November 9th, 2009 | 
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Are these the online games in our future?
Tommorow’s article today – my fingers are itching to talk about this one, so here is tommorow’s article today:
EA just announced another round of lay offs, and Mythic sadly is feeling part of the bite of the axe (we hope it isn’t really true) Sort of Ironic as “Broken Toys” (one of our “must read” sites) pointed out considering they just spent $300 million for a Facebook game developer. The particular pause that this gives me thought for is about accessible games – something we discussed with Scott Hartsman on an earlier No Prisoners, No Mercy show.
At the risk of incurring the wrath of thousands, I will use a game that I used to play as an example: Eve Online.
Anyone who has ever played Eve Online, or attempted to, knows that it has a steep learning curve. So steep, in fact, that generally it requires a requires a team of Sherpa guides to reach the summit (read “master the game”). Now, in the last year or so the good folks at CCP have made strides in this area. Still, this is the same game that merited hiring a full fledged economist to study it’s virtual economy. Without any solid knowledge about subscriber numbers, it is at least easy to say the game is successful. It is either a case of a steady stream of new customers replacing the old ones, or keeping their core market happy. If we consider the learning curve with where EA seems to be putting their dollars these days a key word comes to mind…
“Accessibility”
Accessible games are an issue we discussed with Scott Hartsman on a previous No Prisoners No Mercy show. One such application is Farmville (one of those Facebook applications like Mafia Wars). Recently they hit the 60 million users mark. Obviously this doesn’t all translate into cold hard cash, but the investment needed to create such games is (at least as far as Mr. Hartsman indicated) negligible. Now obviously we aren’t all interested in pretty ponies, virtual farms, or bunnies dancing around with toilet paper (the last being a Rod Serling quote). Still, it seems that the growth market lays more with the accessible games.
All things considered, it leaves me wondering about games that are developed with such a steep learning curve, and the gamers that play them (considering I was one of them). Why develop or play a game with such a steep learning curve over something that takes the middle road, such as an Everquest or World of Warcraft? Is it the thrill of playing a game where you can lose everything in a moment? Is it the virtual equivalent of an adrenalin junky? Perhaps instead it is the idea of putting up with the drudgery of staring at mining lasers for hours on end, staring into space watching the game play itself, so that you can one day proudly announce yourself to be a “captain of Eve Online Industry”?
A more important lesson in what seems to be a move toward more accessible games should be that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. MMO gamers seem to have a tendency to complain loud and long about those games and developers who don’t cater to their particular whim. It may certainly be true that these are those gamers who are, as I have described them, the “un-silent minority”. Aside from a sincere hope that the news EA “released” today isn’t true, I hope the un-silent minority takes the hint to wake up and smell the coffee, as grandma used to say. If the squeeky wheels that are used to getting the most grease keep it up there may come a day that the only online game we have to play will be “My Pretty Pony”
See you online
Julie Whitefeather
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“All things considered, it leaves me wondering about games that are developed with such a steep learning curve, and the gamers that play them (considering I was one of them). Why develop or play a game with such a steep learning curve over something that takes the middle road, such as an Everquest or World of Warcraft?”
I’ve never thought of EVE as being particularly difficult. Each game mechanic is quite simple. “Click here / click there / whatever you do don’t click that…” Consider EVE’s healer classes – the logistics cruisers. In combat the mechanic becomes “stay at range, lock ships under fire, punch F1-F5 to repair them.” It’s not intrinsically difficult. I think EVE has a breadth of mechanics, rather than deep ones.
New features have regularly been added to provide more content, more player options, more choice. And more choice is good isn’t it? Until there’s so much a player gets lost. Hence the need for some sherpas to offer guidance – hello, EVE University.
The learning curve isn’t really steep – it just goes steadily on and on…
“Perhaps instead it is the idea of putting up with the drudgery of staring at mining lasers for hours on end, staring into space watching the game play itself, so that you can one day proudly announce yourself to be a “captain of Eve Online Industry””?
EVE’s captains of industry don’t mine. They acquire minerals via buy orders, and let other people do the slow work.
Hello Sister Julie (and Fran),
I don’t think it’s a case of we’re going to end up with nothing but “My Pretty Pony Online”. I do thing that the problem is that we’ve got the “entertainment industry” that has American developers especially by the short and curlies. I’m seeing lots of parallels with the pop music buisness and the big name game companies. They have much more say in what the developers do and they are aiming for a mass audience. They are also not very forgiving once an artist (read IP/Studio in the game world) fails to live up to their perceived potential (drop them like a stone once they are no longer popular/profitable). Then you have the Jazz or Heavy Metal artists who none of the big houses will touch, that keep putting out quality music year after year for the independent publishers.
I continue to thing that in certain ways CCP got luckier than they realize when their publisher decided to axe the games division and CCP were able to buy back full control of EVE online. I understand that things were very dicy for them until they hit 50k users. The big difference is that now that they are in the black (so to speak) they have full control of their destiny. Now they (as a company) may make a new MMO that’s more mass apeal down the road but everything we’ve heard about keeping the vision of EVE alive and in line with what they wanted (a dark distopian future that would make the 70′s/80′s subburbs of new york look like hello kitty land).
In a sense I think that if you want interesting and deep gameplay you’re never going to get it out of any of the “big” houses from now on in. We’re going to see the same treatment of development houses that we see the big record publishers use on pop idols. Personally I’ll keep an eye out for the non-pop stuff that I prefer realizing it’s an acquired taste and not likely to be found coming from the big boxes (possible FFXIV aside since it looks fairly derived from FFXI and that is nothing if not complex)
@ Michael St E: A very apt comparison…not so deep as it is really, really wide – sort of like trying to sail across the pacific ocean in a teacup. Fran and I were both, in fact, invited to attend one of the pvp schools. I was interested until I read about classes that were 6 hours long. Wow, I thought, even grad school never went past 3 hours at a shot.
@ Letrange: I thought I was following you until you wrote “by the short and curlies” – I am assuming by that you mean they have a pet pig or something and grabbed it’s tail. You will have to enlighten us as to what you are talking about by the first paragraph.
We will certainly agree that CCP was fortunate in the timing of gaining control over the IP. And when it comes to an assertion that “interesting and deep game play” will come out of the smaller independent game developers I will whole heartedly agree. My favorite game at the time is Fallen Earth.