Schilling's Green Monster Games

[Ard]

I'd agree with you if Final Fantasy 14 wasn't due out this year.

[Numtini]

Old Logic: Release the PC game first, it's cheaper and easier to maintain. Then move on from that success to a console.

New Logic: Release the console version first, it's more difficult but you'll sell more boxes initially and once you release either version and it bombs, you'll never get the other one out.

[veredus]

edit: Reading is hard...

[Engels]

Can't really get my head around a console MMO. That whole 'communicating' thing...I know that consoles come with microphone ports, so I guess we could all voice chat our way through a raid, but it somehow feels like it would be far too chaotic to get to that point where you could sanely use voice chat to coordinate a raid or even just a 6 man group. The rule of thumb, or maybe better stated, the unspoken rule is that you need typing first to get organized into guilds, then maybe once you have the basic structure sorted out, then maybe you can venture into voice chatting. Am I woefully behind the times?

[Soln]

sounds great on paper

reality check:  major AAA publishers release 1 console game in a year; major AAA publishers release 1 online service usually in a year -- never heard of someone doing both

new and entirely privately funded company releasing one game then the other?  I hope they are the same game soup to nuts.  Otherwise CS alone might kill them on two separate platforms.


also, Nov 2010 WoW2, Sping 2011 SWTOR, 2011? New Blizz MMO.  Difficult difficult lemon difficult.

[Nebu]

Step 1 would be to clearly define what is an MMO.  If we're talking about something like STO or GW, then a console would work just fine.  It wouldn't take too much thought to allow players to have pregenerated responses that they could choose from a series of menus that are arranged by category.  I think of it being something like the commands tied to the function keys in BF1942.  They got your point across in situations when you weren't in vocal contact with other team members.  

[Grimwell]

I know it's going to shock people, because it's mind-blowingly awesome... but you can plug keyboards into consoles.  I know... just amazing isn't it?

I don't buy the complaint that communications are hampered on a console.

[Tarami]

Consoles are a much larger opportunity space than PC for MMO's. There is far less entrenchment and competition. For a studio planning a first time project, this is a good idea.

If it succeeds, but a failed MMO on consoles will not, like Warhammer or Conan, recoup some development costs by selling a lot of boxes, it will rather bomb HORRIBLY. You won't get a million console owners to preorder an MMO, they have little familiarity with the genre and I would wager even less trust in. Those that have familiarity with the genre have played WoW, so you basically have the same competition anyway.

Secondly, which ties in with the first argument, I expect console gamers to have much higher expectations on polish, stability and responsiveness than your average PC gamer. Those things are historically hard to deliver on in MMOs, especially in a debut title.

In short, it's much easier to get away financially with a semi-crappy MMO on PCs than it is on consoles - and I feel we have very little reason to believe this will be anything but semi-crappy (Edit: except for full-on shit.)

[naum]

I suspect a console edition of the game lore would be at best MMO-lite. Or like a Civ Revolutions to full fledged Civ.

Yes you can plugin a keyboard to a console, but a game requiring a keyboard (is there any popular console games to date that need a keyboard?) would mean a massive marketing campaign to be undertaken.

How does a regular patching process work on a console? Before somebody pops in with "it's done now with downloadable games", what I mean is, does that mean that it's a console game that is purchased only via that route or is the disc you buy at the retail outlet (or delivered from your favorite online shipper) just a keychain trigger to start the download and patch protocol — that is, you pop the disc to download and execute a game stored elsewhere on the box?

[Margalis]

I'll put money on it not being an MMO.

[Grimwell]

Consoles are a much larger opportunity space than PC for MMO's. There is far less entrenchment and competition. For a studio planning a first time project, this is a good idea.

If it succeeds, but a failed MMO on consoles will not, like Warhammer or Conan, recoup some development costs by selling a lot of boxes, it will rather bomb HORRIBLY. You won't get a million console owners to preorder an MMO, they have little familiarity with the genre and I would wager even less trust in. Those that have familiarity with the genre have played WoW, so you basically have the same competition anyway.

Secondly, which ties in with the first argument, I expect console gamers to have much higher expectations on polish, stability and responsiveness than your average PC gamer. Those things are historically hard to deliver on in MMOs, especially in a debut title.

In short, it's much easier to get away financially with a semi-crappy MMO on PCs than it is on consoles - and I feel we have very little reason to believe this will be anything but semi-crappy (Edit: except for full-on shit.)

That there is a large amount of personal speculation stated as truth.

This does not make it truth.

What I said about the amount of competition in that market is actually verifiable.

Also, on your point about pre-orders for a console... the same statement once would have applied well to FPS game on a console:
"You won't get a million console owners to preorder an FPS, they have little familiarity with the genre and I would wager even less trust in."

Yet they did for the Halo franchise.... Hmmm - it seems to me that someone just needs to deliver a quality MMO to the console market and hook the audience that won't come to PC.

Note about my speculation: It's presented as speculation.

[Kageru]

I'll make fun of them for releasing a console centric MMO when I have some belief they'll release anything worth caring about at all.

[UnSub]

I've been waiting for a next gen console MMO for a while. However, MS appears to be putting up a lot of barriers (correct or not) to one appearing on the Xbox 360 and I don't know if Sony is really interested enough for PS3.

Plus at this stage the next version of the Xbox 360 / PS3 has to be under consideration. Now, personally I see this as an opportunity (release your console MMO in 2011, know that the next version of the console is out in 2015 and say your MMO is planned to be canned awesome for four years and players will actually impact on the end of the world) but it could be a pretty big business investment for such a limited timeframe.

[schild]

Plus at this stage the next version of the Xbox 360 / PS3 has to be under consideration. Now, personally I see this as an opportunity (release your console MMO in 2011, know that the next version of the console is out in 2015 and say your MMO is planned to be canned awesome for four years and players will actually impact on the end of the world) but it could be a pretty big business investment for such a limited timeframe.

While SOE, of all companies, would be in the mix on this - Nintendo and Microsoft will have no such shenanigans. SOE does NOT want to compete with FFXIV.

Anyway, not this time around. Maybe never. Maybe an F2P mmog might happen. I would love Gunbound and the likes on a console, but god knows the business people running those 3-ring circuses would never even fathom delivering that to people via PSN with DLC out the WAZOO.

F2P Killzone 4 where you buy maps and stuff though, I could see that happening.

[Tarami]

That there is a large amount of personal speculation stated as truth.

This does not make it truth.

What I said about the amount of competition in that market is actually verifiable.

Also, on your point about pre-orders for a console... the same statement once would have applied well to FPS game on a console:
"You won't get a million console owners to preorder an FPS, they have little familiarity with the genre and I would wager even less trust in."

Yet they did for the Halo franchise.... Hmmm - it seems to me that someone just needs to deliver a quality MMO to the console market and hook the audience that won't come to PC.

Note about my speculation: It's presented as speculation.

I should have used more "I think", "I wager", "I expect"? There was a liberal helping of "this is my speculative opinion" in that post. I wasn't exactly quoting statistics. As for verifiable market, that isn't strictly true. There's a verifiable unexplored market (as in, there are lots of people playing games on consoles), but how do you verify that those people are actually interested in MMOs? This isn't like selling steel to China. Is there a verfiable demand for MMOs on consoles, or are you just working off the tangent that console gamers share tastes with PC gamers (barring any overlap)? A deficiency doesn't equate to a demand.

Anyway, you're comparing FPS, a genre that had hundreds of successful examples and maybe a dozen very successful ones, prior to Halo, to MMOG which has had... one or two? UO and AC might have been successful as MMOs, but they didn't sell boxes like Doom, Half-Life or Unreal did. FPSes were fully mature on PC around the time Halo released on the XBox, which in all honesty can't be said about MMOs eventhough the concept has been around for nearly as long.

I'm not saying it's completely unthinkable that someone will create a good MMO for consoles within the next few years, just that it is extremely unlikely that an unproven studio will be able to create a game that people on the PC-end will classify as an MMO (fairly important if it's going to be ported to PC and central to this discussion) at the same time as being good enough to actually create new MMO players in the console crowd. That strikes me as hubris and not a "good idea."

If we strike the idea that it's going to be anything like PC MMOs with expansive worlds and long-term persistance, but rather like GW or Hellgate, it'll be competing against other semi-persistent games like Modern Warfare rather than a virtual non-existance of other MMOs. That also makes the whole argument of having little competition moot because the game isn't even going to be in the genre it's trying to exploit.

To be honest though, I, like others here, do not expect this to be an MMO as it's loosely defined around here, if it's initially going for consoles.

[Grimwell]

I'd post a list of MMO's that have been successes, but we would be mincing words about what defines a success after that. In my view a MMO is a success if it pays back the investment to make it, and turns some profit along the way. There have been many successful MMO's in that light, and one blockbuster.

Which is enough to merit investment in the genre even off it's main housing. Further, FF and EQ on the consoles were successful and turned profits.

I consider those profits my justification that going console isn't a bad thing at all. Very few companies have the nerve to try, even fewer have the ability to do it, and only a portion of those can even do it well... but the opportunity is there.

PC and Console gamers are only distinct and separate demographic pools when you are in one of them like we are. From the outside looking in, they are just gamers no matter the platform, and share many of the same qualities and desires. While nobody can say for sure that X% of the console loving audience is ready to buy a MMO, we do know quite a bit about them, and it turns out that they like games for many of the same reasons us PC gamers do; and are just as intolerant of crappy ports across platforms that don't play well.

Is that worth the risk of millions of dollars? I'd say it's just as worth the risk as any MMO launch and the benefits of one hardware configuration and networking system to rule them all make it more so.

[Slayerik]

I'm with Grimwell on this one. Sounds like a pretty good gamble to me.

I'm not saying it has a very good chance, but it seems like a pretty interesting move on paper.

[Ghambit]

All this discussion of late is a moot point because console mfrs. themselves are designing frontend MMOs into their systems.  "Playstation@Home,"  new XBOX Live, Natal, and so on.  All of these virtual environments that they're pushing are pretty much MMOs complete with games, chat, etc.  They're even used to start other games.  So essentially you're playing an MMO to play a non-MMO.

[gehrig38]

I'll put money on it not being an MMO.

It's a bet you would win. The pre-MMO cross platform product is not an MMO.

[Pennilenko]

I'll put money on it not being an MMO.

It's a bet you would win. The pre-MMO cross platform product is not an MMO.

You are certainly a gambling man, it should be interesting to watch how things shake out for you.

[Kageru]

PC and Console gamers are only distinct and separate demographic pools when you are in one of them like we are. From the outside looking in, they are just gamers no matter the platform, and share many of the same qualities and desires. While nobody can say for sure that X% of the console loving audience is ready to buy a MMO, we do know quite a bit about them, and it turns out that they like games for many of the same reasons us PC gamers do; and are just as intolerant of crappy ports across platforms that don't play well.

I don't believe that in the slightest. A substantial percentage of console gamers are single-player and "switch on and go" players who will have little patience for group-centric MMO's whereas the thing that has given WoW longevity is precisely that. Though I'm happy to accept that in the absence of statistics, which don't exist outside of gaming companies (if they even do there), that's an opinion.

However lots of the MMO designers are expressing the belief when they try to write console friendly MMO games. Champions online was intended to have a strong Xbox360 presence and a lot of its design makes sense in that context. Highly solo friendly, very simple combat model (spam that end builder!) but flashy, simplistic team dynamics (6 x DPS? no problem!), extremely basic character progression (eg. talents, gear and crafting, not so much appearance), and highly instanced content. Marvel Online (and even the agency) look fairly similar to me in that they want to capture the "instant action" gameplay that designers believe the console market wants.

From a PC point of view this is dumbing the MMO genre down for the console-tards.

[Musashi]

I'm with you, man, but he just said it wasn't an MMO.

[SnakeCharmer]

I know it's going to shock people, because it's mind-blowingly awesome... but you can plug keyboards into consoles.  I know... just amazing isn't it?

I don't buy the complaint that communications are hampered on a console.

I heard/read somewhere that there's some sort of licensing stipulation (for the 360 at least; no idea about the PS3) that says you can't code a game to make use of the mouse/kb?

From a PC point of view this is dumbing the MMO genre down for the console-tards.

Says the PCtard that apparently can't read.

[Draegan]

I thought it was obvious that they weren't making an MMOG.

They are going about this in a formulaic way.  They are creating a IP like warcraft did.  They are making some games people can have single/multi player fun with.  Then you have a well known author make some books to keep the craze going and you can sell some toys and figurines that some people like to collect for whatever reason.

Then if all is successful and the game doesn't suck they will unleash an MMOG hype train. 

It's all planned out.  I thought it was obvious at this point.

[Margalis]

The pre-MMO cross platform product is not an MMO.

Yeah that would be a little silly. "To build interest in our MMO here's another, different MMO!"

[schild]

Despite recent massive MMOG failures, I have less faith in a new dev to make a AAA single-player game than I do an MMOG. I'm not sure when the stars aligned and made that happen, but it was probably between 3 and 5 years ago. There's a certain amount of cream necessary to really make a good single player game whereas a bunch of useless yutzes with enough dreams and bad ideas can put together an MMOG that despite all odds somehow breaks even. I'm not saying this is what your company is Curt, I'm just saying I'd rather compete in the MMOG market than I would the single player market. What if the whole setting is shit? You ain't got no sub money. Cross-Platform games are super expensive. What happens then? Do you scrap the whole thing?

This whole situation is mildly stupid. I can't, even for a moment, come up with a reason that anyone would want to put themselves in it.

[WindupAtheist]

The pre-MMO cross platform product is not an MMO.

Yeah that would be a little silly. "To build interest in our MMO here's another, different MMO!"

Race War Kingdoms has me all excited for Dawn. 

Although I think might have lost the right to make fun of GLJeff after I paid him five actual real-life dollars for a month of that goofy browser game of his. Hey, it was slow-paced enough for me to tab out every once in a while and play while working.

[Kageru]

We're having a discussion about a company that's released no actual solid information on their game and is primarily famous for having someone who has a "name" in a totally disconnected field so I assumed the thread had become general. The quote I was responding to certainly was.

He revealed that his long in development MMO, code named Copernicus, will get the console treatment before hitting the PC

Doesn't this suggest it's going to be a console MMO and later ported to PC?

[Venkman]

What I said about the amount of competition in that market is actually verifiable.

Your competitive set is actually the consoles themselves. AppStore/Digital Distribution business models are not conducive to funneling all players into one dedicated experience. Look at the bitching smaller game publishers made when MW2 deflated a lot of the interest in purchasing any other XBL title during November and part of December? When a large percentage of your installed base is playing just one game that doesn't end, then you don't get the kickbacks from ongoing title sales.

Tech is not the barrier to entry for MMOs on consoles. Nor are keyboards There's a reason why only two have launched and why they both appeared on the same console.

I'm with Margalis. I don't think what they'll launch on the console is going to be an MMO.

[Ingmar]

We're having a discussion about a company that's released no actual solid information on their game and is primarily famous for having someone who has a "name" in a totally disconnected field so I assumed the thread had become general. The quote I was responding to certainly was.

He revealed that his long in development MMO, code named Copernicus, will get the console treatment before hitting the PC

Doesn't this suggest it's going to be a console MMO and later ported to PC?

I think what it suggests is the source got it wrong, given his comment here.

[Ard]

I'm with Margalis. I don't think what they'll launch on the console is going to be an MMO.

You don't have to be with Margalis.  Schilling confirmed it a few posts up the page.  I'm really confused how it seems a lot of people missed that post.

[Soln]

ya Curt has said it here and FoH and elsewhere -- first game is an RPG, non-MMO, console base, PC later

[Venkman]

That's what I get for skimming.

So I'm with Margalis and the people doing the work. See? I was right!

[Kageru]

So it's the Stargate resistance strategy.

[CharlieMopps]

This is so turning into vanguard... lol

except Vanguard had a lot bigger fan base at this point.