Are MMOs Time-Release Vaporware?

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?

Comments

Incentive?

[Bieeanda]

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.

Re:Incentive?

[WK2]

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.

Re:Incentive?

[Bieeanda]

What you're describing is an issue of distribution-- the developer can't help it if the publisher insists on doling out regional rights, or throws other obstacles in the way of players looking to get into the game.

World of Warcraft is not something to be seriously competed against-- its multi-million subscriber base is a gigantic anomaly, in an industry where 250,000 subscribers is still a prodigious number. Buy-in for end-users is low enough that you can have simultaneously active subs on several games for under $50 USD per month, which is less than a lot of people pay for TV.

And while I don't care for Stormreach either, it certainly hasn't failed yet. Failures are actually extremely rare in the industry-- a bad game can last a very long time, if the publisher is determined to squeeze every dime they can out of the last few tens of thousands of subscribers that haven't moved on to something else. Even games that have failed spectacularly out of the gate (Anarchy Online, Age of Conan, or Vanguard, for example) can limp along for years, or rally behind tightened code and newly released expansion material.

Re:Incentive?

[cgenman]

I never understood paying for MMO software. So you pay 50 dollars, for the priviledge of paying 15 dollars a month?

Pick one way of charging, and stick with it. Either lower the barrier to entry and only have monthly fees, or lower the abandonment rate and only have up-front fees. But don't double dip.

*Note: I have played several MMO's at various points in my life.

Re:Incentive?

[Artifakt]

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.

Re:Incentive?

[Trecares]

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

I think...

[BJH]

...I should point out that Hellgate: London was not actually an MMORPG, and it includes a single-player mode so it can indeed be played even if the servers are no longer available.

An Impossible Expectation

[Revotron]

When World of Warcraft bites the dust, you'll have a whole hell of a lot of people with 10gigs of data on their drives that does seemingly nothing. Thankfully, when that happens, it's a simple matter for the 11-million-some subscribers to switch over to a private server.

However, for fans of smaller, less popular MMOs, they're essentially screwed if their provider shuts down and nobody's reverse-engineered the server software.

I think it would be a good publicity stunt for the software companies if, when they shut down an MMO, they release the server software for private use. They don't necessarily have to open-source it since their own proprietary code might be re-used in future projects, but if they at least gave the die-hard fans a way to keep enjoying the game, they could build up an even more loyal following rather quickly.

Re:An Impossible Expectation

[murdocj]

WOW is a great game.... When it's free. For $15 a month it's a complete ripoff.

Utter bullshit. For $15/month WoW is probably the greatest entertainment bargain on the planet. Let's see... $15 gets you 2 movie tickets. Or a cheap dinner. Or you could rent a couple of videos. Any of which last a couple of hours.

Or it gets you a month of fun with friends. As much time as you care to spend online. Yeah, if you don't like the game, it isn't worth, but if you think is a "great game" then it's truly a bargain.

what's the point?

[Ephemeriis]

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.

Re:what's the point?

[fractoid]

Sturgeon's Law applies to MMO players as strongly as it does anything else. 11 million players still means there are over 9 million crappy players.

And despite the moaning of everyone about WoW's playerbase, one of its biggest strengths is the fact that so many people play. MMOs benifit (or suffer) from extremely strong network effects. Try playing WoW on a very low-pop server, it's horrible unless all you want to do is solo quest. Switch to a high-pop server and the world comes so much more alive. Now if only they'd increase the server populations a little more... 2.5 - 3k concurrent at peak is only just starting to fill the world up.

Re:first?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

mmos are pointless imso (s=superior). but i dont really like pc games anways.

Not liking PC games kinda sucks the 's' out of your opinion.

We'll see that a lot more now

[Opportunist]

The development of MMOs shows that we'll soon see this happen a lot more often.

MMOs have turned into the love child of VCs. They see the success of WoW, see what kind of a huge cash cow it is, and of course they want a slice of that cake. We will see a lot of MMOs pop up left and right in the near future. Actually, we do already see that happen.

Now, early MMOs were mostly a kind of game for a rather small audience, and they were developed as such. EQ, UO, let's not talk about Meridian, they didn't really expect millions of subscribers. And because of this, they aimed lower and already considered the game successful if it managed to break even, which, in turn, wasn't so terribly hard to do with lower expectations (from the players), lower cost of development and the "new kinda game" smell all over it, covering the stench of tedium.

We're now in a post-WoW world. And players have seen it. Love it or hate it, WoW is, from a purely playability and long term interest point of view, very successful. The world is big. The graphics are nice. The quests are easy but managable. Boring from time to time, but never as boring as many others were in so many other MMOs. And most of all, the game is very open end. You can't have it all. Even if you play constantly, have no life outside of it.

Now try to recreate that. Your problem, as a developer, is twofold. Your prospective players will judge you by the "fun" they have in WoW. Your VCs will judge you by the revenue of WoW.

Can you compete with that?

To make matters worse, you have to be different from all those hundreds if not thousands of other MMOs that are pumped into the market. So you have to be "new" in some way. Do you think EQ could even get a foot into the door today? Let's even give it up to date graphics, do you think it could? By today's standards it's boring, it's static, it's limited.

So the bar gets higher and higher for new MMOs. The cost rises as well. VCs want their money back. And the share you can cut out of the cake gets smaller and smaller with more and more competition.

So we'll see a fair lot of "small" MMOs fold. Often within their first year. We'll have to watch subscriber numbers closer, and be prepared to jump ship in time when we notice the game fails. I mean, who wants to "waste" his time building a character that's gone soon?

Which bears the question, why don't we just play to have fun? I mean, like we used to? Aren't games meant to be, you know, fun?

Re:Correction

[LingNoi]

What rubbish, some of the first MMOs ever made, gemstone, Ultima Online, Meridian 59 (the first 3d mmo) are still going strong.

Everquest is almost 10 years old (1999) and that's still going strong.

Back up your baseless claims.

not vaporware, it's abandonware

[scotsghost]

And you people claim to be geeks. Here's the crux: Vaporware gets announced, but never released. Abandonware gets released and then abandoned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonware

Ranting about character support on Slashdot

[YttriumOxide]

BTW, what is it with /. and the rendering of apostrophes? Is it just me, or Firefox, or what?

If you type on a non QWERTY keyboard, such as most of those in Europe, there's a good chance you're using the "wrong" apostrophe. On my German keyboard here for example, there's the "real" apostrophe on shift # (just left of the enter key), as well as the backtick/foretick key beside ß (which also doesn't display correctly, like this - ÃY). Slashdot doesn't handle a great deal of characters that aren't standard ASCII, which includes the foretick (renders as Â). Oddly enough, the backtick renders fine - `. It's pretty common for people in Europe to type the foretick rather than an apostrophe character, because it's easier to reach and you don't have to press shift on most layouts, whereas for an apostrophe you do. It's still wrong though, and looks hideous in a lot of fonts, even when it does display correctly, so I'd advise training yourself against it. In the case of copy/paste (I noticed it happens for you when quoting), be careful that the characters you're pasting in are correct, as the simple act of copying from a webpage may mess things up depending on the clipboard system in use (I seem to have no problems here using English language MacOS X 10.4 with Firefox 3.0.3, but potentially different combinations may be an issue)

I notice the foretick I've typed here doesn't render the same as your "apostrophe" however, so I wonder if you're typing yet another different character. As you can see from this post, I've used a fair few "real" apostrophes and they all show fine.

Despite my claims about the foretick/whatever-else not looking right and that you shouldn't use them as apostrophe, I ALSO think Slashdot needs to hurry up and actually support all of these characters (I mean come on... Unicode is NOT hard), because it's REALLY annoying to have to type things like Köln, when I'd rather just type Köln (which renders here as as KÃln). There's a LOT of characters that don't show correctly:

• ä = Ã
• ö = Ã
• ü = ü
• è = Ã
• é = é
• € = â
• æ = æ
• ç = Ã
• ê = Ã
• ð = Ã
• ß = ÃY

And many many more...

(note that some of these characters are required to correctly spell ENGLISH words also... æ in Encyclopædia or loanwords that we don't really have any alternative for, such as façade... so it's not even a decent excuse for them to say that Slashdot is primarily English speaking.)

Owners of Dead Tech

[WED Fan]

That's easy. Buy the code from them. If it's not already owned by a parent company,

Usually it is owned and so mired in ownership issues that is would be useless if the "owner" wanted to release it.

I worked for a...da da daaaaaa...DOT COM and between EDS, who had an agreement with us, Washington Mutual, who was acting as our white label credit department, and venture capitalists in South Korea and Europe, our technology was so tied up in who actually owned it, no one could even claim the authority to shut down the web site. The company is gone, but the web site is still active hasn't been updated since 2001, and the host is still being paid by some financial shell organization who has received instructions to do otherwise. Why, because noone has clear legal authority to do so.

Now, can you imagine what happens to the servers and code of companies that go belly up and why most can't, even if they wanted to, open up the system, or at least provide a free license to operate servers without them?