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Cost of mmorpg's and future of PC gaming.
floppyface
Member Posts: 97
The figures of $8 million for EQ and $80 million to get WoW out the door are well known. But what is the figure of the costs for AoC and Warhammer?
With consoles dominating the gaming market more and more everyday the PC is being regulated to the mmorpg market and games that dont fit the console format.
A lot of people point out that one of the reasons of WoW's success is that it runs well on old PC's. Lets say 3 year old PC's. And since (most) people who own a pc also run windows/browser/email etc a 3 year old PC will run Windows XP and internet applications quite well there isnt much need to upgrade just for gaming.Now of course lots of hardcore gamers will upgrade to the latest video card/CPU with 4GB+ of RAM. But more and more this group of people are becoming a niche market. 10 years ago upgrading your PC just didn't mean better gaming, it meant drastically better windows performance. But to spend thousands of $$ for faster gaming and your email to open in 2 seconds instead of 4 is a big ask.
Now everyone keeps (mainly WoW haters) asking for the "next generation mmorpg" it would be logical that the next gen mmorpg requires the next gen of hardware to run it. And with ever the increasing production costs of developing an mmorpg, how can a more expensive next gen mmorpg - that requires next gen hardware to run - ever be successful?
From what I can gather from the mmorpg scene, people and developers want to make a "next gen mmorpg" that has develop costs equal or less to WoW's, to have have hardware requirement equal or less to WoW's but yet be "next gen" and have tons of new features and options that WoW doesnt have. Somehow that doesnt add up for me.
How can mmorpg's develop on a dying platform(PC)? Will mmropg's have to move to the next generation of consoles after the PS3 and XBOX 360?
Comments
Well, first of all hardware all already next generation and past that. Wow came ot in 2004, that was before multi core processors and on the GFX cards we seen 3 generation come since then.
The computers are ready for a next generation game, they have changed more now than they did in the 5 years between Wow and EQ.
If you only count graphics then there are already several games like LOTRO and AoC out there but just graphics isn't enough for a generation change.
It doesn't matter if the next gen will be a themepark or sandbox either. What matters is that the nextgen will have to be very different from what is out now and change the whole genre, like half life did for the FPS games.
Personally I think that the devs need to go back to the beginning, pen and paper RPGs and figure out what make them so fun, and then try to implement as much as possible of that into the MMO games. Too long have the development been just about combat, there are many other aspects of RPGs that MMOs either don't have at all.
Itt is true that MMO will come out to consoles too but it isn't a new things that the PC isn't the main thing for games. When I was a kid every gamer had a C-64, people playing on a PC were kinda wierd.
Then came the Amiga. After that we had the Playstation...
PC gaming have always been there but it costs money to have a good PC, PC gamings big years was from the mid 90s to now, that is relativly few years and consoles have always been fighting for the same thing. Who knows what the future will give us? Heck, Mac might come as the big gaming computer, nobody knows.
What we do know is that PC games will still be around, I have always prefered a real computer before a console since I do everything on it from watching TV, write stuff to game. A console is cheaper but even if Sony and Microsoft tried to make their consoles like a PC they failed that.
But it is likely that many of the future MMOs will come out both on PC and consoles, this will affect the games, but if it is for the better or worse, who can tell? I actually think there are things 'MMOs can learn from console games, one way or another they will need to change or the genre will very sloly die out like the platform games have. While there still are a few left there was a time when most games was for platforms.
Anyways the future will be intresting, I wouldn't mind working on a next gen MMO myself
I'm a hardware geek, but even I had to put a stop in upgrading every 2 years. When game devs and Microsoft; Nvidia; Creative and Intel started bank rolling games, it got crazy with the system requirements -- games like F.E.A.R. and BF2142 at the time of their release demanded more than a better proc and GPU and EAX enabled soundcards, they needed more memory; larger pagefiles and even better I/O to perform without stuttering.
One thing is for sure, if the economy isn't better in a year, devs don't have to worry about gamers upgrading their rigs -- there won't be enough money to even buy their games!
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
I'd love to be a console gamer; not having to worry about hardware incompatabilities or whether one element of my machine is up to scratch when new products are released. Unfortunately, none of the console makers seem inclined to embrace the old keyboard+mouse and I really, really hate console controllers.
I wouldn't say that PC gaming is a dying market though; I mean I can definately see it becoming more and more "niche" as the next-generation consoles continue to push the boundaries of their limitations.
I'm sure it won't be long before MMOs make it into the console mainstream and if it's good enough, (and the consoles get a less restrictive human/computer interface medium) then I'll be more than happy to make the switch.
I know there's a tendancy for PC gamers to look down on consoles as being "dumbed down", but the way technology is progressing and consoles are being fleshed out with components like hard-drives and internet access, I can see a day when a console is produced that is essentially just a PC but with standardized hardware (it would only benefit game developers not to have to worry about hardware incompatabilities) with no crappy OS (I'd kill to get rid of windows!).
That.. would be a good day.
WoW was only $80 million? I thought it was like $200 million (which always made me wonder why they used that 10 year old engine). Tabula Rasa was rumoured to have $100 million, Aion is well over the $100 million mark.
The mmo budgets are only bloated for PVE quest driven games. This is because the majority of the cost goes into making content. However, this isn't true for other markets of mmos as some are still sub $1 million or can be made by an indy group with a shoe string budget.
NCSoft has currently hit the ceiling on budgets for a game. As you may have heard NCSoft dropped budgets on small mmos in development and unprofitable mmos. Instead they put all thier money into thier Big 3 mmos. Aion, Guild Wars 2, and Blade & Soul. Each one with a starting budget of $250 million.
If you remember, when WoW was released it wasn't released for low end systems. The typical system at the time had a P4, and 512MB of DDR Ram. Usually, the average person had to upgrade thier video card and up to 1GB of ram to play WoW at reasonable framerates. A $200 investment at the time. Not to mention $50/month for a descent connection. I think its reasonable to set your settings at a minimum of Dual core 2.4GHz, 2GB Ram, and 256MB Videocard with Shader 3.0.
I think that AoC was released too early. Everything in the game had a complete 3.0 shader on it. This will bog down a system with the calculations and 3x the texture maps. If you look at AION, not everything has a full shader on it. Only characters and key environment objects use Normal Maps. It is possible to fake normal maps only using a diffuse map. This would probably be the best approach given the current PC market. Right now for mmos you have to select what you want to be normal mapped, you can't take the all or nothing approach.
They can always use "baked" graphics for shadows (not for animated and moving objects). EIDOS Commandos series used it, and it looked pretty darn good. Rather have the baked variety than no shadows at all.
Normal maps aren't much of an issue (e.g., F.E.A.R. had everything with 3 materials, too) -- IF they sectored the zones well and heavily use mipmaps (no less than 5 per material).
The real problem is the engines of too many MMOs are just plain poorly optimized.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
Blizzard puts 99% of the money into advertising, there is not much money left for the game itself. Every second ad on german tv is about wow, its a little bit exaggerated.
It's simple economics.
It costs a lot to keep your gaming PC up to snuff for new releases compared to your hardware costs for consoles. With a console you buy it and you keep it for 3-4 years. No hardware upgrades at all required. A PC you have to upgrade at least once a year, and for enthusiasts probably twice a year, to keep up with ever increasing system requirements to run new games. Many of us are enthusiasts and sort of think this is normal -- but it really isn't. The vast majority of people are not interested in upgrading their PC every two years, never mind every six months. So these people just give up on PC games and play their consoles.
The one MMO maker who saw through this was Blizzard with WoW. By dumbing down pixel counts, they expanded their market way beyond "core PC gamers", because at least beginning in 2005-2006, when the game really began to explode in numbers, most people did not need to upgrade anything in their PC to play the game just fine. That was hugely different to virtually any other PC game, and fueled the tremendous growth of the game.
But WOW is an anamoly. Most PC gamers want ever better graphics, which means ever better hardware -- which also means an ever shrinking market compared to console games.
Gameplay is the key to any game. How else can you explain the success of games such as Counter-Strike, Quake III, and Diablo II for such an extended period. Graphics are an overhyped accessory to gameplay. The majority of PC gamers do not own a $3,000 rig and constantly update it. Any smart developer would realize this and develop games that could run on a wide range of setups.
And as far as consoles go, give me a mouse and keyboard and i'll never touch a PC for gaming again.
first off go play on a console then, and second developers high performance games because there trying to market to people with good gaming PCs, most people that play MMOs have a good rig because there dedicated gamers.
I approve of (and second) this statement.
Frankly I'm amazed that no console has gone down the route of fully supporting a K+M control setup. My PS3 has USB ports; I can plug a keyboard and mouse into it, but still can't use them to play games. Just baffling.
There's probably some highbrow and crippling hardware reason why consoles can't be controlled by K+M.
I approve of (and second) this statement.
Frankly I'm amazed that no console has gone down the route of fully supporting a K+M control setup. My PS3 has USB ports; I can plug a keyboard and mouse into it, but still can't use them to play games. Just baffling.
There's probably some highbrow and crippling hardware reason why consoles can't be controlled by K+M.
yeah the 360 has usb ports also and still nothing. The best they have is a keyboard that can plug into the paddle but its as small as like a cell phone keyboard.
The cost for the hardcore is going up and the casuals is going down. When they all switch over to the no subscription Micro Transaction business model obviously the hardcore will want everything and they'll be putting out lots of money where as the casual wont care and get to play for free.
I approve of (and second) this statement.
Frankly I'm amazed that no console has gone down the route of fully supporting a K+M control setup. My PS3 has USB ports; I can plug a keyboard and mouse into it, but still can't use them to play games. Just baffling.
There's probably some highbrow and crippling hardware reason why consoles can't be controlled by K+M.
yeah the 360 has usb ports also and still nothing. The best they have is a keyboard that can plug into the paddle but its as small as like a cell phone keyboard.
I play on PC's because I enjoy upgrading my hardware and constantly customizing my rig. I enjoy being able to play at higher resolutions and framerate and all the customization we get on this platform. I also enjoy the times when a game doesn't run properly and I have to get it to work like with GTA4, trying to find out how to get the max performance outta it.
you were never a hardware geek! every 2 years? GTFO i upgrade every 6 months, and i still dont piss away the amount of $ console gamers do on buying new release games and trading them in etc. (thank god for piracy)
crazy sysytem requirements? look if performance is what you are after you are NEVER stupid enough to think the bare minimum will get you by.
larger page file...wtf, if you are using a page file since XP you dont know wtf you are talking about because hard core means running without one.
tech nuts say cessor, not proc...proc is a term used for stupid mmos that have attacks that happen at certain intervals.
i dont know what the goal was but if it wasnt looking like you have no clue wtf you are talking about you failed.
the only place pc's suffer anymore is platformers..even fighting games are easily beaten vs. console counterparts by mugen. the best console games come to pc eventually anyways (gears, MGS, halo, GTA..i could go on all day).to me its the consoles whos days are numbered..or do you play a whole lot of mmorpg's or rts games on consoles...
all silly shit, just dont take the post i quoted seriously, plainly a kid who thinks his 360 can outperform my pc...and THAT my friends is just stupid.
Can someone translate this screed? It looks like a "I-know-better-than-you" type post, but the dude messed the delivery pretty bad.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
I approve of (and second) this statement.
Frankly I'm amazed that no console has gone down the route of fully supporting a K+M control setup. My PS3 has USB ports; I can plug a keyboard and mouse into it, but still can't use them to play games. Just baffling.
There's probably some highbrow and crippling hardware reason why consoles can't be controlled by K+M.
yeah the 360 has usb ports also and still nothing. The best they have is a keyboard that can plug into the paddle but its as small as like a cell phone keyboard.
I play on PC's because I enjoy upgrading my hardware and constantly customizing my rig. I enjoy being able to play at higher resolutions and framerate and all the customization we get on this platform. I also enjoy the times when a game doesn't run properly and I have to get it to work like with GTA4, trying to find out how to get the max performance outta it.
yeah same here, its such a good feeling to get a new computer part in the mail and put in your computer.
there's not a realy strong coorilation between budget on a game and the system requirements.
When WoW came out I could play it fine on a 18 month old laptop that was mid-range when I bought it. WoW was marketed to people with older PC's. I used to have to upgrade my PC to keep up with Everquest expansions.
you were never a hardware geek! every 2 years? GTFO i upgrade every 6 months, and i still dont piss away the amount of $ console gamers do on buying new release games and trading them in etc. (thank god for piracy)
crazy sysytem requirements? look if performance is what you are after you are NEVER stupid enough to think the bare minimum will get you by.
larger page file...wtf, if you are using a page file since XP you dont know wtf you are talking about because hard core means running without one.
tech nuts say cessor, not proc...proc is a term used for stupid mmos that have attacks that happen at certain intervals.
i dont know what the goal was but if it wasnt looking like you have no clue wtf you are talking about you failed.
the only place pc's suffer anymore is platformers..even fighting games are easily beaten vs. console counterparts by mugen. the best console games come to pc eventually anyways (gears, MGS, halo, GTA..i could go on all day).to me its the consoles whos days are numbered..or do you play a whole lot of mmorpg's or rts games on consoles...
all silly shit, just dont take the post i quoted seriously, plainly a kid who thinks his 360 can outperform my pc...and THAT my friends is just stupid.
1. Your a PC guy who is ranting because someone advocates a console over PC. (an opinion)
2. He never said HIS 360 can out perform YOUR (or anyone elses) Pc....
3. What costs more? Upgrading hardware every 6-12 months and buying games (but you pirate them); or buying a console every 3 years and games. hmmm
4. You sound like an ass clown.
you were never a hardware geek! every 2 years? GTFO i upgrade every 6 months, and i still dont piss away the amount of $ console gamers do on buying new release games and trading them in etc. (thank god for piracy)
crazy sysytem requirements? look if performance is what you are after you are NEVER stupid enough to think the bare minimum will get you by.
larger page file...wtf, if you are using a page file since XP you dont know wtf you are talking about because hard core means running without one.
tech nuts say cessor, not proc...proc is a term used for stupid mmos that have attacks that happen at certain intervals.
i dont know what the goal was but if it wasnt looking like you have no clue wtf you are talking about you failed.
the only place pc's suffer anymore is platformers..even fighting games are easily beaten vs. console counterparts by mugen. the best console games come to pc eventually anyways (gears, MGS, halo, GTA..i could go on all day).to me its the consoles whos days are numbered..or do you play a whole lot of mmorpg's or rts games on consoles...
all silly shit, just dont take the post i quoted seriously, plainly a kid who thinks his 360 can outperform my pc...and THAT my friends is just stupid.
1. Your a PC guy who is ranting because someone advocates a console over PC. (an opinion)
2. He never said HIS 360 can out perform YOUR (or anyone elses) Pc....
3. What costs more? Upgrading hardware every 6-12 months and buying games (but you pirate them); or buying a console every 3 years and games. hmmm
4. You sound like an ass clown.
well he didnt say that it was 100% better, he was just stating his opinion so your the one that just made yourself look dumb.
no, not when you rant and rave like that.... that was far more than an opinion.
Where on earth did you get that fabricated 80 million for WOW?first of all i know they have an inept staff of over 300 to waste money on ,but even the WORST developer in history could not waste that kind of cash on WOW.That looks like the number i saw awhile back for maintaining there thousands of servers.
No matter the topic of "Future of PC gaming " is a disturbing one.
The biggest game seller in my city has removed all there PC sales EXCEPT one,you got it WOW.So now the other games have ZERO CHANCE of making sales and will increases the WOW bandwagon.
So i trip over to the NEXT biggest seller Future Shop and guess what,a whole rack dedicated to WOW.Then you are lucky to even find another game,sure they had a few copies of the latest releases like LOTR xp and Warhammer but that was about it.
I was looking for a copy of AOC,so now the two biggest game sellers in the province do not even market the game.AOC has become a direct d/l or you have to find it under Microsoft's game for windows.
Even more disturbing was that some of the other titles there was ONE copy.Now do you think for a moment when the kids go looking for a game they are going to be able to play together with just one copy?So there goes all the other games chances of making a sale.
So i think it is quite obvious as to why WOW continues to grow and the other games are all failing.MASS MARKETING.
EB games are the big guy,they are world wide.They ONLY want to deal with overhead they feel will sell massively.Pretty darn sad when they have totally eliminated PC games from there store ,except for WOW,so ONLY one game has a chance of selling in my city now,the rest are toast.What makes the whole thing a joke ,is that do you think the miniscule 2 mil NA subs are going to make a big impact across all of NA sales,no way,they won't even notice it.Thing is kids tend to play CONSOLE games,so this is the direction they have chosen for there stock/overhead.
The other point of the topic "How can next gen be successful?"EASY,it is the same concept for PC sales.It is like saying why make faster chips,bigger screens,if nobody is buying them.The fact is that there IS a market out there for the next gen of Hardware and Software.It does not cost really in thoery anymore to make a high quality game than it does a piece of garbag.The problems lately were surrounding VISTA and the fact developers could NOT code or work with VISTA because of lack of knowledge.
I think we may see a rebound when windows 7 comes out,but it will take a year after that before we see results.W7 is still working the same as the Vista framework,so Developers had better start getting there act together.I know Square Enix is full bore towards DX10 and even Funcom was implementing it into AOC,other than that,the other develoeprs are lazy and falling behind.
BTW ,so you know how meaningless WOW's NA numbers are,i play a browser based web game,that has just as many subs lmao.Blizzard just likes to continually throw there OVERALL numbers at people to try and brainwash the people who can't think for themselves,and that is MANY !
As to the OP other query on PS3 and Xbox,most developers agree the PS3 is a VERY powerful platform capable of keeping up with the PC,if they choose to do so in there Software developed games.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Part of the problem with alot of these gaming companies is the first thing they do when they start development is get al lthe programmers 5000 dollar PCs with all the very best hardware they can get....... Then when teh game is almost finished they wonder why none of us can run their game very well....ALso where does all this money go?? 100 million for tabula rasa? I never know what to beleive I always hear different amounts and usually they are way apart......
As for PC gaming though the companies need to start making better decisions.......Almost everyone I know has a mediocre PC except for myself and a couple other tech savvy friends.......Most of my friends are cost conscious and to them a PC that costs 1000 is jsut as good as one that costs 3000......Most of them dont understand RAM, Gigs, hard drive, or any of that.....They just ask if the PC can store their pictures and play their music.......What game makers should do is tune their games for the average PC you would buy at best buy...... The average consumer is eitehr buying his PC somewhere liek that or ordering a basic PC from somewhere like Dell........Very very few are custom ordering gaming PCs that run a couple thousand dollars more.........Most PC owners i know can run WoW, I only know a couple that can run games like AoC, EQ2, War, etc etc.......
well knowing info like that is part of being a PC gamer.
Not sure what your saying but:
The cost to run Wow is staggering, it cost over $200 million, not counting developmental costs.
Blame Gamestop, with their acquisition of EB Games they have pretty much stopped carrying PC games aside from bit titles, Wal-Mart (who sells way more video games than EB games) has a bigger selection.Your whole argument against newer hardware and Windows 7 is a bit... flawed as well. Following moore's law, hardware speeds increase at a steady speed, allowing people to purchase hardware and get a decent life out of it before a faster one appears. As for Windows Vista and 7, thats only part of the problem. Windows Vista was plagued by undocumented changes such as file paths and API changes as well as Directx 10/10.1, as well as the close release of Directx 11.
One of the solutions would be to pick a platform not plagued by things such as this, for instance; Linux. Linux is scalable, and also has the benefit of being open source, which allows developers to easily code using well-documented APIs.
Really the only problem with MMOs is design, marketing, and the very platform they're designed for. Not sure wtf you are talking about in terms of consoles, the PS3 and WoW's subscription numbers. >.>
There are a number of reasons consoles outsell PC's. The perceived entry price point of a console has resulted in fairly large distribution. Developers prefer developing for consoles because even a *bad* console title will ship 500,000 units. Where as it takes a phenominal PC title to ship that many units. You have to work out in your head the difference between MMO development and regular game development.
Regular, "non" mmo games, the more traditional ones, usually have a 1-2 year development cycle and cost 8-12 million dollars. Building these is almost formulaic for the big game giants. They know how many people to put on them, they can get a game out the door in the required time frame. MMO's are very different, PvE mmo's end up requiring huge teams and outsourcing to get all the art and content in, take 3-5 years to develop and yes, recently have started to cost upwards of $40-50 million. A brief run down of some known dev costs:
Everquest: $8-12 million
Everquest II: $25-35 million
World of Warcraft: $75million +
Tabula Rasa: $40 million
Star Wars Galaxies: $25 million
Aion: $60 million
Vanguard: $45 million (cost Sony $8 million to buy however)
However, the returns on an MMO justify the costs. If you can get a successful one, with even 300k subscribers out the door, you can make your money back over the long haul. It's still incredibly risky though. At $45 million dollars, ending up with a 100k subscriber game will result in near financial disaster despite the fact that 100k subs is a midling to good sub number for your basic MMO. Yes, if you want to go head to head with WoW you'll need millions, but not much can compete with that juggernaught for a number of reasons outside the scope of this thread.
That said, there are some trends people need to be aware of. You can get a VERY good gaming PC for about $600 (see www.Tomshardware.com for low cost gaming rig specs). You can get respectable gaming laptops (laptops are beating desktops in sales) for $1350 from expensive stores like Best Buy, even cheaper if you shop around. And the prices are falling fast.
Combine that with the fact that the cost of consoles is increasing. Minimum cost to really enjoy a current modern console is $650+. Even the Wii. Why? Because the accessory market is being run like toner for printers. Sure, a Wii is only $250. But Wii games are best enjoyed with friend, it'll be another $150 in controllers to have enough just to play party games. The other consoles suffer the same problem and a PS3 will really set you back. The prices are going up every generation while the PC prices are falling every 6 months. In the next decade or so you're going to see PC's and consoles converging to some degree. This is a "good thing" for the gamers in the long run, but right now, yes, it's hard to be a die hard PC gamer.
MMO's are the way of the future for PC's. They're just designed in ways that make console inputs less feasible (20-30 hotkeys needed to play, keybaord/mouse control schemes and text chat still the standard). Subscription based games generate more long term revenue, even if they are micro-payment designed. They justify the longer dev cycles etc.
Gaming for the PC is not dying because of things like Vista. Vista frankly is the most game worthy microsoft OS yet. With smooth support for 64-bit, allowing large amounts of RAM and excellent driver coverage from all major manufacturers. Yes Microsoft made some blunders with the DX10 switch and tech changes but in the long run they are the right changes. It is not *harder* to develop games for Vista, any modern Windows XP game will run on Vista even without the "Games for Windows" tag. And for those that thing the "Games for Windows" tag slows down Devs, it is significantly less restrictive than Nintendo or Sony's certification process.
The reason stores carry less PC product is because, frankly, there are more console title sales per month by an order of magnitude than PC sales. It's not because the games are better, it's a distribution, pyschology and menatlity. It's a no brainer that most people see gaming as a living room hobby, loafed on a couch with a controller in their hands (Thanks Atari Generation!). It's also a no brainer that more people have a viable console in their house than a computer (I've helped friends that are still running Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 machines for e-mail and web browsing). This will change with time. Computers, especially desktops, are becoming commodity items. There are machines at Best Buy that cost $500, with a $100 video card thrown in they'll be able to play most games on reasonable resolutions.
You still have the issue of some developers (cough Crysis) over developing their games. When your game engine requires a $1400 gaming rig to enjoy, you're narrowing your target market too much. More developers need to learn from Blizzard -> gameplay trumps graphics and you can still do great graphics with less tech. But even this argument is getting old. Age of Conan shipped a TON of copies up front and arguably has one of the most demanding MMO graphics engines on the market. It didn't die out for it's graphics or peoples inability to run them. Conversly, Warhammer had less than modern graphics engine and ran like poo for a lot of people.
Wow, I ramble, but food for thought. enjoy the wall o' text