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EverQuest And The Skaff Effect Explored
Thanks to the QT3 forums for pointing to a Bastion Press column discussing why EverQuest and its sequels may always be the most popular MMORPG series. The author argues that EverQuest, though not without its problems, is good at keeping up with the competition: "Sony learns from other products released into the marketplace, and they continue to watch new developments from new games and absorb the more innovative features." This is all part of what he calls 'The Skaff Effect', referencing a similar phenomenon seen in another genre: "Despite a number of very good games in the tabletop RPG marketplace, none of them have ever managed to topple D&D as the #1 game in the field. Skaff Elias (one of the guys behind the Magic revolution) hypothesized that any new game released into a marketplace dominated by one brand would only serve to drive more consumers to that brand."
It's not really fair to compare pen and paper RPGs with computer MMORPGs anyway, and here's why:
:p
A small RPG house (like, say, Chaosium) can stay afloat with a very few products with low circulation numbers, because the development and maintenance costs for a pen-and-paper RPG are scalable (that is, if you plan on having a small audience, you don't have to hire 50 people to work on the thing - in fact, in this day and age, half a dozen could conceivably produce a nice-looking pen-and-paper RPG).
On the other hand, developing a computer game requires the creation of content as well as the program itself, and for MMOGs, content (being King, as Brad McQuaid has said) has to be extensive to keep individual people playing (regardless of the size of the audience).
While MUDs - being smaller - have managed to stay afloat throughout the MMOG revolution, they require a fraction of the people needed to create content (art, world-building, sound, and design, not to mention programming) and to maintain operations.
For MMOGs, however, all those extra people *are* required, and so in order to have a game with compelling content, you have to start with a minimum expected playerbase (to recoup development costs). Investors will want to see the game generate profits, and companies will be unwilling to devote time and resources to a game whose profit margin is less than they could get on another project.
I have no idea whether Elias is right or not. But I can tell you that EQ has made some tremendous improvements in the past year based on the successes of other games, as well as some that they came up with themselves.
Too bad that SOE's marketing department keeps getting in the way of a good product, though. But that's another story altogether.
It isn't. A partner and I are writing two new GURPS books due out at the end of 2004; the system is flexible and good for people who have never played an RPG before. I mean, you roll 3 dice, for chrissakes.
At the gaming cons, GURPS dominates, even moreso than D&D. If you'd like to challenge that, bear in mind that I've demoed at four different conventions since August; I'm not an SJGames representative, so my viewpoint isn't biased. I'm just stating a fact: GURPS is ruling at cons.
Yes, D&D will always have a leg up. However, GURPS has not failed by any means.