War is Peace. Black is White. EQ2 is Casual-Friendly.

John Smedley recently published an assessment of Everquest 2's achievements to date, followed by some interesting thoughts on the MMOG future. In it, he says that one of the design goals for EQ2 was to make it friendly to a wider user base, particularly the so-called casual players, a group that Terra Nova writers and many others have struggled to define even while recognize the centrality of the category.

Lots of commentary on Smedley's letter has followed, much of it cynical. Far be it from me to depart from what all the cool kids are doing, so I figured TN should join in the fun, if somewhat tardily. I too had to laugh at the proposition that EQ2 was governed in any way by friendliness to casual play, or with a consciousness of the possibilities of a wider market. In fact, I don't feel, having messed around with the game some, that the game has a particularly clear design sensibility of any kind: it's more a bricolage of many gestures and ideas, some good and some not good.

On the other hand, once you read Smedley's letter carefully...

You find that he doesn't actually say that EQ2 came out casual-friendly or appealing to a wide audience. He says, retrospectively, that "we needed to aim for a more casual gamer" and to "a wider base of people". He also says he's proud of EQ2 and that the design team delivered an "incredibly fun and immersive world that our players want to be part of and make their own". If you want to be generous, you can say that nowhere in that paragraph are those dots fully connected. Of course the current playerbase of EQ2 find that world "fun and immersive", one they want to be "part of and make their own". It's a kind of tautological statement. The playerbase of Horizons and Neocron and Earth & Beyond could have been accurately described in the same way. Smedley doesn't say, in the end, whether he thinks EQ2 succeeded in getting the "wider base of people" with "less time to play", the "mass market" for a fantasy MMOG. Most of us think he couldn't say that because that achievement belongs to World of Warcraft, something the letter more or less says later on. He does also suggest that EQ2 could have been "harder-core" had it not been for the saving influence of WoW, which doesn't really clarify whether he thinks EQ2 is presently "casual-friendly".

So reading the letter now becomes an exercise in corporate Kremlinology. What is it really meant to communicate about SOE's future intent? Smedley touches on some ideas that tend to come up a lot when the ardent proponents of "virtual world" approaches to MMOG design get together--worlds where characters age and have children, worlds where characters actually design their own environments, worlds with "skill-based combat" (the meaning of this is open to interpretation: are we talking about twitch games, or just non-level based combat?) Are these thoughts meant to suggest that SOE is going to leave the mass market MMOG to Blizzard and try to counter-program? Are they just a kind of corporate logorrhea? What is the whole letter: an apologia, a defiant challenge, a clumsy exercise in whistling past the graveyard?

My worship at the graven idol of the playerbase and of gamer discourse on forums and bulletin boards has met with some resistance, but whether that collective chatter has the wisdom of crowds in it somewhere or not, it still has fine-trigger bullshit detectors. This is a domain of mass media in which the audience itself, rather than some journalistic interlocutors, mercilessly and sometimes excessively punishes the kind of corporate public-relations that has a smoother ride in many other culture industries. It might be unreasonable to expect John Smedley or any executive representing an ongoing concern like a MMOG to engage in the relatively frank self-assessment that Postmortems From Game Developer highlights for games whose time in the marketplace has come and gone. But I'll go out on a limb and suggest, tentatively, that this might be a wiser way to go if the goal is building a favorable relationship with the MMOG customer base.

If SOE means to have games that are now much more daringly committed to producing "virtual worlds" in the future, then why not say it unhesitatingly, ambitiously? Some years ago, the former denizens of Lum the Mad got a lot of comic mileage out of the bizarrely worshipful reception that the bogus designers of the not-even-vaporware "Dawn" received due to its announced and delusional virtual world ambitions (see: "fetuspult"), but the hidden text behind the joke is that the desire for more ambitious virtual-world designs runs pretty deep. Even the most cynical and burned-out MMOGers tend to have a smoldering ember of hope about that possibility. And if SOE means to say it screwed the pooch with EQ2 (or SWG), why not say it? It took the Pope many centuries to apologize for torturing Galileo: it shouldn't be quite so difficult to say, "Ok, we took some wrong turns in the road with our MMOG". I bought a Saturn many years ago not just because I liked the car, but liked what I understood about the production philosophy behind it (arguably I fell for a slick advertising campaign rather than a real understanding of Saturn manufacturing). I still subscribe to City of Heroes even though I don't play it much because I like the way its designers relate to their players. Why not take a chance on wilder leaps of commitment to vision and take a chance on brutal frankness about the products you've already made? It probably wouldn't hurt, and it might well help.

Comments

[Darniaq]

1.

Why not take a chance on wilder leaps of commitment to vision and take a chance on brutal frankness about the products you've already made?

Because to do so marginalizes your existing fanbase. EQ2 and SWG could have both done much better they did (given entire rethinks of core concepts in both games), but they both also have strong existing fanbases. Is it worth risky their ire just to apologize to the hundreds of thousands of other people that didn't find the experience to their liking?

I personally think EQ2 actually is more casual-friendly. To SOE. And in comparison to EQlive. Unfortunately, while their staff has probably played many other MMORPGs, they have a sort of corporately-cultural myopia on what real gamers will do and accept, in small groups and en masse. They understand the features in other games, but haven't adequately emulated the systems that make them actually more casual and less punitive.

I personally saw that letter as nothing more than a good community management tool. They've gotten very good at creating discussion points, to get people talking. It's in their delivery where they are challenged, though in that they are not unique.

[Jeff Cole]

2.

Tim,

Due respect, but you fundamentally misunderstand public relations, and naively overestimate the "wisdom of crowds."

This is a domain of mass media in which the audience itself, rather than some journalistic interlocutors, mercilessly and sometimes excessively punishes the kind of corporate public-relations that has a smoother ride in many other culture industries.

Even if that is true, any "brutal frankness" will be proportionatley more mis-reported, mis-interpreted, and generally "punished" than it would in the other "culture industries."

Heck, it's been demonstrated on this site ... a site on which the signal-to-noise ratio is rather high.

I lived it in the indie rock days.

I would almost go so far as to say that "brutal frankness" is never the right PR play. All it does is give your detractors (whether reasonable or not) juicy soundbites and headlines.

Jeff Cole

[Timothy Burke]

3.

I think first, there's some grounds for conjecturing that the MMOG audience is a highly particular audience that needs highly particular strategies of public relations. That's sort of the premise behind the Themis Group, for example: that you can't just handle your customer relations with MMOGs the way you would if you were dealing with magazine subscribers or even if you were Parmount trying to deal with Star Trek fans.

Second, on what brutal frankness normally results in. I don't doubt there are examples of it backfiring badly, but I have to say that I think that's an extremely small sample size, because it is so rarely attempted. However, there's ample grounds even in mainstream public relations for thinking that the perception of authenticity and honesty among customers does a great deal to ensure brand loyalty. Some companies have turned that into an art form: witness Ben and Jerry's. Maybe you have to create that impression as an affirmative gesture rather than an explanation of failure to avoid feeding negativity, but...maybe not.

I'm not suggesting that Smedley come out and say, "We suck and our game sucks, and anyone who plays it is a dork". But I think you could say--by way of making an affirmative gesture--something more like "We think it's important that our game stand apart from World of Warcraft, so we're happy it's a bit more hardcore in its design. Its more challenging that way. We recognize the limitations that places on its appeal." Or "We still think we have some distance to travel in making the game casual-friendly: we'd like to know where it could be changed over time in that respect." (Judging from EQ2's boards, it's the post-20 levelling experience that is perceived as punitively designed...) When you sound instead as if you're *happy* you're getting trounced by a competitor, without making it clear whether that's because you're confidently committed to being something else (as say Letterman is in relation to Leno) or because you intend to meet your competitor's challenge and beat them at their own game, you don't accomplish much of anything.

[Darniaq]

4.

However, there's ample grounds even in mainstream public relations for thinking that the perception of authenticity and honesty among customers does a great deal to ensure brand loyalty

With this, and your followup example quotes, I agree. However, there's not much of a difference between your quotes and what Mr. Smedley actually said.

Their statements always compel discussion because they are so easy to interpret so many different ways. Vagueness compelled by PR :) For example, something like:

John Smedley wrote:
I'm glad that we went in the direction we did with EQ II because had we stuck with making an even "harder core" game, I think bad things would have happened. We need to be about larger scale mass-entertainment… because that's what online gaming is slowly becoming. Our games just need to be fun… and easy to get into.

They know they're harder core, that harder core does not have as broad an appeal, that broadening the appeal is the way of the future. Ergo (I love that word), EQ2 is not the wave of the future without some major changes they know they need to make.

In my opinion, near the end of beta, EQ2 was pretty casual friendly until the 20s. Then right around launch they changed a lot of the content to group required (which is a hard and fast rule within the EQ2 mob-targeting system), thinking that was a good thing. They're in the middle of undoing that now, and I don't know where they'll end.

EQlive enjoyed a lot of firsts. But their unique dominance was during a time of far less competition many thought was unrepeatible. WoW appears to be dispelling that belief, though the jury is still out on whether their growth or inevitable plateau is sustainable, given the game style. The old Game attracts but World keeps question.

[Matt Mihaly]

5.

Timothy Burke wrote:

That's sort of the premise behind the Themis Group, for example:

AFAIK, Themis is largely an advertising agency these days, deriving the vast majority of their revenue from marketing, PR, and ad-buys.

--matt

[Jeff Cole]

6.

However, there's ample grounds even in mainstream public relations for thinking that the perception of authenticity and honesty among customers does a great deal to ensure brand loyalty. (emphasis added)

Ah. So it's the perception and not the reality. See also:

I bought a Saturn many years ago not just because I liked the car, but liked what I understood about the production philosophy behind it (arguably I fell for a slick advertising campaign rather than a real understanding of Saturn manufacturing). I still subscribe to City of Heroes even though I don't play it much because I like the way its designers relate to their players. (emphasis added)

So, if success is determined based upon perception, Sony would be more correct to measure success by how many would-be subscribers so "perceive" its efforts, rather than by how many of the scorned, indignant casuals so "perceive" its efforts?

I am not sure the MMO market requires highly particular strategies as much as highly particular implementations of strategies. Of course, that all depends on how you differentiate a strategy from its implementation. I am pretty sure that "Brutal frankenss" is not a winning strategy (or implementation).

Matt: You can't spell "propoganda" without PR.

Jeff Cole

[Timothy Burke]

7.

I'll continue to disagree, Jeff. I don't think MMOG producers have to be as brutally frank as, let's say, the comments threads at f13.net or Grimwell's. Then the perception and the reality of brutal honesty would be as one. Even the postmortem essays that appear at Gamasutra tend to defend the integrity and accomplishments of the development team for a particular game: as self-criticisms, they're still very measured. But I think they're respected widely for their honesty (and are useful in many ways as a result). I think there is a way of communicating a process of self-examination that is not always as sunnily exculpatory and borderline dishonest as the letter we're analyzing, a way of saying, "Yes, we know what we did wrong, and we're thinking about ways to fix it". That's good public relations even when it's not necessarily the entire truth nor overly brutal in its expression.

It's also, as a collateral benefit, a big help to the development process. I continue to believe that one of the reasons that SWG's live team had trouble communicating its intentions to its players for its first year of existence was not merely a lack of communicative skill, but also that the exterior incoherence and contradictions evident in that communication matched some interior state of disorder and confusion. So similarly here, I find myself thinking, "If Smedley says this, perhaps he believes it." That's even more problematic than the question of honesty or dishonest, good p.r. or bad p.r.: it means that the interior process of live development for the game is in the grips of a conceptual illusion.

[Mike Rozak]

8.

When I read through the rant-site posts about EQII complaints, they seem to be:

1) It's requires a high end graphics card. (Which is why I haven't been able to try it.)
2) It doesn't allow soloing.
3) Too much grind.
4) Not enough quests, or poorly-interfaced quests.

Item 1, too much graphics power required, will fix itself in 6-12 months as Moore's law continues to reduce prices.

John Smedley's post implied that 2, 3, and 4 are being worked on... which coincidentally makes it more like WoW. (I don't see how descendants or user-created dungeons will improve the experience, but they might be experimental or check-box features. Personally, I'd suggest ship-to-ship combat like SWG's spaceship combat.)

Does this mean that in 6 months, when many of WoW's current pack of players get bored with it, they'll move onto the remodelled EQII? (Or am I speaking heresy to say that WoW's players will get bored and jump to another MMORPG?)

[Peder Holdgaard Pedersen]

9.

4. is definitely not true. EQ2 has a huge number of quests. I disagree with 2 and 3 as well - but that's a matter for interpretation, I guess.

[Abalieno]

10.

Item 1, too much graphics power required, will fix itself in 6-12 months as Moore's law continues to reduce prices.

The same was told about SWG two years ago.

Still runs horribly.

It's also quite obvious that you cannot analyze the design of a whole mmorpg through a message board where the average message is written in less than 60 seconds. Yes, it's still valuable but far from being absolute and completive.

My point of view is here.

[will dieterich]

11.

I am one of thoses who switched over from WoW to EQ2 and frankly I am really enjoying it and find the community a really nice bonus. Then again I play a MMORPG for the community if I wanted a single player game KOTOR II is still far better.

1) I have a ATI 1 1/2 year old card, and it is not bad. In a large group fighting large amounts of enemies in a small area with everyone cast spells thier is a noticable slowdown.

2) In the upper 20s and soloing has not been a problem, thier are numerious nights I have just soloed and had plenty of quests to do. The biggest problem is thier is no way to tell if a quest is group or solo and you can get a higher level solo quest at low levels so people group up and do them and then just bank the item. Still has a long ways to go to be as soloable as WoW but WoW was terrible in tring to get a group for more then one quest.

3) Very few times I have grinded or camped a spot and thoses were because I did the betrayal quest. Then again grinding is purly in the mind of the player. If the player feels they have to get a higher level in order to have fun it becomes a grind. Kind of in that now, I have a few quests I really want to complete but also want to move to a different area

4) You are limited to 50 active quests at a time and I always have that that full or at 45+. In addition I am still finding new quests that I am deleting because they are lower level then I am really interested in doing, or involve killing stuff that no longer gives me exp. The quest info is less directive then WoW, so sometimes it can be a pain to find an item.

[Tobold]

12.

I think John Smedley's piece was rather good PR. It didn't make any fixed promises, but still left you feeling hopeful that EQ2 would someday evolve into something more casual-friendly.

Also our judgement on EQ2 is clouded by direct comparison with WoW. Sure, WoW outsold EQ2 by about 3 to 1. But the last numbers I heard from EQ2 were 310,000 subscribers, making it far more successful than the casual friendly CoH. So I wouldn't expect John Smedley to say "we failed", because they didn't. They just didn't succeed as spectacularly as the competition.

[Thabor]

13.

I see the idea of "casual friendly" MMOG to be a contradiction in terms. MMOGs tend to focus on achievement and socializing. Both of which are high commitment activities. The trend seems to be towards greater presistance and ownership (player impact, items, guilds, achivement ladders). Persitance results in large shifts in game dynamics, and power differentials which aren't firendly to casual play. IE: Go to a "mature" server, and try to find people to group with.. It will be far more difficult than finding a group at the maximum levels.

I don't see how any MMOG without making significant breaks from standard designs.

[Darniaq]

14.

Mike Rozak wrote:
Does this mean that in 6 months, when many of WoW's current pack of players get bored with it, they'll move onto the remodelled EQII?

I've personally been arguing that the two games are not directly comparable. They both offer different motivations, and treat the "massive multiplayer" part differently. In WoW, massive multiplayer is something of an option, except in PvP (both in occurence and eventually by game feature). In EQ2, it's more glorified, with guild leveling and the related benefits thereto, and without PvP at all.

In my opinion, if someone likes one but not the other, it's because what they want from a game is different from what the other one offers, not because one does a better job at delivering the same type of experience.

Many expect WoW's numbers to fall off. We have a minor bet on that over at my second home :) But regardless, WoW brought many first-timers to the genre, and some of them will eventually seek out other MMOGs to try.

That benefits everyone.

[Mike Rozak]

15.

Darinaq wrote - I've personally been arguing that the two games are not directly comparable.

That seems to be the case... Except Smedly's letter might imply changes.

Here's my best guestimate about both WoW's and EQII's marketing mantras: "Be the biggest (and highest grossing) MMORPG out there." It's like McDonalds vs. Burger King. Coke vs. Pepsi.

Both are targeting the same mass-market. EQII seems to have missed the mark, compared to WoW. At this point, the EQII team can say, "We want to have a different user profile than WoW, even if it means 1/3 the market share."... Dark & Light is saying this. Mourning is saying this. All the small MMORPGs seem to be saying it.

I don't think EQII will though, because if they admit WoW has taken their market, then they must admit be being 2nd (or 3rd) place forever. (If EQII abandons their marketing mantra, another company will fill EQII's place, pushing EQII to 3rd.)

For EQII to compete against WoW, they must (a) copy a lot of what the 1M WoW users like about WoW, (b) add on features that WoW doesn't or can't have, (c) have a really big advertising campaign once they have finished (a) and (b).

[Dave Rickey]

16.

If SOE wants to recapture the #1 slot, they won't do it with EQ2. Sorry, you get one shot to launch, and you get the market you get. If they missed the "mass market" target, then the thing to do is immediately start work on EQ3, or whatever else they think will have a better shot. EQ2 needs to concentrate on serving the market it *has*, if they try to reach for WoW's market, they will not only miss it, they'll lose the one they've got.

This isn't "Coke vs. Pepsi". This is "New Coke". Coke thought they could lock up the cola market by changing the formula to taste more like Pepsi. What they got was bupkiss, none of the people who liked the old Coke wanted the new one, and none of the Pepsi drinkers wanted to switch. Trying to make EQ2 more like WoW is going to work just about as well as making Camelot more like EQ would. People who are playing EQ2 right now are playing it because of what makes it *different* from WoW, grinding away those differences will alienate the customers.

--Dave

[Mike Rozak]

17.

Dave Rickey wrote - People who are playing EQ2 right now are playing it because of what makes it *different* from WoW, grinding away those differences will alienate the customers.

I mostly agree... There are game-play differences and eye-candy (graphics) differences between EQII and WoW. Obviously the game-play is what would be changed. Players that chose EQII over WoW becaue of graphics wouldn't be as offended by game-play changes.

However, this is still a dilemma for EQII management:

1) They spent a lot of money aiming for a #1 mass-market category. Instead, they get a distant #2, with mass-market games like GuildWars, MEO, and D&D online yet to enter the market.

2) They can accept the market they have and not try to change anything, potentially locking EQII out of the largest markets. EQIII would be a long ways away.

3) Or, they can take a risk and change the game, potentially losing their existing customers (and maybe not gaining new ones).

Which is why "New coke" was introduced, to attack Pepsi's market share... and it failed. Similarly, McDonalds and Burger King are introducing healthier meals to combat Subway; I don't know how well they're fairing.

My "reading between the lines" of the letter from SOE implied to me that EQII was going to take the risk.

[Grax]

18.

It seems to be taken as a given that the more casual-friendly a game is, the better. In my opinion most of the features that are implemented to add casual-friendliness to a game tend to worsen the quality of gameplay. These features include: locked in combat with NPC (EQ2), soft death penalty (WoW), teleporting everywhere for free (EQ2), quests that require no niche-y knowledge to complete (EQ2/WoW), mob-tapping (WoW), etc.

I don't know whether a game can survive the implementation of casual-friendly features, but I do know that in practice, thus far, these features have pretty much always made the game worse. If you'd like an analogy, I'd say that MMOG dev companies are doing to MMORPGs what big corporations have already done to Rock 'n Roll. For some reason, it seems that these companies think the best way of making these MMOGs popular with the masses is to water them down to the point that they can be appreciated by the most undiscerning of palates. I really wonder whether to be successful with the masses you absolutely have to make crap. Yes, Titanic made money -- but so did Lord of the Rings, which ain't bad at all.

[Mike Rozak]

19.

Grax wrote - For some reason, it seems that these companies think the best way of making these MMOGs popular with the masses is to water them down to the point that they can be appreciated by the most undiscerning of palates.

That's exactly what McDonalds and Burger King do. Sitcoms are the same. It seems to be the trend with anything mass market.

If you wish to avoid the mass-marketness in TV/movies, you pick-and-choose your movies, or read books. The same goes for MMORPGs, just go to the "smaller" MMORPGs.

Yes, Titanic made money -- but so did Lord of the Rings, which ain't bad at all.

I disagree. LOTR was watered down for movie audiences... the sense of the fellowship walking through history (old battlefields, etc.) was greatly diminished. I suspect Tolkien would say that the "you are walking through history" was one of the most important aspects of the book. References to the past were replaced with action.

[Grax]

20.

We can agree, LOTR was watered down. But it was still a very reasonable movie that made a truckload of money. Perhaps you're right: that nearly any film which makes that type of money will be of the McDonald's-ish variety. But relatively speaking, LOTR was a breath of semi-fresh air.

As far as finding the small MMORPGs... well, that doesn't really work so well, given that these things require so many resources. Neocron, for example, was made by a pretty small dev team and it had lots of very impressive features (tradeskills, graphics), but it wasn't successful enough to support a decent-sized post-release team. I appreciate your pessimism, Mike -- but are you really resigned to this fact, that games that are successful with the masses will be games that are completely subordinate to those players' desires/expectations, and therefore inferior products/worlds?

[Vic Smith]

21.

One day some GUYS got together and said "lets built a great, new, virtual MMORG TRUCK and we'll call it EQ. People will buy our truck because it will transport them to a exciting and magical place. And people bought. And people TRUCKED. When the people wanted more the GUYS built TRUCK TRAILERS and, for a time, the MMORG world was good.

Then the MASTERS told the GUYS this was good but it was not enough. "Go out and multiply" they said. So the GUYS built another truck. But most of the people didn't really want a truck. They wanted a car and so they found a WOW car.

When the GUYS discovered this they tried to modify their truck to look like the WOW car. The people who had bought the GUY's new truck were not happy and ...

[Mike Rozak]

22.

Grax wrote - I appreciate your pessimism, Mike -- but are you really resigned to this fact, that games that are successful with the masses will be games that are completely subordinate to those players' desires/expectations, and therefore inferior products/worlds?

I think that WoW is not mass-market enough to be mass market... (Although I personally prefer less mass-market games.)

To be mass market, a VW needs to be "completed" in 50-ish hours of play, or maybe less. Single-player CRPGs, adventure games, and FPS all tend to have durations in that range. By "completed" I mean that players finish all the content, max level (if the VW has levels/skills), kill the uber-boss, and then leave because there's nothing left to do. (I guestimate that WoW takes 200-400 hours to get to level 60 and run out of content.)

This also means that most players won't stay in one VW, but will move from world to world. Since most mass-market players will only get 5-10 hours of play per week, they will only partake in the world for 5-10 weeks, and will go through 5-10 MMORPGs per year. (Monthly subcriptions fees are not an option.)

At this point most readers are probably thinking that what I'm suggesting is no longer a MMORPG, and it may not be.

And as far as being completely subordinate to players desires, I don't know. There certainly won't be any really difficult obstacles. (Does any mass-market entertainment/product try to make itself opaque or difficult to access? Niche-market modern art does make itself opaque though, as well as poetry and some novels.)

There won't be anything to offend people, just as McDonalds "Spicy chicken burgers" aren't actually spicy. (Necromancy, for example, will inevitably be removed to placate highly religious.)

You may also get two games layered into one world. One game is a CRPG or adventure game, or something else mass-market. The second game is for longer-term players whose enjoyment comes from more world-like acitivities, like running a game business (Lemonade stand, intergalactic trader, etc.) whose customers are players of the first game.

My perspective may be a bit different than most people on this blog-site because only about half of the people I know use a computer, mainly for E-mail and work. Only a small portion of those computer users are gamers, the rest limiting their game-play to solitaire, if that.

I am building an amateur VW, and tried explaining my unfinished app to one friend; Not ever having played a CRPG, adventure game, or FPS, he thought I was building an online monopoly game. I gave up trying to explain. Many other people have had similar "completely missed the point" reactions.

I think the 50 hour barrier with no monthly fees is needed to attract current gamers to VWs. WoW and GuildWars are approaching this barrier. 1M copies is great for a VW, but several times smaller (I think) than The Sims (OFF-line) or any #1 console game.

1M copies is infinitely smaller than the number of copies of solitaire "sold". To truly be mass market, a VW must be compelling, understandable, short, and easy enough for solitaire players. The solitaire-playing market won't be penetrated for a long while though, if ever. If you did make a VW with targeted at solitaire-players, it would fail because solitaire-players don't even have a clue that such a game could exist, and you have no way to market the idea to them. Could you have sold Chinese or Indian takeaway in 1950's US? Or pizza delivery in 1900?

[Jessica Mulligan]

23.

"Casual gamer" does not automatically equate with the mass market. I took Smed's usage to mean they were going after the more moderate gamer, the one who is more time-sensitive than price-sensitive, not a mass market approach.

And we shouldn't fixate on WoW as an exemplar. One of the reasons that Wow achieved huge early success was its brand name and built-in market. Overall, the game has good craftmanship in the design, but it is still a fantasy MMO, not a mass market product. It *does* appeal well to that more moderate gamer, one who doesn't want to get sucked into a 20 hour per week non-paying job.

[Hans Terje Bakke]

24.

Mike Rozak wrote:

> To be mass market, a VW needs to be "completed" in 50-ish hours of play, or maybe less.

Really? Then I would suggest a single-player game or a multi-player game where you already have social bonds established between the players. A VW is a place you want to visit and become "part of"; not "play through". The required sessions (i.e. the time you feel you have to spend once in there for it to be any use) must be shorter. So that you visit this place because you want to, and not because it owns you. I don't think it needs to have less content and less stickyness, but rather a lower entry treshold. And a good part of that is the expectation that this game will not consume your life.

> This also means that most players won't stay in one VW, but will move from world to world.

So they have to learn another game and its interface? My mass-market wife still doesn't play anything else than The Sims. (And when she does it's Bob the Builder, on commanded from our 2-year-old.)

> To truly be mass market, a VW must be compelling, understandable, short, and easy enough for solitaire players.

You might be right there. Except for the "short". Solitaire players don't leave the "world of solitaire". They only take a break and come back later for a new "session". The solitaire players are also moving on to the games we "nerds" played 20 years ago. On their mobile phones. Perhaps they will catch up with us. The mass market spends 28 hours a week in front of the TV, while the VW players spend only 7. Where will the mass market eventually go when they get bored of TV? Today some of them go for a game of solitaire.

[Mike Rozak]

25.

Jessica Mulligan wrote - "Casual gamer" does not automatically equate with the mass market. I took Smed's usage to mean they were going after the more moderate gamer, the one who is more time-sensitive than price-sensitive, not a mass market approach.

You're right. I've been sloppy in the was I used "mass market".

I agree that WoW is not mass market yet, nor are EQII's proposals entirely mass market, but they're heading in that general direction. GuildWars seems like it will be even more mass market; It'll be interesting to see how successful it is compared to WoW.

Hans Terje Bakke wrote - A VW is a place you want to visit and become "part of"; not "play through".

That's why I'm not sure that a 50-hour experience would be called a MMORPG, or virtual world, or whatever it's called today. It's more or a single-player game that you can play with your friends, or a single-player game where you can meet some new people along the way, or a single-player gamet that can't be pirated.

So they have to learn another game and its interface? My mass-market wife still doesn't play anything else than The Sims.

Not if all the mass-market VWs are produced by the same company. Players of Infocom games didn't need to learn a new UI for every game, although each game had variations.

You might be right there. Except for the "short". Solitaire players don't leave the "world of solitaire". They only take a break and come back later for a new "session".

If you only play a game for 5-10 hours a week, it's easy to forget what has already happened in the game (more than 10 weeks ago). I suppose a developer could do a long game, but they'd couldn't require that users remeber details from > 10 weeks before (50 hours). Likewise, sitcoms don't make users remember too much of what happened in the sitcom's past.

[magicback]

26.

Hans Terje Bakke wrote - A VW is a place you want to visit and become "part of"; not "play through".

Mike> That's why I'm not sure that a 50-hour experience would be called a MMORPG, or virtual world, or whatever it's called today. It's more or a single-player game that you can play with your friends, or a single-player game where you can meet some new people along the way, or a single-player gamet that can't be pirated.

Following this line of thought, developers can create a nexus virtual world with many portals to instanced worlds. Friends can go to Fantasy-land to fight dragons one day and then go to fly spaceships on another day.

Web-game portals are already mass-market for the internet-savvy. 3D MMOs need to go there too :)