UO2?

[Xanthippe]

What makes WoW successful has more to do with the professionalism of the brand than the brand itself.  In other words, the reputation of the Blizzard team.

They could make a MMO out of any theme at all, and it would do as well, I think. 

Maybe it was the brand that drew some people in the beginning.  It's the continuing professionalism that keeps people playing.  By that I mean, relatively bug-free, stable servers (although that's been their biggest challenge), not making the mistakes other devs have made (like nerfing classes), plenty of content, and so on. 

They are making money but they are spending it too, and it shows.

[Raph]

Xanthippe, that's like saying that "it has more to do witht he brand than the brand." The execution and polish and professionalism are a HUGE part of the Blizzard brand identity. Arguably most of it. If you had to check off items that identify the Blizzard brand, they'd be

- polish
- quality
- multiplayer
- "*craft"
- a certain sense of humor

I don't think an MMO out of "any theme at all" would do as well (even if it's Blizzard, an MMO about slugs and snot will fare poorly), but I agree that the theme is merely a modifier on whatever the brand is.

[Morat20]

Xanthippe, that's like saying that "it has more to do witht he brand than the brand." The execution and polish and professionalism are a HUGE part of the Blizzard brand identity. Arguably most of it. If you had to check off items that identify the Blizzard brand, they'd be

- polish
- quality
- multiplayer
- "*craft"
- a certain sense of humor

I don't think an MMO out of "any theme at all" would do as well (even if it's Blizzard, an MMO about slugs and snot will fare poorly), but I agree that the theme is merely a modifier on whatever the brand is.

So what we've agreed on is the amazing notion that gamers play fun games, and fun games tend to sell better than crappy games, and that "3rd Party IP" does not magically make a game "fun".

Next up, world hunger! :)

Seriously -- that's the basics people keep coming back to. It's not Diku versus VW, or Real-time Strategy versus FPS -- it's good, well designed, fun games versus poorly designed, rushed, and unfun games. Third party IP is immaterial, except as advertising -- it might get your game more PR than independent IP, but in the end your game sinks or swims on it's own, regardless of IP.

Blizzard's reputation for quality and fun made WoW successful far more than their Warcraft lore did.

So the question is: When will game designers (and their producers) accept that licensed IP is little more than a bit of extra marketing buzz? That there's no point in marketing to "Harry Potter fans" or "Star Wars fans" because you're selling a game, not an IP. Someone already SOLD that IP -- it's where the fans came from. If the first Harry Potter movie had been shit and lost money, there wouldn't have been anymore Harry Potter films (at least not for a long time) -- but Rowlings would have continued selling trillions of Harry Potter books.

Lord of the Rings didn't make a bazillion dollars and get those Oscar awards because of Tolkien's IP -- nor did more than a tiny percentage of the theater seats get filled by "Tolkien fans". They were damn good movies -- that's why people watched them.

Too many licensed IP games (and LucasArts is notoriously bad about this) are the equivilant of the damn D&D movie -- you count on the name (the IP) to sell boxes or fill theaters, and figure you'll make your money on the saps who'll try it just on the strength of the name. That might work for movies (although not as well these days), and maybe for games where you make you profit on one-time box sales -- but MMORPG profit models don't really allow for a bunch of idiot fans to snap up the box, hate it, and never play it again.

[Calantus]

I think too much emphasis is being put on the warcraft theme. Reality is there's a whole bunch of gamers who are of the "I'll buy anything by Blizzard" mentality. Blizzard just has a reputation of delivering fun, polished games. Hell, it's widely known that they'll cut a game they don't think will be a roaring success. When DAoC was announced I wasn't thrilled, same for SWG, same for just about every other game. But when WoW was announced? For sure I had to check it out, it's by Blizzard.

But I don't think brand is necessary to build success like that of WoW. The brand would have hastened the process, but in the end you have to rely on word of mouth to get those kind of numbers. If I was making the next big MMOG I'd throw a whole bunch of $$ into advertising, make sure to hype it up a fair bit right into the lauch of a beta-as-advertising phase. If you have enough beta numbers you can get a pretty good coverage into the sites/communities people frequent and get a solid baseof people interested in your game. With that you can hopefully launch with enough people to reach critical mass (lets face it, a lot of people wont even touch somthing until it has reached a certain popularity to begin with) and let word of mouth ride those subs up. Then the advertising again. I can see brand name making the critical mass phases easier to hit, but I don't see it being a make or break deal.

[Venkman]

That's why few say it's only the "Warcraft" thing. It's more the Warcraft-from-Blizzard-because-they-derivate-very-well-at-a-genres-peak thing.

But what games have REALLY been good games using Star Wars IP? A handful of FPSs (DF2: Jedi Knight being the only truly exceptional one), a single RPG (KOTOR), one decent RTS, one weird-ass console-like games (Battlefront)....and a zillion instances of crap

Exactly. I go with anything in the X-Wing v Tie Fighter series, DF2, KOTOR and Rogue Squadron for the N64 (haven't played Empires at War, but it sounds like it has some fans). Otherwise, the promise of the IP hasn't consistently been delivered against. This hasn't diminished the marketability of the IP itself of course, but it has lowered the expectations of that IP being delivered in video games.

So what we've agreed on is the amazing notion that gamers play fun games, and fun games tend to sell better than crappy games, and that "3rd Party IP" does not magically make a game "fun".

Our work here is done.

;)

[HaemishM]

Let me try to simplify it.

Good brands get the customer's attention, and will more than likely at least give the player/detergent buyer/movie goer more incentive to buy or try a branded product than a product with no brand.

In the case of games, the only way to try is to buy for the most part, especially with MMOG's. Betas are not a sure proposition for a player, so they often have to buy the game, which generates some money. If they are more likely to buy a branded product than an unbranded one, MMOG developers have already won half the battle.

Star Wars fans interested in online games are more likely to buy a Star Wars online game than a non-Star Wars game, for example.

That's what a brand gets you. It gets your game first tasters.

If you develop it well (Blizzard), you get people subscribed, and those subscribers will want to play with their friends since the nature of MMOG's is one of colloboration. If you develop it shitty (SOE), you get people cancelling subscriptions, never paying for subscriptions, and you get those first tasters to tell their friends that the game isn't really worth the money.

Brands get you attention, solid gameplay gets you customers. Stability gets you returning customers. For MMOG's or really any multiplayer game, returning customers get you more customers (success breeds success) through word of mouth. Without that initial attention, i.e. without a solid brand, you have to spend more money on marketing to get the same effect as just having a solid brand.

Warcraft/Blizzard being a solid brand among GAMERS means that Blizzard could probably have spent nothing on marketing and still gotten SWG numbers or better.

Almost 2 years from release, Blizzard isn't succeeded on their brand alone, while SWG has only their brand on which to build success.

[Fargull]

Truly different gaming experiences within. Not just raiding and, err, PvP raiding, but real different games, something like Puzzle Pirates with tens of millions of dollars thrown at it to tie together the metaphor and make  the games make sense in the totality of the experience.

I think this is the next milestone key.  D&L tried to touch it, but I don't think they executed well.  If I could ski down the slopes ourside of Ironforge, or take a ship and fight ship to ship (hello UO) outside of Booty Bay, or hell, just find a tavern to have a good fist fight at (hello Age of Conan) I would have options outside the standard xp sack grind.  Hell, I enjoyed taking my Rogue to higher level zones in my herb hunting sessions almost as much as PvP.  Challenge and allowing a player to think outside the damn box is nice.

[Venkman]

Exactly. For reference I look to Club Penguin, a game I keep bringing up because while it's not for any of us here, the concepts within are  relevant. The events within there (and others of the same ilk) are truly different gaming experiences, and more self-consistent with the theme than Puzzle Pirates (a game which tries the same thing). The winnings from these events are money and trophies which contribute to the house-decoration/increasing fund.

Meanwhile, WoW doesn't offer any sort of experience customization outside of climbing the gear ladder (in PvE or PvP). Everything ties directly to whether you are actively playing the game or not. No matter how many weddings, funerals and level 1 Gnome crawls there are, you're eventually forced back into the same linear experience. It's a game enjoyed by many, but honestly, I find very little "massive" about it, beyond the economy.

There's other ways to advance characters in this genre that doesn't require grinding XP and fighting loot tables. The next stage for the genre imho will come when a big company takes the concepts from these indies, wraps it in a clever IP, still retains the fun group-compelled stuff that keeps a large majority of players happy, and integrates the traditional features that retain them for longer than the diku keeps them interested.

[Trippy]

I think you just summed up the problem with strong IP in the MMORPG market right there: It sets expectations. Look, Star Wars is serious big IP. But what games have REALLY been good games using Star Wars IP? A handful of FPSs (DF2: Jedi Knight being the only truly exceptional one), a single RPG (KOTOR), one decent RTS, one weird-ass console-like games (Battlefront)....and a zillion instances of crap.

You left off all the Larry Holland X-Wing/Tie Fighter games and Lego Star Wars (okay not a great game but fun for the kids).

Edit: bah, missed Darniaq's reply

[Xanthippe]

Xanthippe, that's like saying that "it has more to do witht he brand than the brand." The execution and polish and professionalism are a HUGE part of the Blizzard brand identity. Arguably most of it. If you had to check off items that identify the Blizzard brand, they'd be

- polish
- quality
- multiplayer
- "*craft"
- a certain sense of humor

I don't think an MMO out of "any theme at all" would do as well (even if it's Blizzard, an MMO about slugs and snot will fare poorly), but I agree that the theme is merely a modifier on whatever the brand is.

You're right.  I was confusing brand with lore.  What I meant so say was what Morat20 said

Blizzard's reputation for quality and fun made WoW successful far more than their Warcraft lore did.

Blizzard's rep drew the first half-million to buy the box, but the successive millions were drawn by the continuing of that shining reputation - which has yet to tarnish.

I won't buy games that come out that are based upon movies no matter how much I like the movie.  Because they're usually just shit slapped together to make a buck, and it shows.

Blizzard has set a new standard for mmogs, and nobody's going to expect less now for the $15/month.

[Dren]

I think you just summed up the problem with strong IP in the MMORPG market right there: It sets expectations. Look, Star Wars is serious big IP. But what games have REALLY been good games using Star Wars IP? A handful of FPSs (DF2: Jedi Knight being the only truly exceptional one), a single RPG (KOTOR), one decent RTS, one weird-ass console-like games (Battlefront)....and a zillion instances of crap.

You left off all the Larry Holland X-Wing/Tie Fighter games and Lego Star Wars (okay not a great game but fun for the kids).

Edit: bah, missed Darniaq's reply

There is a lot to be learned in that Lego Star Wars.  My 5 year old son can't read, but he is completely addicted to that game and knows everything there is to know about the series, the characters, etc.  He rattles off character names that I really didn't even know about.

"Hey, is that R2D2?"
"No DAD! That is R4!!!"
"Alright!  Calm down!"

He wouldn't be such a fan of the lore without that game turning him into a Star Wars geek.

[Soln]

Further, look at EA's MMO infrastructure....

I really think outside the discussion of the power of Blizzard's brand, good management and a track record of executing well, the fact they had a substantial "online service" ready to go and eventually able to match their demand is also a critical factor. 

It's pretty obvious, but some companies can't afford success.  MMO's are first and foremost networked games that not only require basic transport and storage, but backend services and toolsets to enable the fixing and addition of new content and transactions (including billing).  Small companies that can't think 360 degrees of what building out and running an MMO will take will always be impaired.  Not because they're not good or don't have good ideas or good people, but the sheer scale of being able to support tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of transactions a day is just not realistic for them.  As Raph indicated, the cost is not just in the "dev" to build and design the MMO, but the floorspace and lease costs of all that pipe and gear.  And those customer touches (help, billing etc.)

... the cost of leasing, the amortization on all those capital assets... it's just hard to put your head around.  Yeah you can run a small service like I do with some friends with Playerep, but if you want paying customers and scale it's an other league of cost and service you're going to have to prepare for.  /obvious_off

[Venkman]

Soln, I agree with the general thoughts in your post. However, I disagree with the notion that Blizzard had a well-established infrastructure and pipeline to deliver content and develop new ones.

A few GDPs-of-small-nations later, they're still using that crappy torrent-stream thing for patching. I thanked God every time a new patch came that I had continued to maintain my Fileplanet sub. That's where I ended up getting my patches most times. This is for the successful game of the West.

Plus, the frequency they develop new content lags way behind SOE. That's not saying WoW is worse or anything. It's just that compared to EQ2, WoW hasn't grown much at all since launch, except for BGs and the Honor Point system.

I think they represent the best example of all of a company that is still very much in learning mode. It's just that they now can afford to hire all of M.I.T. to teach them.

[Soln]

I'm going to agree with your agreement.   :-D   But when I said infrastructure I also definitely meant to include all the business processes and partnerships and basic abilities needed to manage customers and assets (capital, IP or other).  Small shops just have a much harder climb.  Which is why I really believe a lot of MMO or related VW providers can't afford big success early on.   Yes, Blizzard still uses a text protocol  (le gasp!).  It sucks.  Yes their uptime and stability since launch have sometimes been appalling, but it's getting better.  I'm not defending them, I just can't get my mind off of the staggering size of money and complexity needed to run that level of network and backend support.  Millions of customers guys.

The best analogy for Blizzard is AOL.  People hated AOL for bringing the unwashed masses on the Internet.  Same for Blizz with newbs to MMO's.  People hated AOL for defining a certain design of browsers and way of being on the Internet (really really big OS overlay browseremailchat thingy).  Same for Blizz with MMO design.  And how  are they also similar?  They have two of the largest consumer online services and infrastructures (pipe, hw and customer backend) out there.  Yes Google is Google, but it has no payment or billing or CS infrastructure.  So, getting to the scale of having 300k subs like Raph talks about is a really hard climb from a business and operating point of view.   And let's be frank -- who's going to tolerate playing a game with a small provider that can't guarantee them good uptime?  exactly.  That's why I feel a solid infrastructure is another must-have if you want to be in the MMO biz.  And that's also why EA through Pogo (and they also maintain AOL Games) has a better chance with running UO and EA to approach a Blizzard scale than anyone else out there (not including NCSoft, Webzen, SOE, and some probable Korean companies).  My two cents have expired.

[El Gallo]

Reasonable people would obviously have agreed to disagree ages ago, but this is f13 so SPAM AHOY:

Not necessarily. First, you're demanding 300,000k sustained subscribers. Not many games can show that.

There are over six million people subscribing to WoW right now.  If a development team cannot, several years later, take a comparable development budget and make a diku style MMOG that will, at an absolute minimum, average 300k users over a 2-3 year period, I think there is one and only one explanation: that development team utterly and completely sucks.  This is the source of most of our disagreement on this issue.

I completely understand your points about other expenses, but there are also other sources of revenue (many of which Blizzard eschews, like EQ1's very frequent expansions and EQ2's very frequent "adventure packs").  I also agree that we are vastly oversimplifying the model and that you need to sell more than 300k boxes to have 300k subscribers (just like WoW had to sell over 6 million boxes to have their 6 million subs).

How much has Vanguard spent thus far?  Is McQuaid lying when he says he doesn't even need an EQ1-level subscription base to make money off the game?

Anyway, all this just to show that there's assumptions that come with doing a $50m game. It's not at all a sure bet. There's a lot of risk. Does it still make sense for the right pockets, IP, and game? Sure. But that's going to be a very unusual combination.
. . .
Blizzard and Warcraft have incredible brand power (and impulse purchase power) that very few things in the game industry can match, and they are almost all homegrown brands, not media IPs: Mario, Zelda, GTA, and so on.

I just don't think it requires an unusual combination.  If you assemble talented people who can make entertaining content and spend the money to do it right, there are more than enough customers out there for you.  This RPG model has been dominant for 30+ years and WoW shows that it is more popular than ever.

Sure, Blizzard's brand helps a lot.  No, you are probably not gonna get 7 million customers without it; not with your first game anyway.  But you don't need to be anywhere close to that universe to make a lot of money.  Aim for a half million (less than 1/12th of WoW!), know that you'll be plenty profitable at half that, and hope for double.  And at the same time (if you can't leech a valuable, albeit non-gaming brand) build up your brand so that when you release "gameII" you'll be expecting, not hoping, for a million subs. 

Look at DreamWorks.  "Disney" is one of the most valuable brands in the world, and certainly the strongest "family animated movie" brand by a longshot.  Stronger in that domain than Blizzard is in this one, I'd say.  In 2001, Disney put out two animated feature films (Recess and Atlantis) within a 4-month period.  DreamWorks, without much of a reputation in that area, released an animated family movie between those two release dates.  Not just animated and family-oriented, but fantasy-themed (complete with ogres and fairy godmothers) and full of riffs on various fairy tales to boot.  That's the absolute core of Disney's brand.  Shrek did more than all right at the box office.

Now, that's just one data point, and there are differences between the industries (the reason I used an example wedged between two other releases was to strengthen the anology, but it's certainly far from perfect).  But the basic idea is applicable.  The Shrek team took the basic Disney movie model, tweaked it with its own sense of humor and art style, spent the money to have solid production values, and made lots of money despite not having much of a brand.

I don't see why the same thing can't be done in the MMOG market.  Take the basic model, get a talented team to tweak the model with its own sense of style, spend the money to do it right and voila.  After all, that's what Blizzard itself did.

Unless the real answer is that Blizzard employs people who are vastly, vastly more talented than anyone else in the industry.  I doubt that is true.  Even if it is, they can be lured away.  Or, now that WoW has shown everyone how much money can be made in the field, talented people from other entertainment fields will be lured to gaming.  It'd be interesting to see what kind of gameworld a team from Disney, Pixar or DreamWorks could put together.  Now that WoW has showed them that they would not have to take too much of a pay cut to do it, perhaps someday we will.

But I believe you'll be more profitable with less budget if you skip the fantasy diku paradigm altogether and give us something new. LOTRO will prove this, because it won't get the numbers it needs and will limp along for at least a year making as small a profit as DDO. 

LOTRO flopping won't prove anything aside from the fact that Turbine sucks at making games.

What else are you going to add to the WoW-diku formula that will distinguish a game from WoW?

WoW + (insert one or more of the following: a different content addition/content quality ratio, Sci Fi, mythological, semi-historical, high fantasy, bigger boobs, smaller boobs, more elves, no elves, all elves, more pvp, less pvp, no pvp, more steamtech, no steamtech, houses, more brown, less brown, more American, more Korean, more European, broadband only, and above all shinier, shinier, shinier and newer, newer, newer). 

You can't spend WoW money and get 1/10th the success, because anyone willing to spend WoW money wants WoW numbers. You'll either have to do WoW-level quality on half the budget or less or you do something different.

Nah.  The fact that WoW will get 5,000% ROI on its $50-100m doesn't mean other companies will say "no way" when offered the chance to make 500% ROI on their $50-100m.  Money is money.  Did 20th Century Fox say "sorry George Lucas, don't make Episode One.  I know it'll make back 5x what it costs to produce, but Titanic cost a similar amount and it made back 10x those costs so we've decided to never again make a big-budget movie unless we are positive it will make as much money as Titanic."  It's just not rational. (We may, of course, wish 20thCF said that or different reasons).

Anyway, we’ll see what the landscape looks like in a few years.  I think there is lots and lots and lots of money still to be made with good, old-fashioned, content-intensive diku games with high production values.  The same people here who are spouting the “WoW’s success means the industry should move away from diku” would be spouting “WoW’s failure means the industry should move away from diku” if WoW failed, because they were the same people who spout “the industry should move away from diku” all day, every day, since 1999 or earlier.

[HaemishM]

SOE and Lucasarts spent more money on SWG than anyone had previously in MMOG's, so they spent Blizzard-money comparitively. They got the success of a DAoC, but not of WoW. Neither has been happy with the success of SWG, because it wasn't as big as the biggest MMOG at the time.

People who spend WoW-dollars want WoW-results, not success but not as good success. These people don't understand that SWG failed because it sucked, they understand that they put in X to get Y and instead got Y/X. It's only going to take a few MMOG's to release with the WoW paradigm and WoW numbers before they realize doing something like WoW with WoW's budget isn't going to get them WoW numbers before they tell the developers to do something that distinguishes themselves from WoW.

Comic book movies hit it big, until some crappy/mediocre ones came out, and all of a sudden, the comic book movies being made are following a different formula.

[Endie]

Can we go back to the game about slugs and snot?  Is beta announced yet, Raph?  Unless there is raiding content needed to get access to rare snot then my uber-guild are moving to Seed.

[Raph]

SOE and Lucasarts spent more money on SWG than anyone had previously in MMOG's, so they spent Blizzard-money comparitively.

I am pretty sure the high score for spend prior to WoW was held by Sims Online.

[Morat20]

I am pretty sure the high score for spend prior to WoW was held by Sims Online.

You know, I never understood that game. I've played the Sims and Sims 2, and enjoyed them (mostly for house building, admittedly) and I know several Sims junkies -- but not one of them showed the slighest shred of interest in The Sims Online.

I'm not sure what convinced them it was a fit for the Massively Multiplayer niche. I don't think many people played it in a way that was conducive to that. Sharing houses, neighborhoods, skins, items -- yeah. But I just don't see what the "Massively Multiplayer" aspect offers to the Sims game. What it enhances.

[Raph]

Reasonable people would obviously have agreed to disagree ages ago, but this is f13 so SPAM AHOY:

Not necessarily. First, you're demanding 300,000k sustained subscribers. Not many games can show that.

There are over six million people subscribing to WoW right now.  If a development team cannot, several years later, take a comparable development budget and make a diku style MMOG that will, at an absolute minimum, average 300k users over a 2-3 year period, I think there is one and only one explanation: that development team utterly and completely sucks.  This is the source of most of our disagreement on this issue.

I think that certainly, since WOW, it's become easier; the total pool of active MMOG players has risen quite a lot. But I think it's a stretch to say "therefore anyone who can't hit 300k sustained sucks." That would mean that almost everyone until now sucks. And that's just not the case. Leaving aside the many instances of talented teams and good products that haven't hit due to the vagaries of the market (it does happen that good product fails to hit, after all), there's still a market curve here that we need to acknowledge. No matter what, over time there's going to naturally be a curve of sizes, and established titles are going to matter a lot, and there will always be titles down in the tail.

When I've graphed userbases by territory, I've always found a powerlaw curve in operation. Assuming WoW stays at its current figures, there's only room for maybe 1 or 2 other 300k titles in the marketplace until the whole curve goes up. Most likely, it'll be one 600k title.

I completely understand your points about other expenses, but there are also other sources of revenue (many of which Blizzard eschews, like EQ1's very frequent expansions and EQ2's very frequent "adventure packs").  I also agree that we are vastly oversimplifying the model and that you need to sell more than 300k boxes to have 300k subscribers (just like WoW had to sell over 6 million boxes to have their 6 million subs).

How much has Vanguard spent thus far?  Is McQuaid lying when he says he doesn't even need an EQ1-level subscription base to make money off the game?

I have no idea what he's spent, and there definitely are other sources of revenue -- expansion packs is a big source because of the box profits, as well as extending the subscriber lifespan, of course. Particularly if you can cut out the retailer from the equation, to get a higher margin.

You can always make money at a smaller userbase -- it's a question of time to recoup, is all. MMOs are unusual for the games biz in that way -- as long as you can run them at a profit month to month by reducing burn rate, you are just about guaranteed to recoup someday and go into the black.

Anyway, all this just to show that there's assumptions that come with doing a $50m game. It's not at all a sure bet. There's a lot of risk. Does it still make sense for the right pockets, IP, and game? Sure. But that's going to be a very unusual combination.
. . .
Blizzard and Warcraft have incredible brand power (and impulse purchase power) that very few things in the game industry can match, and they are almost all homegrown brands, not media IPs: Mario, Zelda, GTA, and so on.

I just don't think it requires an unusual combination.  If you assemble talented people who can make entertaining content and spend the money to do it right, there are more than enough customers out there for you.  This RPG model has been dominant for 30+ years and WoW shows that it is more popular than ever.

Sure, Blizzard's brand helps a lot.  No, you are probably not gonna get 7 million customers without it; not with your first game anyway.  But you don't need to be anywhere close to that universe to make a lot of money.  Aim for a half million (less than 1/12th of WoW!), know that you'll be plenty profitable at half that, and hope for double.  And at the same time (if you can't leech a valuable, albeit non-gaming brand) build up your brand so that when you release "gameII" you'll be expecting, not hoping, for a million subs. 

Aiming for half a million with a subscriber-and-box-copy model is a very ambitious target. Selling a half a million of a PC title is a significant achievement. Getting the distribution for a half million requires deep pockets and huge buzz. Take a look at these console sales figures for the month of January to get a better perspective on typical sales:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=87212&page=1&pp=50

Keep in mind console moves a lot more than PC does.

Or look at July, where the #1 title, NCAA Football 07 moved less than a million units on all platforms combined.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=113958

Look at DreamWorks.  "Disney" is one of the most valuable brands in the world, and certainly the strongest "family animated movie" brand by a longshot.  Stronger in that domain than Blizzard is in this one, I'd say.  In 2001, Disney put out two animated feature films (Recess and Atlantis) within a 4-month period.  DreamWorks, without much of a reputation in that area, released an animated family movie between those two release dates.  Not just animated and family-oriented, but fantasy-themed (complete with ogres and fairy godmothers) and full of riffs on various fairy tales to boot.  That's the absolute core of Disney's brand.  Shrek did more than all right at the box office.

Now, that's just one data point, and there are differences between the industries (the reason I used an example wedged between two other releases was to strengthen the anology, but it's certainly far from perfect).  But the basic idea is applicable.  The Shrek team took the basic Disney movie model, tweaked it with its own sense of humor and art style, spent the money to have solid production values, and made lots of money despite not having much of a brand.

I don't see why the same thing can't be done in the MMOG market.  Take the basic model, get a talented team to tweak the model with its own sense of style, spend the money to do it right and voila.  After all, that's what Blizzard itself did.

Don't get me wrong, it can be done. But let's not underestimate the effort that went into something like Shrek, either. Aside from its estimated $60m budget, there's all the investment that went into Katzenberg and Dreamworks; a bit of a dream team there.

But basically, it feels like you're saying "having a hit is easy, just get a talented team and spend the money." And the entertainment biz just doesn't work that way.

[Morat20]

But basically, it feels like you're saying "having a hit is easy, just get a talented team and spend the money." And the entertainment biz just doesn't work that way.

No, it doesn't. Even on the creative side -- your idea has to be good. It has to have large appeal (IE: You can't make the movie YOU want to see if there's only 100 other guys who would really love it, and it's got a 40 mill price tag.). And in the process of making it, you end up making compromises on your original vision in order to actually complete it.

Maybe some scenes just can't be feasibly shot (or game mechanics just aren't workable with today's tech), maybe an actor dies mid-shoot,  or a money-guy with enough pull nixes your idea, or you get bought out and they force radical changes on you.

Even if it all goes well, at the end of the day you're forced to make a zillion up close and tiny visions that might all add up to a finished product that is utterly unlike what you first had in mind.

I can see having a glorious game idea, having plenty of financial backing -- and still turning up a crappy game at the end of it. Maybe you were forcing the technology. Maybe you got so wrapped up in details you started sandbagging the concept and it all fell apart when you came to play it. Maybe you were the only real market for your game in the first place.

[Numtini]

I am pretty sure the high score for spend prior to WoW was held by Sims Online.

I can't even fathom that. It wasn't even MMP, just I think it was 20 people online at once?

[Trippy]

I am pretty sure the high score for spend prior to WoW was held by Sims Online.

I can't even fathom that. It wasn't even MMP, just I think it was 20 people online at once?

Each house had a max capacity of 16 (which was one of its major flaws) but each "city" could hold many houses.

[Venkman]

I am pretty sure the high score for spend prior to WoW was held by Sims Online.

Thought it was the 25mil of EQ2?

[El Gallo]

But I think it's a stretch to say "therefore anyone who can't hit 300k sustained sucks." That would mean that almost everyone until now sucks. And that's just not the case.

Nah, “almost everyone” has too two caveats to avoid admitting suckage   First, “almost everone” didn’t get to spend Blizzard money.  As you (correct me if I am being uncharitable) said several times, one of the main reasons so many aspects of SWG were lacking is that you didn’t have enough money or time to refine the game through iteration.  So, there’s an out for everyone right there.  Second, “almost everyone” didn’t get to release their game after WoW.  Blizzard utterly exploded this market.  The fact that everyone else failed to do that doesn’t mean they suck; it wasn’t an easy thing to do.  However now – after that Blizzard has blown this enormous door open and all anyone else has to do is walk through that door without tripping on the threshold and falling flat on their face – yes, if you can’t average 300k sustained, you do indeed suck.

But, yeah, I am a bit concerned about how many worthwhile games we can get out of the current crowd of MMO designers.  That’s why I hope WoW’s tremendous success draws talented people from other entertainment media (especially movies) to MMOs.  If gaming is no longer seen as a bit of a backwater in the entertainment world, more top-notch talent should flow there.  (This is based on my assumption that many of the world’s A+ animators and computer graphics people go to ILM/Disney/Pixar/Weta/etc. right now, because it is more profitable and they get to play with bigger budgets and better toys).

there's still a market curve here that we need to acknowledge. No matter what, over time there's going to naturally be a curve of sizes, and established titles are going to matter a lot, and there will always be titles down in the tail.

When I've graphed userbases by territory, I've always found a powerlaw curve in operation. Assuming WoW stays at its current figures, there's only room for maybe 1 or 2 other 300k titles in the marketplace until the whole curve goes up. Most likely, it'll be one 600k title.

This is interesting stuff, and I’d like to hear more about it.  I’d also like to hear why you think the future will continue to be like the past in this area.  Distributions that existed when games were struggling to hit a critical mass of subscribers just to survive may not be relevant to an era where the cup runneth over (and over and over and over).

But basically, it feels like you're saying "having a hit is easy, just get a talented team and spend the money." And the entertainment biz just doesn't work that way.

I don’t think making a hit is easy.  I just don’t think a game that has one fifteenth the subscriber base of WoW is a hit.  It isn’t.  It’s a gnat.  Just a very profitable one.

SirBrucing aside, I hope you (the plural you) can understand my resistance to the new conventional wisdom here, which basically goes “See what Blizzard did?  How they made a polished diku-style game with solid gameplay and a distinctive, appealing look and feel?  The game they spent $50m or so to make that is now grossing something on the order of a billion dollars a year?  You know, one of the most profitable ventures in the history of entertainment?  Well, that game right there, there is an important lesson everyone should draw from it.  And that lesson is this: you should not try to do what those guys did.  Run away from that model; run away as fast and far as you can.  Because, you see, this game that turned $50m into a billion per year is absolute, undeniable proof that there isn’t any money in diku MMOGs, so you need to do something radically different than WoW if you are interested in making any money in this genre.  Diku is dead, it’s time to innovate or die!”

Possible?  I suppose, but just barely so.  On its face, it just seems like an utterly insane argument to me.  It certainly is a claim so extraordinary that I’d need to see equally extraordinary proof to believe it, and I don’t think I have.

It’ll be interesting to see what the next few years bring.

[Raph]

there's still a market curve here that we need to acknowledge. No matter what, over time there's going to naturally be a curve of sizes, and established titles are going to matter a lot, and there will always be titles down in the tail.

When I've graphed userbases by territory, I've always found a powerlaw curve in operation. Assuming WoW stays at its current figures, there's only room for maybe 1 or 2 other 300k titles in the marketplace until the whole curve goes up. Most likely, it'll be one 600k title.

This is interesting stuff, and I’d like to hear more about it.  I’d also like to hear why you think the future will continue to be like the past in this area.  Distributions that existed when games were struggling to hit a critical mass of subscribers just to survive may not be relevant to an era where the cup runneth over (and over and over and over).

I believe the first graphs I did along these lines are in my Small Worlds talk: http://www.raphkoster.com/gaming/smallworlds.html

To back up for a bit: network effects dictate a particular curve to the distribution of things. For example, the largest city in the world is always exactly x times the size of the second-largest, and has been so since we started recording data. So it's not the otal size, it's the ratio between positions on the chart that stays pretty static. When it shifts, it tends to shift towards monopoly because of the network effects -- people go where their friends are, and when it's abig enough group, it tilts everyone into the one choice.

Different data sets will have different curves. I found power law distributions in the sales of retail games, in the populations of MMOs, in the populations of servers on MMOs, and so on. Power law distributions are everywhere, and tend to survive drastic changes in the marketplace rather well, because they represent ratios, not net figures.

Upon the release of a new game, the thing to realize is that the shape of the curve is pretty fixed; it can be changed, but generally not quickly. So when a new game is added, it usually displaces other games, and the total area under the curve goes up. If you have games at 1000, 500, and 250, and add a new game, you will likely get games at 1200, 600, 300, and 150. The other games shift around to accomodate the shape of the curve. Kinks in the curve are temporary affairs that resolve themselves over time.

Pre-WoW, what we saw was a fairly regular curve. Trumping EQ required a truly large figure -- you had to get 800k just on the basis of Western subs. Now, we have WoW followed by Runescape, Habbo, and so on down the chain (again, counting Western audiences only here). The game that "beats" WoW will likely need to be at around 6m in Europe and North America. The next slot down is to take Runescape's position, and so on.

But basically, it feels like you're saying "having a hit is easy, just get a talented team and spend the money." And the entertainment biz just doesn't work that way.

I don’t think making a hit is easy.  I just don’t think a game that has one fifteenth the subscriber base of WoW is a hit.  It isn’t.  It’s a gnat.  Just a very profitable one.

Well, at that point we're discussing the economics of the Long Tail and all that jazz. Don't get me wrong, the rise of WoW is a tide that floats all boats for sure. It pulls up the curve as a whole. But again, given the shape of population distributions, we will see that the average game will be a gnat, just like the average movie is a gnat and the average record is a gnat and the average book is a gnat.

SirBrucing aside, I hope you (the plural you) can understand my resistance to the new conventional wisdom here, which basically goes “See what Blizzard did?  How they made a polished diku-style game with solid gameplay and a distinctive, appealing look and feel?  The game they spent $50m or so to make that is now grossing something on the order of a billion dollars a year?  You know, one of the most profitable ventures in the history of entertainment?  Well, that game right there, there is an important lesson everyone should draw from it.  And that lesson is this: you should not try to do what those guys did.  Run away from that model; run away as fast and far as you can.  Because, you see, this game that turned $50m into a billion per year is absolute, undeniable proof that there isn’t any money in diku MMOGs, so you need to do something radically different than WoW if you are interested in making any money in this genre.  Diku is dead, it’s time to innovate or die!”

Possible?  I suppose, but just barely so.  On its face, it just seems like an utterly insane argument to me.  It certainly is a claim so extraordinary that I’d need to see equally extraordinary proof to believe it, and I don’t think I have.

It’ll be interesting to see what the next few years bring.

Well, it's about ROI, and it's about competitive positioning, and it's about what size market you are shooting for. A few hackneyed business world truisms go into the conventional wisdom you're citing:

- Don't go up against a market leader unless you can outspend them and trump them.
- Chase after new markets, rather than fighting for scraps of a maxed out one.
- Try to me a market leader, not a follower.
- A market full of imitators ceases to grow.

I agree that there's a viable strategy to be had in bottomfeeding off of the folks who bounced of of WoW; people will be looking for something "like WoW but without the level 60 game play shift" and "like WoW, but with more/less PvP" and "like WoW but with vampires" and the like. Carving out those niches can lead to profitable businesses, certainly. But you'll always be in the shadow of WoW, similarly to how the previous games were in the shadow of EverQuest. It is also tougher to differentiate yourself, because you'll be caught in a market of ever-decreasing margins and rising costs, precisely because everyone will be so similar.

That's why so many are chasing "blue oceans" instead, going tfor something radically different: they want to grow the market into virgin territory, chasing users nobody else has. That's how Runescape became the second most popular MMORPG in the West.

[HaemishM]

SirBrucing aside, I hope you (the plural you) can understand my resistance to the new conventional wisdom here, which basically goes “See what Blizzard did?  How they made a polished diku-style game with solid gameplay and a distinctive, appealing look and feel?  The game they spent $50m or so to make that is now grossing something on the order of a billion dollars a year?  You know, one of the most profitable ventures in the history of entertainment?  Well, that game right there, there is an important lesson everyone should draw from it.  And that lesson is this: you should not try to do what those guys did.  Run away from that model; run away as fast and far as you can.  Because, you see, this game that turned $50m into a billion per year is absolute, undeniable proof that there isn’t any money in diku MMOGs, so you need to do something radically different than WoW if you are interested in making any money in this genre.  Diku is dead, it’s time to innovate or die!”

Except that's never been my argument. My argument has been that unless you do diku as well as Blizzard, you have NO CHANCE. And even if you do diku as well as Blizzard, you still have little chance to make Blizzard money because you aren't Blizzard. Just like EQ was a perfect storm of coincidences (first "true" 3d MMOG at a time when 3D cards were just becoming standard in computers and just when UO was losing so many subs because of the perception of out-of-control PKers), Blizzard was a perfect storm of coincidences (Blizzard money to take their time with development, Blizzard's name being the most likely computer game company to garner mass appeal regardless of what the product was, Warcraft being a very successful brand). And no one else has all of those qualities combined.

So why spend money trying to compete with Blizzard when no one really has all those qualities in one place?

Sure, you might get 100k to 200k subscribers, but it won't be Blizzard money. And even if the company wants to try to out-Blizzard Blizzard and has the financial resources to do it, there are no brands big enough among computer gamers to match up to Blizzard. Thus, instead of throwing good money over bad to get mediocre profits, do something different (but well) and hope to get at least the mediocre profits if not more because you'll be providing something different for the people who will eventually tired of DikuCraft.