Explaining the Dearth of Console MMOGs 123
spielermacher writes "Gamasutra is running an interesting analysis written by Flying Lab Software Producer Joe Ludwig explaining why there are not more successful Console MMOGs. Some reasons given: lack of keyboard, MMOG players like to play in pairs, business model doesn't always work out for the developer, larger installed base of game-quality PCs, and others."
Some reasons given: (Score:4, Insightful)
Or the most obvious answer... parents don't want their TV tied up for 16 hours at a time while their 26 year old son "Johnny" does back to back raids. =P
Another argument about his lack of job hunting skills and the small TV in the bedroom doesn't cut it. =D
its all possible... (Score:2, Insightful)
MUDs (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No Keyboard (Score:5, Insightful)
Voice works great for guilds/corps/groups/raids but that is selective admission into the channel(s) already.
And then you get into needing lots of buttons for game play. You need how many for your spell icons in WoW? How about adding attack and all the other commands as well? (crafting/harvesting/etc).
There just aren't enough buttons on a gamepad for them all, and if you did have them, it'd turn into a keyboard of some kind (maybe a chorded one).
Erm, obvious? (Score:2, Insightful)
Login is the least of your worries (Score:5, Insightful)
In WoW a Shaman can easily run out of the 60 icon slots on the toolbars. On COH most of my characters had to keep some of the temporary powers off the 3 toolbars available (only _very_ recently they provided the option to open more).
You need _some_ way to activate them quickly. Be it keyboard or by clicking them with the mouse. Scrolling through lists of choices with a gamepad, in real time, would suck more ass than the vacuum toilets on the Soyuz
I mean, seriously, I can see the talks after a WoW-style raid:
Tank: "Dude, FFS, why didn't you heal???"
Priest: "Sorry, guys, I had to look for a mana potion in through my action list."
Mage: "Heh. Do what I do, just scroll to it in advance."
Priest: "STFU, noob. The only reason I wasn't at it, was that I looked for the bandages earlier when you over-nuked."
The best I've seen done with a gamepad was Sega's PSO, which was little more than a hack-and-slash with 6 actions maximum, assigned to 3 keys on the gamepad. Plus one "shift" key to select between the first and second set.
The sequel, PSU, reduced that even more. Yeah, so you can play it on a gamepad. Except with any given weapon you have exactly one special attack you can assign to a key. And you have to scroll through a list to even select your mana potion or put on some special glasses. (Which turn off your sword, since you don't have enough buttons to activate the glasses _and_ use the sword.) It gets (A) annoying fast, and (B) repetitive fast, since the number of actions is finite and small, and there are no clever combinations and strategies to use with them.
At their heart, MMORPGs are glorified chat rooms (Score:5, Insightful)
...and its hard to chat with no keyboard.
MMORPGs owe their origins to the world of MUSHes and MUDs, which were essentially chat interfaces oriented around playing a game as a common activity.
Much of my time in any MMORPG is spent talking with my group, whether determining tactics for the next fight, discussing game issues and features, or just finding out how things are going in their lives. All of that requires a convenient means to communicate, and while some people use voice communications for much of this, most still use typed chat. A console is simply not chat-friendly in the same manner that any PC is. Voice chat is less useful in many cases because you are not provided with any visual tag as to who is speaking as you are with in game typed chat (and when the female elf you have been playing with turns out to have a deep male voice, its harder to associate the spoken voice with the character at least at first). Its fine when you *know* the people from regular contact or in real life, but when playing in a pickup group (PUG), thats not the case.
Now if a console system were to integrate a decent keyboard with the game instead of various controllers then this might change, but consoles appeal to a different style of gameplay (one I fail to appreciate) and often a different type of player. While standard games may be steadily moving to the console format in many cases, MMORPGs will remain PC oriented until new technology arises (some new form of voice recognition chat that puts what you say on screen as speech balloons say, rather than hearing it as voice, or more than likely in addition to doing so) that makes playing them possible and convenient. Personally speaking I know I could never use the substandard control available from a controller more effectively than the control gained from keyboard+mouse, although I am trying to adapt to using a Nostromo in some games at the moment. Even then its not as effective for me.
Re:Erm, obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
* The modern consoles (Wii exempt) both have multiple CPU cores. Anyhow, a) why do MMOs need multi-threading more than traditional games, and b) why do you think the multithreading support is lacking in consoles?
* The same developers who make MMOs for PCs (Sony, Square Enix), make non-MMO console games. These guys already know how to run the business end of it.
* The console market is huge, so games can target the young, the mature, or everyone. There are also parental controls on all 3 modern consoles.
Not to flame you, but I don't think any of your answers are "erm, obvious", or even "erm, likely". There is tons of online gaming on XBOX, just not massively multiplayer.
My guesses:
* No keyboard for socializing! The 360 has a headset. I'm not sure about the PS3. The Wii is screwed on this front.
* Hard drive space is limited on the 360, and these games have HUGE update requirements.
* XBOX Live users are accustomed to a single XBOX live charge for online pay, and might balk at additional per-game charges. Sony plugs their "free online play". These games make their money off recurring charges.
Patches (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Half-wrong... (Score:3, Insightful)
No businessman is going to make a decision of starting a project that is going to have to be ported to a new platform before even releasing, when you can stick to the PC and keep your investments low.
The only way I can think of convincing someone to do this is if you have advanced knowledge on the next console platform and start developing early, so as to be the flagship product of the console. Maybe the next XBox will focus on being an MMO box and allow the developers to get a head start by developing on a correctly configured PC.
In GoldenEye, both players were in the same map. In an MMO there is a chance that they'll be in completely different areas, and consoles don't usually have that much RAM, let alone having to split texture memory, etc. Likewise, barring cordless headphones, you'll be sharing sound too. And since you won't be reading as much, it's just a mess.
Then again, you could have two consoles on different TVs anyway.
Seriously, consoles are nice and all, but the current hardware doesn't look like a match for MMOs. Maybe the next generation will include an MMO machine, with extra hard drive, wireless keyboard, specialized controller, headphones/microphone, voice recognition, enough memory for split screen, etc. But until then, don't bother.
Re:Login is the least of your worries (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No Keyboard (Score:4, Insightful)