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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?"
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.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
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....
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.
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).
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.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
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"
The retail price for the box is also not really relevant either. That is a one-time sale. The monthly subscription is recurring revenue.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
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 :-)
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
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?
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.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
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?
The ______ Agenda
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.
Star Wars will be a sword and scorcery style game. Look at Anarchy Online and WWII online. Both have had very hard times.
] 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.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
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.
Now watch this drive.
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.
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.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
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.
"These laws they're passing won't even compile anymore, let alone execute." - anon
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
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.
TSO failed because it eliminated all the things that made The Sims popular:
When I called up to cancel they offered me a free month, but I declined. It was an unrewarding waste of my time.