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Are MMOs Time-Release Vaporware?

Posted by Soulskill on from the going-going-gone dept.

KKnDz0r writes "Australian technology and gaming site 'Atomic' raises an interesting question about the dangers of MMOs that go bust. Are they part of a new breed of games that render themselves completely useless and without value if the parent company goes belly-up? It certainly seems that way in some cases, with Fury and now Hellgate: London both going to software heaven, leaving a player base holding relatively useless client software." While it's certainly not an issue for the large, continuously successful MMOs, we've lately seen a huge influx of companies trying to grab a slice of the MMO pie, some of which will inevitably fail. It would be great to see a dying company at least open up the server software, but how can we give them incentive to do so?

10 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. Example: Age of Conan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    See Funcom's stock here. Can you tell when AoC was released by just looking at it?

  2. Incentive? by Bieeanda · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It would be great to see a dying company at least open up the server software, but how can we give them incentive to do so?

    That's easy. Buy the code from them. If it's not already owned by a parent company, you can probably get it for fire-sale prices. Chances are that it's already legally the property of creditors though-- purchasing or even renting the servers necessary to launch an MMO is an extremely costly venture, let alone the costs of payroll and development.

    1. Re:Incentive? by WK2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Or, we gamers could never pay for something that depends on the goodwill of the manufacturer to function. Buy Software? Sure. Rent services such as MMOs? Sure. But I don't understand why anyone would buy software that requires a service to function. This seems like a case of had it coming.

      --
      Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
    2. Re:Incentive? by trytoguess · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If a MMO goes down, what does the creditors gain by keeping the severside code secret? I mean like after the chance of the code being bought by another group goes down the drain. Is there still an economic rationale?

    3. Re:Incentive? by Artifakt · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I've had legal dealings roughly 30 times with people who are not the original creators, but own something 'IP'ish - either because they are the heirs of an estate, or because they got it in lieu of normal payment for debts. Over half those times, the new owners seemed to seriously overvalue the item, and by seriously, I mean thinking it was worth its weight in flawless blue white diamonds. Creditor/Debtor relationships seem to be a bit less skewed in this respect than estates, but it's still pretty common.
            If you look at the financial history of the great depression era, particularly with regard to magazine story and sheet music rights, there are huge chains of companies which got awarded assets upon their debtor's failures, and held out for way too much in turn, even as they were going bankrupt themselves. There are chains where the property was transferred by a court ordered bankruptcy times 25 times in a decade, which would mean the average case for them was a company ignoring all offers for a work even though they faced bankruptcy within, on average, less than five months. We know the offers happened, because the courts used that fact to evaluate how to split assets among multiple creditors equitably. Even if you believe we aren't currently in anything approaching a full scale depression, that still looks like a good model of what to expect today.
            There's a semi-fair chance that a receiver will realize that taking 5 cents on the dollar for the server code is better than any other deal they might get. But if not, expect them to set the price like the MMO is a sure fire World of Warcraft killer, plus some.

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
    4. Re:Incentive? by Trecares · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The initial cost pays for the software development costs. The monthly fee pays for ongoing development and server/network expenses which can be considerable. That's why it's there. Some software have low enough costs that it can be sold for a low price or even for free, with the catch being the monthly fee. Others will usually heavily discount the initial purchase cost after a while when they've recouped most or all of the cost. Companies do it all different ways. Some (Anarchy Online) even dont charge monthly fees to get people into the door, but if you want the perks of the expansions, you gotta ante up.

      It's a sensible thing, and frankly, the monthly fee is much cheaper than anything else you could do to entertain oneself for a whole month.

      Trecares

    5. Re:Incentive? by Bieeanda · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I definitely agree. It's quite similar to old-school shareware games, where you get the first 'episode' or chapter, or whatever for free, and have to shell out for each of the later ones in turn. Many people just stuck with the freebie, and played it over and over again.

      Western 'Freemium' (I like that term) games these days seem to work on an Annoyware basis. Hellgate and Dungeon Runners both rely on a glut of subscriber-only equipment dropping for both subscribers and free-players, but Hellgate took it to a bizarre extreme by denying basic interface functionality to 'free' players when it was finally implemented.

      It probably doesn't help that Hellgate's subscription system was tacked on in mid-development, forcing them to 'incentivize' basic functionality when it became clear that their promised monthly content releases weren't going to fly.

      On the other hand, Anarchy Online has had some success with the 'freemium' system. The original, base game is free to play for a year, but its years' worth of accumulated, active subscribers are off in expansion-only regions, leaving the base game a ghost town. The encouragement to subscribe is mainly social, rather than technical.

  3. what's the point? by Ephemeriis · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I guess it might be nice if they open-sourced the software so that people could run their own servers... But I really have to kind of wonder what the point would be. What makes these games fun isn't the amazing engines or terrific game mechanics - its the players.

    These days there's hardly any gopher servers out there (yes, I know there are a few) - so gopher clients aren't particularly useful.

    Players move on to the newest, shiniest games out there. Without constant upgrades and expansions, players get bored pretty darn quick. And then your playerbase shrinks... There aren't enough people around to get groups or run raids... Which means less fun for the remaining players... And before too long there's nobody left to play with.

    I suppose someone might pick up an open-sourced game server and expand/improve it enough to keep people playing... Might even do a good enough job to get people to pay for it... But I really have a hard time seeing any game living for terribly long after it's been abandoned by the original company.

    I mean, there's a reason these games go under in the first place - they aren't making enough money because there aren't enough people playing them. Open sourcing the code might allow a few die-hard fans to keep playing... But the odds are pretty damn good the game will be dead (or close enough) before too long anyway.

    And really, as an MMOG player myself, that doesn't bother me. Unlike a novel or a CD or something like that I don't feel that I'm purchasing an item when I buy an MMOG. I feel more like I'm joining a club... What I gain is the fun, experience, and memories of playing with other people. Not an item that I can revisit later on. It's like when you go on vacation to Mexico - what do you really have to show for your money when all is said and done? A few souvenirs maybe... Some photos... But the main thing you have are the memories of what you did.

    --
    "Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
    1. Re:what's the point? by Cookie3 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      >I really have a hard time seeing any game living for terribly long after it's been abandoned by the original company.

      Like... Continuum? http://www.getcontinuum.com/
      Or Gladiator? http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/gladiator/
      Or ZZT? http://zzt.belsambar.net/

      I would generally say that if the original developers/company _offers_ the game (and/or the source) for free with no support, players will freely support it themselves. A community will form around the players who support the game, and the game will live indefinitely. If the fanbase is technically knowledgeable in any way, you may even see patches to fix bugs and other dev tools come out -- particularly if the source is provided.

      The problem, of course, is simply getting the game/source.

      --
      present day... present time... hahahaha...
  4. Uru: Ages Beyond Myst.... by carterhawk001 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is an MMO that beta'd, died, came back with fan run and company verified servers, died again, came back under gametap, died yet again, and now maybe might come back with fan servers a second time.

    At this point I doubt Cyan even owns Myst, Uru, or Plasma, the engine they bought and built up. I don't see any future where the fan's will get source code to the servers, or even the ability to run a server free of Cyan's control. Any company going belly up after investing millions obviously hasn't recouped that money, meaning the people that invested in them now own the IP, and why would they give it away? I doubt *they* give a rats ass about the fanbase.

    You might be saying to yourself that Uru is still a single player game, and yes, this is true, but that isn't what URU is about, it's about the community. I've played all the myst games, and this one feels the most dead of them all, because you are alone in a world meant to be filled with other player characters.