Honest truth is that the cost of making games has risen exponentially, due almost entirely by the need and want for better and better graphics.
Game makers are forced to suckle the corporate tit to get their vision out there, or now beg the community via crowd funding.
So many people say gaming has gotten worse than it was 10 years ago, 15 years ago, etc.
Do you people even remember the games of that generation?
I think there is a lot truth to this, whether it is a matter of costs or a matter of proportioning the effort might be the biggest issue. Games spend so much time to make them look good and to look like they do it all that they do very little compared to where we expect them to go given the time that has elapsed since those early games.
Combine that with the over-simplification to gain market share (now -- over long-term gains) and we face a crisis of boredom which costs us quite a bit to paint over with nice cosmetics.
Honest truth is that the cost of making games has risen exponentially, due almost entirely by the need and want for better and better graphics.
Game makers are forced to suckle the corporate tit to get their vision out there, or now beg the community via crowd funding.
So many people say gaming has gotten worse than it was 10 years ago, 15 years ago, etc.
Do you people even remember the games of that generation?
I think there is a lot truth to this, whether it is a matter of costs or a matter of proportioning the effort might be the biggest issue. Games spend so much time to make them look good and to look like they do it all that they do very little compared to where we expect them to go given the time that has elapsed since those early games.
Combine that with the over-simplification to gain market share (now -- over long-term gains) and we face a crisis of boredom which costs us quite a bit to paint over with nice cosmetics.
It's really complexity in general.
You go from a couple of buttons or a few mouse clicks to 15-16 button controllers and a few dozen key bindings.
You go from simple 2D sprites and textures to 3D models with 10,000,000 polygons and physics and lighting models...
All that stuff?
Takes a lot of time, takes a lot of people, specialized people, and that means more and more money.
Throw in voice acting and multiplayer and server costs and and and and and...
Is it REALLY that hard to imagine WHY money is so important in game creation?
Yeah, a game like Minecraft comes along eventually - small time, small budget, simple graphics and controls, and it makes a billion dollars.
But compare Minecraft to say... the latest Call of Duty or Battlefield or (ESPECIALLY) AAA MMO.
These things are MASSIVE projects requiring hundreds and hundreds of people and years of time and ridiculous levels of technology and support.
Also, for a moment imagine a full 3D character from a game, fully animated and all the sound effects and voice over and AI etc. etc. is all done.
Then the boss comes in and says - "we want to make the sword bigger and our focus groups say it's sexist, so you have to make it a fully clothed man instead."
You now have to re-do every single piece of work you just spent the last few weeks/months perfecting.
But you've still got 3 other characters to make, and the game ships in 6 weeks so...
Good luck!
You, the actual game creator, wants everything you put into the game to be 110% and a reflection of your BEST work, but you just don't have the time - even though you work 90 hours a week.
That's how game development really works.
Now imagine that, on the scale of a MMO. Hundreds of characters and thousands of sounds and effects and dozens of maps and a few hundred hours of voice overs and 10 million characters of quest text and and and and...
Old school mmos do rule (EQ, DAOC, SWG). All for multiple reasons. That doesn't mean we do not want something new. We do. We want new EQ; We want new DAOC; We want new SWG.
Not sure why that is so hard.
- EQII almost did it, but failed to excite -- mainly due to dungeons and equipment reasons for me.
- WAR -- failed. Period. It was too hoaky, but had a lot of good ideas otherwise. Maybe too few hung in there -- it was an age of blossoming choices for gamers.
- SWTOR almost did it, but failed to provide a living world. They are too small. Too constrained and they lost the class fun that was in SWG.
Originally posted by BadSpock Also, for a moment imagine a full 3D character from a game, fully animated and all the sound effects and voice over and AI etc. etc. is all done.Then the boss comes in and says - "we want to make the sword bigger and our focus groups say it's sexist, so you have to make it a fully clothed man instead."You now have to re-do every single piece of work you just spent the last few weeks/months perfecting. But you've still got 3 other characters to make, and the game ships in 6 weeks so... Good luck!You, the actual game creator, wants everything you put into the game to be 110% and a reflection of your BEST work, but you just don't have the time - even though you work 90 hours a week. That's how game development really works.Now imagine that, on the scale of a MMO. Hundreds of characters and thousands of sounds and effects and dozens of maps and a few hundred hours of voice overs and 10 million characters of quest text and and and and...
I think other genres have it better because the rules are established and the devs don't have a bunch of armchair developers chewing their ear 24/7 about every polygon and where it's supposed to go. Combine that with seeing these AAA mmos looking like ametuer hour art school dropouts, with their clunky animations and more bugs than any team can handle. And I can see why this genre can look so bleak sometimes.
Sure you can play for free for the first while. Its not until you get to the endgame that you realize playing the game is going to cost WAY more than $15 a month if you want to keep progressing.
Also being a freebie player = you are fodder content for the whales who actually matter. It gets old real quick which is why everyone quits so fast.
Its also lame to call out people who put 60 hours into a game then call it bad. You can't really tell how an MMO is at endgame until you get there. When you put in all of those hours and realize the game is terrible, you get REALLY salty which is why people rage so much about MMOs on public outlets.
Originally posted by mmoguy43 Is it irony that these comments are playing the blame game? Is that the only known game?
Silence is acknowledgement of guilt when you are the accused. The author clearly said players are to blame for the direction that MMORPGs are going, and I am a player, so I am either obliged to respond and confront it, or accept that as a fact.
What exactly is your response to this mmoguy43? Are you agreeing with the author, or is your perspective any better than any of other respondents.
lol
All should agree to take equal responsibility for the blame. Its the only way to put and end to it and move on. Which is what everyone needs. Anything else is destructive.
Ultimately, only the management team is to blame (and hidden powers behind them). Data is useful, but is always biased by the assumptions of those requesting and collecting it.
We should also not forget that the marketplace itself influences customers. A good game might be dropped simply to try a bad game. If enough temptation is out there, even a great game can fail.
Originally posted by mmoguy43 Is it irony that these comments are playing the blame game? Is that the only known game?
Silence is acknowledgement of guilt when you are the accused. The author clearly said players are to blame for the direction that MMORPGs are going, and I am a player, so I am either obliged to respond and confront it, or accept that as a fact.
What exactly is your response to this mmoguy43? Are you agreeing with the author, or is your perspective any better than any of other respondents.
lol
All should agree to take equal responsibility for the blame. Its the only way to put and end to it and move on. Which is what everyone needs. Anything else is destructive.
Still waiting for someone, somewhere to actually call it like it is.
To blame the consumer for piss poor products is mindboggling and will only be seen in the media, that must play up to their money. The companies because of falling revenue...revenue cut short because of smaller and smaller amounts of people trusting the media for relevant information.
Hate to burst your bubble but the reason things are the way they are is due to MMORPGs no longer being made high quality. They are trying to be the next WoW, capturing as many players as possible, so they make a product that isn't focused and they are failing at it.
What they need to do is focus on a part of the market, a niche and FOCUS on it and not waste time developing stuff for other player types. 100% focused and that will vastly increase their retention rate on THOSE types of players.
Which is better? Going for WoW and its 10+ million, selling around 1 million copies and losing 2/3rds of them in 3-6 months or focusing on a niche and perhaps only selling 500k copies and retaining 350K of them for 4+ years?
As for F2P and being able to play a game for free does not make up for this either. Free crap, is still crap. Giving a person a mountain of it is just giving them more CRAP and Western companies are learning this the hard way by not getting the revenue they are expecting from looking at Asian F2P game revenue numbers being so much higher.
Anyway, blaming the consumer...is stupid. Get some standards and hold companies up to them like most people do.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
Originally posted by Tracho12 Many of the games that can be purchased during this time period are for pennies of the dollar. Never played KOTOR? Well now you can for $.99. That's 100 hours of content for a dollar or a penny an hour.
That's the problem for the gaming industry: for a lot of people the value of games have dropped to near zero. We used to pay $60 or $15 a month, or even $10 for bargain bin. Now we have ton of content for one penny an hour or for free. Even if we think we'll pay for a game we like, we will always have at the back of our minds the feeling that we can get a lot more good gaming entertainment for a lot less.
Honest truth is that the cost of making games has risen exponentially, due almost entirely by the need and want for better and better graphics.
Game makers are forced to suckle the corporate tit to get their vision out there, or now beg the community via crowd funding.
So many people say gaming has gotten worse than it was 10 years ago, 15 years ago, etc.
Do you people even remember the games of that generation?
I think there is a lot truth to this, whether it is a matter of costs or a matter of proportioning the effort might be the biggest issue. Games spend so much time to make them look good and to look like they do it all that they do very little compared to where we expect them to go given the time that has elapsed since those early games.
Combine that with the over-simplification to gain market share (now -- over long-term gains) and we face a crisis of boredom which costs us quite a bit to paint over with nice cosmetics.
It's really complexity in general.
You go from a couple of buttons or a few mouse clicks to 15-16 button controllers and a few dozen key bindings.
You go from simple 2D sprites and textures to 3D models with 10,000,000 polygons and physics and lighting models...
All that stuff?
Takes a lot of time, takes a lot of people, specialized people, and that means more and more money.
Throw in voice acting and multiplayer and server costs and and and and and...
Is it REALLY that hard to imagine WHY money is so important in game creation?
Yeah, a game like Minecraft comes along eventually - small time, small budget, simple graphics and controls, and it makes a billion dollars.
But compare Minecraft to say... the latest Call of Duty or Battlefield or (ESPECIALLY) AAA MMO.
These things are MASSIVE projects requiring hundreds and hundreds of people and years of time and ridiculous levels of technology and support.
About tools and costs
Oh yeah? And here is me who though that the "Unreal Engine" was now available for FREE. I agree that the complexity of games has increased, but the tools we have are a hundred times better too - and much cheaper.
See web development for a parallel. Today's websites are much more complex than they were 10 years ago, yet you can create them with the click of a button (pretty much).
What costs money is customisation: your own custom engine, assets, sounds, music, etc. But then again, if you are not too picky, you can purchase more generic model/animations bundles on Unreal, generic sounds on another website, get music for free by browsing Soundcloud for a day (and asking for copyright/mention, or for a small fee), etc.
Games such as "Call of Duty" or "Battlefield", or even "Heroes of the Storm" reuse existing assets (models, sounds, AI), in house engines, and of course developer expertise...
Of course, if your first project as a start up is to compete head on with EA's Battlefield or WoW then your on for a disaster. But nobody in the business is that stupid... Right? The people at Minecraft started with a "small scale project" and have raised enough money for their bigger second iteration of Minecraft.
It's always possible to raise funds from a bank too. After all, with a proven "indie games" track record, there is no reason why you wouldn't be able to.
About potential customer base
Then of course, if you are competing with WoW or Call Of Duty - and given the amount of money Blizzard/EA invested in the project already - you have to invest a similar amount of cash.
You didn't think you could reasonably steal the WoW/Call of Duty player base by investing $100k into a game, right? So yes if you want to compete with WoW, you are going to have to beg for money here and there, and make your game "NON niche", that is "formulaic".
Eh, it's not your money any more, so you have to listen to the guy who pays the bill. And they guy who pays the bills tells you to look at the market and see if you can *iterate and innovate* on something successful with a large player base already.
Otherwise, they pull the plug - and rightly so. After all, maybe you're right about your "Pong MMO that everyone would want to play", but in reality, looking at what's going on outside, you're probably wrong.
Complex costly open innovative formulaic games for a large player base
vs
simple cheap limited inventive new niche games for a small player base
About the dangers of F2P/spoilt player base (on topic at last!)
"You will face an attitude of give it to me, make it a huge pile, let me eat it all and then give me more of the same [...] god forbid I have to even look at an ad [...] gimme gimme gimme gimme!" "And, what’s the solution?" "This has never been a sustainable model."
The solution is here (before even the question!). This has never been a sustainable model indeed.
So mechanically, by itself, the "non sustainable model" WILL disappear because it is not sustainable. By definition it cannot continue like that. By definition, the "gimme" players and the companies will not reach a viable, sustainable accord in the current terms.
There is no way to get around that. No way to change it. There is 100% certainty that this model will disappear because no company can operate and release games at loss constantly (unless they are backed by the state, but I don't see this happening for gaming companies).
Players might keep ask for more for free "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!", but then again it won't matter as if there is no money to make, then nobody will invest in the "wants" of players (at least significantly).
So I really don't think there is anything to be worried about here, at least for the businesses. They will find a way to please that "gimme" playerbase while getting their sustainable income in the deal. Those business who don't evolve will die, others will thrive on their back. We're seeing some model changes already.
If you like the current "status quo" of course, then there are reasons to be worried about (people who raise concerns about poorly executed F2P model becoming dominant come to mind).
(How does one become a writer for that website? with such lengthy posts I might as well start blogging here! ;-p )
This is like blaming the customers for a chef that cooked horrible meals. How can you make the leap from the chef being responsible for what they prepared to the customers being responsible?
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
This is like blaming the customers for a chef that cooked horrible meals. How can you make the leap from the chef being responsible for what they prepared to the customers being responsible?
Actually this is blaming the customers for a chef that cooks horrible meals having a CHAIN of restaurants. It didnt happen because he was a good cook, it happened because despite being a bad cook, he was so busy he had to keep expanding.
This is like blaming the customers for a chef that cooked horrible meals. How can you make the leap from the chef being responsible for what they prepared to the customers being responsible?
Actually this is blaming the customers for a chef that cooks horrible meals having a CHAIN of restaurants. It didnt happen because he was a good cook, it happened because despite being a bad cook, he was so busy he had to keep expanding.
Ok, let's play with this analogy a little.
I would say it's more like this: A company opens a restaurant which serves crappy food. Before the grand opening they hype it up claiming it to be the most awesome thing ever. A flood of people show up the first day to check it out only to discover how crappy it is. Somewhat fewer show up the next day and fewer yet the day after that. Soon the restaurant is tanking and the company shuts it down.
A year later the same company opens a new restaurant with the same chefs, the same menu, and the same crappy food. All they did was change the name and decorate it a little differently. Before the grand opening they hype it up to be the most awesome thing ever. A flood of people show up the first day to check it out only to discover how crappy it is and history repeats itself. The new restaurant soon tanks.
Who is at fault here? Is it the customers who fell for the hype and showed up to try it out when it opened? Or maybe it's the people who keep making crappy restaurants?
Of course in this analogy you have to imagine a world in which the only restaurants that exist are these crap restaurants which keep popping up, sputtering along for a while and then failing.
The article does a better job of explaining the numbers than I could, but when I read the fact that very few free-to-players stick around for more than a few months, I am not bothered at all. In fact, that information makes me think that free-to-play games, even the grindy, crappy, quickly-stamped-out messes, are a helluva good deal. You get to play them for nothing, for zero dollars, for months.
Go ahead and name me a better deal in gaming.
Easy.
Paying 10-60$ for good box game that provide depending on type of game from few to few hundread hours (average: 10-20) is much better deal.
Paying box+subscritpion for a P2P MMORPG without microtransactions you're satisfied with is a better deal.
You're right about people that have been playing game for often hundreads of hours and then saying it is all shit and not worth playing though.
Entitlement is bred by systems such as F2P that enable such attitudes.
Some players may bring that attitude to F2P games, but if it's bred anywhere it's in the subscription games, where every last aspect of content, loot, and progression has been changed over time to deal with "I paid my 15 bucks, too, I should also get that!" Seriously, we can't with one breath claim that F2P breeds and enables haves and have nots, and then with the next breath say F2P breeds and enables entitlement. It just makes us sound like a bunch of loons that really can't express what we want, just that we feel nothing is catering to us specifically, and THAT is a sense of entitlement.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Originally posted by Malabooga Originally posted by FoomerangFriggin food analogies lol every thread.
At least you can tell when people post theyre hungry ;P
Originally posted by Neanderthal Originally posted by FoomerangFriggin food analogies lol every thread.
<points at the other guys>
They started it!!
Haha!
I think the article is ultimately trying to encourage us to be responsible consumers. But at the same time blame us for problems that are out of our control.
What good is sticking around a game that is 'grindy, crappy, stamped out mess' when there are plenty of other gaming options available. That is like saying playing with a bag of dead rats is a great deal, because the dead rats were free.
The real currency that developers are competing for is a players time. Why would a player stick around crappy grindy games if they are not having fun when they can spend that time in any number of other games they actually enjoy?
When the revenue model practically dictates gameplay that is filled with grind and time sinks there should be no surprise that 9 out of 10 players quickly leave.
Make a fun game and the money will follow, regardless of the revenue model.
Except one very important fact was missed.Sure they might be getting soe mfree game time,that does not mean it was tiem well spent or eve nenjoyed,.All gamer's get bored and run out of ideas,so they just play whatever free game comes along,never really fully enjoying it.
More importantly ,it is time we can never recoup,we spent time in those f2p quick stop overs for no reason than to bide time until something comes along,so in essence we wasted our time.I am quite sure we are all looking for a game with longevity,something we can stay and enjoy for many years to come.
I have found exactly those types of games along my years of gaming.I have a very distinct criteria in the type of games is seek,so it is rally easy for me.I got over 15 years of Unreal Tournament and got to learn the best game engine on the market,so it was educational as well.
I am at around 11-12 years of enjoying FFXI ,can't complain there either.I played off and on about 5 years of EQ2so again i called it home for quit some time with no need for game hopping every 2 months.
I still roll out Quake and Doom once in z while, so i got many years out of those games as well.I pick games i really do like and enjoy,i don't jump on the bandwagon of mr.popular at the moment,i think for myself.
Blaming the gamer,though does have a LOT of merit,just look at al lof these so called ALPHA games that we know full well are NOT going to improve much past the initial early access,it is all an excuse to bypass a slack effort of a game.Oh well our game is not up to par because it is early access,pre alpha,ya whatever keep using it,sooner or later nobody will buy into these BS scams.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Comments
I think there is a lot truth to this, whether it is a matter of costs or a matter of proportioning the effort might be the biggest issue. Games spend so much time to make them look good and to look like they do it all that they do very little compared to where we expect them to go given the time that has elapsed since those early games.
Combine that with the over-simplification to gain market share (now -- over long-term gains) and we face a crisis of boredom which costs us quite a bit to paint over with nice cosmetics.
It's really complexity in general.
You go from a couple of buttons or a few mouse clicks to 15-16 button controllers and a few dozen key bindings.
You go from simple 2D sprites and textures to 3D models with 10,000,000 polygons and physics and lighting models...
All that stuff?
Takes a lot of time, takes a lot of people, specialized people, and that means more and more money.
Throw in voice acting and multiplayer and server costs and and and and and...
Is it REALLY that hard to imagine WHY money is so important in game creation?
Yeah, a game like Minecraft comes along eventually - small time, small budget, simple graphics and controls, and it makes a billion dollars.
But compare Minecraft to say... the latest Call of Duty or Battlefield or (ESPECIALLY) AAA MMO.
These things are MASSIVE projects requiring hundreds and hundreds of people and years of time and ridiculous levels of technology and support.
Also, for a moment imagine a full 3D character from a game, fully animated and all the sound effects and voice over and AI etc. etc. is all done.
Then the boss comes in and says - "we want to make the sword bigger and our focus groups say it's sexist, so you have to make it a fully clothed man instead."
You now have to re-do every single piece of work you just spent the last few weeks/months perfecting.
But you've still got 3 other characters to make, and the game ships in 6 weeks so...
Good luck!
You, the actual game creator, wants everything you put into the game to be 110% and a reflection of your BEST work, but you just don't have the time - even though you work 90 hours a week.
That's how game development really works.
Now imagine that, on the scale of a MMO. Hundreds of characters and thousands of sounds and effects and dozens of maps and a few hundred hours of voice overs and 10 million characters of quest text and and and and...
Yes, but those folks say that those games got ruined. Even then, they jump back into the other wagon saying how great those games where.
If it's new it's not old school enough!
Old school mmos do rule (EQ, DAOC, SWG). All for multiple reasons. That doesn't mean we do not want something new. We do. We want new EQ; We want new DAOC; We want new SWG.
Not sure why that is so hard.
- EQII almost did it, but failed to excite -- mainly due to dungeons and equipment reasons for me.
- WAR -- failed. Period. It was too hoaky, but had a lot of good ideas otherwise. Maybe too few hung in there -- it was an age of blossoming choices for gamers.
- SWTOR almost did it, but failed to provide a living world. They are too small. Too constrained and they lost the class fun that was in SWG.
Sure you can play for free for the first while. Its not until you get to the endgame that you realize playing the game is going to cost WAY more than $15 a month if you want to keep progressing.
Also being a freebie player = you are fodder content for the whales who actually matter. It gets old real quick which is why everyone quits so fast.
lol
All should agree to take equal responsibility for the blame. Its the only way to put and end to it and move on. Which is what everyone needs. Anything else is destructive.
Vision and Visionary is far superior to data,
Ultimately, only the management team is to blame (and hidden powers behind them). Data is useful, but is always biased by the assumptions of those requesting and collecting it.
We should also not forget that the marketplace itself influences customers. A good game might be dropped simply to try a bad game. If enough temptation is out there, even a great game can fail.
Ok I'll start.
Sorry guys. It's partly my fault.
Still waiting for someone, somewhere to actually call it like it is.
To blame the consumer for piss poor products is mindboggling and will only be seen in the media, that must play up to their money. The companies because of falling revenue...revenue cut short because of smaller and smaller amounts of people trusting the media for relevant information.
Hate to burst your bubble but the reason things are the way they are is due to MMORPGs no longer being made high quality. They are trying to be the next WoW, capturing as many players as possible, so they make a product that isn't focused and they are failing at it.
What they need to do is focus on a part of the market, a niche and FOCUS on it and not waste time developing stuff for other player types. 100% focused and that will vastly increase their retention rate on THOSE types of players.
Which is better? Going for WoW and its 10+ million, selling around 1 million copies and losing 2/3rds of them in 3-6 months or focusing on a niche and perhaps only selling 500k copies and retaining 350K of them for 4+ years?
As for F2P and being able to play a game for free does not make up for this either. Free crap, is still crap. Giving a person a mountain of it is just giving them more CRAP and Western companies are learning this the hard way by not getting the revenue they are expecting from looking at Asian F2P game revenue numbers being so much higher.
Anyway, blaming the consumer...is stupid. Get some standards and hold companies up to them like most people do.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
That's the problem for the gaming industry: for a lot of people the value of games have dropped to near zero. We used to pay $60 or $15 a month, or even $10 for bargain bin. Now we have ton of content for one penny an hour or for free. Even if we think we'll pay for a game we like, we will always have at the back of our minds the feeling that we can get a lot more good gaming entertainment for a lot less.
Oh yeah? And here is me who though that the "Unreal Engine" was now available for FREE. I agree that the complexity of games has increased, but the tools we have are a hundred times better too - and much cheaper.
See web development for a parallel. Today's websites are much more complex than they were 10 years ago, yet you can create them with the click of a button (pretty much).
What costs money is customisation: your own custom engine, assets, sounds, music, etc. But then again, if you are not too picky, you can purchase more generic model/animations bundles on Unreal, generic sounds on another website, get music for free by browsing Soundcloud for a day (and asking for copyright/mention, or for a small fee), etc.
Games such as "Call of Duty" or "Battlefield", or even "Heroes of the Storm" reuse existing assets (models, sounds, AI), in house engines, and of course developer expertise...
Of course, if your first project as a start up is to compete head on with EA's Battlefield or WoW then your on for a disaster. But nobody in the business is that stupid... Right? The people at Minecraft started with a "small scale project" and have raised enough money for their bigger second iteration of Minecraft.
It's always possible to raise funds from a bank too. After all, with a proven "indie games" track record, there is no reason why you wouldn't be able to.
Then of course, if you are competing with WoW or Call Of Duty - and given the amount of money Blizzard/EA invested in the project already - you have to invest a similar amount of cash.
You didn't think you could reasonably steal the WoW/Call of Duty player base by investing $100k into a game, right? So yes if you want to compete with WoW, you are going to have to beg for money here and there, and make your game "NON niche", that is "formulaic".
Eh, it's not your money any more, so you have to listen to the guy who pays the bill. And they guy who pays the bills tells you to look at the market and see if you can *iterate and innovate* on something successful with a large player base already.
Otherwise, they pull the plug - and rightly so. After all, maybe you're right about your "Pong MMO that everyone would want to play", but in reality, looking at what's going on outside, you're probably wrong.
Complex costly open innovative formulaic games for a large player base
vs
simple cheap limited inventive new niche games for a small player base
This is like blaming the customers for a chef that cooked horrible meals. How can you make the leap from the chef being responsible for what they prepared to the customers being responsible?
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Actually this is blaming the customers for a chef that cooks horrible meals having a CHAIN of restaurants. It didnt happen because he was a good cook, it happened because despite being a bad cook, he was so busy he had to keep expanding.
Ok, let's play with this analogy a little.
I would say it's more like this: A company opens a restaurant which serves crappy food. Before the grand opening they hype it up claiming it to be the most awesome thing ever. A flood of people show up the first day to check it out only to discover how crappy it is. Somewhat fewer show up the next day and fewer yet the day after that. Soon the restaurant is tanking and the company shuts it down.
A year later the same company opens a new restaurant with the same chefs, the same menu, and the same crappy food. All they did was change the name and decorate it a little differently. Before the grand opening they hype it up to be the most awesome thing ever. A flood of people show up the first day to check it out only to discover how crappy it is and history repeats itself. The new restaurant soon tanks.
Who is at fault here? Is it the customers who fell for the hype and showed up to try it out when it opened? Or maybe it's the people who keep making crappy restaurants?
Of course in this analogy you have to imagine a world in which the only restaurants that exist are these crap restaurants which keep popping up, sputtering along for a while and then failing.
Friggin food analogies lol every thread.
At least you can tell when people post theyre hungry ;P
<points at the other guys>
They started it!!
The article does a better job of explaining the numbers than I could, but when I read the fact that very few free-to-players stick around for more than a few months, I am not bothered at all. In fact, that information makes me think that free-to-play games, even the grindy, crappy, quickly-stamped-out messes, are a helluva good deal. You get to play them for nothing, for zero dollars, for months.
Go ahead and name me a better deal in gaming.
Easy.
Paying 10-60$ for good box game that provide depending on type of game from few to few hundread hours (average: 10-20) is much better deal.
Paying box+subscritpion for a P2P MMORPG without microtransactions you're satisfied with is a better deal.
You're right about people that have been playing game for often hundreads of hours and then saying it is all shit and not worth playing though.
Some players may bring that attitude to F2P games, but if it's bred anywhere it's in the subscription games, where every last aspect of content, loot, and progression has been changed over time to deal with "I paid my 15 bucks, too, I should also get that!" Seriously, we can't with one breath claim that F2P breeds and enables haves and have nots, and then with the next breath say F2P breeds and enables entitlement. It just makes us sound like a bunch of loons that really can't express what we want, just that we feel nothing is catering to us specifically, and THAT is a sense of entitlement.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
<points at the other guys>
They started it!!
Haha!
I think the article is ultimately trying to encourage us to be responsible consumers. But at the same time blame us for problems that are out of our control.
"Go ahead and name a better deal in gaming"
OK:
Any game a player enjoy enjoys.
What good is sticking around a game that is 'grindy, crappy, stamped out mess' when there are plenty of other gaming options available. That is like saying playing with a bag of dead rats is a great deal, because the dead rats were free.
The real currency that developers are competing for is a players time. Why would a player stick around crappy grindy games if they are not having fun when they can spend that time in any number of other games they actually enjoy?
When the revenue model practically dictates gameplay that is filled with grind and time sinks there should be no surprise that 9 out of 10 players quickly leave.
Make a fun game and the money will follow, regardless of the revenue model.
Except one very important fact was missed.Sure they might be getting soe mfree game time,that does not mean it was tiem well spent or eve nenjoyed,.All gamer's get bored and run out of ideas,so they just play whatever free game comes along,never really fully enjoying it.
More importantly ,it is time we can never recoup,we spent time in those f2p quick stop overs for no reason than to bide time until something comes along,so in essence we wasted our time.I am quite sure we are all looking for a game with longevity,something we can stay and enjoy for many years to come.
I have found exactly those types of games along my years of gaming.I have a very distinct criteria in the type of games is seek,so it is rally easy for me.I got over 15 years of Unreal Tournament and got to learn the best game engine on the market,so it was educational as well.
I am at around 11-12 years of enjoying FFXI ,can't complain there either.I played off and on about 5 years of EQ2so again i called it home for quit some time with no need for game hopping every 2 months.
I still roll out Quake and Doom once in z while, so i got many years out of those games as well.I pick games i really do like and enjoy,i don't jump on the bandwagon of mr.popular at the moment,i think for myself.
Blaming the gamer,though does have a LOT of merit,just look at al lof these so called ALPHA games that we know full well are NOT going to improve much past the initial early access,it is all an excuse to bypass a slack effort of a game.Oh well our game is not up to par because it is early access,pre alpha,ya whatever keep using it,sooner or later nobody will buy into these BS scams.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.