Russian-Targeted MMORPG Faces Unique Obstacles

Thanks to the Moscow Times for their article discussing the rise of the Russian-based PC MMO title Sphere, which "is the first MMORPG developed in Russia and catering specifically to Russian players." According to a spokesperson, there are markedly different limitations to Western titles: "From the beginning, we faced a big technical problem -- how to make a game that would work well over our absolutely abominable phone lines." In addition, some of the economic problems are also intriguing: "Since few Russians have credit cards, 1C developed another scheme for online payment... [using] Yandex-Dengi, a ruble-based payment service similar to the dollar-based service PayPal. Players interested in a low-tech alternative can also re-subscribe by buying a fresh Sphere CD for about $6 every month." Overall, the MMO's subscription "costs about half as much as EverQuest's, opening the door to cash-strapped Russian gamers", and it's attracted over 15,000 players in the first 3 months.

English website.

[Anonymous Coward]

Their English website is here [yandex.ru].

The link to the English site on their Russian web page (as linked in the Slashdot article) - is broken.

Re:American's can learn

[Errabes]

"Notch down the graphics and the engine just a little bit, and you'll save HUGE amounts of money."

It still looks quite good, as seen on http://sphere.yandex.ru/rus/screens.xml (the eng screenshot section don't work)

I wonder how the gameplay is.

Re:American's can learn

[Errabes]

Sorry guys, I didn't do a fine link.
So for those that don't wanna follow the MS recommendations about links usage (type url by hand), or are too lazy to copy/paste, here are the screenshots [yandex.ru]

Implemented before.

[Anonymous Coward]

NexonAsia (which is closed, I'm not sure whether Nexon uses it as well) games also used such cards, with codes on scratch-off thingies which you imput into a website. Of cause, then main problem then is to supply all these cards to distributors, which is just about as hard as normal game distribution, and it's even worse if you're trying to market it globally.. I think many other Asian-based MMOGs also uses such formulas..

As a side note, Gunbound [gunbound.net] has a different formula for cash-earning: allowing people to buy certain equipments using real money. (It doesn't apply to all equipments though [the high end ones can only be gotten via actual playing]) There are other MMOs which does this, but I'm not going to search for them right now..

Re:Nice idea.

[shepuk]

UK players can already use pay-as-you-go top-up cards [splashplastic.com] to pay for many popular MMORPGs, via an account at paybycash [paybycash.com]. These cards can be credited at any outlet that offers mobile phone swipes.

Re:It really doesn't look all that great.

[Anonymous Coward]

>>An English language MMORPG is going to sell as well in Russia as a Russian MMORPG will in America
>I'll bet you dollars against rubels there are more english speaking russians then americans speaking russian.

And you'd win. Americans often jokingly claim everyone speaks english, but they're actually right, it's the new lingua franca. Here in Leopolis every single educated person below 30 years (the type that might want to plat a MMORPG) either allready speaks or is actively learning, and I know from colleagus it's the same in Russia.