Nicely written article. I think part of the problem is that too many PR/Marketing Departments (and frankly Company Execs) don't understand basic business rules, nor the basic realities of product design. The reality of product design (and this goes for most products...not just MMO's) is that is IMPOSSIBLE to design a product that appeals to everyone. That is because people are different and have wildy different and often contradictory perspectives of what makes a product appealing. The broader the category of people you try to reach with your product, the more difficult said product is to design. Smart designers and smart companies recognize this reality and try to pick target audiences for thier products that are broad enough that the product will be profitable to sell but narrow enough that the product can actualy be designed well given the available resources. That is a very difficult tight-rope to walk...and many companies fail right there. Either picking a market that is too small to be profitable given the resources put into the project....or more often trying to design to an audiance that is so broad and widely divergent that the design cannot possibly be made to work well. However, even when designers/companies pick the scope right for the product...things can still go awry when Marketing/PR departments get involved. Many marketers see it as thier mission to try to sell the product to "as many customers as possible". This is what they see as thier goal....and their metric for success is the simple number of bodies they have managed to cram through the door. Many executives also fall for this lure as well. Unfortunately this actualy can be counter-productive to the LONG TERM health and financial success of the company/product. It's a pretty standard axiom in business that repeat business is FAR CHEAPER to acquire the new business. Companies obviously need a certain amount of new business to be successfull.... but many companies can go bankrupt by having TOO MUCH new business. That is because new business can be so expensive to acquire that the profit margin on it does not cover the overhead to serve it. Too many marketers and frankly executive fail to realize this basic reality. They don't see the forest for the trees. The most effecient use of marketing is to gain as much of the TARGET AUDIENCE (i.e. the people who's needs the product is designed to meet well) as possible....and NO ONE ELSE. Unfortunately too many marketers (and executives) don't understand that important distinction and try to present the product AS IF IT WOULD APPEAL TO EVERYONE (including people who's tastes are contradictory to it's design). This results in wasted resources (too many one time sales), damage to the product/companies brand (in disatisified customers/bad reviews) and the companies future ability to do business (since a company can always release different products designed to meet different target audiences in future....but if that target audience was ALREADY jilted by the purchase of a previous product....they aren't likely to try a new one). This is the real danger of the hype machine....not talking up the things the product is designed to meet well....but talking up the things it ISN'T.
I happen to be in marketing, and am an account executive and would have to agree with you.
Our company unlike many, focuses on what a customer needs vs. what we think we can get away with pushing out the door.
If more companies listened to their customers and filled the needs of majority groups rather than creating "the everything for everyone product" they would find themselves with very sustainable growth, happy customers and long time repeat business.
Couple this idea with good customer service and you have a successful business.
Nicely written article. I think part of the problem is that too many PR/Marketing Departments (and frankly Company Execs) don't understand basic business rules, nor the basic realities of product design. The reality of product design (and this goes for most products...not just MMO's) is that is IMPOSSIBLE to design a product that appeals to everyone. That is because people are different and have wildy different and often contradictory perspectives of what makes a product appealing. The broader the category of people you try to reach with your product, the more difficult said product is to design. Smart designers and smart companies recognize this reality and try to pick target audiences for thier products that are broad enough that the product will be profitable to sell but narrow enough that the product can actualy be designed well given the available resources. That is a very difficult tight-rope to walk...and many companies fail right there. Either picking a market that is too small to be profitable given the resources put into the project....or more often trying to design to an audiance that is so broad and widely divergent that the design cannot possibly be made to work well. However, even when designers/companies pick the scope right for the product...things can still go awry when Marketing/PR departments get involved. Many marketers see it as thier mission to try to sell the product to "as many customers as possible". This is what they see as thier goal....and their metric for success is the simple number of bodies they have managed to cram through the door. Many executives also fall for this lure as well. Unfortunately this actualy can be counter-productive to the LONG TERM health and financial success of the company/product. It's a pretty standard axiom in business that repeat business is FAR CHEAPER to acquire the new business. Companies obviously need a certain amount of new business to be successfull.... but many companies can go bankrupt by having TOO MUCH new business. That is because new business can be so expensive to acquire that the profit margin on it does not cover the overhead to serve it. Too many marketers and frankly executive fail to realize this basic reality. They don't see the forest for the trees. The most effecient use of marketing is to gain as much of the TARGET AUDIENCE (i.e. the people who's needs the product is designed to meet well) as possible....and NO ONE ELSE. Unfortunately too many marketers (and executives) don't understand that important distinction and try to present the product AS IF IT WOULD APPEAL TO EVERYONE (including people who's tastes are contradictory to it's design). This results in wasted resources (too many one time sales), damage to the product/companies brand (in disatisified customers/bad reviews) and the companies future ability to do business (since a company can always release different products designed to meet different target audiences in future....but if that target audience was ALREADY jilted by the purchase of a previous product....they aren't likely to try a new one). This is the real danger of the hype machine....not talking up the things the product is designed to meet well....but talking up the things it ISN'T.
I happen to be in marketing, and am an account executive and would have to agree with you.
Our company unlike many, focuses on what a customer needs vs. what we think we can get away with pushing out the door.
If more companies listened to their customers and filled the needs of majority groups rather than creating "the everything for everyone product" they would find themselves with very sustainable growth, happy customers and long time repeat business.
Couple this idea with good customer service and you have a successful business.
Well put on both accounts. This applies to gaming as well as other areas. It is a basic that all companies should follow and it would improve their sales and repeats.
Customer Service is another touchy area as well. The customer is not always right, however, it is important to find a happy medium that soothes it over as much as possible without costing the company too much or loosing too many customers. Again You Can Not Please Everyone No Matter What You Do! This is a fact and even giving a customer everything they think they should have is no guarantee they will return or they will leave happy.
Solution for the 'useless beta' problem: call it an alpha test.
Solution for overhyped marketing: corporate attitude that focuses on long term (>2 months) revenue, actually has people in it who read game forums and realises that sometimes it takes investing 1 to get back 2. So many games were released with critical bugs that killed revenue, when all it would have taken was 2 months to fix everything.
Solution for developers having to explain every they spend and facing budget cuts on pesky stuff like bugtesting that can't be advertised: your fault for burning so much money. Games can be made for cheaper than you've been doing. You only need 500,000 square km of landmass because you failed to make the gameplay interesting enough to attract people without the biggest ingame universe in history.
I think the inevitable cleanup of the hype and industry is already happening naturally. There are only going to be so many multimillion dollar MMO's that tank before moronic investors start being more careful with their money in this industry. Today, they see the kind of money WoW pulls down, and they think anyone can do it. It seriously freaks me out how ignorant some investors and corporations are about the people they are selling these games to and what we expect from a modern MMO. In the case of MMOs, more competition has not caused better value or quality to emerge. All we are seeing here is garbage game after garbage game. MMOs are evolving at a snail's pace both visually and in game play. When was the last time we saw a significant jump in the complexity of AI or any other game feature? It's no wonder so many of us are bored. These lame companies continue to just play it safe and crank out clones using the same old ideas and 'standards'.
I don't think the investors are as moronic as many would think. They invest short-term, that's why companies like Funcom already had MMOs in development while another one was being released. The market has become "Quantity > Quality". Why should I, as an investor, wait (say) 5yrs to see profit when I can see it in 3months (or when ever the company starts pre-orders). I can, with 80% certainty, say the major investors in any MMO have their money AND profit within the first month of the game going live.
Unfortunantly, the investors are constantly looking for a new source since due to the rushed nature of the game the Primary Company (i.e Funcom, Blizzard, & NCsoft) ends up with a bad rap. Raise your hands if you will buy Secret World (Funcom's next MMO); very few will raise their hands because of how AoC was handled. This is probably the reason mega-MMO Companies like Blizzard and NCsoft still release high(er) quality MMOs; Aion was a hit in the Asian market, NCsoft just wanted to see how much more they could get in the Western Market. They generally don't bother/want out-side investment that will be demanding on release dates.
On a side note, the reason so many MMOs are tanking is the fact that so many are being made. Car accidents have gone up since the 'Car' was created...does that mean drivers have gotten clumsy? or is it just that now there's more cars in existence and so statistically there are more accidents. We didn't see many MMOs in the early 20xx because there wasn't that many out: EQ/EQ2, WoW, Lineage/Lineage2 (maybe 4 more that i can't think of)
-The MMO Industry has become a game of Russian Roulette; feeling lucky?
Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising everytime we fall.
I completely agree with most of the points stated in this article. Very dissapointing how MMORPG's are overhyped now-a-days. I recently CBTed for warhammer BEFORE they let the zerg of people in and generally the community was very active, healthy, and helpful to the developing team. I believe they had every intention of making the game into this awesome huge battle game, like something you would see in the movies, but i think they weren't able to deliver the end-game content in-time with the demands of the publisher(EA).
Now that being said i believe that the MMO's need to get back into the process of player created end-game content. Most every single MMO game i have played in a while has consisted of good leveling content, good story line, and good class makeup. The only thing they are lacking really is end-game content that they do not have time to squeeze in before release. Remember back in the good 'ol days when pvp was just bragging rights? I am mainly talking about ultima online and other general early FPS games (quake, ut2004, etc..)
I am very excited though because global agenda is basing their end-game system off of this "player created end-game content" idea and looks very promising. I won't over shoot my expectations like i did for warhammer because as this article has preached, stop the hype!
The question we should be asking ourselves is, "What needs to change so our hopes aren't dashed with every single release?" What titles slated for release in the next year are already over hyped?
I think the new start wars/star trek mmos are going to be waaaaaaaay over hyped. One reason why i didnt touch aion was because of the huge expectations everyone had for it to be the "next WoW"
I agree with the OP. Furthermore, what I think the mmo genre needs is a small but solid base with not too many features and build up from there.
Still we will always have WoW, as a blessing and as a curse. Blessing, because it expanded the genre in numbers. Curse, because of the large influx of players into every new mmo, expecting alot of content and good polish.
Then again, games like Fallen Earth and Lord of the Rings Online seem to have managed to keep expectations in check and improve their game from a solid base.
If you are interested in subscription or PCU numbers for MMORPG's, check out my site : http://mmodata.blogspot.be/ Favorite MMORPG's : DAoC pre ToA-NF, SWG Pre CU-NGE, EVE Online
give to players the information that the beta test is only for test purpose and when it ends there wont be bonus or extras to the players that played during beta phase. That will have an impact on the number of beta players, but the players that will play the beta phase will be, the most of them, the kind of player that only wants to help in the development of the game.
Just hire some good forum analysts that actually happen to play games too. There are so many gamers that LOVE forums and would play the games they talk about. If the game companies start recruiting ppl to do that job for money, there will be a lot of ppl looking for the "job". imagine a full-timer: 8 hours/day, 4-5 reading forum in their section of the forum and analysing the most important issues (and please, make some polls, theres nothing better than polls to test the player satisfaction), and the other 3 hours just playing the game to find those issues.
Give information all the time about what problems are beeing fixed. We are tired of saying this, but we still have no feddback about the devs-admins work on solving the major problems.
AND Open-betas are WRONG. They dont help with anything, unless the game devs pretend to be in Beta phase "forever". Just use some test-groups to test the game, and when the only things missing to do are searching for bugs adn flaws, than you can have a bigger number of testers to look for most of them while the beta is active.
Excellent article. The over hype is definitely out of hand at the moment. I don't see a solution in sight.
The problem is lately that the testors mostly get to see, at best, alpha releases and early beta becomes the release. Many of these small companies don't have a budget for QA and expect the players to do it for them.
The majority of people playing beta are not intentionally testing the game but just intent on playing it and figuring out how to get an edge when the game releases.
Comments
I happen to be in marketing, and am an account executive and would have to agree with you.
Our company unlike many, focuses on what a customer needs vs. what we think we can get away with pushing out the door.
If more companies listened to their customers and filled the needs of majority groups rather than creating "the everything for everyone product" they would find themselves with very sustainable growth, happy customers and long time repeat business.
Couple this idea with good customer service and you have a successful business.
I happen to be in marketing, and am an account executive and would have to agree with you.
Our company unlike many, focuses on what a customer needs vs. what we think we can get away with pushing out the door.
If more companies listened to their customers and filled the needs of majority groups rather than creating "the everything for everyone product" they would find themselves with very sustainable growth, happy customers and long time repeat business.
Couple this idea with good customer service and you have a successful business.
Well put on both accounts. This applies to gaming as well as other areas. It is a basic that all companies should follow and it would improve their sales and repeats.
Customer Service is another touchy area as well. The customer is not always right, however, it is important to find a happy medium that soothes it over as much as possible without costing the company too much or loosing too many customers. Again You Can Not Please Everyone No Matter What You Do! This is a fact and even giving a customer everything they think they should have is no guarantee they will return or they will leave happy.
Gikku
Solution for the 'useless beta' problem: call it an alpha test.
Solution for overhyped marketing: corporate attitude that focuses on long term (>2 months) revenue, actually has people in it who read game forums and realises that sometimes it takes investing 1 to get back 2. So many games were released with critical bugs that killed revenue, when all it would have taken was 2 months to fix everything.
Solution for developers having to explain every they spend and facing budget cuts on pesky stuff like bugtesting that can't be advertised: your fault for burning so much money. Games can be made for cheaper than you've been doing. You only need 500,000 square km of landmass because you failed to make the gameplay interesting enough to attract people without the biggest ingame universe in history.
Mods by Laz | Diablo II | Median 2008 | Median XL
What about the video game media? They are innocent in this?
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
I don't think the investors are as moronic as many would think. They invest short-term, that's why companies like Funcom already had MMOs in development while another one was being released. The market has become "Quantity > Quality". Why should I, as an investor, wait (say) 5yrs to see profit when I can see it in 3months (or when ever the company starts pre-orders). I can, with 80% certainty, say the major investors in any MMO have their money AND profit within the first month of the game going live.
Unfortunantly, the investors are constantly looking for a new source since due to the rushed nature of the game the Primary Company (i.e Funcom, Blizzard, & NCsoft) ends up with a bad rap. Raise your hands if you will buy Secret World (Funcom's next MMO); very few will raise their hands because of how AoC was handled. This is probably the reason mega-MMO Companies like Blizzard and NCsoft still release high(er) quality MMOs; Aion was a hit in the Asian market, NCsoft just wanted to see how much more they could get in the Western Market. They generally don't bother/want out-side investment that will be demanding on release dates.
On a side note, the reason so many MMOs are tanking is the fact that so many are being made. Car accidents have gone up since the 'Car' was created...does that mean drivers have gotten clumsy? or is it just that now there's more cars in existence and so statistically there are more accidents. We didn't see many MMOs in the early 20xx because there wasn't that many out: EQ/EQ2, WoW, Lineage/Lineage2 (maybe 4 more that i can't think of)
-The MMO Industry has become a game of Russian Roulette; feeling lucky?
Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising everytime we fall.
I completely agree with most of the points stated in this article. Very dissapointing how MMORPG's are overhyped now-a-days. I recently CBTed for warhammer BEFORE they let the zerg of people in and generally the community was very active, healthy, and helpful to the developing team. I believe they had every intention of making the game into this awesome huge battle game, like something you would see in the movies, but i think they weren't able to deliver the end-game content in-time with the demands of the publisher(EA).
Now that being said i believe that the MMO's need to get back into the process of player created end-game content. Most every single MMO game i have played in a while has consisted of good leveling content, good story line, and good class makeup. The only thing they are lacking really is end-game content that they do not have time to squeeze in before release. Remember back in the good 'ol days when pvp was just bragging rights? I am mainly talking about ultima online and other general early FPS games (quake, ut2004, etc..)
I am very excited though because global agenda is basing their end-game system off of this "player created end-game content" idea and looks very promising. I won't over shoot my expectations like i did for warhammer because as this article has preached, stop the hype!
.:[LP]:. Beowulf
beowulfhuntr on steam
The question we should be asking ourselves is, "What needs to change so our hopes aren't dashed with every single release?"
What titles slated for release in the next year are already over hyped?
I think the new start wars/star trek mmos are going to be waaaaaaaay over hyped. One reason why i didnt touch aion was because of the huge expectations everyone had for it to be the "next WoW"
.:[LP]:. Beowulf
beowulfhuntr on steam
I agree with the OP. Furthermore, what I think the mmo genre needs is a small but solid base with not too many features and build up from there.
Still we will always have WoW, as a blessing and as a curse. Blessing, because it expanded the genre in numbers. Curse, because of the large influx of players into every new mmo, expecting alot of content and good polish.
Then again, games like Fallen Earth and Lord of the Rings Online seem to have managed to keep expectations in check and improve their game from a solid base.
If you are interested in subscription or PCU numbers for MMORPG's, check out my site :
http://mmodata.blogspot.be/
Favorite MMORPG's : DAoC pre ToA-NF, SWG Pre CU-NGE, EVE Online
I didnt like this game... This is not a good game and moreover the people over here are crazy...
Last friday i didnt saw the news of garrett fuller...
I didnt like this game... This is not a good game and moreover the people over here are crazy...
I didnt like this game... This is not a good game and moreover the people over here are crazy...
Last friday i didnt saw the news of garrett fuller...
I didnt like this game... This is not a good game and moreover the people over here are crazy...
Last friday i didnt saw the news of garrett fuller...
I didnt like this game... This is not a good game and moreover the people over here are crazy...
Last friday i didnt saw the news of garrett fuller...
I didnt like this game... This is not a good game and moreover the people over here are crazy...
Last friday i didnt saw the news of garrett fuller...
I didnt like this game... This is not a good game and moreover the people over here are crazy...
Last friday i didnt saw the news of garrett fuller...
I didnt like this game... This is not a good game and moreover the people over here are crazy...
Last friday i didnt saw the news of garrett fuller...
I didnt like this game... This is not a good game and moreover the people over here are crazy...
Last friday i didnt saw the news of garrett fuller...
I didnt like this game... This is not a good game and moreover the people over here are crazy...
Last friday i didnt saw the news of garrett fuller...
I didnt like this game... This is not a good game and moreover the people over here are crazy...
Last friday i didnt saw the news of garrett fuller...
I didnt like this game... This is not a good game and moreover the people over here are crazy...
Last friday i didnt saw the news of garrett fuller...
I didnt like this game... This is not a good game and moreover the people over here are crazy...
Last friday i didnt saw the news of garrett fuller...
Last friday i didnt saw the news of garrett fuller...
Actually i was testing it and this editor's failed my test case...
Good article!!
About the over-marketing i completely agree.
About the Beta effect:
give to players the information that the beta test is only for test purpose and when it ends there wont be bonus or extras to the players that played during beta phase. That will have an impact on the number of beta players, but the players that will play the beta phase will be, the most of them, the kind of player that only wants to help in the development of the game.
Just hire some good forum analysts that actually happen to play games too. There are so many gamers that LOVE forums and would play the games they talk about. If the game companies start recruiting ppl to do that job for money, there will be a lot of ppl looking for the "job". imagine a full-timer: 8 hours/day, 4-5 reading forum in their section of the forum and analysing the most important issues (and please, make some polls, theres nothing better than polls to test the player satisfaction), and the other 3 hours just playing the game to find those issues.
Give information all the time about what problems are beeing fixed. We are tired of saying this, but we still have no feddback about the devs-admins work on solving the major problems.
AND Open-betas are WRONG. They dont help with anything, unless the game devs pretend to be in Beta phase "forever". Just use some test-groups to test the game, and when the only things missing to do are searching for bugs adn flaws, than you can have a bigger number of testers to look for most of them while the beta is active.
Excellent article. The over hype is definitely out of hand at the moment. I don't see a solution in sight.
The problem is lately that the testors mostly get to see, at best, alpha releases and early beta becomes the release. Many of these small companies don't have a budget for QA and expect the players to do it for them.
The majority of people playing beta are not intentionally testing the game but just intent on playing it and figuring out how to get an edge when the game releases.