MMO budgets and development times

[Margalis]

One mistake people usually make in software is to look at a product and say "hey, this should only have taken a year to make!" Which is true, if you knew the exact endpoint when you started and worked via a logical progression.

But as you say, there is a lot of stopping and restarting. The product I work on has been in development for 5+ years but I could write the entire thing from scratch in a year by myself.

[geldonyetich2]

Personally, I tihnk that Brad McQuaid did manage to pull off a better EverQuest.  Why not?  He had the experience and the knowhow to make it happen.  However, what he didn't realize is that (as DQ has said), the genre evolved.  Making 'a better EverQuest' wasn't good enough anymore.  Certainly not for those who were sick of EverQuest, and certainly not in the face of Blizzard's 'better EverQuest', World of Warcraft, which was geared towards the far more fertile casual audience.

This is not to say that I necessarily believe that a good MMO developer is needed to make a good MMO.  The World of Warcraft example is one.  The Final Fantasy XI example is another.  To wax optimistic a bit, I do believe that there could potentially be a lot of talented developers out there yet.  The only trouble is that we haven't heard of them yet and neither have the developers.  When there's a Serek Dmart there will also be a Will Wright.  What's the differentiating factor?  It's already been mentioned:

Ideas are easy.  Execution is hard.

Put another way, the devil is in the details.

[Abelian75]

Hopefully one of the characteristics of these talented developers is the understanding that WoW did not, in fact, target the casual audience, they targetted the whole audience.  I'd be willing to bet that every reasonably conconctable demographic that plays diku-style MMOs is predominantly playing WoW.  The hardest of the hardcore certainly among them.

[tmp]

I've always wondered (these days) why dev studios don't start with smaller (well done) game worlds, then expand consistently with new planets/areas/content.  Less focus on making 15 worlds/areas 'different' initially, and instead have 5 well done worlds.  Shorter dev time, build more solid game systems, get to live and continue development of content and other systems with incoming revenue.  You'd have to have flexible engines/tools to do it, but hell, that should be the focus to begin with.  You can somewhat pace advancement by tinkering with xp rewards as you go along.

LotRO is quite like that, though I don't know how well it turned out for them.

Sidetracking a little, can't help but wonder now if there's any "Plan 9 from Outer Space"-like MMO out there... or rather which one would fit. In term of development process, of course.

[tazelbain]

>can't help but wonder now if there's any "Plan 9 from Outer Space"-like MMO out there

I don't know, but there are plenty of "Glen or Glenda"'s out there.

[Simond]

I've always wondered (these days) why dev studios don't start with smaller (well done) game worlds, then expand consistently with new planets/areas/content.  Less focus on making 15 worlds/areas 'different' initially, and instead have 5 well done worlds.  Shorter dev time, build more solid game systems, get to live and continue development of content and other systems with incoming revenue.  You'd have to have flexible engines/tools to do it, but hell, that should be the focus to begin with.  You can somewhat pace advancement by tinkering with xp rewards as you go along.

LotRO is quite like that, though I don't know how well it turned out for them.

Sidetracking a little, can't help but wonder now if there's any "Plan 9 from Outer Space"-like MMO out there... or rather which one would fit. In term of development process, of course.

But we've already mentioned Vanguard.

[shiznitz]

Personally I think Brad McQuaid...had the experience and the knowhow to make it happen. 

  Do you consider the term "screwed the pooch" a compliment? Because that's what your sentence indicates.

[CharlieMopps]

Personally, I tihnk that Brad McQuaid did manage to pull off a better EverQuest. 

Dude, Vanguard wasn't even finished. There's no comparison.

[Venkman]

The parts that VG got right were less EQ1 and more indicative of one of the lesser-leveraged directions even DIKU games could be going. Something that EQ1 and WoW both do well is start players off with very compelling racial backgrounds. You feel like you're from that culture. DAoC went too far by arbitrarily requiring three times the amount of development to simultaneously support three completed compartmentalized races. And the rest don't go nearly far enough, including EQ2. Some don't seem to have learned that one of the primary barriers to alt'ing, and thus to extending an account, is boredom wtih having to do the exact same content over again (waves at TR as the most recent offender).

In that sense, I feel VG did contain some nods to how the genre evolved, specifically by doing something the genre has evolved away from. But all of that is irrelevant because of the complete lack of realistic time management. I'd say that's the part he didn't evolve at all, the understanding of how to manage a project through completion.

[edlavallee]

Hopefully one of the characteristics of these talented developers is the understanding that WoW did not, in fact, target the casual audience, they targetted the whole audience.  I'd be willing to bet that every reasonably conconctable demographic that plays diku-style MMOs is predominantly playing WoW.  The hardest of the hardcore certainly among them.

If by "targeting the whole audience" you mean accessibility, I agree completely. At the root, IMO, that is the source of their success.

[geldonyetich2]

Personally, I tihnk that Brad McQuaid did manage to pull off a better EverQuest. 

Dude, Vanguard wasn't even finished. There's no comparison.

How quickly we forget that EverQuest, too, wasn't finished.

Ah, my first introduction to the /stuck command and falling through the world.  Good times, good times.

[Venkman]

EQ1 could exist in the form it did only because of the time in which it launched. You got credit for trying then because the rules weren't established.

VG was trying to do the same thing years after that no longer was allowed by the market.

[geldonyetich2]

Going back to where my quote was pulled from there, we're in agreement, DQ.

[DarkSign]

As this thread shows, MMO development costs are as varied as the groups that produce them.
Nowdays there are several middle-ware solutions that can speed the process like the HeroEngine, BigWorlds, and even Gamebryo.

One of, if not the largest, costs involved with an MMO is simple asset creation. Especially if you're making a modern/futuristic/post-apoc mmo. But there are enough teams in China, India, and Russia to farm them out to for a decent price.

Speaking of middleware, there are now at least 3 companies (OGSi, for one) that have bundled CSR work, community relations, billing, and the ancillary functions needed to round out an MMO.

But let's have a little fun by working out our own budget for MMO "X", developed solly in America, and starting from scratch.

Administrative Costs

Office Infrastructure
   Rent
   Furniture
   Supplies
   Utilities
   Fun Money / Misc Cash box
   Signage

Salaries
   CEO - 60k
   CFO - 60k
   CTO - 60k
   Lead Programmer 60k
   Art Lead 55k
   Content/Writing Lead 55k
   World Building Lead 55k
   Sound Lead 55k
   3x Junior programmers (including networking, client, and database programmers) 55k
   10x asset modellers  35k
   5x animators  35k
   5x texture artists 35k
   5x world builders 35k
   3x content writers/ quest scripters 35k
   2x Press Relations people 35k

Technology Costs
   39 workstations @ 3k
   4 development servers (hardware) @ 4k
   Software licenses 30k-50k
   5x Wacom tablets
   Recording equipment 15k
   Bandwidth for development servers
   Bandwidth for live servers
   Engine license - between 200k and 500k

Publishing Costs
   DVD pressing and printing
   Box printing and handling
   Digital download server costs

Advertising
   Print
   TV - hire Morgan Webb on G4 to tell people it's the best thing since sliced bread
   Intarwebz - $1,000 per 15,000 impressions on IGN
   Game conventions - 5 conventions per year x 3 years of development x 8k-20k each

Ancillaries
   Customer Service
   Paid GMs
   Community Manager
   Back-end billing

and all that's just off the top of my head. It really couldnt be done well for less than 6 million - and that's assuming you subcontracted all this out to the cheaper subcontractors overseas.

Fun to think about, eh?




   

[Venkman]

CEO at 60k? Man. I'm keeping my cushy middle management job 

As to the other salaries, the Gamasutra magazine runs an annual salary estimate Feature. It's darned good reference.

[CharlieMopps]

I think your cost estimates are wildly inaccurate.

[Simond]

Meh, it's not like dollars are worth anything nowadays anyway. Maybe that's why NCSoft keeps funding US development teams - it might actually be cheaper to do that than do development in S. Korea!

[Tige]

Heh, much of this discussion is a little far down the road.  One thing that is lacking in the overwhelming amount of releases is the pure, simple fact that games just don't function when they are released.  Some recover, most never do but manage to have enough money coming in to support itself.     

Obviously mmos and single player games are still making enough profit in many cases to keep everyone involved in the process happy apathetic.  Until that changes all the talk of time and money remains moot.


 

[Numtini]

Keep my net admin job or take a pay cut to be CEO... hmm...

[DarkSign]

Yeah. I wasnt trying to be scientific. Unfortunately the MMO industry is one of the worst when it comes to costs.
There should be some interesting numbers coming out before the end of the year from OGSi about the technological costs of everything from CSRs, bandwidth, etc in a white paper they're developing.

Most CEOs make more than 60k of course, but imagine being a fledgling startup with actual morals for a moment   
Hopefully you wouldnt want to kill your budget pre-launch with a fat check and you'd want to be an equal with the guys you were in the trenches with. And then there's the back-end money that you've hopefully contracted for.

What I posted was just an early-morning ramble off the top of my head (see quote where I say off the top of my head) to spark conversation and get people getting deeper into the details.

[Lum]

This book is out of print and about 5-7 years out of date but still has a lot of insights into what goes into backend MMO production, if you can find it.

Here's a more cynical take on Margalis' point. Note that all of this HAS ACTUALLY HAPPENED in various places. I'm not making ANY of this up.

Designer Guy plays PopularGameOfTheMoment, wipes on a bad pull, curses, says "crap, I know even I can do better than those idiots! Screw it, I'm gonna do it."

Designer Guy's friend with a trust fund says "OK", hiring begins.

About 6 months later GameCo, flush with $2 million in venture capital from Trust Fund Guy, opens up a shiny new office in downtown Frobozz. Aeron chairs and 22" LCD monitors for everyone! Designer Guy's other friend, Bob, is hired on as CEO because he smiles a lot and talks pretty. Hiring continues.

Bob does the rounds of game publishers, explaining their great idea for this totally original game that will smack everyone in the face. The usual MMO publishers snicker and pass, because Bob's company bought Aeron chairs and LCD monitors before actually making a working prototype. However Bob finds a kindred soul in a publisher, Activariplay, who wants to break into the MMO industry, because hey, how hard can it be! GameCo gets 5 million more funding and some vague milestones over the next few years. Hiring continues.

About 6 months after Activariplay's cash infusion, Designer Guy is somewhat worried that they still don't have a working prototype. This is because they haven't yet been able to find *any* server programmers, because anyone with any multiplayer game server experience at all is immediately issued 40 houris and all the opium they can smoke and chained to a desk by the first game company to find them. There also isn't a working client because Client Programmer Guy thinks licensing client tech is for babies and he is positive he can write his own 3D engine from scratch, just like that punk Carmack.

A year after Activariplay's investment, the first milestone is due. The collective staff of Gameco spends two weeks frantically injecting amphetamines so as to avoid sleep and trying to get ANYTHING up and running at all. Their milestone presentation consists of some NC-17 concept art by Art Guy One, a few half-assed character renders Art Guy Two managed to outsource, and an hour long Powerpoint presentation by Designer Guy where he tries to describe his vision for his game through sheer force of will. Activariplay declines to fund Gameco any further, mainly because all the Gameco principals are visibly twitching from all the amphetamines.

Bob goes back to TrustFundGuy and offers him a 40% stake in the company in exchange for more funding. Bob and DesignerGuy do the publisher rounds again. Hiring continues, although anyone with any experience at all in the gaming industry takes one look at Gameco's flush office and no actual work, talks to a few of the cynical artists smoking in the back, and run away in terror. DesignerGuy proclaims that the entire MMO industry is corrupt and incestuous anyway and begins recruiting kids fresh out of college. (The smarter ones of those do some due diligence and pass on Gameco too.)

Another year passes. It's now been three years, GameCo has burned through about $15 million of other people's money, and all they have to show for it is a lot of mildly pornographic concept art, character renders done by artists working on buffing up their portfolio for applying to real companies, and various fragments of a 3D rendering engine done by Client Programmer Guy who is still convinced he can write his own 3D engine Any Day Now. GameCo is now out of money and Bob and DesignerGuy have thousand yard stares on the few days they come into the office.

Big Bad MMO Publisher, who has seen the Gameco story many times before, swoops in and says that they'll assume GameCo's debts, pay off Trust Fund Guy, and fund GameCo's game, in exchange for outright ownership of all of GameCo's assets and IP. Bob, who just wants the nightmare to end, doesn't bother consulting anyone else and signs on the bottom line. BBMP promptly fires all the artists and Client Programmer Guy, parachutes in a deeply experienced and deeply cynical development team in the home office, and informs the shell-shocked yet somehow still employed Designer Guy that his brilliant and innovative MMO design, thanks to production realities, is being scaled back to "just like BBMP's other products, but with a few more pixel shaders". Designer Guy contemplates suicide or more drugs, and settles on more drugs.

Two years later, GameCo's Game is released. F7 proclaims it a failure and epitomizing what's wrong with the game industry today. It has hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and is considered a moderate success internally, especially since it really only had a 2 year development cycle once adult management took over, but its original fans who were attracted by Designer Guy's drunken rantings on message boards feel betrayed that the dynamic virtual world promised them turned out to be yet another moving the bar from left to right while keeping the other bar from moving from right to left game. DesignerGuy and Bob quit GameCo and form RealGameCo, where the dream will never die, word, y0. They attract $3m in initial investment based on their success in producing Game (despite the fact that Game was actually produced literally in spite of both Bob or DesignerGuy) and the cycle begins again, complete with Aeron chairs.

[Rendakor]

Bob McQuaid?

[Venkman]

Sounds like Horizons.

[Miscreant]

Here's a more cynical take ...

Brilliant. 

[Krakrok]

Costs

That's funny. I don't think ATiTD cost quite that much.

[Venkman]

I think the first ATITD had about six people total.

[CharlieMopps]

Hi Larry Us

[Stephen Zepp]

@Lum:

Man, that is so freaking accurate--and while his description implies "indie" roots to the game, this is also the exact strategy many established studios have, which just bigger orders of magnitude on the dollar signs.

I've seen it at work myself as well--you're spot on!

[Triforcer]

Well, at the very least, the process gets us the mildly pornographic concept art.   

[geldonyetich2]

Damn.  Truth is on the Interweb after all.  Brilliant.

[Miscreant]

Here's a more cynical take

The brilliant part:  That is an MMO success story.

[Dash]

lum thats good stuff.  I've no doubt that sort of thing goes on.

That's my perception of some of the bigger games especially the part about "once adult management took over". 

[Hartsman]

@Lum:

Scott, that's totally inaccurate.  You're doing the public a disservice by blatantly lying like that.

They'd be 30" monitors.

[Lietgardis]

Hey, I had to build my own desk on my first day at SomeOtherGameCo.

[Lum]

I had to build a bookcase my first day at Mythic.

I'm told they still have that abortion of carpentry stored somewhere, where they can point to it as an example of why some people should never be allowed near power tools.