Hey, it's a link.The MI6 Marketing Conference, that takes place in San Francisco and concentrates on the business side of games development, featured a lengthy panel discussion about the MMO business modes
and the potential for growth that free-to-play games could have in the near future.
The most important speakers were Daniel James of Three Rings, creator of Puzzle Pirates, Andrew Sheppard of Outspark, the company that makes Fiesta, Min Kim of Nexon, developers of MapleStory and Craig Sherman, representing the virtual world Gaia.
Their main idea is that the business model of the MMO needs to change in the near future. Gaia's Craig Sherman stated that there are some 800 million teenagers that would like to take part in an on-line game, in a MMO, and that this number makes the apparent success of World of Warcraft, which is around the 10 million subscriber mark, seem like a low number. His original quote was: "There are 800 million teens in the world. That's not a success." A success, he thinks, would be to target an attract at least 10% of that 800 million population.
Min Kim declared: "There's a whole audience of tweens and teens out there who want to engage, but don't have access to plastic," and only the free-to-play business model can attract those gamers to on-line worlds and on-line games.
There seems to be a virtual (pun intended) agreement between the panelists that the MMO of the future needs to be free and incorporate as much social networking possibilities as it incorporates gameplay. Also it needs to be less time-intensive than the current MMO games, letting the player decide how much time he wants to put in and when he wants to play, rather than forcing a clear gaming schedule on him.
The MMO of the future also needs to be casual in that it allows easy access to the core gameplay mechanics and has a really low learning curve, unlike most of today's persistent on-line worlds.
I felt that the last two paragraphs were the most cringe-worthy.
First, in the case that Social networking should be as much of a focus as gameplay...whoever proposed that needs to be dragged out into the street and shot. The majority of MMOs are NOT story-heavy, and if they are, it's rarely ever found in the game itself. As such, they put a lot more focus on the gameplay. I don't want to see something that has as much social networking as it does gameplay, because I don't want a stupid teenage girl chatting me up telling me I'm "cute" while I'm trying to keep a mob-boss from violating my goddamn rectum!
As for a free MMO being a necessity...no. It hasn't worked to it's fullest possible extent, and I don't think it ever will. Guild Wars is crap. Exteel is good, but it gets revenue through having billboards literally everywhere.
And finally, I can't really see a low learning curve ever working. It will either drive away more experienced players who want something more in-depth, or they will have their characters maxed out quickly, over-shadowing the players who the curve was designed for.
It looks very much like they're trying to dumb-down gaming, simply to appeal to the "MySpace generation." Oddly, it's the kind of kids 've never been able to happily coexist with.
Well...that's my thoughts. Anyone else care to give it a whack?
I don't think 10% of the worlds teens even have a computer. More of them probably have AIDS. The people who play MMO's are the exact opposite of those on MySpace. Sterotypically speaking.
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