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MMO' developers make bad businessmen
Violette
Member UncommonPosts: 119
Some of the MMO's that I know have suffered because of the devs' actions: Dark and Light, Wish, Anarchy Online, Star wars galaxies.
If anyone wants to add to the list, please do so.
I'm 100% positive there are exceptions, but the trend is ironic.
Why can't the devs just listen to their customers?? What the heck are they thinking? I'm sure the number one thing on their minds is how to make more money, but why can't they step back and assess the situation and realize not listening to their customers is stupid in the long run?
If anyone wants to add to the list, please do so.
I'm 100% positive there are exceptions, but the trend is ironic.
Why can't the devs just listen to their customers?? What the heck are they thinking? I'm sure the number one thing on their minds is how to make more money, but why can't they step back and assess the situation and realize not listening to their customers is stupid in the long run?
Comments
And here it is:
1. Back in ancient times (the 1970's lol) game DEVs, aka the programmers, were the buisnessmen. They not only made their own games, they financed them too. Since they were gamers first, they knew what their fans wanted, and listened to their gamer fans too.
One of the best examples, is THE most successfull computer game/computer game series in computer history. Ultima 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, and 9. Created by Richard Gariott (sp?) aka Lord British. There were others too, like Bard's Tale 1,2,3 and Phantasie 1,2, etc... Infiltrator 1,2 etc..
2. In the 1990's computer games started getting too expensive for game DEVs, aka the programmers, to finance with their own money. Sooo.... they started going to investors. Investors are not gamers first. Many are not gamers at all. A good example is EQ. Smeadly and McQuaid made EQ. Pitched it to SONY, to get SONY to invest in it. SONY smacked them upside the head and kicked them out of their CEO's office. UO (Ultima Online) came out and was a success. The same guys pitched EQ again. SONY invested in EQ. Ahhh.... there's more! Right before EQ was finnished, SONY pulled the plug. Smeadly and McQuaid were forced to leave SONY and make their own game company, and finnished EQ.
Sadly, they sold EQ back to SONY.
But back to the subject. The investors twice turned down EQ. EQ cost 5 million to make. And after 5 years of release, netted easily 200 million dollars. And that's just the game, not including the expansions. (Source: Article "The Sorcerer of Sony" in Buisness 2.0 magazine). When EQ was sold back to SONY, SONY paid roughly 30 million for it. Even with that, they still got an insane return.
3. It is the investors who are responsible for mmorpg flops, vaporware, bad ideas that should NOT have been released, and other messes. UXO, Mythica, UO2, AC2, and many, many, others. The most famous/infamous failure is Dawn. It is the investors who force the game DEVs to push mmorpgs out too soon before they are ready for release. It is the investors who pull the plug, or threaten to pull the plug, for whatever reasons come to their mind. One of the most famous game DEV posts is called "The Longest Post" by Raph Koster. After Lord British, he is the next most successful game DEV on the planet. Raph talkes about this subject a bit in that post of his. How no matter how great the ideas game DEVs have, how much they want to fine tune the game, test the game, add to the game, hold the game back, the investers decide when the game must come out.
AO is one of the most revolutionary mmorpgs ever made. It was released 1 year too early, and near-unplayable. Why? Because of the investors. Funcom was forced to close their American office. Why? Because of the investors putting greed before the game. Same story with cSWG/SWG. What is needed, are investors who are also gamers.
- Excellet reading for anyone intrested in mmorpgs:
Raph Koster's essays on computer gaming, and making computer games...
www.raphkoster.com/gaming/comments.shtml
- One of the most impressive presentations about mmorpgs:
www.raphkoster.com/gaming/pres.shtml
- One of the most impressive, detailed, articles published in the news media about mmorpgs:
www.timeinc.net/b2/web/articles/0,17863,514908,00.html
- I can't find "The Longest Post" made by Raph aka Holcron. Only sites that mention it. Maybe someone saved it and can re-post it?
starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/players/news_archive.vm
Listening to the customers is usually a BAD thing. Just look through some of the game forums. 95% of what is said is absolutely retarded ideas by the customers. Hell 90% of them are NERF NERF NERF NERF. So how do they decide WHICH customers to listen to?
One guy wants X class nerfed, other wants X class buffed. Which is right? Who should they listen to? Because the other guy is gonna come here and whine that devs dont listen.
The devs would get better tips from Charlie Manson.
The most important part of reading is reading between the lines.
The top secret project is listening to there community and its looking mighty strange to me...well see how it turns out.
Own, Mine, Defend, Attack, 24/7
Listening to your customers can work if you listen to the right ones, and know when to tell your customers in a polite way their ideas suck
Blizzard for example listens to their customers, but they listen to the minority of customers that post of the wow forums, and then they seem to base the content they add off the ones that whine the most on said forums
So in the end, it is really just You wanting game to be development in certain direction, while game desiners seem to go different direction. Some customers where happy, because the direction where it did go, was just what they wanted, while others starts wondering, does the development team listening at all.
So, it's not about they listening, it's about Your own expects and disappointments, when it isn't going like You wanted.
MMORPG.COM has worst forum editor ever exists
When you look at the bigger picture you will come to understand that its not the devs calling the shots. Developers are the bottom of the food chain. They sit at there decks writing code, go to brainstorming meeting on how to improve features and they make recomendations. The decisions made by somone that likely never launced the game in their lives or only as a demo to impress somone.
The vocal minority, ie the people on the forums. Do not accuratly represent what the silent majority want. This has been proven over and over in almost every game. SWG is a CLASSIC example of the devs listening to the vocal community only to anger the silent majority enough to leave. They did it over and over thinking they knew what the players wanted only to shoot them selvs over and over.
Asherons call did the same thing. Microsoft tried listening to the people on the forums only to have it back fire and they lost the majority of the player base eventually selling the game back to turbine.
The problem is how to effectivly communicate with the player base. There is no easy way as of yet. Everyone has their own agenda, Heals are too strong. that class is too powerfull, nerf this cause of that.
It never stops and every games its always the same.
There has to be a balance between the game vision, and the hard facts of capital investment and profit. Vanguard is a prime example. Big budget, but still way over budget without a successful polished release.
You cannot simply fault investors for rushing developers. You have to also fault developers for being overly ambitious. They have to be realistic about what they can produce in a given amount of time. Do you think investors will just pour money into a project endlessly, until it's finished?
Let's say you hired me to paint your house, and paid me for my work each day, and I told you it would take 3 days. But then I just need one more day. And onoe more day. And one more day. ..Two weeks later I'm only half finished. How long are you going to continue to write me checks?
Developers don't have to be good businessmen, but the DO need to be good project managers and finish a project on time. If you can't make a Vanguard sized world in the time limit you have a budget for, then make a half sized world, and half the content, races, quests, etc. all nicely polished, rather than the whole thing half finished and buggy.
Most of the games listed in the OP were made by inexperienced dev teams that were never capable of making the game they pitched to investors.
MMORPG Maker
Despite the number of games coming out these days, the market is still emerging. Compared to tradition pay then play games MMOs and in particular suscription based games are still extremely young.
By in large the traditional (non-mmo) game market has its established gamer centric developers already firmly set up with more joining year after year, They know what players want and most of the time give us what we want. MMO developers on the other hand are more transfixed with the technology and the sheer scope of the projects rather than delivering an engaging and deep experience.
We have seen in recent years the shift towards prioritising the following objectives:
That being said everyone has excelled more or less in one area but lacked severely in the other.
SWGs game worlds are truly large scale but not much 'highway' content in them, the game also lacked focus with broken professions, little bug fixing and a truly remarkbly poor customers service. Wow is an extremely well made game system with graphics not for everyone but very well done in any case. However the world zones are bland, not that they dont have things in them and are diverse, its that they are nothing more than a walk through slide show and dont feel like a true living and breathing world. Static springs to mind.
Everquest graphics, like them or hate them were a real jump forward. But ultimately at the cost of a vast array of features and refinement. Thats SOE i suppose. LOTRO for all its epic quests and very engaging content suffers from wow syndrome with static worlds, lack of truly distinct mini games and to be frank, nothing much there once you take off the gloss (i still play it though). City of Heroes was new, provided a unique at the time experience to be a super hero in a massive world however, wow syndrome again, static worlds lacking anything remotely natural about them and also a distinct lack of anything else non combat for that matter. Crafting in SWG really did set the bar and created an amazing player run world economy which really brought the game 'alive' however lacking in so many other areas ultimately doomed this game to failure.
End of the day, it seems there is much more to come from MMO developers. It wont be any time soon before developers get into the routine of knocking out these games without having to worry about graphics, bugs and such and instead focus on the truly suscription rolling features that you can spend lots of time getting use to, mastering and having fun with.
Hopefully in the next ten or so years we get games that arnt just large scale combat games with other people and lots of time sinks but truly massive living and breathing worlds where regardless of what you want to do that night of gaming, you can just log in and do it. Fight, explore, dance, crafting, set up your house, make friends or even go taking pictures of the trees in a forest to develope your horticultural skills hehe.
Dark and Light was amatuers who tried to hard to sound amazing for there little project. And ofcourse people got let down thinking it was a professional operation.
Games are becoming the medium to push technology and thus are amazingly expensive. The thing is, they arent movies. Games are still young and they change so much. Movies always have plots, and twists. We've been making them for a long time.
Video Games are different, and lots of people with money see the money being made but have no idea the complications that come with games as opposed to things like movies.
Its still young, and that is the most likely root of the problems. People still don't understand what the audience wants. Not to mention the audience grows and changes so fast is almost silly. Its getting better. Thing 2004 when people were pumping out mmorpgs like no tommorow and its all garbage.
A great example of the industry learning is Acclaim. They fell off the radar for a long time, but they've found that younger gamers seem to like asian games. Acclaims been eating up little asian games, and is doing quite well marketing to a younger audience. Look at Maple Story, its VERY sucessful with the 8-15 yearold area. LOTRO seems to capture lots of women. Im in a large guild and its crazy, we have atleast 10 women in the guild, which is somthing that took getting used to. (although I must admit, women in the late 30's seem to be a lot like 16 yearold boys :P)
EVE's attracted its audience. Generally the older audience, or more "complicated" people.
Companies are starting to get it right. Vanguard was butchered, but it looks like another example of trying to bite off more than you can chew. WoW has sort of become a safe spot. People like to compair games to it and WoW is a solid game. You cant get away with a buggy mess anymore, no matter the innovation. Sadly Vanguard didnt seem to get that, and Sony nailed the coffin for them.
If WAR manages to get all the bugs ironed out before release. It seems like it might be able to put itself in safely, but developers are catching on.
after 6 or so years, I had to change it a little...
I used to think that the management/marketing/finance people had too much say in running an MMORPG.
Then I saw EVE, and EVE showed me why we need a bit of detached managerial prudence in these games.
See, the one who is responsible to EVE, CCP, isn't a company filled with businessmen. In fact, this is a company who broke away from their publisher because they thought the publisher limited their creative mission. While we may think this is a good thing, it can become a very bad thing when the developers are given free reign to do what they want, whether it makes any sense or not.
CCP approaches EVE like a big party on behalf of themselves and their friends. Part of the problem with not responding to your game like a business is that you tend not to hold by any rules or standards for the sake of your customers. The developers tend to favor their friends, and not their customers. They tend to take criticisms too personally, and end up stifling the enjoyment of many who patron their service because the developers aren't willing to compromise their deeply held beliefs for the sake of what the subscribers need.
Right now, we have a crisis that only a game like EVE could allow to happen. Because CCP is not doing EVE for the money, they are willing to suffer any amount of ill will and accusations just to prove silly points. Silly points like allowing staff to pursue private guild interests alongside line subscribers. Silly points like trying to prove that cheating and deception marketed as "game features" makes the game better. What could be an enjoyable experience for the subscribers has turned into a validation of the developer's ego, enjoyment of the gamers notwithstanding.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE