Nov
28

Minute Man

15 Comments

Usually bad ideas stick out like a sore thumb when you read them….very bad ideas hit you like a hammer. Like his brilliant piece right here:

One of the big successes was distributing the Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar for Turbine in Europe, which did particularly well in the UK and Germany. Under that deal, Turbine shares part of the monthly fee that users pay with Codemasters. Codemasters runs support for the game in Europe. With that infrastructure for online gaming set up, Cousens said the company will likely invest in more PC online games, which complement the console business. Codemasters might position itself to do maybe one MMO launch per year, he said. Internally developed projects are a long ways off.

One MMO per year eh? Suuuuuuuure you will. How many MMOs where supposed to be release this year? I lost track, but they were counted on one hand and I recall the second hand being used as well. All of them were delayed because of, say it with me now…. “polish”, yayyy. Each MMO takes 4-5 years to develop in the first place and are getting more and more expensive to produce with every “generation” that comes out. Codemasters could probably come close if they acquire enough companies that develop MMOs. Honestly, I don?t think there are not enough of those companies around right now to release one MMO per year for one publisher banner.

Let’s bring this idea to its ridiculous conclusion. Saying “one MMO per year” probably looks great on a piece of paper that you give to you investors…”OMG! We can make billions!”, but practically speaking, no publisher or developer would be successful at doing it. Big reason for that is because the market is not big enough for it (…yes, I still think the MMO market is not as big as everyone thinks….). Secondary reason is that if someone did decide to go “one MMO per year” that they would be watered down pieces of crap and the mighty ?polish? catch all would be awkwardly absent.

A statement like “one MMO per year” is very familiar to me? Oh, man…where have I heard that kind of statement before? Oh yeah….from here:

According to dot-com theory, an internet company’s survival depended on expanding its customer base as rapidly as possible, even if it produced large annual losses. The phrase “Get large or get lost” was the wisdom of the day.

Now, according to the Mercury News article, they are in a strong position so that much is fine…but man, “one MMO per year” certainly sounds like the expanding as rapidly as possible. This whole whack job theory of mine is left field, granted but I really can’t shake the feeling that the gaming industry is just getting into the “hay-day’s” of 1998-2000. It really, really looks and sounds familiar. The language used by gaming CEOs is the same. The press releases look the same…it’s just very bizarre being on the outside looking in on this one. Everyone seems to want to get onto the MMO train and the market just doesn?t look like it has the base to support it….yet. When ?they? do make statements about market plans everyone seems to point to WoW as an example of how “big it all is” and I still I really think WoW is an anomalous entity in the MMO world.

Of course, looks like a duck, walks like a duck…could be a platypus.

D out.

Posted in Editorial Links and News
15 Comments Posted by Darren

15 Responses to "Minute Man"

  • Lucifrank says:
    November 28, 2007 at 9:56 am

    “Codemasters might position itself to do maybe one MMO launch per year, he said.”

    “Heh heh. Okay, okay, let’s be serious now, fellas. Bwahahahaha!”

    I wonder if they’re factoring in that for every LoTRO there’s five times as many Gods & Heroes, Matrix Onlines, Imperators, Vanguards, and the newest orphan left on the doorstep by gypsies, STO. Maybe they’ll just put 100 monkeys behind laptops once Metaplace is unveiled and see what they can come up with…

  • Tom H. says:
    November 28, 2007 at 10:04 am

    I think you’re forgetting the Asian market? There are multiple additional MMO releases per year across Asia, and Acclaim seems to think there’s a business model in bringing them to North America. Also consider the non-AAA titles that have come out of France, etc.

  • From nerd to world domination, one great game at a time. « Hardcore Casual says:
    November 28, 2007 at 10:06 am

    [...] nerd to world domination, one great game at a time. Darren over at Common Sense Gamer had a bit of news today based on a quote from Codemasters, with the basis of it being that they [...]

  • Darren says:
    November 28, 2007 at 11:14 am

    Tom, not forgetting the Asian market but to date no Asian MMO has translated well to North America to date and it’ll be some time before they do figure out how to crack that cultural nut.

    …even the Asian players who literally kill themselves over these games would have a hard time handling that volume of game.

    Lucifranc also has a point which is buried in my article somewhere regarding the quality of of these games. Sure, McDonalds has 8 billion served, but I can get better burgers from someone who only serves 50.

  • SmakenDahed says:
    November 28, 2007 at 11:24 am

    I’m getting wary of the influx of MMOs. I’m currently only playing EQ2 and I intend to keep it that way for quite some time.

  • Thoms says:
    November 28, 2007 at 11:40 am

    Codemasters are not saying that they will make a new MMO every year. Just that they are positioning themselves to be able to handle publishing a MMO each year. I actually think we’ll see more of this kind of thing in the future. It makes sense to expand the scale of operations to publish more titles when your’re already managing datacenters, network, operations, community, support teams etc.

    Just look at Sony. Soon they will be handling 8 MMOs released over the last 8-9 years.

  • Darren says:
    November 28, 2007 at 11:45 am

    Yeah Thoms….I userstood the publishing thing.

    Good point about SOE, but here’s the question: How many of those MMOs will be good?

  • Thoms says:
    November 28, 2007 at 12:35 pm

    counterquestion: How many of SOEs are good? ;) (personally i have only a vague interest in 1 of them)

    With large scale of operations you dont necessarily need all of your MMOs to be a shining jewel to make money.

    I bet you could even make an “attractive pakage” with a good game, but then also include the bad games as filler. Then some customers will pay extra to have access to all of your content. COUGH_Station Access_COUGH

  • Nat says:
    November 28, 2007 at 12:57 pm

    I think one major thing to consider here is that we need to stop thinking of MMO?s in the way we do today. It seems that most people I hear talk about MMO?s seem to think only of NA and games like EQ2, WOW, etc.

    As pointed out above Asia produces MMO?s like rabbits on fertility pills. There the player base is expanding at such a rapid rate that it can support them.

    In the future not all MMO?s are going to be like the MMO?s we all talk about. They are not going to be these 5 years in development virtual worlds.

    You do bring up a good point about the apparent ?boom town? mentality around MMO?s however. I have long been a skeptic of the claims that WOW brought all these new players into the MMORPG space. Now I will concede that it did bring new players in (heck I know many people who never played MMORPG?s that play WOW) but I think the numbers are exaggerated quite a bit.

    WOW had what 3 million in NA and Europe at the high water mark. This was also at a time when most of the older MMORPG?s (SWG, EQ, DAoC and such) were loosing players at crazy rates (all going to WOW) and the only new MMORPG?s were sucking pond water (EQ2). I don?t think the western player base is that much bigger now than it was pre-WOW.

    As more people in the west get high speed internet and get online in general there is of course a much larger potential for the player base to expand but let?s be honest. Of all those people who get online how many are going to have rigs that can run a standard MMORPG? And of that percentage how many of them are going to play PC games over their 360 or PS3? I?m betting not many.

    This takes us back to Asia. The PC is still the platform of choice for gaming in China and Korea.

  • Aaron says:
    November 28, 2007 at 12:58 pm

    It will happen, eventually. At some point, “one MMO per year” won’t sound so crazy. But that’s years down the road, when the traditional MMO model is only one of many successful MMO models.

  • Kendricke says:
    November 28, 2007 at 6:22 pm

    How is this not smart? We’re not talking about internal development here – in fact, he states specifically that “internally developed projects are a long ways off.”

    Codemasters doesn’t have to develop the MMO’s we’re talking about here. They just have to pick one a year that they want to invest in for European distribution and/or upkeep. That’s a relatively minimal investment for a portion of all European subscription fees.

  • Kasil says:
    November 28, 2007 at 6:51 pm

    Darren,

    Interesting topic and discussion. I guess what I don’t understand is if we are in the middle of the MMO unjustified development frenzy why is this a bad thing? Personally I would think each and every MMO player would be thrilled. If you look at the internet craze we saw a tremendous development which resolved many of the problems with the technology and pushed the industry forward. Sure most of these companies ended up closing their doors/merging etc. but they pushed the industry forward and made the technology better and in the end the internet better. This is similar to how I see the MMO market today, most of the titles will never make a dime or possibly even release but they provide many other benefits. For example most of these games are developed using game development tools for various aspects of their game. These companies that are developing recklessly are still helping to fund these development tool vendors, which in the end helps push the industry forward. Additionally all of the people working on these games are learning how to develop online games thus providing a deeper talent pool. Lastly and probably more importantly the current frenzy is creating buzz outside of the MMO industry. Its educating more people on these games, bringing in more customer and growing the respect for the industry as both a valid entertainment source and industry.

    Seriously I think the only people that won’t benefit here are the VC’s that have spent foolishly without a solid business plan and they will be rewarded according to the level of their research which they put forth in the first place.

  • Darren says:
    November 28, 2007 at 6:59 pm

    Thats and interesting perspective Kasil…but remember that the dot com thingy did cause a bit of recession and really did not move the telecom industry forward by that much. You can still get the same cause and effect that you are describing by not going into a frenzy…it would just take a bit longer.

    Remember, I’m just wondering out loud as to whether people are really thinking about the MMO market or are just acting on it.

  • Sente says:
    November 28, 2007 at 7:01 pm

    Good point about SOE, but here?s the question: How many of those MMOs will be good?

    The question is rather, how many of the MMOGs will make money?

    Codemasters are already at more than one MMOG per year – RF Online, Archlord and LoTRO. They might not make much money on the first two, but could perhaps still be enough to cover the operational costs at least.
    NCSoft has 8 new MMOGs in the pipeline for the next 5-6 years, roughly. SOE published Vanguard this year, PoTBS beginning of next year, the Agency remains to be seen when it is released. Even without G&H they might also do one game per year.

  • Dathmar says:
    November 29, 2007 at 4:18 am

    When he says in the interview MMOs – he might not be meaning MMOs in the sense of MMORPGs… it might just be a large scale multiplayer game like football (Real Football) or motor racing…etc
    Also I have the feeling that they might pickup a few MMORPGs from other companies…
    Ryzom perhaps ? – they certainly couldn’t do that much worse than the previous companies running Ryzom – we might even get some development of the game this time.

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