Casual Games Quickly Transforming the MMO Market

An anonymous reader writes "Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick disclosed that their forthcoming, unnamed MMOG will have 'a little more broad appeal' than its market-leading MMO World of Warcraft. This is adding to speculation that the game might be free to play, since such games now take more in digital revenue than any other genre. In his GDC Austin keynote today, Sony Online Entertainment president Jon Smedley said, 'As a company, we knew we had to evolve ... to expand [our] audience ... and to get a much wider female audience.' The article notes that SOE hasn't abandoned hardcore MMOs, but his talk focused on Free Realms, SOE's free-to-play MMO that has grown to 5 million users in 5 months. Marketed to kids, 51% of Free Realms gamers are under 13, with around 75% under 18, who pose a challenge to attract and retain. Since they only play for about 20 minutes per session and aren't focused on the mechanics of the game, SOE can get away with changes that are unfair to some players, as shown by a recent, oddly-handled item nerf in Free Realms."

Comments

WoW was ruined

[acehole]

I used to play wow. I used to love it. I raided with my guild, did all the fun stuff. Got the rewards from putting the effort in and loved each moment of it. Then Blizzard started listening to the vocal minority crowd, the ones who wanted the rewards with no time put in. The ones who wanted to get the "Sword of OMGWTFBBQ" to kill boars in the forest and nothing more, they wanted to be shiny and wanted it now with no effort. That's when the game started to go down hill. When I first started raiding it would take weeks of running an instance before even getting close to finishing it but now... its hellokitty island adventure with a different skin. The biggest complaint I hear about people who quit now is "I'm sick of seeing everyone decked out in Epic gear." You know you've done wrong when even the 'casual' (and I use that term loosely) player base complains about it.

The casual player is a misnomer, there are people who identify themselves as this and refuse to raid but want the rewards yet they spend a lot more playing the game than most 'hardcore' raiders. Blizzard ruined the game about half way through BC and turned it basically into a game where you login and get teleported to your mail box (because walking is too much effort) to collect your epics.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you honestly that bitter about people doing "less work" to get "unearned" items as shiny as yours in an online game? Really?

Re:WoW was ruined

[johan_from_cape_town]

I somewhat understand your problem. But you see my problem - I have a full time job and a life. I also want to play WoW. So should I just always suck - never able to actually complete an instance? I don't think so. Maybe Blizzard should create "I don't have a job and my parents pay my way realms" (for people like you) and "I can only spend a couple of hours a week on a computer game" servers for people like me.

Re:WoW was ruined

[L4t3r4lu5]

Completely agree.

My biggest issue is:

- Without the gear, you cannot raid.
- Without raiding, you cannot get the gear.

How am I supposed to enjoy end-game content when I can't get into a group because my DPS is around 1k too low for these "elite" groups? I constantly see raids occurring with calls for "3000+dps" which is just unachievable without raid / heroic gear, and you can't get that without a significant time commitment that is just unachievable if you have any physical social interaction in evenings / weekends at all.

Re:WoW was ruined

[pHus10n]

Why does it matter if someone else gets an epic-quality item? Does it somehow strip you of your earned rewards? And why is it so wrong if a 12 year old kid wants to do *exactly that* and take his Sword of OMG to the forest and kill boars? If he's enjoying it, why do you care? How does it affect *you*?

You complain that it no longer takes weeks of running an instance to clear it. So I'm guessing that (prior to you quitting) you've cleared all the hard modes available to you in the first week? .... yup, I didn't think you did. There's no lack of challenge in the game if you want it. Many of the instances are tuned for casual play, so that nearly anyone who's interested can make reasonable progress, even if they don't fully understand the calculus involved in tank itemization (for example). On the other hand, hard modes and the new Heroic 10/25 versions of Coliseum allow those seeking extreme difficulty can have it --- and are rewarded for their efforts. As a matter of fact, at the time of this posting, there is exactly one (1) guild who has completed the "Earth, Wind, and Fire" achievement. It's *tough*, and ready for anyone who wants to meet the challenge.

Don't think I'm attacking you directly --- I'm not. I'm just tired of seeing this exact same argument passed around by forum trolls, who conveniently can't back it up with an Armory link.

Re:WoW was ruined

[DreamsAreOkToo]

To turn this into a theme...

I used to play World of Warcraft back when Stratholme was considered an impossible instance. Then suddenly guilds started figuring out this "raiding thing" and all of a sudden, some dumbass healer could get better items than me, because he had 39 other people to pick up his slack. That's when the game started going downhill. I quit and everyone else I knew started quitting and the biggest complaint I heard back then was "I'm sick of seeing some dumbass decked out in epic gear because he can farm gold all day and raid all night." I think the game was ruined sometime halfway through it's first year.

"Casual" is not a misnomer. Anyone who wants to play whenever they feel like it is "casual." Anyone who adheres to a schedule where they get penalized for tardiness is working a 2nd (or 1st) job.

tl;dr "Remember when WoW was good?" "WoW was never good."

Re:WoW was ruined

[Jurily]

So the real complaint is that in order for him to continue to be "better" than everyone else, he has to continue to raid to stay ahead of other people, since now it's fairly simple for anyone to catch up to the point he's already at.

Well, that's an inherent property of the level cap. After you reach it, there is no real distinction between you who have been there for a year, and me, who just got there. Nothing to prevent me from getting the same stuff you have without going through the same long process you have.

On the other hand, it's in Blizzard's enlightened self-interest to make sure the newcomers can almost catch up to the veterans. It keeps both groups going.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Thanshin]

its hellokitty island adventure with a different skin

Pure marketing. It'll never reach the degree of complexity and required skill you could have in HK:IA.

I'm talking about before the Breach brought the dark avatars and the kawaru fell upon the land, of course.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Arkham79]

So, I've heard this before, and used to be in the same boat. It's not true anymore - you can gear up to decent raid levels without going to raids now, especially with the recent instance additions. It'll take longer than if you were raiding the whole time, but it's not that difficult. You do have to run Heroic 5 man instances though - no way around that.

With the changes they have made to the instances though they are much, much easier to run these days than they used to be in BC. Do the daily heroic each day (30-50 minutes) and you will quickly get enough badges and rewards to be running in one of the entry level raids, keep it up and you can get well beyond the 3000 DPS you mentioned. It takes some patience if you don't have hours to devote to running instances, but one instance each day you can log in should be your first priority if gearing up is what you want to do.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Dhalka226]

I found your post somewhat insightful upon first reading, though I didn't necessarily agree with all of it. But as I re-read it, something started to bother me.

How am I supposed to enjoy end-game content [. . .] that is just unachievable if you have any physical social interaction in evenings / weekends at all.

If you don't have the time to run many heroics or raids to get your gear up, why do you expect to have time to run the end-game content? It's certainly not going to be any shorter. If you DO have time to do it, just not as much as the hardcore types, you can still experience it; it's just going to take longer.

For those who literally don't have the time to get to any piece of content while there are still players interested in doing it, I don't think the solution is to dumb the content down*, at least not while such content is still the highest tier of content available. I think those players are just out of luck. If that ruins their enjoyment of the game, well, there are a lot of games out there. They should find one that is less grindy so having less time for the game isn't as big of a penalty.

For what it's worth, I don't get as worked up about "ZOMG they hand out epics!" as others do. I measure my enjoyment of the game by, well, my enjoyment of the game. I just want to make forward progress, and that's independent of whether or not you or $HARDCORE_GAMER_X has made more or less progress than me.

* I do sort of like the 10 normal/10 hard mode/25 normal/25 hard mode distinctions. It seems like a relatively good compromise.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Narpak]

Why does it matter if someone else gets an epic-quality item? Does it somehow strip you of your earned rewards? And why is it so wrong if a 12 year old kid wants to do *exactly that* and take his Sword of OMG to the forest and kill boars? If he's enjoying it, why do you care? How does it affect *you*?

I agree. It would seem that for some waxing their epeen is way more important than actually co-operating with others and having a well run raid. For me getting a raid done fast, with no wipes, unnecessary deaths; while talking trash on vent was always the most enjoyable part. Gear was simply a means to an end; not the end itself. And pretty much without exception the people I talk to agree.

Now personally, as well as two close friends of mine, have been playing wow since the summer of 2005. After about six months of playing the game we started raiding MC, and later on BWL/AQ, then Kara, TK, Black Temple, and etc. Now myself dropped out of raiding after farming Black Temple (stopped playing all together until WOTLK arrived), since returning to the game I haven't really done anything but some 10 man and a few 25 man pugs in this new expansion; mostly I just stick to doing heroics and PvP. However everyone I talk to personally, both my two real life friends who have kept up the hardcore raiding, and those of my in-game friends that have dropped off and returned after prolonged hiatuses agree that the current state of the game is better and more enjoyable. This sentiment is mirrored, with very few exceptions, through the entire guild that I used to raid with. Raiding is more fun, gearing alts for raiding or PvP is less of a chore, the new instances are way better designed, daily quests makes acquiring coinage for repairs/consumables/enchants/gems less of a chore; basically the game feels, for those I have been talking to, more like an actual game. There are less people going emo (which seemed to have happened quite a lot more back when we were raiding 40 man instances and getting the gear you needed for the next step took ages and ages of repeated smacking your head against the wall until you were so full of piss and vinegar people went batshit for no apparent reason.

Obviously the changes to the game leaves some people longing for the good old glory days when men were men and everything was much better; but for the most part my personal experiences indicate a higher enjoyment level, more laughs, with most of the heated debate circling around just how much cooler Chuck Norris is than your mum.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Av8rjoker]

You are very much missing the point. People take pride in the smallest of things. It is all relative. I only used the Marines as an example.

Re:WoW was ruined

[jaraxle]

It affects you in PvP.

You spend months getting very powerful, and then suddenly people get just as powerful in only a few days. While you ruled PvP situations, and it took parties of 5 to kill you, now all of a sudden it only takes 1 or 2 people to kill you. This can ruin your fun if you PvP a lot.

Then maybe you're not as good at PvP as you think you are and were just relying on gear the entire time.

In a PvP MMO, the "equation" should really be Numbers > Skill > Gear. Basically, a large number of enemy players should be able to take you down when you're alone, a much better skilled player in similar (or slightly worse) gear should be able to take you down 1 on 1, and when you have two equally skilled players the one with the better gear should come out on top.

Sadly, WoW fubared this right up from the beginning and gear trumped everything so that even the worst players imaginable could dominate in PvP simply because they were capable of raiding the top end content and anyone solely interested in PvP were left by the wayside. The Honor System attempted to fix that, but ended up being an even worse grind than any raiding ever was, so you were still better off tackling PvE content in order to PvP (unless you really had nothing else to do than PvP all day every day for weeks on end, or share your account). I quit WoW around Arena Season 4 because I was getting sick of lesser skilled players able to just crush me and some close friends just because their top end epics were far better than our mix of blues and "welfare" epics (just for the record, during the Honor Grind, I was able to get the blue Warrior set and was able to 1v1 almost anyone who wasn't decked out in 100% BWL gear).

Quite frankly, if you find that now suddenly people can get epic gear who previously were unable to and they're trouncing you in PvP I say "Good". You never deserved to be king of the heap, requiring "parties of 5 to kill you" because you relied on gear and now that the field is evened out a bit and skill is more a determining factor, your ego has taken a hit. Call me bitter, call me a troll, but I know a lot of people would agree.

~jaraxle

Re:WoW was ruined

[Mr. Bad Example]

> Why does it matter if someone else gets an epic-quality item?

Because you can't entrust the Sword of a Thousand Truths to a noob.

Re:WoW was ruined

[jaraxle]

This is why I believe the item rarity system should never have been used to begin with. If item quality was based on comparing just the stats and benefits with no other measure (ie. name colour, level requirement) then I highly doubt so many people would have their panties in a knot over "casuals" getting similar quality gear.

~jaraxle

Re:WoW was ruined

[Mad Merlin]

Have you tried Game!? It meets your criteria and in fact, having a limited number of turns per day is built right in as a method of leveling the playing field.

Re:WoW was ruined

[MBGMorden]

With all due respect, this is the case for ANY organized activity. If you join a bowling league with your friends and you guys bowl on Wednesdays from 7 to 10 then that's time you set aside. If you join a band with some friends and you guys practice Mondays and Wednesdays from 6 to 8, and that's time you have set aside. If you have a weekly poker game on Saturday evenings then that's time you set aside.

Sticking one or two nights a week, even specific times, aside to take part in your hobby is nothing new. Guys with families have been doing it for ages now, and if you think sticking "on a computer!" behind the activity changes that then you're as naive as most modern patent clerks. It is completely possible to hold down a job, actually raid in WoW (not the hardcore 6 nights a week raiding, but there are plenty of groups out there that raid twice a week for 2 hours), and have a family that you're not neglecting.

Re:WoW was ruined

[amplt1337]

The difference is your bowling league doesn't have twenty-five people, with the whole night a bust if two of them don't show up. Or a hard limit that only ten people can be in it, and if you have three other friends who want to come along, they're shut out in the cold.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Hatta]

Maybe Blizzard should create "I don't have a job and my parents pay my way realms" (for people like you) and "I can only spend a couple of hours a week on a computer game" servers for people like me.

What's the difference between that, and you just playing something other than WoW? Seems to me that if you don't want to expend some effort to advance in the game, you don't really want to play WoW. You just want to do whatever it is all the cool kids are doing, and then complaining that it's too hard.

Think of it this way. Chess is a hard game, it takes a lot of effort to become good at it. If I decide I want to play chess, I don't ask people to change the rules so it's easier. I put in the time and effort it takes to become good at it. If I want something easy, I should play checkers instead. If WoW is too much of an investment for you, play something else.

Re:WoW was ruined

[An ominous Cow art]

Bilbo twinked Frodo with a unique epic ring, purple armor, and a purple sword.

Re:WoW was ruined

[DrgnDancer]

It also levels the playing field for newer players. The fact was, back in the day, if you hit 60 say... three months before BC came out, you were NEVER, EVER going to be able to raid. Since it took weeks of working with a good guild to get to beginning raid gear, and good guilds weren't going to take n00b 60's, you weren't going to be able to catch up. Ever. BC reset progression, but within six months or so it was reestablished, and people who hadn't made 70 within the first few months and had a guild to raid with, were again locked out of the end game content. This was the beginning of the badge and heroic instance gear. Suddenly if you were willing to do enough harder 5 mans you could at least get the beginnings of something that would take you to end game. Thus you started to see some casual guilds and even PuGs doing Kara and Grull.

Everything since then has refined this policy to make it so that even casual guilds can at least see what the inside of Ulduar or Trial of the Crusader looks like even if we'll never defeat 25 man Yogg on hard mode. I'm happy. I can play a few hours a day, a bit more on weekends, take a few days off here or there, and still get to see the end game content. Being Shiny isn't a huge deal for me, except as it puts me in position to play more aspects of the game. I may never have gotten to see MC or Sunwell Plateau when they were new, but I'll probably get to fight Arthas in Ice Crown. Maybe not the day the patch is released. Maybe not on 25 man hardmode. But I'll get to see the fight, before the expansion makes it obsolete.

Re:WoW was ruined

[drsquare]

Am I the only one amused at people thinking they're putting in effort and hard work by sitting at a keyboard playing one of the easiest games ever created, and only getting ahead of everyone else because they don't have anything else to do?

The whole point of WoW's success is that everyone can get to the top levels, do all the raids and get all the gear. Five years and twenty million sales later, poopsockers are still telling us how Blizzard got it all wrong.

Re:WoW was ruined

[DrVomact]

My biggest issue is: - Without the gear, you cannot raid. - Without raiding, you cannot get the gear. How am I supposed to enjoy end-game content when I can't get into a group because my DPS is around 1k too low for these "elite" groups?

I certainly know whereof you speak...I pretty much soloed my Warlock to level 80 in PvE. Then I had to find something else to do, so I thought I'd try raiding. I quickly found out that my DPS was dismally substandard for raid groups—if I even got into a group, I was quickly ejected —sometimes very rudely indeed. Words like "freeloader" and "parasite" were used to describe me.

Actually, I don't have any quarrel with these groups—though I wish they had been more polite; I wasn't trying to commit a crime, for crying out loud. As far as I'm concerned, a group is certainly free to set its own criteria for admission. I think the problem is really one of game design; it's a fundamental flaw that I first noticed in the later, degenerate days of Everquest, and it is this: DPS is everything.

I think the drift to DPS-centric game design is probably due to a couple of factors. First, it's relatively easy to design a game around this concept—it's just a matter of hit points and how much damage you allow players to inflict over time. Second, I think that a lot of players like it because it's so easily quantifiable. (And if you look, you will find web sites dedicated to the precise calculation of Damage Per Second for every WoW class that would put some dissertations on quantum physics to shame.)

To me, this is just awful. I want the game to be a fantasy in which I can vacation after a hard day of Reality[TM]; I want it to require skill, pluck, and quick thinking. I want to be part of a group of adventurers who have a sense of humor, and whose primary goal is to have fun. I don't want winning or losing to be a matter than can be calculated at all. That makes it work! (Can you just imagine a fantasy story in which the Noble Knight yells at the Damsel in Distress to shut up because he needs quiet while he works his PDA to compare his DPS to that of the dragon? "Sorry," he says after much brow-furrowing, "I'm just not geared for this. The dragon is gonna take me apart, so sit tight while I round up some higher tier armor, ok lady?")

As I said, I noticed this design drift back in my Everquest days. I started playing right when EQ (the first one, not that sorry waste of pixels, EQ2) first came out. I can truly say that some the most enjoyable recreational experiences I have ever had were in that game. I played a dark elf enchanter, and I'd picked that combo because it was supposed to be difficult. After the first couple of years, during which I had put a lot of energy into becoming a first rate crowd-control specialist, I gradually realized that nobody really needed crowd control anymore. During the early period of EQ, a crowd control specialist was just as essential to any adventuring group as a healer or a tank, because the game was designed to make "adds" just about inevitable in every fight. When adds happened, my chanter would hit them with a stun and a mezz, and I'd often be keeping 3 to 5 mobs staring blankly into space, waiting for their turn to be slaughtered. But then they jacked up the DPS of just about every melee class to the point where adds could be "off tanked" by a bard or pally or berserker, or anybody that wasn't wearing a nightshirt for armor.

This totally ruined the game for me. Sure, my guildies would have pity on me and let me come along (heck, they might need a dose of crack, and I could slow almost as good as a Shaman), but it was just charity. Plus, there were too many nights when there weren't enough guildies on, and I just couldn't get a group. Seeing as soloing a chanter in EQ was as much fun as walking a tightrope in a ice storm wearing greased turtles strapped to your feet instead of shoe

Wider Female Audience

[Anonymous Coward]

'As a company, we knew we had to evolve ... to expand [our] audience ... and to get a much wider female audience.'

OMG! Ponies MMO!

Re:Wider Female Audience

[Thanshin]

'As a company, we knew we had to evolve ... to expand [our] audience ... and to get a much wider female audience.'

OMG! Ponies MMO!

Nonono, it's "wider female, audience" not "wider, female audience".

So, OMG! Full blown shire horses! XMMO.

Re:Wider Female Audience

[L4t3r4lu5]

So, OMG! Full blown shire horses! XMMO.

The appropriate term is "Hipponies!"

Lies, damn lies, and my birthdate

[milosoftware]

I don't know about the rest of you, but i always make a point of lying through my teeth when it comes to online subscriptions to anything - especially a game. When asked, I'm a 12 year old redhaired girl living in Namibia.

Now back to their stats. How do they know 50% is 13 years or younger? Right. They ask for your birthdate. And then assume that you click the truth...

Re:Lies, damn lies, and my birthdate

[IBBoard]

Kids go the other way, though. Because of the US COPPA legislation my wife's website doesn't allow under-13s. What you find is that kids want to pretend to be older than they are, sign up as 15, 16, 17 or 18 year olds because they think it is cool (and they can get to stuff that they shouldn't).

Either that or kids don't have the imagination to lie like that, and most people can't be arsed either.

I end up the other way and just going "I'm over 18, so why do you need to know my DoB?" and proceed to just hit "end" on their day/month/year picker and end up somewhere in the region of 113 having been born on New Year's Eve!

!surprise

[wjh31]

c.f The effect that the wii has enabled on the casual games market.

Broad appeal

[Hognoxious]

Broad appeal ... that means they're marketing it to women?

Re:Pizza and promises

[elrous0]

It's kind of scary to even contemplate something with more broad appeal than WoW. It's sort of like a drug dealer announcing that Crack wasn't addictive enough, so he's working on a new "Super Crack."