A bigger event than the closing of Warhammer Online, this world was to be the first-person 3D update to its aging but venerable ancestor. Judging from the press release, score it gameplay 1, graphics 0. Thanks for the heads-up to Brian Whitener.
« Souls For Sale | Main | Endgame »
A bigger event than the closing of Warhammer Online, this world was to be the first-person 3D update to its aging but venerable ancestor. Judging from the press release, score it gameplay 1, graphics 0. Thanks for the heads-up to Brian Whitener.
ecastronova on Jul 01, 2004 in News | Permalink
The comments to this entry are closed.
Why is this happening? With all the massive growth predicted, whats going on? Is someone fudging things here?
If the market is shaky, these guys at http://www.playvault.com/ will be very popular. I hope they don't follow the trend of pulling out before actually doing something useful.
I'm tired of getting excited about a game and having it go away. Anyone care to explain whats going on?
Posted by: Joel Hutson | Jul 01, 2004 at 11:45
I have a terrible feeling of deja vu. In March 2001, a bit over 3 years ago, EA cancelled the development of UO2 for pretty much the same reasons: They didn't want to cannibalize their existing game UO.
I wonder if that is a sign of a declining MMORPG market, a sign of typical EA managers incompetence, or a sign of strength, with UO unexpectedly bringing so much money, that a sequel is unnecessary.
Posted by: Tobold | Jul 01, 2004 at 12:04
The question is if EA had already decided about UOX development stop before the closure of Austin office or after that.
After the move we know that not much of the original dev. team moved to California. Losing the entire dev. team in such a project is equivalent to lose the project or restart from the beginning. And to restart from the scratch was implying probably too higher costs to justify the project seen the increased risk.
If they decided to scrap the project before the California move (something that make more sense) then probably EA found out they did not have enough unique selling points to attract a large audience and to justify the high development costs to keep the Austin office open.
In any case lets see what will be the next Ultima project.
Posted by: Luca Girardo | Jul 01, 2004 at 12:15
>In any case lets see what
>will be the next Ultima project.
You've got to be kidding. After the news and considering the track record there isn't much credibility left.
Let me count the ways: MCO, EnB, UO2, UOX.
Posted by: Joel Hutson | Jul 01, 2004 at 14:18
Well EA has already announced it:
From Gamespot:
"A spokesperson said the game was cancelled so Electronic Arts could focus its resources on the existing game, including a new (and as yet unannounced) expansion pack that will be officially revealed later this month at an EA press event, and another unannounced UO project."
"unannounced UO project" expansion? new 3D client?
The question is less what it is and more if it will be completed :)
The fact that the current UO Live team had only 1 Designer and 2 Programmers (they were looking for an other programmer) was already strange signals as such a live team is too small. How many of the UXO staff (better said E&B) will join the live team is still to see.
Posted by: Luca Girardo | Jul 01, 2004 at 14:34
EA people are idiots. I've found a better game that is not funded or developed by EA. Its called Lineage 2. The graphics are great and its one of the best MMORPG ive ever played.
Posted by: Claydog | Jul 01, 2004 at 20:00
Liquid Development has posted some interesting arts work about UOX like a World Building Demo Reel. It looks like that the art work was already partially done.
Posted by: Luca Girardo | Jul 02, 2004 at 11:22
Making an MMO is hard, and it gets harder every day. These projects are getting killed because management methods that center around "Work them like slaves and treat them like dogs for 18 months, then fire them," don't work very well on projects that take 3 years. Eventually the whole thing sputters out in a firestorm of fingerpointing.
The market is certainly not in trouble: This chart is from March of this year and is based on Bruce Woodcock's figures.
Market Size
It doesn't include 200K for City of Heroes, as that came out after I made the chart.
--Dave
Posted by: Dave Rickey | Jul 02, 2004 at 19:43
While the market is not in trouble, the "car wrecks" along the road indicates that the older developers are trying hard to adjust their production processes to ever changing global competitive landscape.
Based on Wall Street research, Asian players are 2-3 years behind in terms of game quality, but 2-3 years ahead in managing, marketing, and distribution. The listing of a few Asian developers and operators on NASDAQ indicates that that they are tough competitors capable of securing a large war chest from US investors.
The landscape is changing fast.
Frank
Posted by: magicback | Jul 02, 2004 at 21:01
EA sure seems to have had a terrible track record since... well, since Ultima Online came out.
Let's see... Ultima Online comes out, then development begins on Ultima Online 2, well ahead of Everquest 2. Development is cancelled midway through, even with a ton of hype behind it.
Motor City Online is released with many potential awesome ideas, very few of which are realized. The game is shut down after a year of disappointing sales, terrible customer support, and lackluster game content.
Earth and Beyond was released, shut down a year later.
Majestic lasted, what, two months?
The Sims Online cost 25 million dollars, and has less than 1/5 of the projected playerbase EA Online wanted them to have. Don't be surprised if that gets shut down within a year.
And now, Ultima Online X is shut down.
Where, exactly, is Electronic Arts planning on going with a 7 year old game engine?
Posted by: Lordfly | Jul 03, 2004 at 00:11
UOX was to be a massive departure from UO, almost a different market of players altogether (PvE v. PvP players, essentially). Many PvP players could care less if the game is not visually "stunning". The fact that many in this crowd still play graphically sub-standard games like the original UO, Neocron, and a couple others backs this up.
The PvE crowd, on the other hand, usually demand optimal graphics. It's not only what they're used to ... it's part of the immersion in the game for them.
Perhaps the UOX folks took a look at what they were creating, a look at their former player base (i.e. rabid fans), and decided they were heading down the wrong path :)
D
Posted by: Doccus | Jul 03, 2004 at 11:21
Electronic Arts is teaching the rest of us in the MMORPG marketplace a lot of good lessons. It is so nice of them to spend tens of millions of their dollars to fund this research.
They have shown us all how incredibly important PATIENCE and FOCUS are in the development of an MMORPG.
Their lack of patience is what is causing them to flounder about making tons of different games, not giving them the time they need to develop (both pre and post release), and expecting them to crush Everquest in their first year. The games they have released clearly show a lack of development time and a lack of depth in game design. Earth & Beyond was the shell of an excellent game with no substance. The Sims Online did not supply the one thing it was supposed to be best at: community. Motor City Online... well... *chuckle*. Every time they have come close to producing a legitimate sequel to Ultima Online, they have grown impatient and decided to just return their efforts to the existing successful game (UO).
Their lack of focus is the reason why they have such a huge number of games in development and yet they seem unable get even one fully developed, fully realized game to market. Furthermore, the lack of focus is the reason why the games they have under development seem to drift about aimlessly without making serious, significant progress towards a quality release product.
I believe that EA's enormous success in the console market has resulted in them being addicted to that style of game development. Console games can be extremely successful even if they have nothing more than cursory, surface appeal. Earth & Beyond provides an excellent example of this console design mentality run amok. A game with Earth & Beyond's degree of depth would actually make for an absolutely marvelous non-MMORPG game for the PC or console (assuming you ramped up the advancement rate accordingly). It had beautiful graphics, an interesting variety of "character classes", and enough fun for 50-100 hours of gameplay. As an MMORPG, however, it was shallow and insubstantial.
I know a lot of people are at a near panic with all of these MMORPGs being canceled. Take heart in the fact that a large percentage of them were being produced by EA and suffered from the same flawed philosophy that EA has towards MMORPGs.
What this is showing is that the huge, mega-corporations may not be in as dominant a position in the MMORPG market as they are in other areas of gaming (I'm not saying they are in a bad position, just that their position may not be as absolutely advantageous as some would believe). This should give smaller developers a lot to be happy about.
Posted by: Michael Hartman | Jul 03, 2004 at 18:36
Michael: What this is showing is that the huge, mega-corporations may not be in as dominant a position in the MMORPG market as they are in other areas of gaming (I'm not saying they are in a bad position, just that their position may not be as absolutely advantageous as some would believe
----------------------%<-------------------------
I think it depends from the point of view. The entry barrier for MMOGs is becoming higher with the time. People expect the same depth in content the existing MMOGs are having, at the same time better game systems, better client (see graphic) etc. Especially arts is an increasing problem as it requires a lot of resources. And for small development studios it is becoming more and more difficult to find an investor who wants to invest the necessary resources in a so risky project.
About EA, you are probably right. They use their management model for MMOGs and they try to fit them in their risk/revenues models while failing to see the change of paradigm. Ultima Online seems to be an exception, because it already fits in the EA risk/revenues model. Bu we have to say, they took over Origin already after development and it took time for them to take the whole control.
How long will TSO survive?
But we do not have to forget that there are several other MMOGs on the market that were or are in danger like Anarchy Online, Shadowbane, Neocron, Eve Online for example.
Posted by: Luca Girardo | Jul 04, 2004 at 02:19
Oh and about the successful MMOGs, it seems that City of Heroes is breaking the 200k active subscribers barrier:
From City of Heroes - Origins Seminar Information:
"..They're almost at 200,000 players. There will be an announcement when they make it..."
Interesting article in any case.
Posted by: Luca Girardo | Jul 04, 2004 at 02:36
All the more interesting since the game wasn't advertised that much, does not hold a big license and occupies a rather specialized niche.
Most comments I've read on it (from players) talked about quality and polished gameplay.
To be honest, most comments doubted its long-term attraction.
Posted by: XP | Jul 05, 2004 at 08:21
> XP: Most comments I've read on it (from players) talked about quality and polished gameplay. To be honest, most comments doubted its long-term attraction.
I see City of Heroes a bit like the exact opposite of Star Wars Galaxies. CoH has a very narrow range of features, all of which work extremely well, and also work together to form a unity. SWG has so many more features, but with lots of bugs, and bad interactions between the features.
If you ask the players what they want, they will tell you that they want the number of features that SWG has, but with the quality of CoH. But how do you get there best? Economic realities probably mean that not many companies can release a game which is both huge and thoroughly tested. So you could either start with a high quality game like CoH, and add features later. Or start with a huge game like SWG, and improve quality later.
I think what makes the CoH approach work better is word of mouth. It seems MMORPG players are not that easy to persuade with traditional marketing, but rely quite a lot on what their peers say. By the time the lack of long-term attraction of CoH really kicks in, you already got the web full of rave reviews. And you got your coffers full of money from being the best-selling PC game for 6 weeks straight, which makes it a lot easier to persuade management to expand your game.
I wonder how SWG would have fared if it had been a game in which everybody was a Jedi, and gameplay consisted mainly of well working light saber battles (and X-Wing vs. TIE fighter battles) that were as instant fun as CoH combat is now. And would have left out features like the ability to give others a hair cut.
Posted by: Tobold | Jul 05, 2004 at 09:20
Well at this subscribers level (200K) it is realistic to predict an average monthly profit of around 30%. Now that would be around $900.000 a month. Assuming a total investment of around $10 million ($5 M R&D, $3,5 M launch+infrastructure, $1,5 M marketing), they could achieve a net profit already within the first 12 months or also less (assuming a 10$ initial profit from the boxed-product selling, and around 300 to 400K boxes sold, we would have additional $3 to $4 million).
An average active status of 6-8 months would be already a great success for a MMOG.
Posted by: Luca Girardo | Jul 05, 2004 at 09:26
Also, their strategy hinges on the their ability to add the necessary new content before players start to lose interest. Their content pipeline looks good so far.
If the launch of their expansions are as good as their initial launch, they should continue to grow to about 500K mark by the 12th month mark.
Posted by: magicback | Jul 05, 2004 at 09:37
Sounds about right, Tobold. I got the feeling SWG devs were trying to make a world and forgot what they were selling was a game.
CoH sounds like it's meant to be a game (I.E. Fun) before anything.
As a business / project model, I frankly like the "small steps" better : Deliver flawlessly what you've promised, build on it if it's successful.
The model we've most often seen is to try to tackle everything, find out you won't be able to, drop some features and issue others in a broken state. It usually makes players quite angry.
The end result is often the same : Some features will be a year or 2 in the making. The results in terms of PR are FAR different. And I suspect the costs are quite different, too.
Does that come from lack of experience ? Lack of Skill ? The note from Climax on WHO baffled me some with its naïvety in this regard.
Posted by: XP | Jul 05, 2004 at 09:59
"If the market is shaky, these guys at http://www.playvault.com/ will be very popular. I hope they don't follow the trend of pulling out before actually doing something useful."
We're seriously working on doing something useful.
"The question is if EA had already decided about UOX development stop before the closure of Austin office or after that."
Dubtful, you'd really want to get all the bad news out at the same time, take the PR hit, do the damage-control (release of the UO 'expansion' they did) and move on instead of dragging the bad news all over the year. This is indeed a sad string of events since, living in Austin, I knew quite a lot of the Origin folks and had met some of the EnB team.
"Most comments I've read on it (from players) talked about quality and polished gameplay.
To be honest, most comments doubted its long-term attraction."
Perhaps the injection of some bits of the Asian model is also causing difference here. The Asian market is the only one I see with a large number of MMORPGs that are sucessful sequels of each other. It seems a lot closer to the normal games retail model where a game goes out, has a few high-visibility USPs, hits the charts (or flops), makes a profit, then fades to black and is replaced by the sequel a year later. A model that seems more 'throwaway' in some respects.
Posted by: Andres Ferraro (aka: DivineShadow) | Jul 05, 2004 at 18:01
There's no openly visible decline in MMOG growth from the gamers perspective as of yet. There have been succesful titles since the release of UO, unlike EA would like to admit since they absolutely blow at anything remotely entertaining.
Do they get a few good titles? Sure, but then again, it's luck of the draw, I bet even I could get a gold game a year if I released 100 games a month.
Posted by: Lee Delarm | Jul 06, 2004 at 08:53
EA is a publicly held company, and its board does a good job of managing it as such. Decisions are not made from a developer, employee or gamer perspective, but rather strictly from the numbers.
For stockholders, I wouldn't say that's necessarily a bad thing. That's just the nature of the large corporation.
For everyone else, yeah it can kinda stink sometimes. And we are indeed left with this sort of result.
Posted by: Will Leverett | Jul 06, 2004 at 10:03
Maybe there is a lack of focus on the MMO side while console side is making money by the bucket-load.
Frank
Posted by: magicback | Jul 06, 2004 at 11:05
>> XP wrote:
>>
>> All the more interesting since the game wasn't advertised
>> that much, does not hold a big license and occupies a rather
>> specialized niche.
Woah there...
Not advertised that much? You couldn't find a gaming magazine in the last 6-12 months without being demolished by a 2 page add for City of Heroes. PC Gamer, Electronic Games Monthly, Computer Games Monthly, etc.
This game was advertised HEAVILY. I'm not sure how you missed it.
Also, super heroes are not a specialized niche. They are a huge genre that is just BEGGING for decent games. The fact that super hero games keep being made despite the fact that 99% of them are absolute garbage is testament to the enormous popularity of the genre.
Further, lets not forget about:
Spiderman worldwide gross: $821,708,551
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0145487/business
X-Men 2 worldwide gross: $406,399,599
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290334/business
The Hulk worldwide gross: $241,528,767 (and this movie was absolute GARBAGE)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286716/business
Comic Books/Superheros is definitely not a specialized niche market. :)
Posted by: Michael Hartman | Jul 07, 2004 at 01:07
Maybe there is a lack of focus on the MMO side while console side is making money by the bucket-load.
---------------%<--------------------
"Customers do not want online games" - Iwata Networked gaming still isn't important, insists Nintendo boss
"...Otsuka: Nintendo has not entered the online game business, while other game companies are focusing on them, as is shown by SCEI's PlayStation2. Is Nintendo not thinking of heading in that direction?
Iwata: Not at the moment. SCEI's online golf game didn't sell well, while its off-line golf game sold one million copies. This was also proof that customers do not want online games. Online technology has its own interesting features, so I don't rule out the possibility of making use of it for games. But, at the moment, most customers do not wish to pay the extra money for connection to the Internet, and for some customers, connection procedures to the Internet are still not easy. Some time ago, game companies as well as the media were predicting that online games would take off in the future. But game companies now find it difficult to make online game businesses successful, and their enthusiasm for them is cooling. During the year-end shopping season last year, none of the online games succeeded. The failure of SCEI's golf game was a good example. All the games that sold well were off-line games...."
Posted by: Luca Girardo | Jul 07, 2004 at 04:02
An interesting interview with Ultima Online product manager Aaron Cohen about UOX Cancellation:
http://www.homelanfed.com/index.php?id=24499
Posted by: Luca Girardo | Jul 07, 2004 at 06:55
Superheroes are certainly not, but I thought superheroes games were. Maybe it's just that they are, as you say, usually abysmal and so disappear quickly :D
As a side-note, no superhero RPG (whether PnP or Computer) has had much of a success compared to the slew of fantasy products. Even post-apocalyptic themes seem to get better treatment.
As for the advertisement.. I surf much more than I read magazines :) I just felt that compared to SWG or WoW you heard much less hype about CoH.
Posted by: XP | Jul 07, 2004 at 08:22
>>Iwata: Not at the moment. SCEI's online
>>golf game didn't sell well, while its
>>off-line golf game sold one million copies.
>>This was also proof that customers do
>>not want online games.
Yeah, one game is definitely "proof" that people don't want online games.
The success of Quake, Unreal, Counter Strike, Everquest (and other MMORPGs), Lineage, Diablo 2, Starcraft, etc. certainly don't count compared to Random Golf Game (tm).
>>at the moment, most customers do not
>>wish to pay the extra money for
>>connection to the Internet, and for
>>some customers, connection procedures
>>to the Internet are still not easy.
This is incredible. How can someone actually say something like this? If he was saying this 8-10 years ago maybe he'd have a point.
Posted by: Michael Hartman | Jul 08, 2004 at 01:47
>>As a side-note, no superhero RPG
>>(whether PnP or Computer) has had
>>much of a success compared to the
>>slew of fantasy products.
I would say that Champions was a very successful product that had an enormous lifespan.
On the computer, I really do believe that the superhero games have been unadulterated garbage. That is why Freedom Force was such an amazing game, and why 2 years ago PC Gamer made it the runner up for EVERY CATEGORY (I think they even gave it runner up for best driving game! HEH).
Superhero games really set the standard for believing too much in the strength of a license. A license gets you attention (which is extremely valuable) but it doesn't get you a good game.
Posted by: Michael Hartman | Jul 08, 2004 at 01:54
Luca Girardo, thanks for that link:
http://www.homelanfed.com/index.php?id=24499
>>HomeLAN - This is the second time
>>that a stand alone follow up to
>>Ultima Online has been cancelled.
>>Is there still a big fear of
>>stealing the audience away from
>>Ultima Online?
>>
>>Aaron Cohen - No. The idea has
>>always been to expand the audience.
>>We decided that the best way to do
>>that was to focus on our existing
>>game world and the enthusiastic
>>community that supports it.
And the Oscar for Best Regurgitation of Marketing Department Dogma goes to... Aaron Cohen!
How can you think you are going to expand your audience by focusing on a 7+ year old game with a dog of an engine that cannot even begin to compete with modern fare?
UO might be an amazing game, and it is certainly occupying a unique space in the market, but you aren't going to expand the audience for an ancient game like that no matter how much you "focus" on it.
One thing we have seen in the lifespan of all games, offline or online, is that after a few years (3-4 max) they pretty much hit their max and will never experience any significant surges above that maximum.
>>HomeLAN - About how many subscribers
>>does Ultima Online currently have
>>and are those numbers remaining
>>steady or are they declining or increasing?
>>
>>Aaron Cohen - We don’t release subscriber
>>numbers as a matter of policy, but we can
>>say that the UO audience is quite steady
>>and remains devoted.
Does anyone have any idea why they are the only MMORPG with this policy? Are they hiding something or is there actually a good reason for this?
>>Aaron Cohen - We can’t talk about
>>future products that haven’t been
>>announced. However, we can say that
>>EA has made being successful in the
>>online space a high priority.
Give the man another Oscar.
Yeah, nothing says "high priority" like cancelling 3 or 4 MMORPGs per year- some of them while they're still in the crib.
Posted by: Michael Hartman | Jul 08, 2004 at 02:02
Does anyone have any idea why they are the only MMORPG with this policy? Are they hiding something or is there actually a good reason for this?
--------------%<---------------------------
In reality they are not the only company with that policy. Near all the US game providers avoid to say any number beside in some press releases (and only when subscriber numbers are increasing).
EA did the same for Ultima Online. When subscriber number was increasing they were publishing it in their press releases. At this stage you can assume there is a stagnation/ reduction of the audience.
About the reasons, yes. When you are publishing your subscribers number you are offering an in depth view in your business processes to all your competitors.
For example Lucas Arts never published their active subscribers number. Funcom too (that was mostly necessary due to the low subscriber numbers).
Posted by: Luca Girardo | Jul 08, 2004 at 03:06
Michael Hartman> One thing we have seen in the lifespan of all games, offline or online, is that after a few years (3-4 max) they pretty much hit their max and will never experience any significant surges above that maximum.
Offline game sequels, unlike most movie sequels, tend to sell better. So, with two failed attempts to produce and market a sequel to UO, has EA already decided that the only way to extend your online franchise is by "expansions"?
Posted by: magicback | Jul 08, 2004 at 18:00
I need to nitpick for a moment. The game name was never abbreviated as "UOX." The name was Ultima X: Odyssey, and it was abbreviated as UXO (or rarely UX:O). The "X" in the name stood for Roman numeral 10, highlighting how it was the next numbered Ultima game and not an offshoot of Ultima Online (a.k.a. UO). (UO players may recall the unofficial player-created UO emulator called Ultima Offline eXperiment was also called UOX.)
Posted by: KQuinn | Jul 16, 2004 at 19:38
dsfdf
Posted by: sss | Apr 07, 2005 at 01:21
Hey Guy's dont be stupid. I played UO for 7 years.Awesome game! Im quite sure they decided to "cancel"UO2 because they had a reason, they saw that it was not that perfect as the 1st UO (no crafting, etc)they did not want to do a game like everquest 2 (crap) Lineage2(crap) WoW(crap crap crap. They will re-announce UO2 whenever they are ready to make it awesome again
Posted by: MrL | Aug 18, 2005 at 09:40