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Garriotts See Shakeup To MMOG Industry Coming
Next Generation is reporting from the annual DICE event, and has the gist of the presentation given by Robert and Richard Garriott about the future of the MMOG industry. From the article: "Richard Garriott, father of the Ultima series said, "After a period of growth, opportunities are closing, budgets are increasing to tens of millions of dollars, and companies need global infrastructure in order to publish. My guess is that over the next 3-5 years, only five companies will operate in this business, and unfortunately, many of the startups will be gone.""
That holds true for most industries. Remember, when cars first came out there were many many car companies. As cars got more and more complex there were less and less companies, until today you have maybe 7 or 8 major car companies in the world.
The same is true about the computer game industry in general. When games were new and a lot less sophisticated, there were thousands of publishing companies. Today we have..what, 4 major ones? EA, Ubisoft, Veventi, MS and...?
There's only a market for about 5 MMOGs worldwide.
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There's a good site that tracks subscription numbers on lots of different MMOGs here. It has dozens of games, and has been tracking subscription stats since 1997.
There is also regarded as a immune system copy, which is very comfortable usable. It does take a couple of years from now.
After a period of growth, opportunities are closing, budgets are increasing to tens of millions of dollars, and companies need global infrastructure in order to publish.
I think this is because in order to maximize profit, you must have the best product which requires teams of coders, hordes of graphic designers, and armies of network admins to roll out WoW, EQ, and whatever other blockbuster game comes out.
So this is what is done...
However, larger companies tend to not take risks on unproven ground so there still will be room for startups to nudge their way, but they won't be blockbusters with 100,000 players.
Eventually, after technology and bandwidth costs aren't prohibitive or a factor and the game engines have gotten as realistic as they can so there isn't anything left but to create game content, then perhaps it will be more mom and pop shops again. But this might be a while...
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
From my point of view, however, it's likely that the truly great games are probably going to *still* be startups that, while awesome games for those who like them, don't have the wide audience appeal that some of the not-so good games. And thus may well end up failing, going bankrupt, or being bought out by one of the big companies.
A case in point is probably the entire SWG thing. They had a great premise (however flawed the implementation might have been), but it was sacrificed for what is essentially a more focused game that is probably easier to play (and thus accessible to a lot more people), even if it is a massively inferior gameplay experience for those who are willing to take the time to really learn the complexities of a game. Economically, they'd rather have a huge number of part-time gamers than a small number of hard-core ones.
Although that brings up the point that someone, somewhere, may figure out how to make a game with the intricacies, complexities, and depth to keep the hard-core types happy while still being accessible and fun for those who just want to drop in and play. A good example of this might well be done using Dungeons and Dragons. For those who know the game, there are an insane number of variations on all the different character themes. For those who don't want to spend the time to learn all that, there's the default sets for each major class, slap in the ability scores, and you've got a fully functional archtype, ready for the next hack and slash. And in the process of playing said archtypes, you'll still be exposed to the mechanics, and thus you learn. And after a while, you'll know enough to be making your own builds, thus the archtypes served to ease the learning curve to get you into the more complex things, and thus both systems co-exist.
If someone can figure out how to make that perfect game, I look forward to playing it.
Z
Right now 3d virtual reality is about where text adventure was in the early '70s. Infocom kept the text adventure alive pretty long, but 2d and then 3d pretty much took it over, and the only place you got text role playing was in themed chat systems... MUDs.
I'm predicting that as free and cheap 3d virtual reality gets more common, the kinds of hack-n-slash stuff you see in MMORPGs now are going to become the kinds of things hobbyists put together inside virtual worlds that exist for other reasons. Right now that stuff is really crude by comparison, but it's just a matter of time before realistic graphics become as generic as verb-noun parsers and scripted objects in MUDs.
So the kinds of things that go on in 3d games now will be like LARPing in VR. SCA-type stuff. What will *companies* be doing instead? Heck if I know... interactive movies with licensed celebrity characters and paid actors?
Single-player game developers (even superstars) often don't understand online games.
The reality is that a small game can make a modest income. The game I administrate, Meridian 59, makes enough to keep me from starving to death, but it'll never be as big and amazing as, say, Lineage. But, people who enjoy hard-core Player vs. Player (PvP) with consequences enjoy our game immensely. We're happy keeping our classic game alive (it first launched over 9 years ago) and serving a niche.
One problem is with the term "massive". People look at the smaller games and turn their noses up at them. Our game with about 100 players on at peak isn't very "massive", so most people give it a pass. In reality, the community is actually quite a bit stronger. But, no one puts out press releases about having "the best community" or "the most enthusiastic customers". It's all about "the most people playing (and paying!)" in press release land.
The problem with the Garriots' predictions is that online is a medium, not a genre. There's a LOT of untapped potential out there, too. Take a look at the Korean market and you'll see an amazing array of games. Of course, one issue in the U.S. market is that the existing audience expects millions to be poured into the production values of the game. As soon as people realize that gameplay really is more important, you'll start seeing a lot more options out there.
Personally, I think the future is in niche games. Why go visit a game trying to cater to the lowest common denominator when you can go visit a game that caters more specifically to your tastes and the tastes of people like you. Of course, as with most boutique offerings, don't expect the price to remain at the rock-bottom like it is now.
Some thoughts from someone else in the industry.
Have fun,
Brian "Psychochild" Green
MMO developer's blog
Garriott (and/or Garriott) demonstrates a notable lack of vision when it comes to the willingness of indie developers to work in a variety of gamespaces. Not all games require tens of millions of dollars of content to be interesting to at least a small number of people, and the key to a successful game isn't necessarily selling millions of copies worldwide. In truth, all that's needed is to make a game that sells enough copies/subscriptions to make the money back on the development costs (i.e., the developers' families have food on the table).
Take A Tale in the Desert, for instance. It's an independently-developed game, published in online form only. The small development team has been maintaining the game for nearly three years off the $14 per month subscription fee from several hundred (perhaps a thousand or two) players at a time. Is this game a mega-super-ultra blockbuster? No, of course not. The market can only support a few of those at one time (though that'll increase as more people discover the genre). But is it successful? Definitely. It's not only stayed afloat for three years, but the enthusiasm of its subscribers and its developers continues to thrive.
Puzzle Pirates is another good example of an indie MMOG that has achieved success in the market (as well as critical acclaim). And what's more, MUDs are still around, some with dozens or hundreds of players daily experiencing freely-developed content. If Garriott were operating under valid assumptions, these MUDs would have died off long before WoW entered (and increased) the MMOG market.
Garriott is probably right that there's only room enough for a few World of Warcrafts or EverQuests or Lineages at a time. The expectation has grown that these games will require thousands of person-hours in development, and as customer expectations inflate, the costs for these games will eventually become prohibitive to all but larger media companies who can afford to bankroll such projects. But it demonstrates blindness to what's going on in the trenches to say that the market will suddenly close off to small developers with big visions.