Developing Online Games Book Reviewed

Thanks to Frictionless Insight for putting up a review of Jessica Mulligan and Bridgette Patrovsky's new book, Developing Online Games, a New Riders-published title written by two veteran MMO creators. The review mentions, in particular, that "..the central theme, the nail-it-to-your-face, tattoo-it-on-your-forearm message of Developing Online Games is that persistent world (PW) games, like EverQuest, aren't a product, they're a service. It is a failure to understand this unassuming statement that has caused such trouble for the PW genre." There's also an excerpt from the book available on the FI site. Update: 06/26 15:29 GMT by T : Here's Peter Wayner's review of this book from April.

Comments

Online games....

[Neck_of_the_Woods]

Read my virtual lips...content, content, content...and more content. Rinse repeat.

How hard is it to keep adding new stuff. Take that standard MMO that has done well(DOAC, AC, UO..etc..etc) and just have some guys that do nothing but add content, so much that you can't really do it all and you will have a fan base that does not leave.

This is all the game developers seem to know.

[darkmayo]

1. Make game
2. Beta test for awhile
3. Release before the game is ready
4. Patch

You have to release before the "next generation" of game comes out.. even tho that next gen game will be releasing early to beat the next next gen game.

Re:This is all the game developers seem to know.

[Farscry]

Actually, the parent comment was NOT offtopic. This relates exactly to one of the book's major points: MMO's are services, not regular games. Too many developers, treating them like games, are releasing them in an incomplete state that's not ready for retail.

In a regular game, we've grown to expect patches. It's why I rarely purchase PC games when they first come out. But with a regular PC game, you pay once, and when it's ready it's ready. The person who bought the game 3 months before me hasn't paid much more than I did (maybe the price drops 5-10 dollars in the meantime), and they've been able to get some enjoyment out of it (unless it's Ultima IX...).

In an MMO, though, the person who is an early adopter will have paid about 20-30 dollars more than me while the game is being repaired and completed.

Unfortunately, many people are either misled or haven't learned from the past, and so companies releasing MMO's continue to benefit from casual consumers going into the store and purchasing the game since it's the "latest and greatest". (Store employees promoting these incomplete games aren't helping the situation)

When the game is finally complete and running fairly smoothly 2-3 months later (or longer in some cases), the initial people who have let their subscriptions lapse don't really hurt the company, who has gotten by with those client purchases for the initial sales period. In fact, they're often able to tout those high sales (and stores place the game prominently in "hot item" categories), which leads to new sales. I would wager that it is the sales from this point forward that constitute most of the ongoing subscriptions; a large portion of the initial subscribers most likely let their subscription expire.

So granted, yes, you could say "well stop buying the incomplete games and the problem will go away!"

To which I say, "yes, I have, but unfortunately it's misinformed customers who have enabled companies to propogate this poor business practice."

Yes, I enjoy MMO's, but this shady practice for new releases is what I have grown weary of. Companies just don't get that the service needs to be ready, not just the client program. You don't open a travel agency just because the pretty office is done but you have no deals with airlines or cruiselines and hope to be successful, do you?