Building the Sports MMO Genre

Kheldon writes to point out an interview with David Chang of GamesCampus about the up-and-coming sports MMO genre. He also talks about their efforts to bring older demographics into gaming. Quoting: "One of the things about the baseball game in particular that's so great is that there is a leveling component, not just to the team, but also to players. So you're exactly right in terms of the persistence. We want people to not just play a baseball game, but ... to grow their team and their players over time. So, there are things where if you win a game, that's how you gain experience points. If you win against a higher level opponent, you get more experience points; if you bottom feed and you take advantage of lower-level players, you don't get as much, and so on. There are a lot of MMO-type concepts in the game. If you're talking about individual players, if you hit a lot of homeruns, or if you steal a lot of bases, your power or your stealing stat will increase over each season."

Comments

Take a look at NBA 2k9 5v5

[GPLDAN]

Here is a Youtube of 2K Sports NBA 2009. Played online, 5v5:

http://nba-tube.com/nba-2k9-online-5v5-teamup-lakers-vs-rockets-4th-quarter/

I think you can see, it looks and feels like a real game on tv. I think if you made Football 11 v 11 - people would sign on and play OG. I really do. I would play Madden online 11 v 11 and just work on being the best pass rusher in the game. I think online sports, where all the players are played by real people is the "next big thing" in gaming. In Football, there could even be a slot for coach, and that person gets to pick the play called. Then you could have 12 v 12. Real flamewars between Coach and QB's who go off script. I think it would be extremely popular, although some selfish people would refuse to play unless they could QB, that's how it is in real life too. It's whatever works.