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Role Playing (Games)

Garriotts See Shakeup To MMOG Industry Coming 115

Posted by Zonk from the hold-on-to-your-hats dept.
Next Generation is reporting from the annual DICE event, and has the gist of the presentation given by Robert and Richard Garriott about the future of the MMOG industry. From the article: "Richard Garriott, father of the Ultima series said, "After a period of growth, opportunities are closing, budgets are increasing to tens of millions of dollars, and companies need global infrastructure in order to publish. My guess is that over the next 3-5 years, only five companies will operate in this business, and unfortunately, many of the startups will be gone.""
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Garriotts See Shakeup To MMOG Industry Coming More

Garriotts See Shakeup To MMOG Industry Coming

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  • Not exactly Brilliant commentary... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 09, 2006 @06:03PM (#14682075)
    That holds true for most industries. Remember, when cars first came out there were many many car companies. As cars got more and more complex there were less and less companies, until today you have maybe 7 or 8 major car companies in the world.

    The same is true about the computer game industry in general. When games were new and a lot less sophisticated, there were thousands of publishing companies. Today we have..what, 4 major ones? EA, Ubisoft, Veventi, MS and...?
    • I don't think this holds true for software, at least now that so many people have net/web access. The difference is that it's a lot easier to start your own game business (especially now). There are tons of free and cheap dev tools available for computers, so all you need is some skill, a web host, and a lot of perseverance. Unlike the car industry or retail box copy-type game publishers, which require tons of manufacturing and logistics.
      • Well, I agree that almost anyone with some decent smarts can knock out a cheap game that can hit it big. Or mod an existing one. However, TFA refers to MMO games, and those definately require resources easily an order of magnitude more than, say, just a simple download game.

        What I can see is perhaps indie-MMO games the size of maybe a few hundred or even thousand people. It'll very much serve a niche audience. However, you could argue that populations on that scale aren't very "massive".

        • Re:Not exactly Brilliant commentary... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by lgw ( 121541 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @08:21PM (#14683232) Journal
          "Massive" is only as big as the server. If you have an indie MMO with one server and a couple thousand people on during peak hours, that's an MMO. There are indie MMOs like this (and smaller, of course) today, and I don't see there being fewer in the future.

          Sure, there will only be a few huge MMOs you can buy at Wallmart, but that's the case with most game publishing.

    • 7 or 8? Let's see how many I can come up with off the top of my head.

      1. Ford
      2. General Motors
      3. Toyota
      4. Honda
      5. Isuzu
      6. Nissan/Renault
      7. Citroen
      8. Audi/Volkswagen (dunno about the ownership but the cars share damn near everything)
      9. DaimlerChrysler
      10. BMW
      11. Daewoo
      12. Hyundai
      13. Saab
      14. Volvo

      Damn near twice that :)

      Your point is well-taken but the fact is that in any given market there's room for a handful of big boys and then a bunch of niche players. Here in the US, the biggest players are ford, GM, daimlerchrysler, honda, and

      • This is exactly what I was going to say including the car manufacturer refute.

        There may well end up being 5 or so MAJOR players in the MMORPG industry but there will always be room for other games. The companies operating the smaller games just need to keep costs down to be profitable. It's the same with most industries. 90% of mind/market share may be controlled by only a few companies who have the huge turnover and huge profits (and huge costs) but that still leaves 10% for all the smaller companies to
      • Some of those that you list are actually the same company. For example:

        Ford: Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda, Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin
        DaimlerChrysler: Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep, Mercedes-Benz
        GM: Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Cadillac, GMC, Oldsmobile, Saturn, HUMMER, Saab, Holden, Opel, Vauxhall, Isuzu, Suzuki
        VW/Audi Groups: Audi, Volkswagen, Seat, Lamborghini, Skoda, Bentley, Bugatti

        Then there's the smaller ones:
        Honda/Acura
        Toyota/Lexus
        Nissan/Infiniti

        And then all the brand "only" ones:
        Mit
      • Actually both Saab and Volvo are no longer independent companies anymore but bought up by the larger companies. GM owns Saab and Ford owns Volvo.

        Here is a table that shows which company own which brand:

        http://carscarscars.blogs.com/index/2004/03/who_ow ns_who.html [blogs.com]
      • > Damn near twice that :)

        Er, no. Ford owns Volvo. GM owns Saab. GM owns Daewoo. Arguably, GM has control of Isuzu (and Isuzu's damn near dead anyways). Call it 10 1/2, not all that much more than "7 or 8".

        Chris Mattern
      • Saab is GM.
        Volvo is Ford.
        Nissan Renault and Citroen are the same company.
        I believe Daewoo was acquired by GM.

        There aren't as many as you think.

  • My guess? (Score:5, Funny)

    by DahGhostfacedFiddlah ( 470393 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @06:03PM (#14682079)
    There's only a market for about 5 MMOGs worldwide.

    • How many can the world support? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Zitchas ( 713512 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @06:23PM (#14682238) Journal
      The real question is how many different kinds of MMOGs will the world market support? We can hope that the best in each category will win out, but it's more likely going to be the one that has the best advertising, or the ones that have the best infrastructure to support it decently, and either way have something that isn't total garbage.

      From my point of view, however, it's likely that the truly great games are probably going to *still* be startups that, while awesome games for those who like them, don't have the wide audience appeal that some of the not-so good games. And thus may well end up failing, going bankrupt, or being bought out by one of the big companies.

      A case in point is probably the entire SWG thing. They had a great premise (however flawed the implementation might have been), but it was sacrificed for what is essentially a more focused game that is probably easier to play (and thus accessible to a lot more people), even if it is a massively inferior gameplay experience for those who are willing to take the time to really learn the complexities of a game. Economically, they'd rather have a huge number of part-time gamers than a small number of hard-core ones.

      Although that brings up the point that someone, somewhere, may figure out how to make a game with the intricacies, complexities, and depth to keep the hard-core types happy while still being accessible and fun for those who just want to drop in and play. A good example of this might well be done using Dungeons and Dragons. For those who know the game, there are an insane number of variations on all the different character themes. For those who don't want to spend the time to learn all that, there's the default sets for each major class, slap in the ability scores, and you've got a fully functional archtype, ready for the next hack and slash. And in the process of playing said archtypes, you'll still be exposed to the mechanics, and thus you learn. And after a while, you'll know enough to be making your own builds, thus the archtypes served to ease the learning curve to get you into the more complex things, and thus both systems co-exist.

      If someone can figure out how to make that perfect game, I look forward to playing it.

      • Economically, they'd rather have a huge number of part-time gamers than a small number of hard-core ones.

        Part time gamers will never pay a monthly fee.
        • Part time gamers will never pay a monthly fee.

          You sir, are an idiot.

          My wife pays a monthly fee to play World of Warcraft. She logs in once a week to do something on it beyond Auction House stuff. Her total playtime, including in the auction house, is right around 4 hours a week, maybe 5.

          Half my guild logs in on a saturday, plays for 5-10 hours straight, then logs off for another two or three weeks.

          Why the heck would they do this? Social environment for one. Casual gamers are ex-hardcore gamers who grew up a
  • Are there even five successful MMOG companies in existence now? I can think of Sony, Blizzard, NCSoft, maybe whoever it is that makes FF.

    • Re:Five companies? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by MarkChovain ( 952233 ) <mark.chovain@gmail.com> on Thursday February 09, 2006 @06:11PM (#14682142) Homepage Journal
      There's a good site that tracks subscription numbers on lots of different MMOGs here [mmogchart.com]. It has dozens of games, and has been tracking subscription stats since 1997.

      There is also regarded as a immune system copy, which is very comfortable usable. It does take a couple of years from now.
    • Let's see:

      Sony - EQ, EQ2, SWG (and I think they support FFXI)
      Blizzard - WoW
      Funcom - Anarchy Online
      CCP Games - EVE Online
      NCSoft - CoH, CoV, Guild Wars, Lineage, Lineage II
      Wizet - MapleStory
      AeonSoft - Fly for Fun
      MindArk - Project Entropia
      • Seems that you forget one of the first MMORPGs, Ultima Online, still alive and kicking after about 8 years. I played UO for about 2 years before stopping since they didn't have a client for Mac OS X. I do play WoW these days.
        • hehe, and you both forgot one of the 2nd ones (ok, call it 3rd)

          Turbine - Asheron's Call in 1999, plus 1 retired and a new one this year (DDO)

          hurfy
          online gamer for 25 years ;)

          • Re:Five companies? (Score:3, Insightful)

            by lgw ( 121541 )
            The Realm Online was the first graphical MUDs not on a pay-per-minute service and it's still running [realmserver.com]. Meridian 59, perhaps the first first-person graphical MUD is back [neardeathstudios.com].

            Plus you have all of the non-combat oriented MMOs. I'm sure EA's TSO is still there - a flop by EAs standards, but still a big game. EAs will continue to be a player I'm sure. Second Life, A Tale in the Desert, I'm sure there are many.

            It's also worth noting that while NCSoft distributes many titles, they come from almost as may design stud
      • SOE proviced the GM's for the NA side of FFXI, but they do not run the game for Square-Enix.
        All of the development, systems management, etc is handled by SE. SOE strictly handles (and poorly, I might add) in game grievances.
      • Mythic - DAoC

        I'm pretty sure that mythic are still making money off DAoC, they released an expansion just a couple months ago. The numbers are dwindling but they've been clustering servers to keep the game from getting too empty and presumably to save on hardware costs.

        Also they are working on an MMORPG based on the Warhammer franchise.

        To the GP (or GGP? I forget) Successful means making money, not just large or market share %. (see MS vs Sony vs Nintendo arguments for more on this).
      • SOE manages matrix online, and planetside. Also NCSoft has Auto Assualt on the way.
        Also you forgot Turbine, they have two big ones Middle Earth Online and D&D Online.
      • Funcom - putting the FU in fun.
  • their company NCSoft is one of the five companies they see succeeding? if somebody from a small indie mmo developer had been speaking, i'm sure they would have pointed out that there are more smallscale commercial mmos than ever before, which i'm sure would also be correct. they're just hoping to make a self fulfilling prophesy, i think. i seem to remember a very similar article a few weeks ago in which an EA exec was saying the same thing, which people seemed to think was a bit biased.

  • Up to a point. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by vertinox ( 846076 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @06:19PM (#14682214)
    After a period of growth, opportunities are closing, budgets are increasing to tens of millions of dollars, and companies need global infrastructure in order to publish.

    I think this is because in order to maximize profit, you must have the best product which requires teams of coders, hordes of graphic designers, and armies of network admins to roll out WoW, EQ, and whatever other blockbuster game comes out.

    So this is what is done...

    However, larger companies tend to not take risks on unproven ground so there still will be room for startups to nudge their way, but they won't be blockbusters with 100,000 players.

    Eventually, after technology and bandwidth costs aren't prohibitive or a factor and the game engines have gotten as realistic as they can so there isn't anything left but to create game content, then perhaps it will be more mom and pop shops again. But this might be a while...
    • after technology and bandwidth costs aren't prohibitive or a factor and the game engines have gotten as realistic as they can so there isn't anything left but to create game content, then perhaps it will be more mom and pop shops again

      But where and how do mom and pop recruit and pay for the essential creative talent? They will need artists to conceive, build and populate their world. They will need writers to bring that world to life. They will need designers who know how to translate stories into game-pl

      • But where and how do mom and pop recruit and pay for the essential creative talent? They will need artists to conceive, build and populate their world. They will need writers to bring that world to life. They will need designers who know how to translate stories into game-play.

        But if the technology and tools made the engine and art easy enough to create, you wouldn't need to hire teams of people to do this and you'd only need a handful or just a single person like the old days who would write the story, do

  • more big business bs (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    people are creative, companies are just that, companies.

    Most of the problems in the gaming indusrty result from greed and mismanagement.
  • If Garriott is correct that would be very unfortunate. Fewer companies means less competition and less competition means less inovation.

    If the market were more receptive to less graphic-heavy games it could lower a portion of the costs. Seeing Ragnarok Online (mmo with all characters represented as sprites and slight use a 3-D engine) in action seemed like a natural move to a lower budget mmo that was still eye-pleasing. Unfortunately, the trend did not seem to catch on.
    • Quite the contrary. MUDs have existed long before the MMO, and may long after, surviving solely on player donations and time from coders who do it as a hobby instead of a lifestyle. And from everything I've seen, they are actually more stable under most circumstances given equal numbers of players than top certain snowy top notch MMOs in the current playing field.

      Simply put though, a 3-D graphic intensive world is more visually intensive and stimulating, and thus easier to emerse oneself in. And that is
      • I agree with you. I played EQ for about 18 months. I played WoW for about 10 months. I've been playing a MUD for over 9 years. Stop playing for a couple months, then go back and its still there. People come and go, the game changes over time, but you can usually still see the same people time and time again. MUDs, imo, are a great social place for those who like immersing themselves in a character and immersing themselves in their own imagination.
  • I hardly believe this is absolute.
    Nothing ventured, nothing gained. If a few companies keep spouting out their Cookie Cutter MMO's then all we'll get is the same regurgitated game over and over. There will simply be a demand for other things that companies like SOE and NCSoft will not be willing to risk developing, as well as games which will be funded purely by donations (Knight Online for example http://www.knight-online.com.my/ [knight-online.com.my]).

    It's not impossible to compete with the MMO giants, but it will be dif

  • LARPing in VR (Score:4, Insightful)

    by argent ( 18001 ) <peter@slashdot . ... t a r o nga.com> on Thursday February 09, 2006 @07:14PM (#14682695) Homepage Journal
    Right now 3d virtual reality is about where text adventure was in the early '70s. Infocom kept the text adventure alive pretty long, but 2d and then 3d pretty much took it over, and the only place you got text role playing was in themed chat systems... MUDs.

    I'm predicting that as free and cheap 3d virtual reality gets more common, the kinds of hack-n-slash stuff you see in MMORPGs now are going to become the kinds of things hobbyists put together inside virtual worlds that exist for other reasons. Right now that stuff is really crude by comparison, but it's just a matter of time before realistic graphics become as generic as verb-noun parsers and scripted objects in MUDs.

    So the kinds of things that go on in 3d games now will be like LARPing in VR. SCA-type stuff. What will *companies* be doing instead? Heck if I know... interactive movies with licensed celebrity characters and paid actors?
    • I Have real problems with VR interactivity. This might sound pointlessly obvious but in in the real world everything feels ok because it is real. Let's use the SCA/Re-enactment point you bought up. If I go out and smash Bob in the head with my sword/stick I actually swing a real bit of something into someones head. My arm feels natural, my weapon moves in natural ways. In VR it doesn't. Imagine blocking a shot; how do you emulate that in a VR world without essentially a powered suit?

      In my opinon VR sucks

      • Yes, OK, but the people who are playing MMOGs have already gotten past that issue, so whether they're swinging a virtual sword in Everquest or in a VLARP in VR it's all the same to them.
  • What, actually making games with actual plot and actual character development that pushes epic storylines along?

    Oh, a bigger budget to make the same retread stuff. Neat. O.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • With all due respect.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Psychochild ( 64124 ) <psychochild.gmail@com> on Thursday February 09, 2006 @07:17PM (#14682721) Homepage
    Single-player game developers (even superstars) often don't understand online games.

    The reality is that a small game can make a modest income. The game I administrate, Meridian 59 [meridian59.com], makes enough to keep me from starving to death, but it'll never be as big and amazing as, say, Lineage. But, people who enjoy hard-core Player vs. Player (PvP) with consequences enjoy our game immensely. We're happy keeping our classic game alive (it first launched over 9 years ago) and serving a niche.

    One problem is with the term "massive". People look at the smaller games and turn their noses up at them. Our game with about 100 players on at peak isn't very "massive", so most people give it a pass. In reality, the community is actually quite a bit stronger. But, no one puts out press releases about having "the best community" or "the most enthusiastic customers". It's all about "the most people playing (and paying!)" in press release land.

    The problem with the Garriots' predictions is that online is a medium, not a genre. There's a LOT of untapped potential out there, too. Take a look at the Korean market and you'll see an amazing array of games. Of course, one issue in the U.S. market is that the existing audience expects millions to be poured into the production values of the game. As soon as people realize that gameplay really is more important, you'll start seeing a lot more options out there.

    Personally, I think the future is in niche games. Why go visit a game trying to cater to the lowest common denominator when you can go visit a game that caters more specifically to your tastes and the tastes of people like you. Of course, as with most boutique offerings, don't expect the price to remain at the rock-bottom like it is now.

    Some thoughts from someone else in the industry.

    Have fun,
    • With all due respect... Ultima Online [uo.com].
      • UO came out about a full year after Meridian 59. Admittedly, I wasn't part of the original M59 team, but I've been working on it for the greater part of 8 years. I've run the current incarnation with a shoestring budget and a small team. Therefore, I know for a fact that the field is not (and will not be) limited to a half dozen "big boys".

        I have the utmost respect the Garriots, but they built their reputation on single-player games. However, I find their conclusions in this matter flawed based on perso
        • I don't mean to piss in your cheerios but I've never even heard of Meridian 59, and I suspect if I poll my [gamer] friends they'll have the same response.

          On the other hand, I'm not arguing that there's only room for a few MMORPGs, I'm just saying that the Garriots do know something about 'em.

          • Ever heard of MU online? Probably not. It was considered the largest online game in the world (not sure if it still holds that title now, though). It was never released in North America, yet it was tremendous in Asia.

            There are also a number of other indie online games that you might not have heard of. Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates and A Tale in the Desert are two of the more original, for example. Just because you've never heard of these games doesn't mean they don't exist or that they aren't something to be
            • No no, I know about both puzzle pirates and ATITD from the time back when I used to read penny arcade on a regular basis. (Might have to start that up again...) I have loads of gamer friends who like to play wacky games, so if a game is really good, I'm damn near guaranteed to hear about it eventually.

              Puzzle Pirates is great but I couldn't see spending money on it all the time. At least, not more than a couple bucks a month. I played during the beta when they didn't even have crafting or anything. When cr

          • "I don't mean to piss in your cheerios but I've never even heard of Meridian 59, and I suspect if I poll my [gamer] friends they'll have the same response."

            Ask any MMORPGer with experience before Wow and the newer generations and you'll get many more hits.
    • You have a mistaken perception of where the Garriots are coming from when they speak. This isn't to say that this information will change your mind, but they are not speaking from a position of single player game developers.

      The Garriots run NC Soft Austin and Robert is (I believe) on the board of directors for NC Soft Inc. NC Soft Austin publishes Lineage, Lineage II, City of Heros, City of Villains, Guild Wars, and soon, Auto Assault.

      They will also be publishing Richard Garriot's next game (from his compan
      • No, I know exactly who Richard Garriott is. I also know who many of the other developers that have worked on UO over the years. My business partner that I started Near Death Studios, Inc. with did contract level layout for UO after he left the original Meridian 59 team and before we started our company. A number of Meridian 59 developers had worked at Origin. Keep in mind that Meridian 59 originally launched about a year before UO did.

        So, while I respect the Garriotts tremendously for their single-playe
        • I got the impression from your first post that you might not be aware of what they've done since origin. I was just trying to explain why people are listening to them about the MMO market and why their perspective might be worth taking a look at.

          With respect to Tabula Rasa, my understanding was that they started over with it because the original idea was determined to be too confusing and too different when it was shown to people and less because it wasnt functional technologically. (what i mean is, it wasn
        • And, there's a history for the game Tabula Rasa; they've scrapped development of the game once and restarted already.

          I suppose you're saying that they've started with a "blank slate" then?
    • Dear lord, you're still around? I remember reading about Meridian 59 in a PC Format issue about eight years ago (there was a demo on the coverdisk, I think. Maybe).

      No offence, that was just a real blast from the past for me. :)
      • Man, I was surprised too. Meridian 59 is one of the first graphical MMORPG's I remember seeing. Of course, I had played text MUD's back into the early 90's--but 3-D graphical interfaces were nice.

        Oddly enough, I don't think they're nearly as different from text MUD's as people expected them to be (in the end, seeing something is not really all that much better than imagining it).

        -Eric

    • [i]The problem with the Garriots' predictions is that online is a medium, not a genre.[/i] QFT
    • In reality, the community is actually quite a bit stronger.

      Stronger than what? In what regard? How do you measure that? What metrics do you use to validate this claim? Can you cite validations or is this pr?

      • Stronger in the number and strength of bonds between people. I'm not going to go into extensive detail about social networking, but people in smaller communities often form stronger bonds. Essentially, you run into the same people more often and you get to know them, for better or for worse.

        A good offline comparison would be a small town vs. a large city. In general, "everyone knows everyone" in a small town, and it's harder for secrets to remain secrets within the community. In a larger city, you tend
  • Sure, just like hundreds of industries and mediums before it, costs increase as things become more and more lavishly detailed. And just like hundreds of industries and mediums before it, good stuff still beats lavishly detailed every day of the week.

    Sure, a good indy movie might be hard to find; your local streetcorner jazz musician might not get a strong following; Animal Planet might not get Super Bowl ratings, but they all exist, and they're all successful to one degree or another despite not having the

  • You will pay the price for your lack of vision (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dachannien ( 617929 ) on Thursday February 09, 2006 @07:21PM (#14682762)
    Garriott (and/or Garriott) demonstrates a notable lack of vision when it comes to the willingness of indie developers to work in a variety of gamespaces. Not all games require tens of millions of dollars of content to be interesting to at least a small number of people, and the key to a successful game isn't necessarily selling millions of copies worldwide. In truth, all that's needed is to make a game that sells enough copies/subscriptions to make the money back on the development costs (i.e., the developers' families have food on the table).

    Take A Tale in the Desert [wikipedia.org], for instance. It's an independently-developed game, published in online form only. The small development team has been maintaining the game for nearly three years off the $14 per month subscription fee from several hundred (perhaps a thousand or two) players at a time. Is this game a mega-super-ultra blockbuster? No, of course not. The market can only support a few of those at one time (though that'll increase as more people discover the genre). But is it successful? Definitely. It's not only stayed afloat for three years, but the enthusiasm of its subscribers and its developers continues to thrive.

    Puzzle Pirates [wikipedia.org] is another good example of an indie MMOG that has achieved success in the market (as well as critical acclaim). And what's more, MUDs [wikipedia.org] are still around, some with dozens or hundreds of players daily experiencing freely-developed content. If Garriott were operating under valid assumptions, these MUDs would have died off long before WoW entered (and increased) the MMOG market.

    Garriott is probably right that there's only room enough for a few World of Warcrafts or EverQuests or Lineages at a time. The expectation has grown that these games will require thousands of person-hours in development, and as customer expectations inflate, the costs for these games will eventually become prohibitive to all but larger media companies who can afford to bankroll such projects. But it demonstrates blindness to what's going on in the trenches to say that the market will suddenly close off to small developers with big visions.

    • I think where he was going is that there is little room for than a few major mmogs to exist at any one time.

      While it can be argued what a successful mmog is it all comes down to what class of developer you are. To the indie, who arguably at the lower end of the spectrum a game with 1 to 2k subscribers is very successful; at the level they compete at. Where as you get to the level of where games like UO, EQ, and WOW are at and the whole meaning of successful changes.

      Another view is that the situation of wh
  • Well, sure, the Frinkiac-7 looks impressive, don't touch it, but I predict that within 100 years, computers will be twice as powerful, 10,000 times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them.
  • Almost all the heavy lifting is done client side in an MMOG, the server is just a state engine. People already reverse engineer the protocols and DB schema's to run "mod" servers, and it is likely that this will continue unabated. It could be that having only 5 companies will be a boon for this alternative content. If you can aggregate the modding talent into fewer pools, the potential for interesting releases increases.
  • Frink: Well, sure, the Frinkiac-7 looks impressive, don't touch
                  it, but I predict that within 100 years, computers will
                  be twice as powerful, 10,000 times larger, and so expensive
                  that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them.
  • Until someone allows me to pay 39.99 a month (or so) to play "any" MMORPG it's not going to become a nitch market. 9.99 here, 9.99 there 13.99 here 19.99 there... no thanks, I work to pay enough bills. One company, one plan, all games. Don't care if there is a "timer" say if you drop eq for wow you can't pick up eq again for a month, while keeping planetside and "insert game here" active. Whatever it takes, just one bill please.
    • Sony already has something like that for all of their MMOs. They call it Station Access [sony.com]. Of course, you still have to buy each of those games.

      Seriously, though, since MMOs are owned by so many different companies, having one subscription to all of them is quite unlikely to happen. EVER.

    • Wow, you have a lot of time on your hands. Me persoally, I only have time for 1 subscription based game. $15/month for all I can play is really cheap compared to other forms of entertainment that I could spend my money on, especially if you include the "hassle factor" of travel time, etc... Even cable TV costs more and there's usually nothing on worth watching.
    • COH/COV is a single payment per month .. so i belive is SOE for its packages of MMO's SWG,Planetside,EQ/EQ2 Wouldnt be surprised if NCsoft started doing a complete monthly payment plan for all its games.
  • All I know is after Romero's MMO hits the market, there will only be room for one in the market!
  • There's still room for open source, or free to play games. Have you seen Planeshift http://www.planeshift.it/ [planeshift.it] or Eternal-Lands http://www.eternal-lands.com/ [eternal-lands.com]. The first one is fully open source, the second has only OS client. Of course none of them have hundreds of thousands players, but... check them yourself. Regards
    • Why do so many developers try to bite off so much more than they can chew? Why not implement a game like this isometrically (or straight 2d) so that the art resources requirements are more manageable? You can't just say, "I'm going to use one human model, and then texture-shift the hell out of it for every character in the game. Oh, and stretch out the ears sometimes." Let me guess, some enemies have horns, or big hats. Or tails? Hmm.. what else is easy to add onto a stock model...

      I understand that "ga
  • The MMO genre has a lot of potential when it comes to entertainment. As it gets easier to roll out MMO's (there are lots of up and coming third-party tools for creating MMO worlds and content) you'll see many new niche worlds. A dedicated handful of designers will be able to roll out an interesting virtual space for some niche market you've never heard of (like Alien Abduction Roleplayers or something) that has 100k customers world wide. Also, the worlds will become more free-form (like Eve Online) to al

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