May 31, 2005 4:00 AM PDT
Can Mickey and Frodo revive virtual worlds?
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that the Virtual Magic Kingdom will be free, and will allow visitors to play online games, explore online versions of the theme parks, chat with each other, and set up their own "rooms." According to a note on the company's site, it has been developed in conjunction with Sulake, a company responsible for the earlier Habbo Hotel community.
"VMK is an opportunity to extend the Disney theme park experience to any home with an Internet connection," Paul Yanover, senior vice president for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Online, said in a statement. The company will provide more information at launch, a spokeswoman said.
Giving children who have grown up with computers a crack at a free virtual world could help give the model a bridge to a broader audience, even if Disney's ambitions are relatively modest, some hope.
"What often happens with kids' and teens' communities is that the kids go in there and start doing all kinds of things that the companies never even imagined," Book said. "My hope is that Disney really listens to them. If they do that, they'll find that this project will have exceeded their expectations."
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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.