The major problem I see with the F2P and P2P is the recession which is world wide and affecting millions of players who play MMO's.
With our technology increasing every year and with less and less money to spend, we are going to get to the point where those players who have money to spend will be abled to afford the high costs of getting new systems to play on MMO's requiring those systems.
Take Star Trek Online of example, it is slated for release sometime in 2012 and yet even though they claim that it would run on low end systems, lot of the postings on the STO forums from the Devs and Beta Testers gives the impression that STO will only run on high end systems that is fast, powerful and most likely costs several thousands of dollars. This is bad news in a recession, if we are still in a recession or even a depression in 2012 then majority will not be abled to play STO, only those who are rich or can afford to spend the thousands of dollars to upgrade will be abled to play the obviously graphical instensive MMO like STO.
Is Free to Play the wave of the future? In a recession, I think IMHO that majority of players would rather play a Free to Play MMO then a Pay to Play in order to save money. For those who live here in North America, do not realize that with the VAT in the UK/EU playing a internet game like a MMO is slightly more expensive then playing a Pay to Play MMO here in North America.
And there is the Development Community, which is a very small community and access to this community is shrinking at a alarming rate. They are not getting enough graduates from colleges due to the recession which is sad. A local college not far from where I live recently dropped some of thier computer programs including several in Game Design and Development due to lack of funding from the state and federal government due to budget cuts as the result of the current recession. So it is bad all around.
Big Game Development/Publisher companies like Electronic Arts, Sony Online Entertainment, Blizzard, and Lucas Arts Entertainment mostly will be abled to survive the recession. So one should not be suprised to see news of Mythic Entertainment and Bioware getting themselves merged with EA. They did it to survive the recession since money is tight. Unfortantly smaller companies like NetDevil may end up scrapping Jump Gate Evolution due to lack of funding due to the recession.
Pay to Play MMO's like Warcraft Online that has been here for more then 4 years and have millions of subscribers world wide will most likely be here when or if the recession ends provided the value of money does not drop or we have a depression our hands. Internet Access costs $$$. The one danger that every MMO free to play and pay to play company is fearful of is the that cost of Internet access could raise to the point that players will be forced to cancel thier accounts due to not being abled to afford internet access. This could happend, do not be shocked and suprised if this does happen.
Technology cost money
Game Development cost money
Computers cost money
Upgrading computer systems cost money
Accessing the internet cost money
Game Servers cost money and this includes upgrading servers and what not.
Employees and other support persons costs money. (Do you honestly think these game devs work for FREE?).
State, Federal, International Taxes including Internet Fees, Including VAT fees if your game is overseas or you have subscribers overseas (not many are aware but Blizzard for example has to pay the VAT fee due to having servers in the UK/EU).
Every business that does game development looks at all those factors and decides how much they can afford to invest and the investors they get to invest in thier MMO also takes into consideration if the money the invest will they be abled to get it back. They also look at the system requirements that thier game can be run on at the minium or what the average player users. Not everyone is the same, if they make thier game too high end they lose at least 80% of potential subscribers. If they make thier games in such as well to run on low end systems with crappy graphics they stand to lose higher percentage as well. So it is a lose + lose situation. They are between a rock and a hard place and this world wide recession makes it even harder and with lot of media attention and from government economic sources stating we may be into the recession into the 2020's things look very bleak for the Online Game Industry.
It all boils down to money...... There is not enough to go around.
Good article. Funny that it mirrors an academic paper I wrote on the subject of MMO success in which I found the top 3 points of success are:
Low system requirements
Accesibility
Game polish
In that order. Interestingly enough it seems that developers are still not catching onto this or at least not onto every aspect here. Prime examples of failing to meet these criteria can be seen in Age of Conan and Vanguard which completely failed in this regard upon launch and in a post World of Warcraft space its impossible to get away with such obvious mistakes. Excellent article and good to see I am not alone in making this assumptions.
...Ive been floating around playing alot of the free mmos. Ruins of magic or what ever SUX!! Terrible Game play. Alot of mmo's just seem like re-skins with Different game play. like the company Aeria. Every game is a Re-skin. uh Titan online Is an oriental based WoW. Also wow is Technically free on a free server. . I am still a HUGE everquest fan. I think that sony should delete the whole thing and remake it with the same lore and all the such much. the game just needs to in general be completely re-hashed. Now I have played ALOT of the free mmo's. Currently my two favs are. Fiesta for the cartoony anime style fun stuff. An PWI (Perfect World Int.). I mean the Game all together is like 2 gigs. Its not system intesive. The graphics and character creation stand up with vanguard. the game runs smoothly with out troubles on full graphics and my video card is still a PCI. gameplay is Amazing there is always something to do at all levels and its not always leveling. The race/Class options are a little limited. But it makes for Better RPing. I love this game. so do the many Ive converted from WoW to it already. I would highly suggest it for the free mmo's.
I play Heavens tear.
yorkshire 30 Barb.
Honostely if this game gameplay and graphics don't do it for you as a free game. Go play a MuD. Which I also play. :P
I agree whole heartedly man. People who can't run or play your game arn't going to buy it. People are not going to pay 500-1000 bucks everytime a new MMO comes out just to play it. Couple that with the fact that every configuration is different and you see why consoles are doing better than the PC. It's not piracy it's barriers to entry. Give me SW:TOR that will play (at over 15fps) and look nice on a $500 laptop and you have a winner. If it only runs at 15fps on with 4gb of ram and a quad core processor... well.. .you'll sell 5 copies. This is why free trials are so important, and also why people want into betas so bad. Most want to try to see if the game's fun, sure, but if it's fun and it runs like shit they either don't spend the money or try and justify spending the cost of the game, monthly fees, AND the massive upgrade costs. I don't care what game it is. If I have to spend $500 just to play it... i'm not going to. Now all you "hardcore" gamers are thinking "well quit playing on an intellivision" but you are the same people that whine and cry like premature babies when the servers are empty on the biggest baddest games... and then quit 2 months later.
While I agree with what you have stated I do have to say that you forgot one key element. Fun! A game must be fun to get subscribers and if a game fails at the fun even in the early levels it will not keep a steady subscriber base. While WOW is not the game for me I do admit that I did have fun while I trial tested it, WOW simply lacked the pvp content I was looking for.
Lineage 2 offered the PvP content and was very fun in that part, but over all it is not a fun game, it is entirely to grind oriented and who in the world takes pleasure in killing 3 billion mobs to gain .00001% exp.
Ace online however is a f2p game, that does have something of a grind to it but off sets the grind with a 100% exp happy hour each day that lasts 7 hours fallowed by a 1 hour 900% war point happy hour for the PvP oriented and then again by 7 hour a 100% item drop happy hour. These happy hours do not = easy street however but rather balance the servers to fit the NA market and provide fun in the game for all level ranges.
Fun is something that is greatly over looked by developers and I honestly have to believe that none of the developers who create these insanely grind and item oriented games have ever bothered to actually play them on the same level as the player.
Dana and gamers are missing the larger picture why F2P is on the raise. The economy is in a recession. The same people that played P2P a few years ago are out of a job now. Unemployed gamers cannot spend $15/month anymore. F2P MMORPGs are the most economic way to play games these days.
F2P has been doing better than subscription MMOs since 2005. The economy has only been in the toilet for a year.
"better" how? I can't name one F2P company. The 3 or 4 P2P companys I can name probably make alot more money every year than the F2P ones.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I agree with some of what he said. But the system reqs is nonsense. Everquest has an insane system req list. But that dosent mean the game is any good. Acctually some of the still intact old zones are still 1998 Graphics.
WoW system req's
OS: Windows XP / Windows Vista (with latest Service Packs)
Processor:
Minimum: Intel Pentium 4 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 1500+
Recommended: Dual-core processor, such as the Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2
Memory:
Minimum: 512 MB RAM (1GB for Vista users)
Recommended: 1 GB RAM (2 GB for Vista users)
Video:
Minimum: 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting with 32 MB VRAM Such as an ATI Radeon 7200 or NVIDIA GeForce 2 class card or better
Recommended: 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 128 MB VRAM Such as an ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT class card or better
Sound: DirectX-compatible sound card or motherboard sound capability
WoW
PWI (Perfect World Int.) Free game Sys req.
System Minimum Requirement Suggested Requirement
Operating System Windows 98/Me Windows 98/Me
CPU 900MHZ CPU Pent. 4 equivalent or greater
RAM 256MB or more of RAM 512MB+
Hard Disk 6.3GB of free hard drive space during installation. 3.0GBs of free hard drive space after installation and extracted files are deleted 6.3G HD space
Graphic Display Graphics card or chipset must support Pixel and Vertex Shaders 1.4 or later (hardware acceleration recommended), have 32MB of RAM 64MB or higher recommended (Direct X 9.0c or later)
System Minimum Requirement Suggested Requirement
Operating System Windows 2000/XP Windows 2000/XP
CPU 1.5Ghz CPU Pent. 4 equivalent or greater
RAM 512MB or more of RAM 1GB+
Hard Disk 6.3GB of free hard drive space during installation. 3.0GBs of free hard drive space after installation and extracted files are deleted 6.3G HD space
Graphic Display For multi-core CPUs, you may need to adjust the Affinity to run the game on one CPU. Graphics card or chipset must support Pixel and Vertex Shaders 1.4 or later (hardware acceleration recommended), have 64MB of RAM 64MB or higher recommended (Direct X 9.0c or later)
System Minimum Requirement Suggested Requirement
Operating System Windows Vista Windows Vista
CPU 1.5Ghz CPU Pent. 4 equivalent or greater
RAM 1GB RAM 2GB or more recommended
Hard Disk 6.3GB of free hard drive space during installation. 3.0GBs of free hard drive space after installation and extracted files are deleted 6.3G HD space
Graphic Display Graphics card or chipset must support Pixel and Vertex Shaders 2.0 or later (hardware acceleration recommended), have 128MB of RAM 128MB or higher recommended (Direct X 9.0c or later)
This article, while making a slim point about accessibity, is complete bunk when it comes down to the facts. Just look at the comparisons. WoW doing well and AoC/WAR not because of graphics? Horse shit. There are so many grossly more important factors that AoC/WAR had wrong, and so much crap WoW has done to itself to pander to as many people as possible, that graphics are the LEAST of concerns. F2P games are still hardly "all the rage" being that they're still universally seen as a fairly terrible model by anyone interested in actually PLAYING the game or at least playing fairly. I've yet to see a quality game on a F2P budget either. Yeah, it's all the rage if you're counting accounts, but who's going to pass up free? Sorry, but it really is the truth. F2P is popular because it's free and kiddos want free stuff, and companies want to exploit their fanbase for as much money as they can, and premium games have been failing because they've been uninspired copies or down right broken executions with no imagination.
Edit: Please, PLEASE don't even start with that "It's my money I can spend it how I want" "You're either spending money or time" BS. It's a completely fallacious argument for so many reasons and still doesn't address the problem of fair and equal play, it just sidesteps it.
First, if a game is a slide show on your current system, how likely are you to keep a subscription? Not very much at all. Second, how many people are going to run out and buy a new system(or have the experience/knowledge/money to upgrade their own system)? Again, the answer is not very many. That means that games that have high system requirements(out of the box) aren't going to be nearly as successful as those which do not.
Next, I'm always amused by those who make arguments about "fairness". "Fairness" is a subjective value judgement. Is it "fair" that some people have the hours and hours required to raid? Is it "fair" that some people have access to raiding guilds, that have enough people to raid? As I said, if you wish to be competitive you are going to spend time and/or money. Time/money are force multipliers that are applied in different situations to achieve ones goals. Spending money is no more "unfair" than spending time is. Its simply a matter of what one values more.
It doesn't have to be that way though. Look at the FPS market. No monthly subscriptions, no RMT transactions. The playing field is equal. Sure you might become a better player the more you play by learning the controls, how to aim, where on the map is a good place to snipe, but for all intents and purposes, it is fair. There is no reason why MMORPG PvP could not be fair. Time and money (should) have nothing to do with balanced PvP combat.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Originally posted by Xarekis I don't post in the forums on this website. To do so is a fruitless endeavor that will only result in flaming and/or circular arguments, terrible grammar, and all manner of other Internet attrocities.
But this article is so insanely fallacious, that I felt a post was necessary, regardless of the results. I sincerely hope Dana reads it, and I apologize in advance for any insults. Your article has incensed me. (snip) I view MMOs as a type of interactive artform. Stop suggesting that all MMOs be made to be simpleton's games. Stop suggesting that all MMOs be made to resemble a fourth-grade student's rendition of 'X.' You may enjoy the heavily exagerated, "cartoony" graphics of WoW, but I don't. I don't like the simplistic gameplay, and it saddens me that most MMOs have taken to this...direction, without considering all of the reasons WoW is so cursedly successful. Diversity is the key. Make all the WoW-clones you wish, but to even suggest that all MMOs should be the same level of difficulty and the same quality of graphics is, without doubt, the most foolish idea I've ever seen a sane person espousing on the Internet in all manner of sincerity.* As an addendum, I'd also like to say that one can easily build a quality gaming rig for $600. I run Bioshock on full settings, and have no delay or lag. I can run Vanguard:SoH at full settings (wish shadows set to medium) at 40-50 FPS in moderately populated areas, Veskal's Exchange, for example.
A couple notes in reply.
First, I was never suggesting that system requirements is the single and only determining factor in anything. Of course not, WoW does well because its a good game and Conan was a mess at launch and thus didn't do so well. Sys reqs are only a part of the equation, I never said they were anything more than that.
Also, more polygons does not mean better art. That was my point. Forget WoW for second, it was just an example. The point was, like it or not (and honestly, personally, I don't really like that style, but I understand why it is loved) that they had a well defined, clearly thought out art direction. Many MMOs replace "art direction" with "technical achievement.'" If you view these as an interactive art form, great, then you should be right there with me. My point was not that games should look bad, it's that they should pay more attention to how they look and not just brute force in more special effects. Case and point: LotRO vs. Conan. Both are beautiful games, but only one runs on even a semi-decent selection of PCs. That's part the intensity of the art and part optimization. WoW and WAR are also comparable, both have a similar art style, but one is clearly using more bells and whistles and didn't optmize as well.
As to the gaming rig. No one said you couldn't build a nice, cheap gaming rig. That doesn't change the fact that the majority of the gaming population doesn't. If you want a truly mass market game, it needs to be accessible at a low end of the computer spectrum. That's just reality.
Dana Massey Formerly of MMORPG.com Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
I agree Dana. When I look for an mmo I usually go for Graphics and system intensity first then Gameplay. Cause really there all point and click. Wow Felt too Childish too Me Right away when i seen the cartoony graphics Straight to the Easy follow the book Gameplay. The only thing I have been more and more looking at as of late is Endgame Material which almost Every mmo Lacks. I have only been using WoW as examples Do to the fact GoD prolly plays it.
I don't know if anyone brought this up yet as I don't have the energy to read 10 + pages of replies. My two cents on this issue is the just plain market saturation of mmo's I think there is only so large of a playerbase to go around and currently so many mmo's out there that you can't expect high numbers of players in more then a few games. This type of game only appeals to a certain segment of the "gaming" population and with the long hours needed to be spent to get anywhere in most of them you are not going to have people playing several at a time or jumping ship on a game they like just for the next shiny thing out there whether it be ftp or not.
If you take the premise that the orginal poster is saying then games like oblivion and fallout 3 should have been massive failures just because of their system requirements. That and the mmo genre will never attract your grandma or any of the "casual" crowd. I have a lot of friends and people I work with etc. that are "gamers" and I only know 2 other people out of them that play mmo's besides myself .
So I think the orginal post is a totally pointless arguement that seems to be a subtle plug for the ftp bandwagon that this site's authors so love pushing down everyone's throats at every opertunity.
Play whatever you want I don't feel either model it "better" although I personally prefer a flat subscription then being nickel and dimed to death.
Doh, you left a huge hole in your argument. The two most popular f2p MMO's Atlantica Online and Runes of Magic both have relatively higher computer requirements than the subscription games. There goes your theory down the drain, but I will agree high graphics requirements can hurt a game faster than anything. EQ2 stumbled out of the gate because Wow's computer requirements were far lower than it. Both AoC and War both have graphics issues and it was a big reason for the less than successful launch of Vanguard
Runes of Magic - Client
Description:
Download size: 3,4GB
Minimum system requirements
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 512MB
Required Harddisk space: 3.8GB
Graphics card: DirectX 9.0c compatible with 128MB RAM
Broadband Internet connection
Keyboard and Mouse
Atlantica Online
Minimum system requirements
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 1.0 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 512MB
Required Harddisk space: 5GB
Graphics card: DirectX 9.0c compatible with 64MB RAM
I would hardly say that blows my theory out of the water if anything it proves it
Well posting nonsense does not prove your point either. Minimum configuration means exactly zip in this genre. Go play them. I have played most of the subscription games, no fps problems at all, with both Atlantica and ROM I have serious FPS issues all the time no matter how I configure the setttings. That is a fact which your post seems to entirely ignore!
So again, it is obvious this article is whallowing in facts that cannot support it.
Dana and gamers are missing the larger picture why F2P is on the raise.
The economy is in a recession.
The same people that played P2P a few years ago are out of a job now.
Unemployed gamers cannot spend $15/month anymore.
F2P MMORPGs are the most economic way to play games these days.
F2P has been doing better than subscription MMOs since 2005. The economy has only been in the toilet for a year.
Sorry Dana, but that is flat out nonsense, at best f2p have been doing better for the last couple years. You have a short memory
Theres been like 5 pay to play MMOs that have launched since 2004 that were able to hold 200,000 subscribers.
Before you calling other people statements nonsense perhaps you should do a little research.
Also, I would like to say that I am not suprised that so many in this topic completely missed the message from the article wtiter. The article simply states that newer MMOs keep chasing after better and better graphics while the player base stays the same.
A good graphics engine and good art director will do so much more for you than cutting edge graphics.
I am however surprised that no one has mentioned Aion. It runs incredibly well on a wide variety of machines and looks great.
As usual poster can't support his argument for a hill of beans. Please educate us with f2p MMO's that have held a large audience since 2004? Prior to the past two years you can't name one. Oh I am sure some were out there, but you can't name them because no one knew about them.
Wow, finally someone besides me noticed that the number of people who CAN use your product actually affects the number of people who WILL use your product lol. I've been telling the story of how Blizzard's devs wanted WoW to run on a 32 meg graphics card (this was back in the early Nvidia 4x Titanium days lol) for years as a response to all the mistaken people claiming it was their favorite feature that gave WoW 8 million subs over every other game.
Good job Mr. Woods! Time for devs to stop trying to "ooh" and "aahhh" their bosses with graphics to prove how much they deserve their jobs, and start trying to make better games instead.
Dana and gamers are missing the larger picture why F2P is on the raise.
The economy is in a recession.
The same people that played P2P a few years ago are out of a job now.
Unemployed gamers cannot spend $15/month anymore.
F2P MMORPGs are the most economic way to play games these days.
F2P has been doing better than subscription MMOs since 2005. The economy has only been in the toilet for a year.
Sorry Dana, but that is flat out nonsense, at best f2p have been doing better for the last couple years. You have a short memory
Theres been like 5 pay to play MMOs that have launched since 2004 that were able to hold 200,000 subscribers.
Before you calling other people statements nonsense perhaps you should do a little research.
Also, I would like to say that I am not suprised that so many in this topic completely missed the message from the article wtiter. The article simply states that newer MMOs keep chasing after better and better graphics while the player base stays the same.
A good graphics engine and good art director will do so much more for you than cutting edge graphics.
I am however surprised that no one has mentioned Aion. It runs incredibly well on a wide variety of machines and looks great.
As usual poster can't support his argument for a hill of beans. Please educate us with f2p MMO's that have held a large audience since 2004? Prior to the past two years you can't name one. Oh I am sure some were out there, but you can't name them because no one knew about them.
Not to get in the middle of your somewhat heated argument, but....Runescape?
I actually agree with... almost nothing in the article.
People will have different opinions on all sorts of things, but the image of the industry presented in the article is so completely out of whack with my own perceptions that I would have thought it was written by someone who doesn't even know what an MMORPG is. Definitely not what I would expect from Dana! (Not an attack dude, just not on the same page; or even the same book).
First, the graphics and "accessibility" issue. Sure, it's a good thing to exclude as small a percentage as possible of your potential player base when deciding on minimum specs. However, a bad game that can be played on any PC isn't going to be a hit because of it's low requirements. Also, people's expectations on the graphics front continue to increase and sometimes good games never have a chance, because the graphics are so dated.
There is a sweet spot in there somewhere for maximizing the potential market for an MMORPG. Too outdated is just as bad as too demanding. Yet, the game's success is not a function of it's hardware requirements, even if being too far to one extreme or the other may preclude some people who would otherwise love the game.
Second, the issue of money. F2P, subscription, cash shops; any combination of the three.
Players weigh the cost to play, vs. the enjoyment they get from playing. Not just during the opening months either. F2P games only require an investment of time and bandwidth to try out. As personal bandwidth increases, the barriers to trying out a F2P game decrease. The "cost" is low. Gamers can try a game they would not have been willing to pay a box price to sample. That's the first advantage for F2P games.
The second advantage to F2P is that as players go through the ebb and flow of enthusiasm for a title, there is no subscription fee hanging over their head. You can take a break or play only a few times a month with out money flying out the window.
It's little or no initial and continuing costs, plugged into the equation of fun vs. money.
Cash shops may increase a persons desire to continue playing, in order to justify previous purchases, but the lack of a subscription fee hanging over your head makes it easy to drift in and out of the game on a whim. Where cash shop games get into trouble is when enthusiastic players start to find their monthly investment topping the $15/month benchmark, or when any players feels that the money they "need" to pay to enjoy it outweighs the actual enjoyment they receive in return.
The business model of subscription games faces a huge hurdle. How do you continue to justify the monthly fee? The expectations for a subscription game are much higher. Even if a company does a good job at rolling out fresh content over time, they still face the fact that even players who love the game will see their enthusiasm and play time ebb and flow. Every month a customer asks "is it worth continuing to pay the subscription fee"? When they do take a break, they then have to ask themselves "Is it worth re-subscribing? Will I even play enough after returning to warrant another $15"?
There are a few MMORPGs I paid to play in the past that I would love to return to from time to time, or maybe even try to "get back into", but the cost becomes a barrier. I know I'm not alone.
I think you had an inkling of the issue, but accessibility is a lot less about system requirements and a lot more about fiscal accessibility.
I personally think the $15/month subscription based MMORPG model is destined to be a thing of the past. With the glut of titles and fickle fanbase there are a lot of games that might be successful under lower fees or a different business model that are just going no where at $15/month.
I'm actually intrigued by the per hour usage model that I believe is seen in some games in Asia. Where hardcore players investing 40 hours or more a week can pay the equivalent of $15 a month, but more casual players are paying only a few dollars a month. Since you only pay for the time you spend playing, you can come and go as you please with out wasting money on under utilized subscriptions.
The hybrid Cash Shop / small subscription fee for premium content model of Freerealms is interesting as well. However, the balance needs to be carefully maintained. Recent drastic cuts on the amount of in game currency you can earn (about a 80-90% cut) seem to be aimed at forcing players to invest money in station cash for things as basic as healing potions (the frequent use of which the game is balanced around). If casual players start to feel forced to invest money to play with out major frustrations, the game will be done for.
Also, even though the $5/month fee for "membership" is a lot lower burden to carry on a title you may find your enthusiasm waning for, people are already questioning what happens to their characters if they cancel membership.
An ideal business model would extract roughly $15/month from their hard core fans, while lessening or removing the barriers for those who are more casual players or who see their play time ebb and flow over the life time of the title.
Now, to bring it all full circle... if the article was an attempt to explain the success of WoW and apply some lesson to future titles, I think that's an elusive task to attempt. The low system requirements have maximized the reach of the game, but it doesn't explain the appeal.
I think the factors that caused WoW to snowball into a huge hit can not be attributed to any one thing, or even a small handful. It addressed the right needs at the right time. As to it's continued success, I think it's popularity has added another "cost" to the equation for some people. The cost of not playing what your friends and peers are playing. Too be "out of the loop" on what for some cohorts is a social and cultural phenomena. The same kind of pressures that drive usage of facebook, twitter, etc...
WoW was the right game, in the right place at the right time. As the snowball rolled downhill it grew mass based on it's unstoppable momentum. Eventually it will reach the bottom of the hill and slowly melt in the sun. Unfortunately for competing developers, finding the right snowball to roll down the right hill at the right time is no easy task. In fact, it may require a very different snowball and a very different hill to address a very different point in time...
I gotta agree with Dana here, developing a game is all about making it as playable and accessible as you can for the people that are supposed to play that game, as it is a design product, and therefore, it is made for a target audience. And MMOs are all about the community and the multiplayer, after all it´s not called Single Massively Online Game (or RPG if you prefer), so people that play these games what to get together and play together, not just run around a huge world all alone, and I think that is one of the biggest challenge MMO companies face. Also, unfortunately, most of the gamers don´t really know how to use/tune their computers as the Hardcore (ideal players), and they will keep away from those scary bars and sliders on that strange "graphic options" screen as much as possible.
But also I would like to add some off my humble opinion and little experience as a Game Design Student. It´s not about what "I" think, it´s about what "everyone" think. I saw many complaints about World of Warcraft because it was mentioned on the article, and how some off the people did´t like the art style and all.
I would like to say that when someone makes and article about the industry, it does not matter if you like it or not, it matters that 11 million people play and pay that game, and therefore, we must respect it, as no other MMO has reached that far. And if you look technically, they´re path on accessibility (on the art side) is based on solid, good done textures, that got only better with the upgrades, thus keeping the specs low, and everyone happy.
And for last, a bit off topic, but related, I really think that still, the gameplay aspect of ANY game can surpass the importance of any other. Accessibility is quite important yes, but if the game has some really solid and kick ass gameplay, it MIGHT have the power to make people invest, not to play, but maybe to see it and fell it better. It´s ok your 3 year-old PC runs HL2, but wouldn´t you like to have and upgrade to see how it looks on max settings ?
I say that because I think AoC and WAR didn´t have that, and that is what made them go down the toilet. I followed both on the development phases and betas. I had a big confidence on AoC, as it was done by FUNCOM, who did a great job on Anarchy Online (Wich btw is alive and well for 20 year already, horrible graphics but solid gameplay), Forget graphics, what is the point off making a Conan game where you are NOT Conan !?
And WAR simply was not finished, all they did was try to make huge graphics and cut half of the audience, saying stuff like "WoW is like the beetles, no one can beat them. But we are like the Led Zeppelin, stronger, better and cooler" and "/dance if for girls, we don´t make games for girls". So they had great mechanics, like the upgrading cities and PvP Tiers with the capital controls, but nothing was finished nor polished, so the cut up half of the stuff that wasn´t working and shipped a unfortunate crap, and I say crap because no one like it, or worse, they thought of it as just another WoW clone.
You make a Textual Kick Ass MMO and you can turn it up, you spend 10 years making a WoW-like-Crysis MMO, and you´re going to get fired (Sorry Mark Jacobs, thats they way thing go...)
I do not see why it is needed to have a Quad Core Processor on an Nividia SLI board with two 512mb cards sli'd together with 8 gigs of ram. I was playing a trial on Vanguard and someone had that type of building and could play max settings and yet they only got 40-60fps.
It does not make any sense why we have to make games demand so much of our computers some people do not have $500.00 just to spend on processor, board, and graphics cards. Not to mention RAM and putting it all together, it just seems excessive. Give me a game that is: Stable, Accessible, and Fun. I will and can comprimise on graphics I played UO for 7 years and loved it.
Sometimes I think these companies get a kick back from Nvidia for promoting their products and increasing sales.
Just what I think: Continue to kick butt and take names Dana I love your articles.
Dana and gamers are missing the larger picture why F2P is on the raise.
The economy is in a recession.
The same people that played P2P a few years ago are out of a job now.
Unemployed gamers cannot spend $15/month anymore.
F2P MMORPGs are the most economic way to play games these days.
F2P has been doing better than subscription MMOs since 2005. The economy has only been in the toilet for a year.
Sorry Dana, but that is flat out nonsense, at best f2p have been doing better for the last couple years. You have a short memory
Theres been like 5 pay to play MMOs that have launched since 2004 that were able to hold 200,000 subscribers.
Before you calling other people statements nonsense perhaps you should do a little research.
Also, I would like to say that I am not suprised that so many in this topic completely missed the message from the article wtiter. The article simply states that newer MMOs keep chasing after better and better graphics while the player base stays the same.
A good graphics engine and good art director will do so much more for you than cutting edge graphics.
I am however surprised that no one has mentioned Aion. It runs incredibly well on a wide variety of machines and looks great.
As usual poster can't support his argument for a hill of beans. Please educate us with f2p MMO's that have held a large audience since 2004? Prior to the past two years you can't name one. Oh I am sure some were out there, but you can't name them because no one knew about them.
lol you didnt search a lot
i can name at least 1 silkroad online it was full ,is full and will be full for years to come
dont believe me download it and try to login for fun and dont come with the generally believed but false idea
`oh but that game is full of bot `
thats like saying to wow their server arent full because they dont have bot lol
silkroad online add server still .when was the last time blizzard added server ?very long time ago
silkroad would need an insane amount of server just to keep up with the player waiting to logon
a bunch of reason made this game bigger then even they ever thot
when they released one expension ,they linked asia with europe in game like you can start from europe and go to china etc
that made a huge impact .plus all the other adds they put in ,not long ago there was another added
i never saw an mmo since 2004 that is popular as silkroad online
and thats a f2p game
its very popular for another reason also
the computer needed to play it is so ridiculous you can play this on a netbook lol
Vanguard:SoH does NOT support multiple cores, including SLI'd GPUs, so only ONE of that "Quad Core's" processor cores was actually in use, as well as only ONE of the video cards. Furthermore, Vanguard is a 32bit program, and thus utilizes an extremely limited amoutn of RAM. I don't remember the exact number, but I can tell you that it's <4gb.
Using a quad-core CPU for a single-core game is terribly inefficient.
So, in effect, the person wasted a great dela of money if all he/she used the comp *intensively* for was Vanguard:SoH.
You can run Vanguard flawlessly, at max settings, on a $600 build.
Ive been doing Tech work for friends and family even friends of family for a long time. Since i was kid.
And youd be surprised how wrong sterotypes are in my area.
Most the time the Wife will play on the computer more than the husband (husbands usualy play on there console).
Now these games arnt mmos just puzzle or mystery games.
Most people either buy a old computer off there friend or buy the cheepest one at walmart.
Ive never seen a Non tech person with a average job with a high end comp.
Every person that has me look at a game cause it doesnt work its usualy sys req. And they never upgrade for the game. A few have asked about it but when I told them the price of a stick of ram. They said no and gave the game away.
The article is a good article. The only bad thing is he shoulda pointed out how every Blizzard game has never pushed the graphics and has always done good. And thats blizz speciality makeing there games available to the common consumer both hardware wise and complexity.
Me personaly im tired of how much it cost to be a computer gamer. Ive tried many times to go console but fps and mmos are my games so im stuck with pc.
Comments
The major problem I see with the F2P and P2P is the recession which is world wide and affecting millions of players who play MMO's.
With our technology increasing every year and with less and less money to spend, we are going to get to the point where those players who have money to spend will be abled to afford the high costs of getting new systems to play on MMO's requiring those systems.
Take Star Trek Online of example, it is slated for release sometime in 2012 and yet even though they claim that it would run on low end systems, lot of the postings on the STO forums from the Devs and Beta Testers gives the impression that STO will only run on high end systems that is fast, powerful and most likely costs several thousands of dollars. This is bad news in a recession, if we are still in a recession or even a depression in 2012 then majority will not be abled to play STO, only those who are rich or can afford to spend the thousands of dollars to upgrade will be abled to play the obviously graphical instensive MMO like STO.
Is Free to Play the wave of the future? In a recession, I think IMHO that majority of players would rather play a Free to Play MMO then a Pay to Play in order to save money. For those who live here in North America, do not realize that with the VAT in the UK/EU playing a internet game like a MMO is slightly more expensive then playing a Pay to Play MMO here in North America.
And there is the Development Community, which is a very small community and access to this community is shrinking at a alarming rate. They are not getting enough graduates from colleges due to the recession which is sad. A local college not far from where I live recently dropped some of thier computer programs including several in Game Design and Development due to lack of funding from the state and federal government due to budget cuts as the result of the current recession. So it is bad all around.
Big Game Development/Publisher companies like Electronic Arts, Sony Online Entertainment, Blizzard, and Lucas Arts Entertainment mostly will be abled to survive the recession. So one should not be suprised to see news of Mythic Entertainment and Bioware getting themselves merged with EA. They did it to survive the recession since money is tight. Unfortantly smaller companies like NetDevil may end up scrapping Jump Gate Evolution due to lack of funding due to the recession.
Pay to Play MMO's like Warcraft Online that has been here for more then 4 years and have millions of subscribers world wide will most likely be here when or if the recession ends provided the value of money does not drop or we have a depression our hands. Internet Access costs $$$. The one danger that every MMO free to play and pay to play company is fearful of is the that cost of Internet access could raise to the point that players will be forced to cancel thier accounts due to not being abled to afford internet access. This could happend, do not be shocked and suprised if this does happen.
Technology cost money
Game Development cost money
Computers cost money
Upgrading computer systems cost money
Accessing the internet cost money
Game Servers cost money and this includes upgrading servers and what not.
Employees and other support persons costs money. (Do you honestly think these game devs work for FREE?).
State, Federal, International Taxes including Internet Fees, Including VAT fees if your game is overseas or you have subscribers overseas (not many are aware but Blizzard for example has to pay the VAT fee due to having servers in the UK/EU).
Every business that does game development looks at all those factors and decides how much they can afford to invest and the investors they get to invest in thier MMO also takes into consideration if the money the invest will they be abled to get it back. They also look at the system requirements that thier game can be run on at the minium or what the average player users. Not everyone is the same, if they make thier game too high end they lose at least 80% of potential subscribers. If they make thier games in such as well to run on low end systems with crappy graphics they stand to lose higher percentage as well. So it is a lose + lose situation. They are between a rock and a hard place and this world wide recession makes it even harder and with lot of media attention and from government economic sources stating we may be into the recession into the 2020's things look very bleak for the Online Game Industry.
It all boils down to money...... There is not enough to go around.
Good article. Funny that it mirrors an academic paper I wrote on the subject of MMO success in which I found the top 3 points of success are:
In that order. Interestingly enough it seems that developers are still not catching onto this or at least not onto every aspect here. Prime examples of failing to meet these criteria can be seen in Age of Conan and Vanguard which completely failed in this regard upon launch and in a post World of Warcraft space its impossible to get away with such obvious mistakes. Excellent article and good to see I am not alone in making this assumptions.
i like this article, but at the same time i have to say i want great graphics, and great gameplay.
...Ive been floating around playing alot of the free mmos. Ruins of magic or what ever SUX!! Terrible Game play. Alot of mmo's just seem like re-skins with Different game play. like the company Aeria. Every game is a Re-skin. uh Titan online Is an oriental based WoW. Also wow is Technically free on a free server.
. I am still a HUGE everquest fan. I think that sony should delete the whole thing and remake it with the same lore and all the such much. the game just needs to in general be completely re-hashed. Now I have played ALOT of the free mmo's. Currently my two favs are. Fiesta for the cartoony anime style fun stuff. An PWI (Perfect World Int.). I mean the Game all together is like 2 gigs. Its not system intesive. The graphics and character creation stand up with vanguard. the game runs smoothly with out troubles on full graphics and my video card is still a PCI. gameplay is Amazing there is always something to do at all levels and its not always leveling. The race/Class options are a little limited. But it makes for Better RPing. I love this game. so do the many Ive converted from WoW to it already. I would highly suggest it for the free mmo's.
I play Heavens tear.
yorkshire 30 Barb.
Honostely if this game gameplay and graphics don't do it for you as a free game. Go play a MuD. Which I also play. :P
http://pwi.perfectworld.com/
While I agree with what you have stated I do have to say that you forgot one key element. Fun! A game must be fun to get subscribers and if a game fails at the fun even in the early levels it will not keep a steady subscriber base. While WOW is not the game for me I do admit that I did have fun while I trial tested it, WOW simply lacked the pvp content I was looking for.
Lineage 2 offered the PvP content and was very fun in that part, but over all it is not a fun game, it is entirely to grind oriented and who in the world takes pleasure in killing 3 billion mobs to gain .00001% exp.
Ace online however is a f2p game, that does have something of a grind to it but off sets the grind with a 100% exp happy hour each day that lasts 7 hours fallowed by a 1 hour 900% war point happy hour for the PvP oriented and then again by 7 hour a 100% item drop happy hour. These happy hours do not = easy street however but rather balance the servers to fit the NA market and provide fun in the game for all level ranges.
Fun is something that is greatly over looked by developers and I honestly have to believe that none of the developers who create these insanely grind and item oriented games have ever bothered to actually play them on the same level as the player.
F2P has been doing better than subscription MMOs since 2005. The economy has only been in the toilet for a year.
"better" how? I can't name one F2P company. The 3 or 4 P2P companys I can name probably make alot more money every year than the F2P ones.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I agree with some of what he said. But the system reqs is nonsense. Everquest has an insane system req list. But that dosent mean the game is any good. Acctually some of the still intact old zones are still 1998 Graphics.
WoW system req's
OS: Windows XP / Windows Vista (with latest Service Packs)
Processor:
Minimum: Intel Pentium 4 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 1500+
Recommended: Dual-core processor, such as the Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2
Memory:
Minimum: 512 MB RAM (1GB for Vista users)
Recommended: 1 GB RAM (2 GB for Vista users)
Video:
Minimum: 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting with 32 MB VRAM Such as an ATI Radeon 7200 or NVIDIA GeForce 2 class card or better
Recommended: 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 128 MB VRAM Such as an ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT class card or better
Sound: DirectX-compatible sound card or motherboard sound capability
WoW
PWI (Perfect World Int.) Free game Sys req.
System Minimum Requirement Suggested Requirement
Operating System Windows 98/Me Windows 98/Me
CPU 900MHZ CPU Pent. 4 equivalent or greater
RAM 256MB or more of RAM 512MB+
Hard Disk 6.3GB of free hard drive space during installation. 3.0GBs of free hard drive space after installation and extracted files are deleted 6.3G HD space
Graphic Display Graphics card or chipset must support Pixel and Vertex Shaders 1.4 or later (hardware acceleration recommended), have 32MB of RAM 64MB or higher recommended (Direct X 9.0c or later)
System Minimum Requirement Suggested Requirement
Operating System Windows 2000/XP Windows 2000/XP
CPU 1.5Ghz CPU Pent. 4 equivalent or greater
RAM 512MB or more of RAM 1GB+
Hard Disk 6.3GB of free hard drive space during installation. 3.0GBs of free hard drive space after installation and extracted files are deleted 6.3G HD space
Graphic Display For multi-core CPUs, you may need to adjust the Affinity to run the game on one CPU. Graphics card or chipset must support Pixel and Vertex Shaders 1.4 or later (hardware acceleration recommended), have 64MB of RAM 64MB or higher recommended (Direct X 9.0c or later)
System Minimum Requirement Suggested Requirement
Operating System Windows Vista Windows Vista
CPU 1.5Ghz CPU Pent. 4 equivalent or greater
RAM 1GB RAM 2GB or more recommended
Hard Disk 6.3GB of free hard drive space during installation. 3.0GBs of free hard drive space after installation and extracted files are deleted 6.3G HD space
Graphic Display Graphics card or chipset must support Pixel and Vertex Shaders 2.0 or later (hardware acceleration recommended), have 128MB of RAM 128MB or higher recommended (Direct X 9.0c or later)
PWI
First, if a game is a slide show on your current system, how likely are you to keep a subscription? Not very much at all. Second, how many people are going to run out and buy a new system(or have the experience/knowledge/money to upgrade their own system)? Again, the answer is not very many. That means that games that have high system requirements(out of the box) aren't going to be nearly as successful as those which do not.
Next, I'm always amused by those who make arguments about "fairness". "Fairness" is a subjective value judgement. Is it "fair" that some people have the hours and hours required to raid? Is it "fair" that some people have access to raiding guilds, that have enough people to raid? As I said, if you wish to be competitive you are going to spend time and/or money. Time/money are force multipliers that are applied in different situations to achieve ones goals. Spending money is no more "unfair" than spending time is. Its simply a matter of what one values more.
It doesn't have to be that way though. Look at the FPS market. No monthly subscriptions, no RMT transactions. The playing field is equal. Sure you might become a better player the more you play by learning the controls, how to aim, where on the map is a good place to snipe, but for all intents and purposes, it is fair. There is no reason why MMORPG PvP could not be fair. Time and money (should) have nothing to do with balanced PvP combat.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Hey Dana!
Keep up the good work bro! I really enjoy your articles!
A couple notes in reply.
First, I was never suggesting that system requirements is the single and only determining factor in anything. Of course not, WoW does well because its a good game and Conan was a mess at launch and thus didn't do so well. Sys reqs are only a part of the equation, I never said they were anything more than that.
Also, more polygons does not mean better art. That was my point. Forget WoW for second, it was just an example. The point was, like it or not (and honestly, personally, I don't really like that style, but I understand why it is loved) that they had a well defined, clearly thought out art direction. Many MMOs replace "art direction" with "technical achievement.'" If you view these as an interactive art form, great, then you should be right there with me. My point was not that games should look bad, it's that they should pay more attention to how they look and not just brute force in more special effects. Case and point: LotRO vs. Conan. Both are beautiful games, but only one runs on even a semi-decent selection of PCs. That's part the intensity of the art and part optimization. WoW and WAR are also comparable, both have a similar art style, but one is clearly using more bells and whistles and didn't optmize as well.
As to the gaming rig. No one said you couldn't build a nice, cheap gaming rig. That doesn't change the fact that the majority of the gaming population doesn't. If you want a truly mass market game, it needs to be accessible at a low end of the computer spectrum. That's just reality.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
I agree Dana. When I look for an mmo I usually go for Graphics and system intensity first then Gameplay. Cause really there all point and click. Wow Felt too Childish too Me Right away when i seen the cartoony graphics Straight to the Easy follow the book Gameplay. The only thing I have been more and more looking at as of late is Endgame Material which almost Every mmo Lacks. I have only been using WoW as examples Do to the fact GoD prolly plays it.
I don't know if anyone brought this up yet as I don't have the energy to read 10 + pages of replies. My two cents on this issue is the just plain market saturation of mmo's I think there is only so large of a playerbase to go around and currently so many mmo's out there that you can't expect high numbers of players in more then a few games. This type of game only appeals to a certain segment of the "gaming" population and with the long hours needed to be spent to get anywhere in most of them you are not going to have people playing several at a time or jumping ship on a game they like just for the next shiny thing out there whether it be ftp or not.
If you take the premise that the orginal poster is saying then games like oblivion and fallout 3 should have been massive failures just because of their system requirements. That and the mmo genre will never attract your grandma or any of the "casual" crowd. I have a lot of friends and people I work with etc. that are "gamers" and I only know 2 other people out of them that play mmo's besides myself .
So I think the orginal post is a totally pointless arguement that seems to be a subtle plug for the ftp bandwagon that this site's authors so love pushing down everyone's throats at every opertunity.
Play whatever you want I don't feel either model it "better" although I personally prefer a flat subscription then being nickel and dimed to death.
I agree completely.
Oh, and choose one business model already. SOE, anyone? Mixing both is going to chase more people away than it'll attract.
/already tossed out my SOE boxes
Runes of Magic - Client
Description:
Download size: 3,4GB
Minimum system requirements
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 512MB
Required Harddisk space: 3.8GB
Graphics card: DirectX 9.0c compatible with 128MB RAM
Broadband Internet connection
Keyboard and Mouse
Atlantica Online
Minimum system requirements
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 1.0 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 512MB
Required Harddisk space: 5GB
Graphics card: DirectX 9.0c compatible with 64MB RAM
I would hardly say that blows my theory out of the water if anything it proves it
Well posting nonsense does not prove your point either. Minimum configuration means exactly zip in this genre. Go play them. I have played most of the subscription games, no fps problems at all, with both Atlantica and ROM I have serious FPS issues all the time no matter how I configure the setttings. That is a fact which your post seems to entirely ignore!
So again, it is obvious this article is whallowing in facts that cannot support it.
F2P has been doing better than subscription MMOs since 2005. The economy has only been in the toilet for a year.
Sorry Dana, but that is flat out nonsense, at best f2p have been doing better for the last couple years. You have a short memory
Theres been like 5 pay to play MMOs that have launched since 2004 that were able to hold 200,000 subscribers.
Before you calling other people statements nonsense perhaps you should do a little research.
Also, I would like to say that I am not suprised that so many in this topic completely missed the message from the article wtiter. The article simply states that newer MMOs keep chasing after better and better graphics while the player base stays the same.
A good graphics engine and good art director will do so much more for you than cutting edge graphics.
I am however surprised that no one has mentioned Aion. It runs incredibly well on a wide variety of machines and looks great.
As usual poster can't support his argument for a hill of beans. Please educate us with f2p MMO's that have held a large audience since 2004? Prior to the past two years you can't name one. Oh I am sure some were out there, but you can't name them because no one knew about them.
Wow, finally someone besides me noticed that the number of people who CAN use your product actually affects the number of people who WILL use your product lol. I've been telling the story of how Blizzard's devs wanted WoW to run on a 32 meg graphics card (this was back in the early Nvidia 4x Titanium days lol) for years as a response to all the mistaken people claiming it was their favorite feature that gave WoW 8 million subs over every other game.
Good job Mr. Woods! Time for devs to stop trying to "ooh" and "aahhh" their bosses with graphics to prove how much they deserve their jobs, and start trying to make better games instead.
F2P has been doing better than subscription MMOs since 2005. The economy has only been in the toilet for a year.
Sorry Dana, but that is flat out nonsense, at best f2p have been doing better for the last couple years. You have a short memory
Theres been like 5 pay to play MMOs that have launched since 2004 that were able to hold 200,000 subscribers.
Before you calling other people statements nonsense perhaps you should do a little research.
Also, I would like to say that I am not suprised that so many in this topic completely missed the message from the article wtiter. The article simply states that newer MMOs keep chasing after better and better graphics while the player base stays the same.
A good graphics engine and good art director will do so much more for you than cutting edge graphics.
I am however surprised that no one has mentioned Aion. It runs incredibly well on a wide variety of machines and looks great.
As usual poster can't support his argument for a hill of beans. Please educate us with f2p MMO's that have held a large audience since 2004? Prior to the past two years you can't name one. Oh I am sure some were out there, but you can't name them because no one knew about them.
Not to get in the middle of your somewhat heated argument, but....Runescape?
I actually agree with... almost nothing in the article.
People will have different opinions on all sorts of things, but the image of the industry presented in the article is so completely out of whack with my own perceptions that I would have thought it was written by someone who doesn't even know what an MMORPG is. Definitely not what I would expect from Dana! (Not an attack dude, just not on the same page; or even the same book).
First, the graphics and "accessibility" issue. Sure, it's a good thing to exclude as small a percentage as possible of your potential player base when deciding on minimum specs. However, a bad game that can be played on any PC isn't going to be a hit because of it's low requirements. Also, people's expectations on the graphics front continue to increase and sometimes good games never have a chance, because the graphics are so dated.
There is a sweet spot in there somewhere for maximizing the potential market for an MMORPG. Too outdated is just as bad as too demanding. Yet, the game's success is not a function of it's hardware requirements, even if being too far to one extreme or the other may preclude some people who would otherwise love the game.
Second, the issue of money. F2P, subscription, cash shops; any combination of the three.
Players weigh the cost to play, vs. the enjoyment they get from playing. Not just during the opening months either. F2P games only require an investment of time and bandwidth to try out. As personal bandwidth increases, the barriers to trying out a F2P game decrease. The "cost" is low. Gamers can try a game they would not have been willing to pay a box price to sample. That's the first advantage for F2P games.
The second advantage to F2P is that as players go through the ebb and flow of enthusiasm for a title, there is no subscription fee hanging over their head. You can take a break or play only a few times a month with out money flying out the window.
It's little or no initial and continuing costs, plugged into the equation of fun vs. money.
Cash shops may increase a persons desire to continue playing, in order to justify previous purchases, but the lack of a subscription fee hanging over your head makes it easy to drift in and out of the game on a whim. Where cash shop games get into trouble is when enthusiastic players start to find their monthly investment topping the $15/month benchmark, or when any players feels that the money they "need" to pay to enjoy it outweighs the actual enjoyment they receive in return.
The business model of subscription games faces a huge hurdle. How do you continue to justify the monthly fee? The expectations for a subscription game are much higher. Even if a company does a good job at rolling out fresh content over time, they still face the fact that even players who love the game will see their enthusiasm and play time ebb and flow. Every month a customer asks "is it worth continuing to pay the subscription fee"? When they do take a break, they then have to ask themselves "Is it worth re-subscribing? Will I even play enough after returning to warrant another $15"?
There are a few MMORPGs I paid to play in the past that I would love to return to from time to time, or maybe even try to "get back into", but the cost becomes a barrier. I know I'm not alone.
I think you had an inkling of the issue, but accessibility is a lot less about system requirements and a lot more about fiscal accessibility.
I personally think the $15/month subscription based MMORPG model is destined to be a thing of the past. With the glut of titles and fickle fanbase there are a lot of games that might be successful under lower fees or a different business model that are just going no where at $15/month.
I'm actually intrigued by the per hour usage model that I believe is seen in some games in Asia. Where hardcore players investing 40 hours or more a week can pay the equivalent of $15 a month, but more casual players are paying only a few dollars a month. Since you only pay for the time you spend playing, you can come and go as you please with out wasting money on under utilized subscriptions.
The hybrid Cash Shop / small subscription fee for premium content model of Freerealms is interesting as well. However, the balance needs to be carefully maintained. Recent drastic cuts on the amount of in game currency you can earn (about a 80-90% cut) seem to be aimed at forcing players to invest money in station cash for things as basic as healing potions (the frequent use of which the game is balanced around). If casual players start to feel forced to invest money to play with out major frustrations, the game will be done for.
Also, even though the $5/month fee for "membership" is a lot lower burden to carry on a title you may find your enthusiasm waning for, people are already questioning what happens to their characters if they cancel membership.
An ideal business model would extract roughly $15/month from their hard core fans, while lessening or removing the barriers for those who are more casual players or who see their play time ebb and flow over the life time of the title.
Now, to bring it all full circle... if the article was an attempt to explain the success of WoW and apply some lesson to future titles, I think that's an elusive task to attempt. The low system requirements have maximized the reach of the game, but it doesn't explain the appeal.
I think the factors that caused WoW to snowball into a huge hit can not be attributed to any one thing, or even a small handful. It addressed the right needs at the right time. As to it's continued success, I think it's popularity has added another "cost" to the equation for some people. The cost of not playing what your friends and peers are playing. Too be "out of the loop" on what for some cohorts is a social and cultural phenomena. The same kind of pressures that drive usage of facebook, twitter, etc...
WoW was the right game, in the right place at the right time. As the snowball rolled downhill it grew mass based on it's unstoppable momentum. Eventually it will reach the bottom of the hill and slowly melt in the sun. Unfortunately for competing developers, finding the right snowball to roll down the right hill at the right time is no easy task. In fact, it may require a very different snowball and a very different hill to address a very different point in time...
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
I don´t post in a long time, so hello everyone !
I gotta agree with Dana here, developing a game is all about making it as playable and accessible as you can for the people that are supposed to play that game, as it is a design product, and therefore, it is made for a target audience. And MMOs are all about the community and the multiplayer, after all it´s not called Single Massively Online Game (or RPG if you prefer), so people that play these games what to get together and play together, not just run around a huge world all alone, and I think that is one of the biggest challenge MMO companies face. Also, unfortunately, most of the gamers don´t really know how to use/tune their computers as the Hardcore (ideal players), and they will keep away from those scary bars and sliders on that strange "graphic options" screen as much as possible.
But also I would like to add some off my humble opinion and little experience as a Game Design Student. It´s not about what "I" think, it´s about what "everyone" think. I saw many complaints about World of Warcraft because it was mentioned on the article, and how some off the people did´t like the art style and all.
I would like to say that when someone makes and article about the industry, it does not matter if you like it or not, it matters that 11 million people play and pay that game, and therefore, we must respect it, as no other MMO has reached that far. And if you look technically, they´re path on accessibility (on the art side) is based on solid, good done textures, that got only better with the upgrades, thus keeping the specs low, and everyone happy.
And for last, a bit off topic, but related, I really think that still, the gameplay aspect of ANY game can surpass the importance of any other. Accessibility is quite important yes, but if the game has some really solid and kick ass gameplay, it MIGHT have the power to make people invest, not to play, but maybe to see it and fell it better. It´s ok your 3 year-old PC runs HL2, but wouldn´t you like to have and upgrade to see how it looks on max settings ?
I say that because I think AoC and WAR didn´t have that, and that is what made them go down the toilet. I followed both on the development phases and betas. I had a big confidence on AoC, as it was done by FUNCOM, who did a great job on Anarchy Online (Wich btw is alive and well for 20 year already, horrible graphics but solid gameplay), Forget graphics, what is the point off making a Conan game where you are NOT Conan !?
And WAR simply was not finished, all they did was try to make huge graphics and cut half of the audience, saying stuff like "WoW is like the beetles, no one can beat them. But we are like the Led Zeppelin, stronger, better and cooler" and "/dance if for girls, we don´t make games for girls". So they had great mechanics, like the upgrading cities and PvP Tiers with the capital controls, but nothing was finished nor polished, so the cut up half of the stuff that wasn´t working and shipped a unfortunate crap, and I say crap because no one like it, or worse, they thought of it as just another WoW clone.
You make a Textual Kick Ass MMO and you can turn it up, you spend 10 years making a WoW-like-Crysis MMO, and you´re going to get fired (Sorry Mark Jacobs, thats they way thing go...)
Abso-flogging-lutely.
I do not see why it is needed to have a Quad Core Processor on an Nividia SLI board with two 512mb cards sli'd together with 8 gigs of ram. I was playing a trial on Vanguard and someone had that type of building and could play max settings and yet they only got 40-60fps.
It does not make any sense why we have to make games demand so much of our computers some people do not have $500.00 just to spend on processor, board, and graphics cards. Not to mention RAM and putting it all together, it just seems excessive. Give me a game that is: Stable, Accessible, and Fun. I will and can comprimise on graphics I played UO for 7 years and loved it.
Sometimes I think these companies get a kick back from Nvidia for promoting their products and increasing sales.
Just what I think: Continue to kick butt and take names Dana I love your articles.
F2P has been doing better than subscription MMOs since 2005. The economy has only been in the toilet for a year.
Sorry Dana, but that is flat out nonsense, at best f2p have been doing better for the last couple years. You have a short memory
Theres been like 5 pay to play MMOs that have launched since 2004 that were able to hold 200,000 subscribers.
Before you calling other people statements nonsense perhaps you should do a little research.
Also, I would like to say that I am not suprised that so many in this topic completely missed the message from the article wtiter. The article simply states that newer MMOs keep chasing after better and better graphics while the player base stays the same.
A good graphics engine and good art director will do so much more for you than cutting edge graphics.
I am however surprised that no one has mentioned Aion. It runs incredibly well on a wide variety of machines and looks great.
As usual poster can't support his argument for a hill of beans. Please educate us with f2p MMO's that have held a large audience since 2004? Prior to the past two years you can't name one. Oh I am sure some were out there, but you can't name them because no one knew about them.
lol you didnt search a lot
i can name at least 1 silkroad online it was full ,is full and will be full for years to come
dont believe me download it and try to login for fun and dont come with the generally believed but false idea
`oh but that game is full of bot `
thats like saying to wow their server arent full because they dont have bot lol
silkroad online add server still .when was the last time blizzard added server ?very long time ago
silkroad would need an insane amount of server just to keep up with the player waiting to logon
a bunch of reason made this game bigger then even they ever thot
when they released one expension ,they linked asia with europe in game like you can start from europe and go to china etc
that made a huge impact .plus all the other adds they put in ,not long ago there was another added
i never saw an mmo since 2004 that is popular as silkroad online
and thats a f2p game
its very popular for another reason also
the computer needed to play it is so ridiculous you can play this on a netbook lol
graphic quality is debatable
but i can give you at least 1 exemple
why is it that everquest 2 was a so big ressource hog
hell we ll go to newer game
rappelz i remember playing this game was looking nice but had big lag issue
what they do they lower setting on game that wasnt design as a low setting
result it look so ugly most game can beat the look
its a package you cannot lower graphic quality after the game is made it wasnt design for it
its like if guild wars had been designed on a i7 quad core processor then try to make it run on a an old 3 years old laptop
it just cant be done
guild wars team went another way
they used laptop to design and test guild wars result the smooth and stable game we got
hell if i was boss of a game producing company
i would design and produce game on netbook
why ? lol did you see how many of those computer were sold
its insane
but trying to design a game on a quad core then proting it to a netbook
is a sure way to fail
it as to be designed and tried on the computer market you target lol not mod the game after you find you cant lower setting
the markiet right now is from netbook to the biggest laptop without sli
but often they try to support quad graphic card etc why try very few baught those lol
most just cant afford those ,go ask the exgm employe if hes gona buy a 1000 $ computer
hell hes like everybody in the world he cant afford it
its so bad most just cant afford just to repair the one they got imagine
Vanguard:SoH does NOT support multiple cores, including SLI'd GPUs, so only ONE of that "Quad Core's" processor cores was actually in use, as well as only ONE of the video cards. Furthermore, Vanguard is a 32bit program, and thus utilizes an extremely limited amoutn of RAM. I don't remember the exact number, but I can tell you that it's <4gb.
Using a quad-core CPU for a single-core game is terribly inefficient.
So, in effect, the person wasted a great dela of money if all he/she used the comp *intensively* for was Vanguard:SoH.
You can run Vanguard flawlessly, at max settings, on a $600 build.
EDIT: Meant to quote EBlackblade.
Ive been doing Tech work for friends and family even friends of family for a long time. Since i was kid.
And youd be surprised how wrong sterotypes are in my area.
Most the time the Wife will play on the computer more than the husband (husbands usualy play on there console).
Now these games arnt mmos just puzzle or mystery games.
Most people either buy a old computer off there friend or buy the cheepest one at walmart.
Ive never seen a Non tech person with a average job with a high end comp.
Every person that has me look at a game cause it doesnt work its usualy sys req. And they never upgrade for the game. A few have asked about it but when I told them the price of a stick of ram. They said no and gave the game away.
The article is a good article. The only bad thing is he shoulda pointed out how every Blizzard game has never pushed the graphics and has always done good. And thats blizz speciality makeing there games available to the common consumer both hardware wise and complexity.
Me personaly im tired of how much it cost to be a computer gamer. Ive tried many times to go console but fps and mmos are my games so im stuck with pc.
And one of the things a lot of people find out is that the F2P MMOs hold their interest just as well as their old P2P game.
I know I'l be thinking twice about paying a monthly fee for a game again.