Let’s imagine that the rumour is true and media-megalopolis News Corp actually does buy NCsoft. Would that be the mainline to mainstream?
It certainly might add spice to the current court rumble. News Corp and Marvel have worked together on projects, I’m sure they have worked with DC too. Though if they felt like fighting on, would they really like to be sat opposite News Corp’s legal team?
But that’s just a momentary thing. I’m interesting in the idea of a major organisation getting into the MMO game and actually cross promoting it.
Disney seem to be doing potentially interesting cross media things with Virtual Magic Kingdom (when some of us TNers are not base jumping in WoW we’ve been shoe shopping in the happily-clapperly-VMK), but how much effort do they really put into promoting online stuff, or Sony for that matter – not a lot.
What if they the latest goings on in Lineage / City of Heros were being mentioned, in a positive way, on Fox and Friends, Sky News etc – that would be interesting.
Ren>Would that be the mainline to mainstream?
It wasn't when they bought Kesmai.
Maybe this time they'll understand what they're buying.
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Sep 21, 2005 at 07:05
Maybe this time they'll understand what they're buying.
I gotta say, as a Kesmai customer at the time, I thought they positively thrived under News Corp, compared to what happened under EA's yoke.
Posted by: Phillip J. Birmingham | Sep 21, 2005 at 11:22
Speaking of cross-media ownership and promotion:
1. I notice in the commercials for the Sprint-Nextel merger that they include "gaming" as one of their target markets. Apparently Sprint-Nextel executives have stated an interest in "investments in wireless multi-media, web browsing, messaging, gaming and music on the go."
That's not a cross-media situation... but what happens when a media company merges with Sprint-Nextel? (As will happen when yet another media company with deep pockets starts seeing "synergy" between content ownership and content distribution.)
2. Maybe I've just missed it, but I expected the announcement that Wells Fargo will actively run its own multi-island environment in Second Life to get more buzz here on TN.
Like: is this an oddball case, or the shape of things to come?
3. As for News Corp. possibly buying NCsoft... I'm just waiting for the first serious comparison to the Chinese government restrictions on players of PK games.
What will Rupert Murdoch name his superhero? :P
--Bart
Posted by: Bart Stewart | Sep 21, 2005 at 16:44
Another thing we can speculate on is why News International wants to buy a virtual world developer. Could it be that they're noticing falling audiences for TV shows, or despite what we'd like to believe are the number of people playing virtual worlds just a drop in the ocean? Supposing they are, why then would NI be wanting to own some? It's not like they own football clubs or other major reflections of popular culture.
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Sep 21, 2005 at 18:07
Richard > It's not like they own football clubs or other major reflections of popular culture.
Actually, they do.
According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Corporation), current holdings include:
• 50% of National Rugby League
• majority ownership of the Brisbane Broncos, Melbourne Storm and North Queensland Cowboys rugby league teams.
• 20% each of the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers
• 40% of Staples Center
• 9.8% of the Los Angeles Lakers
Not too long ago they bought IGN. If you look at the take up figures for MMOs, the demographic and the k00l factor, owning one makes a lot of strategic sense imh_marketing-dude_o.
Posted by: ren reynolds | Sep 21, 2005 at 18:22
Well, at least as far as CoH goes, it seems like a pretty natural match to me. I don't have any data to support this observation, but it seems immensely popular with the armed services, and we know that Fox loves the services dearly. Maybe it's because of my NZ time zone, but when I play at night, it's mostly with military people stationed in Japan or Korea (who, btw, are often extremely serious, no-nonsense players with the occasional politically-insensitive superhero persona - can you say catharsis, anyone?). I always figured there was something about the do-gooder hero mythology that resonates with people who are out there (theoretically) doing good. Or maybe it has more to do with the fact that NCSoft has been giving copies of the game to the military... either way, I'm sure someone can concoct a reasonable conspiracy theory.
Posted by: Lisa Galarneau | Sep 21, 2005 at 23:55
Ren>Actually, they do.
I stand corrected.
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Sep 22, 2005 at 03:00
Given the sports portfolio NI possesses I wonder if we're finally going to see a crop of MMO sports sims aimed at the mass market.
Posted by: lewy | Sep 22, 2005 at 09:34
Lisa> I'm sure someone can concoct a reasonable conspiracy theory.
Can we tie in Chuck-E-Cheese to that conspiracy?
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090205C.shtml
(Found via Grand Text Auto).
http://grandtextauto.gatech.edu/2005/09/09/chuck-e-cheese-on-fortunes-wheel/
Posted by: greglas | Sep 22, 2005 at 15:59
Newscorp just bought up some internet companies in australia. One of them is an online dating service, and I forget the other.
Posted by: Mike Rozak | Sep 22, 2005 at 17:07
It would be the best thing that ever happened to NCSoft games to be honest, many of their games are very good, but NCSoft, or more accurately, NC Interactive, has the absolute worst marketing division of any MMO game company in the United States.
WoW won the hearts of many players before beta was released, due to brand and flawless marketing. There is no reason at all NCSoft wouldn't be at least that competitive, particularly considering their customized version of the distributed UNREAL engine model might be one of the best graphic engines from a technology perspective available in MMO games today. After all, while many of NCSofts games have clear flaws in gameplay design, they are almost always far superior in graphics than their competitors, and the many independent reviews online show that.
Posted by: Galrahn | Sep 23, 2005 at 00:39
Mike Rozak wrote:
Newscorp just bought up some internet companies in australia. One of them is an online dating service, and I forget the other.
News Corp is currently rapidly building its new media properties with the acquisitions of companies like IGN.com, Facebook.com and Intermix.com. They were in play for Skype and are still looking for VoiP acquisitions, as well as search acquisitions. Mr. Murdoch also formed a new division in July - Fox Interactive Media - to oversee much of its internet-related property. News Corp is also building a mobile division to capitalize on that area of opportunity.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Sep 23, 2005 at 20:16
Galrahn wrote:
WoW won the hearts of many players before beta was released, due to brand and flawless marketing. There is no reason at all NCSoft wouldn't be at least that competitive, particularly considering their customized version of the distributed UNREAL engine model might be one of the best graphic engines from a technology perspective available in MMO games today. After all, while many of NCSofts games have clear flaws in gameplay design, they are almost always far superior in graphics than their competitors, and the many independent reviews online show that.
Given that WoW and Runescape are the two most popular MMOs in the West, and given that neither is strong graphically (Runescape in particular is primitive graphically), it seems odd to say that NCSoft will do well because of superior graphics. Graphics might sell a game. Graphics don't keep a subscriber subscribing.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Sep 23, 2005 at 20:18
You're forgetting the biggest NCSoft property in the US right now. Guild Wars just hit 1million subscribers in the United States. And is a very big hit in Europe. The only place where this isn't doing very well is in Korea itself.
CoH/CoV is popular but nowhere near as popular as Guild Wars which had beta weekends (free for those who preordered) up to a year before release. Has a pretty decent PvE/PvP gameline and just released a major patch. LineageII also isn't as popular in the US but is very very popular to this day in Korea.
What would be even funnier is seeing the Guild Wars Ladder being commented on, on the sports section of any FoxNews Broadcast.
Dianna (GW IGN: Evita Lestrange [IVEX])
Posted by: Dianna | Sep 24, 2005 at 15:01
Dianna wrote:
You're forgetting the biggest NCSoft property in the US right now. Guild Wars just hit 1million subscribers in the United States. And is a very big hit in Europe. The only place where this isn't doing very well is in Korea itself.
Sigh. The games media is so ridiculously incompetent and irresponsible. Guild Wars did not hit a million subscribers. They don't even HAVE subscribers. Guild Wars sold a million copies, and that is FAR from being the same thing as having a million users. It's pathetic that a site as big as IGN continues to avoid actual journalism in favor of re-printing corporate press releases.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Sep 24, 2005 at 15:43
I do agree with your assertion that the games' media is irresponsible. As this is the same with generally every media there is, games, music what have you.
Although, I will have to say that to subscribe doesn't necessarily mean to pay money to a person. However, they aren't talking about units sold persay. The million sold is actually how many accounts were created on the servers.
Posted by: Dianna | Sep 24, 2005 at 16:46
'Subscribers' typically refers to those paying a recurring fee, especially in online games.
'Customers' or 'users' most often refers to those who may have paid a one-time fee, if any fee at all.
To say that Guild Wars has a million subscribers obscures rather than clarifies; it's at least lazy writing, not to mention incorrect. The revenue from having a million customers is significant, but is only a small fraction of the revenue from having a million subscribers.
How do you know there are a million paid accounts on the Guild Wars servers?
Posted by: Mike Sellers | Sep 24, 2005 at 16:58
I have a very serious suspicion that the creation of 1 million accounts is not very helpful in estimating the number of units sold.
First, why even bother with releasing number of accounts created? Anyone with a clue knows for Guild Wars this is a useless piece of information. Why don't they focus on number of units actually sold (and not returned)? That alone is fishy.
Second, I have a purely anecdotal story that makes me highly suspicious of this bit of information. I actually bought two copies of Guild Wars, hoping it would be a fun game my wife and I could play (since with no monthly fee, no raid content, etc. it might be more similar to all the fun we had playing Diablo 2). The fact that I was horrifically wrong is not the point here. The point is that one of the CD keys had already been used to create an account. The weird thing about this is that I bought the game on RELEASE DAY at a friggin WAL-MART. I could almost have understood if it had been an EB Games or Gamestop. But Wal-Mart?!?!
This seems to imply the game might have been widely and rampantly pirated since people knew there was no monthly fee. All they had to do was steal the game once, use the key, and they were set from then on.
When this happened, I was pretty annoyed and drove back to the Wal-Mart immediately. Oddly, I had to argue like crazy and get the store manager to get the game returned (they had no more copies for a swap, so I had to get a refund and buy the 2nd copy from an EB the next day). This ticked me off since most likely someone at the store had already returned it on them that day, and I was returning it less than 2 hours after having bought it (and this was like 2am). I emailed the CD Key to the makers of Guild Wars, and told them the situation. I hope they were able to ban the CD key so that pirate wouldn't be able to play.
The lack of a monthly fee for GW rewards a pirate for his or her efforts. Once they get away with the key, they are home free. But the larger point is, number of accounts created is pretty worthless as a means of gauging Guild Wars' success.
Posted by: Michael Hartman | Sep 25, 2005 at 04:35
Diana wrote:
The million sold is actually how many accounts were created on the servers.
In that case, our text MUDs are approaching a million users. Odd, though, that there's never been more than 1000 simultaneous users in any of our games.
Accounts created is nearly meaningless.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Sep 25, 2005 at 14:21
Michael wrote:
I could almost have understood if it had been an EB Games or Gamestop. But Wal-Mart?!?!
Game key theft is rampant in the big-box stores, such as WalMart and Target, because the average WM/T staff member has no idea what the CD Key is. A friend of mine witnessed three kids opening copies of Guild Wars and World of Warcraft and taking pictures of the CD Key with their cel phone. She tried to bring this to the attention of the staff, but she got nothing but blank stares and replies of "But the game's still here, ma'am. It's not stolen."
At EB/GS stores, the staff understands the product, and will have the CD Key somewhere inaccessible, or sealed product will not be on the sales floor.
Posted by: John Faugno | Sep 30, 2005 at 08:47
Matt Mihaly wrote:
"In that case, our text MUDs are approaching a million users. Odd, though, that there's never been more than 1000 simultaneous users in any of our games."
Number of simultaneous users would be a very good stat to measure the relative popularity of MMO games. Anybody know of a source that reports such numbers?
Posted by: Athena Hoeppner | Oct 29, 2006 at 14:39