May 31, 2005 4:00 AM PDT
Can Mickey and Frodo revive virtual worlds?
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close to 1.5 million subscribers in just a few months of play, helping to nearly double the number of active game subscriptions in the United States.
Game developers say that has sent new energy into the genre, even if some big publishers remain gun-shy.
"That brought more new players into the game space, a number of whom are now back into checking out other games in this space," said NCSoft Austin Executive Producer Richard Garriott, whose Ultima Online game was the first big massively multiplayer game in the market. "It's been nothing but a huge benefit to all of our games."
Can Mickey succeed where The Sims failed?
Expanding the virtual world populations beyond a core audience of fantasy and science fiction gamers remains a struggle, however, and most of the new titles coming out over the next year or two remain in these genres.
The eagerly anticipated "Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar" game, shown off at the recent Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), is slated for early 2006. Garriott's new science fiction action world, dubbed "Tabula Rasa," unveiled after a redesign at the same E3 show, is also expected early next year.
Microsoft has said that "Final Fantasy XI," one of the only massively multiplayer games to cross between the PC and the PlayStation 2, will be available for the Xbox 360.
"The market is coming back from what was a slow 2004," said Bruce Sterling Woodcock, an independent games consultant who keeps a running monitor of the massively multiplayer game business. "We're nowhere near saturation. And 'World of Warcraft' has pushed them to bigger budgets, so there will be more (visually) appealing games on the way."
Developers' attempts to reach beyond these genres remain muted, however. Broader social worlds such as "Second Life" and There.com, which aren't grafted onto a traditional game structure, have had some success, but remain small by commercial game standards.
"Second Life," which has prompted the creation of virtual businesses that make as much as $100,000 a year in real money, remains just under the 30,000 subscriber mark, for example.
Disney's foray into online world building, though targeted at children instead of older teen and adult players, is thus drawing interest inside the gaming community.
Disney isn't providing much information on its plans, saying only
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The majority of the Sims fans are not gamers. They play Yahoo parlor games, which have no monthly fee, and sit in chat rooms. Other then paying for the Sims retail boxes and the expansions, they likely have never spent money on any other games, at least not 'real' games. Did they really think that people would fork out $50 plus a monthly fee to play something they get for free?
The Disney venture, looks similar and for that reason should not exist. People will not pay a monthly subcription for something that is free, and adds nothing extra of value, other then the possible up-front cost of purchasing the title.
The reason fantasy/Sci-fi games do well is that hardcore gamers are attracted to those genres, and they have been able to avoid griefing on the scale that Sims Online saw. These games also provide new elements that are not available in single player games, or even multiplayer games like the Diablo or Warcraft games along with FPS like UT. That, along with constant updates, and a lot of free, extra content from time to time, make monthly fees reasonable.
For these types of games to succeed, there needs to be a compelling reason for someone to fork out $10-%15. Even with all its massive flaws, gameplay that mostly amounted to timesinks, and extremely static gameplay, there was enough there and it was unique enough to garner a fairly sized following.
Other games had potential, but weren't unique enough(dark age of camelot) or only filled a niche market( city of heroes and the PvP-centric games), or where distaster at launch(star wars galaxies, Anarchy Online). Anarchy Online fixed its issues, but a game of any type that launches with massive bugs and gameplay issues, never gets a second chance. As for SWG, that, along with EQ2, proved that Sony Online Entertainment is a joke of a game company, and their only skill is the ability to copy what others do. Oh, and ignore bugs for years. Even though Camelot was an EQ clone, within 2 years of that games release, EQ become a DAoC clone(another skill at Sony).
The reason World Of Warcraft has done so well, is that it had relatively few issues at launch(most were due to the massive popularity), and extended the standard MMOG genre in unique and fun ways. It made a beautiful, nearly seemless world, and put in tons of fun and engaging content. Few games, including EQ has done that.
Middle Earth has a chance, if it has compelling gameplay and brings something new to the table. The popularity of the bland movies will not guarantee success. Look at Star Wars Galaxies. That game had millions of potential players, but it barely made its mark due to the inept and lazy Sony Online Entertainment.
The sad thing is that the game industry, for the most part, is very uninnovative. Just like the countless Everquest clones that barely made a mark, we will see many WoW clones in the next few years. It will likely be 5+ years before something that propells the genre forward emerges, it terms of success, innovation, and gameplay. Those three traits are of course, inexorably linked, but most development and publishing houses fail to see it.