MMO Report Tips World Of Warcraft As Leader

Thanks to VE3D for reprinting details of a new online gaming report discussing MMO trends and estimated game popularity. According to the excerpts from the Themis Group's report, online gaming will grow from $960 million revenues in 2003 to $4.10 billion in 2008, and the chart estimating "expected popularity of new persistent worlds... in descending order by projected subscriber base twelve months after launch" is headed by Blizzard's World of Warcraft, followed by Sony's EverQuest 2 and Turbine's Middle Earth Online. The report also suggests: "Success with a license challenges developers to find a way to implement the license's core appeal into an MMG-style game - a challenge which Final Fantasy Online met, but Star Wars Galaxies did not."

Comments

Virtual Property &Real World

[leoaugust]

FAST FORWARD TO 2014: ..... Virtual property will emerge as a major driver for gamers and game companies.

Reminds me of a discussion recently held at /. Will Virtual Economies Affect Real-World Economics? Maybe the author of the article discussed there, Edward Castronova, could use some numbers from the report mentioned in the current discussion to give more concrete shape to his ideas. Would love to continue the discussion then ....

Powerleveling

[deanj]

"Offerings such as combination accounts, power leveling, and character transfers could potentially increase revenue for MMGs by as much as 25% of subscription fees, or $100m annually."

I think they may be over reaching here, since the fees for character transfers have only been $1 million since the game started.

I also have to disagree with the "power leveling" part... if a game offers "power leveling" for a fee, that game is sure to not have a long term appeal, since it'll be dominated with folks that just spend more money being the more powerful people in the game.

Besides, usually "power leveling" (at least in EQ) doesn't do the character that much good long term. You end up with a player that doesn't know various tactics and/or spells work in the game, and hasn't maxed out capabilities that progress as you use them throughout the lifetime of the character. Example: Defense. As you progress, your defense rating gets higher and higher. This only happens ever so often during battle. Defense ends up adding into your overall armor class. Powerleveled characters usually end up having very low defense scores. Same goes with weapons, spell casting capabilities, and the like.

Re:Powerleveling

[gauauu]

That's because Magic is inherently a fun, well-designed competitive game. It's a competitive game where you compete against another person. As long as you have invested about the same amount of money as the person you are playing with, you will generally have fun playing the game.

This isn't true of MMORPGS. Here, the entire appeal to is to amass more power, more levels. There is not very much appeal in sitting around playing the game as one of the "little-guys," as there really isn't that much fun stuff to DO in these games. All of the DOING involves routine tasks with the goal of becoming tougher, where as in Magic, the DOING is playing an interesting game. There is an actual GAME in magic that people enjoy, other than just collecting the most powerful cards.

Expected and undeserved

[theefer]

I really don't expect much from WoW. Blizzard is a great game company, and I'm still a big Starcraft lover. They make nifty, well polished games, but WoW sounds just so unoriginal. Yes, the design is quite cool, and so are the races, and the spells ... But does it really sound an RPG ? No. Can you expect to have a really interesting roleplay with orcs and humans and the other races available ? I don't think so, and it does not seem to be the point. Does it bring MMORPG to new grounds ? No. Is it gonna be a hit ? Probably.

Reading the latest big report on the games seems to bring two main conclusions : (1) the gameplay is still open and under discussion, (2) the gameplay is plain unoriginal. They are building a well thought game upon the existing basis, but there is really no risk taken whatsoever, nothing that could really make it the next generation MMORPG.

As an amateur MMORPG game designer myself, I have found that there are an incredibly large amount of possibilities in that genre, but as always most commercial products stay in the same area, ever perfecting one type of game without risking to discover new ones. Too bad Blizzard did not dare to try though, they'd probably have done it the right way.

For my part, I'm waiting for Ryzom, not because it has a much more original gameplay than WoW, not because of its gorgeous graphical design (probably the best out there for an MMORPG), but becauses it dared to leave the traditional fantasy field to explore a new, fresh and tribal universe that is simply fascinating. The objective is more to carry the player into a dream-like original place than put him in front of monsters to fight.

Re:Next!

[llefler]

imo, the only truly interesting thing that will occur in the next generation of massmog launches - is seeing how EQ2 cannibalizes EQ's playerbase

I'm curious to see what happens here as well. When Turbine released Asheron's Call 2 it pulled quite a few people from AC1. And if AC2 had been worth playing it could have meant the death of AC1. It seem like "getting it right" in regards to a MMOG sequel includes shooting yourself in the foot on your current game.

Recently, I've started to wonder if building sequels for MMOGs is misguided. AC adds new content to the game every month. I think EQ has proven that selling expansion packs can be profitable, and that it supports your current game rather than detracting from it. With new content monthly, expansion packs, and player involvement, MMOGs don't get stale.

The conclusion I keep coming up with is that MMOG marketing is going to have to diverge from normal game marketing. How many Final Fantasy games are there now? With normal PC and console games, releasing a sequel every year or so revitalizes the franchise. But how many gamers are continuously playing 4+ year old games? The big difference between the normal games and MMOGs is persistence. I'm not sure the developers understand the value of that.

Multiplayer impact on Industry Growth

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how multiplayer games impact the growth of the Games industry as a whole.

When games were single player only you played through 20-60hour game and then bought the next game. Now with multiplayer games especially MMO games the same title can last literally thousands of hours (how many hours have I spent on EQ & Counterstrike & NWN). Also with such high player time investment, it becomes more difficult for new title to supplant existing ones. I have heard people saying they'd just quit MMORPGs if EQ1 went away because they have invested 150+ DAYS played of gametime.

With multiplayer on PC and expanding into consoles, It seems that industry growth will be in the form of subscription based systems, rather than total titles shipped.

SWG

[Terminal Saint]

I may well be tarred and feathered for saying this, but I happen to enjoy Star Wars Galaxies. I've been playing since launch and I still have a blast with it, and I know a number of people who have been as well. This seems to be just another case of the people who dislike the game being especially vocal, while those who like it are too busy playing to respond. Now if you'll excuse me, it's time for a few stormtroopers to meet the business end of my flamethrower.

Re:Next!

[llefler]

Are there any successful MMOG sequels?

If you read some of the white papers on the site linked to in the article, one of them states that MMOGs can and have had lifespans that exceed 10 years.

Moving customers to a new MMOG is like when your cellphone contract expires. You hope they will sign up with you again, but there are no guarantees. I know that when I leave AC1 I will look at all the 'new' MMOGs. I won't just run out and buy an ACx, Middle Earth, or D&D Online simply because Turbine is producing it. Actually, I'd like to spend some time in another genre. Earth & Beyond was interesting, but lacking. Eve was a huge advancement, but rather tedious. But what will come next? It seems that if you can maintain an acceptable playerbase for 10 years, why not cross genres and limit churn?

(i also think these suits are very different people from the actual devs, but i digress)

Just a clarification, I used developers in the sense of the companies developing the games. Not the actual programmers who are doing the coding.

As far as the programmers wanting to move on, I wouldn't be surprised. Programmers want to create new things. And the only thing worse than having to fix your prior mistakes is having to fix someone elses. We never notice the corner until after we've painted the floor. Maintenance programming is almost as much fun as writing documentation.

Re:Next!

[Cosmik]

Interesting that the 'Best' MMO is always the one that will be released next.

Indeed. SWG was meant to embody the be-all-and-end-all of MMORPGs; a game which many people would flock to and stay with. EQ still enjoys higher numbers than SWG, whereas a newer game, Horizons, laments lower subscribership. A game which has been out for a while in Asia, and not so long in NA, FFXI enjoys great reviews and subscribers - breaking a few records I believe.

While I agree that WoW has a good chance of being the most successful new game in terms of subscribtions, considering they are aiming towards the Korean market as well as the NA market, I'd have to disagree with the ranking of the titles after that.

Lineage 2 has a very good chance to keep both EQ2 and MEO from climbing above it - Lineage (1) currently enjoys the highest subscriber levels - and if it isn't Lineage, then it's another Asian-based (Chinese I believe) MMORPG, of which I forget the name right now. Something like ***** 2?

EQ2 and MOE will enjoy a mostly NA/European subscribership, and although those markets can give good numbers, the NA market is less likely to show support for a MMORPG, especially from a "hated" developer, than the fanatical Asian market.

Or, as usual, are we only looking at an American-centric view here?