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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."
Honestly IMHO that's a bunch of nonsence. EQ was the first truly 3d MMORPG which gave it it's initial huge player base. Since MMORPGs are addictive, people stick with'm. And since MMORPGs are about the MMO part, people flock to popular ones. Yes a big part of EQ's success is that it has stayed current, but if EQ was released only 2 years later, someone else would be leading the race.
:p)
BTW, FFXI is catching up fast.
(Disclaimer, I play UO... on emulated (free) servers
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[...] any new game released into a marketplace dominated by one brand would only serve to drive more consumers to that brand.
If the statement means that a new game will increase the total size of a market, I would agree (being aware that this is not universally true). The new game has to be different enough so new customer are attracted to it and buy it. And then they will try the dominating brand. To compare or for variation.
If you assume a market with a fixed or stable size (which is possible), then any new game will take customers away from the dominating brand. The quality of the new game will determine whether the customers stay with the new game or revert to the old brand.
Take the X-Box as an example. Some people who would never buy a console before bought it (increasing the market size for consoles). And surely some who were planning to buy a PS2 bought a X-Box instead (taking away PS2 customers). And it looks like the X-Box has established itself. When the next generation of consoles arrives, people will be in a different position - then they decide which system to buy on their experiences they have with their current system(s), not on the marketing that sparked their interest in consoles the fist time.
If some customers were planning to buy a X-Box and bought a PS2 instead - thus supporting the theory above - is certainly debateable.
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Is it possible that part of Everquest's continuing success is that it was made for hardware at the time and has maintained compatibility with it going forward? Many of the newer games lock out huge numbers of consumers who just don't feel like upgrading their machines to play the latest game. There's your installed customer base if nothing else.... and of course it doesn't stop anyone from playing who has newer hardware.
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Very clever "department" subheader.
World of Warcraft. If any company has proven themselves able to deliver games of top notch quality that are easily accessible to the masses, it's Blizzard.
In this particular case World of Warcraft looks like it will not innovate particularly, but rather take bits and pieces from all MMO's to make a game that has less grind and more fun factor.
The article uses the Magic the Gathering CCG as an example. Bad example. The pokemon CCG is the most popular CCG of all time (I'm serious). While wizards (makes of MTG) do distribute this game in North America, they do not create it, and in fact I've heard that Nintendo wants to cut them out of the deal. Why does pokemon break the rules? Because it appealed to a widely different play base that was not interested in the original produce at all.
But wait, there's more.
D&D is currently in version 3.5. If you compare that to D&D 1.0, you're going to see a lot of differences. D&D continues to dominate the market because it is willing to reinvent itself completely, while retaining the brand name and tone. Everquest is doing the same thing. Everquest 2 is in development, and by all accounts it's going to be very different from a mechanical perspective. This kind of reinvention will be required for Everquest to stay ahead in the marketplace, and Sony knows it. The reason why it is required is legacy issues. As sony releases each new expansion, that makes characters more powerful, the game world becomes more and more imbalanced. The game world becomes bloated with more and more content - there is no content expiry in Everquest. The Rathe Mountains never get retired because Sony has introduced enough new places to adventure. At some point, you just have to check it all out and start fresh, or you will not have a game that will last 10 years, 20 years, or even longer.
The reason I wrote that long winded bit above is because the article never mentioned everquest 2, and how it's a key strategy, instead focusing only on expansions.
I'd also like to note that while Everquest has a huge market share, it think it's down to less than a 50% market share, which is lower than it used to be. Also keep in mind that Everquest subscription figures will always be inflated by people who buy Sony's MMO pass (which allows access to all their MMOs, I.E. play star wars galaxies and your EQ characters will not be deleted).
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I can not take seriously an article suggesting EverQuest to be the most popular MMORPG. Has the author been living under a rock (or in USA) the last three years?
Ever heard of Lineage: Bloodpledge? 5-10 million subscribers is surely a tad more than EQ.
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But I think it's more prevalent with say, Counter-Strike than even EQ. CS has fallen far behind on many fronts in terms of design and technology, but it's far and away the most popular online game.
One big reason? You can always find a game for it. There's so many servers, it's easily the cheapest and easiest way to play an online PC FPS right now. It's surviving in part because of it's own weight.
I have tried many other MMORPGs since playing EverQuest. (EVE Online, DAoC, FFXI, etc). I played each for at least a few weeks to a few months.
Except for EVE, it all comes to one thing: the games are all too similar. The core gameplay differences are too small and the time requirements are too great. I cannot justify spending another year leveling to reach the end game.
So I return to EQ because they keeping adding things to do at the high level end. The things that are added to EQ aren't all that different than the previous expansion(s) but at least I don't have to toil through the low level time sink again to get there.
Frankly, Verant/Sony isn't doing anything that much better than anyone else. They were just the first get get me to invest the time required.
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