Quake 3, Unreal, and Half-life (recently released through the magic of file trading, even though Sierra pulled the plug) all support it. Since you can buy Q3 for the DC for only a couple of dollars, this is great :)

I'm not saying consoles are 100% super-duper better, I'm just saying they're better overall, and not as bad for fps as people seem to think.

Of course, my PC keyb/mouse setup is different from most people's default WASD since I evolved mine. First was Z and X for strafing in Doom (Wolfenstein didn't support it, IIRC), then game A and Q for forward and backward (respectively), then more buttons for jump/duck, and so on. Since most DX games don't seem to handle dvorak well, though (especially Unreal engine games, they won't let you assign keys like ' , . as movement keys), and the fact that PC gaming involves Windows and a whole driver circle-jerk/cluster fuck, I just went 100% console. Not because it was too hard to get used to the mouse :)

PS: I'm Canadian, and I appreciate you not immolating English to make it easier to spell (ala US Webster's Dictionary spellings).

Correction: 'Its'

[Behrooz]

Correction: 'Its'

Haha, that one was just too easy. Wayyy to easy.

You have to get them to play it, first

[ianscot]

These subscription services need to take the old advertising/drug dealer maxim to heart: The first one is free. Sell me the game cheap, for $5, and give me a month of free play. By then I'm hooked and I'll stay.

The flat rate system would get people into more games. I don't want to have to pay $50 up front and $9 a month to find out if EverQuest is full of camping teenagers who have nothing to do but spend 40 hours a week leveling up. But you're right, under that system people could leave more easily too. (Not sure if that's as big a drawback as you say -- those no-life 60-hour-a-week players with demigod characters would maybe be less common. Hey, maybe competition would make the games better.)

The thing to do is make it easier to adopt the game, and get people hooked. Start them with the sampler/flat fee model, or a very cheap buy, and then move to the locked-in contracts later. It'd take more investment by the company up front, but Lucas Arts or EA could maybe swallow that.