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

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.

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resources are rapidly becoming superfluous, someone's bound to come along that will notice that the client-server model is obsolete, for the usual centralized view of client-server interaction assumes that the clients have far less resources than the server, which just isn't true anymore.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: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).

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: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.

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 :-)

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?

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?

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.

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: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.

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.