| Monday, July 5, 2010 |
| Throwing out the Litter |
Are the majority of free mmorpg games just Crap?
WoW contenders, mutations of superior console games and re-imaginations of previous titles have a difficult time proving their worth among the online gaming industry's winners.Over the past few years a number of titles have come and gone. Explanations for a game's unforeseen fall include: chronic hacking and scamming issues by players seeking to profit on others' hard work and gullibility, major bugs and technical issues unsolved by game development teams, and a killer of course is another title copies and makes an existing one.
Economization of games has also impacted on gamer excitement and reverence, causing a chasm to develop between the free-to-play (f2P) and paying (p2p) titles and their fans. Take for example Lords Online, a browser-based RTS game launched not long ago. The title idea, flow and appearance is nothing to rub one's nose at, but slow-to-repair exploits with in-game manipulation and players' wallets being tapped to enjoy the "complete" content is a likely threat for this Lords Online look-alike.
However, EVE Online, a proven science-fiction mmorpg which is p2p, took the best of what its star-aiming predecessors and pioneers had not succeeded to do: make a viral and addicting space realm for players to truly make and get into a role in a superbly designed realm of never-ending detail, capturing narrative, and not to forget fun cooperative/pvp play. On the other hand, Pirate Galaxy, a free browser game looks like the "Little Mac" to EVE Online and Grand Fantasia, but with even less interesting rpg substance, viralness and noteworthiness to justify playing past the tutorial. I wouldn't be shocked if Pirate Galaxy becomes like Freelancer, and survives as an under-ground mmorpg, just like Freelancer does now.But who or what is to blame for a title's success and fall?
The "FREE MMORPG" (including rts, fps, etc.)-- Many look similar with minuscule differences in appearance, backstory and target players*. Those that give birth to and distribute titles have expenses to account for, prestige to uphold, and players to obtain and keep playing. From this, I can easily assume that titles that don't make it big based on projected revenue, user membership and online usage figures, and activity at the online mall, are doomed to be shut down before they can to sink in among players. Therefore, would the concept of test stages be worth it? *but let's be real, if you reduced all these games to just bare bones models, practically all are copies of exactly the same concept, not including a few basic contents.
Let's look at p2p hits like WoW, here is a game that destroys any doubt that a company's name combined with a cult of Blizzard-loyal fans was the push and sustaining force that has made it the dominant actor of the mmo genre now. LOTRO which a little while ago announced a shift into free-to-play, has superior brand strength and will move forward to capture the prizes of strong sources of marketing, namely movies, merchandise, and original content. Will this and other would-be WoW-assassins be able to establish their positions in f2p or p2p to the degree that they not only make good on promises to the fans what they desire but satisfy expectations on the corporate side of things? Are lesser-known free-to-play titles being made available at Aeria Games, Perfect World, gPotato, and others even preparing for the long term? Or is it just to make a quick buck, cancel when the players stop playing and nonchalantly attribute poor performance to player statistics sinking because of "boring," "uninspiring" game makers?
Several points given above that will not be answered in this literature, but a final note: Online gaming as we know it can be terminated or at least seriously affected by greedy businessmen who have no perspective for the titles and ignore the power they hold over players -- the desire to make money from designs such as f2p with micro-payments, may be in its best days now, but looking to the future, all one can see is a series of potentially great titles being called off by execs over poorly imagined income forecasts and soulless CCU statistics, the wishbones of the online gaming business. Peel your eyes from the white papers and stats and put more effort in substance -- make customers proud they ever heard of your creation!Labels: debate, free mmorpg, mmorpg, online game |
posted by Perry's Blog @ 11:56 PM  |
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