It's that time again, to grade my predictions fom last year with the painful certainty of actual knowledge. Read on for the painful details:
1) A digital world property case will make it the courts in the United States.
It amazes me that this still hasn't happened (although I've met several folks who are trying to pursue them), but for 2005 it didn't happen. Not a good start.
Score: 0-1
2) Legislation will be proposed that is intended to "stop" "piracy" and/or to "protect" children but that actually threatens online games.
I'll take the first bill of many that fits this definition, California SB 96, covered in great detail by Ed Felten. Back to 0.500.
Score: 1-2
3) Guild War's experiment with a non-subscription model will be successful.
This is a tough one, since Guild War has sold over 1 million copies but Chapter 2 hasn't been released yet. I'm going to take a partial on this one and stay at 0.500.
Score: 1.5 - 3
4) No US MMO will exceed 1,000,000 customers.
Oops.
Score: 1.5 - 4
5) A major online game will embrace a secondary market for digital items.
SOE cames through, pushing me back to 0.500.
Score: 2.5 - 5
6) A non-licensed, non-fantasy MMO will be successful [edit: and have over 100k users].
We only made it with a few days to spare, but SL topped 100k residents in December!
Score: 3.5 - 6
7) A non-game company will integrate a digital world into their CAD/CAM process.
Nope, at least not that I know of. Back to 0.500.
Score: 3.5 - 7
8) A reality TV show based in a digital world will launch.
Again, not that I know of. Drat, under 0.500.
Score: 3.5 - 8
9) 7 or more Terra Nova authors will be at the same conference at least once.
Thank you, Ludium 1! Back to 0.500.
Score: 4.5 - 9
10) More of my predictions will come true than Uri's.
We'll have to wait until Uri does his grading, but until then I'm at 0.500. If Uri did the same or better, I'll drop to 0.450, or about the same as last year. Predictions for 2006 on the way soon.
"6) A non-licensed, non-fantasy MMO will be successful [edit: and have over 100k users].
We only made it with a few days to spare, but SL topped 100k residents in December!"
Wasn't there a game that did this in 2004?
Posted by: bruce rogers | Jan 04, 2006 at 19:03
Wasn't there a game that did this in 2004?
City Of Heroes did, but then these were the predictions for 2005 when the big CoH news was "Should those heroes really be licensed?" ;-)
Posted by: Jim Purbrick | Jan 04, 2006 at 19:16
I'm not going to give you prediction #6 ... yet. At least not based on the 100K (mostly free) subscriptions. Now if you are prepared to show us that the land rental income has pushed the SL into a positive revenue situation (or is about to) I might be persuaded.
Still, I think that you might have come out on top, but only because my prediction of being suspended from SL for any reason and/or no reason failed to materialize. (And I suspect that the reason is precisely so that you could win the prediction contest).
Posted by: Urizenus Sklar | Jan 04, 2006 at 19:17
The only way you get #6 from me is if you count every character CoH/CoV players (potentially 144 per user) create as an individual player. Second Life residents notoriously have more than one account (I have two besides Jarod Godel). Unless you're willing to say that 100k number represents known individual users and not simply accounts, then I cry foul.
Posted by: Andrew Burton | Jan 04, 2006 at 19:55
I'd say City of Heroes counts as a non-fantasy non-licensed successful MMO over 100k users.
Posted by: Scott Jennings | Jan 04, 2006 at 19:57
suppose Uri get 0.460?
since your prediction about Uri's predictions relative to yours is included in your predictions, then, wouldn't it be possible to lead to an infinite regression?
... I guess that's only possible if you predicted that you'd be LESS accurate than Uri.
But what if Uri throws in the identical prediction?
OK, I'll quite wasting your time now... ;p
Posted by: | Jan 04, 2006 at 20:21
So... what does "fantasy" mean in this context? Elves? Toons? Pirates? Flying Super Heroes? It is terribly subjective of course, but one might consider CoH/CoV to be very close to 'fantasy'. I guess if we're talking about broad-brush marketing bins, eg SciFi, Fantasy, Action, Adventure, etc. then while it's still pretty ambiguous the definition at least has the weight of custom behind it. For that matter, what does "100K subscribers" mean? I guess unique accounts is what Corey was counting. Short of going through and eliminating accounts that log in from duplicate IP's, you can't really be sure without credit card info too... and both of those counting methods can be messed up by family-plans. Hmmm. I guess just counting unique accounts is probably good enough for an apples-to-oranges comparison between different games (free, subscription, etc).
I'd give Corey the point on this one. :-)
Posted by: Michael Steele | Jan 04, 2006 at 20:56
If all it takes is unique accounts, there are non-fantasy, non-licensed text MMOS that did it first, simply by accumulating accounts over a decade pluw.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Jan 04, 2006 at 21:10
"If all it takes is unique accounts, there are non-fantasy, non-licensed text MMOS that did it first, simply by accumulating accounts over a decade pluw."
What are the biggest non-fantasy text MMOs?
Posted by: bruce rogers | Jan 04, 2006 at 21:28
I think it's probably Shangri-la. Keep in mind that to accumulate 100k accounts, all you need is 28 accounts/day for 10 years. The second one is probably "Sociopolitical Ramifications", though I'm not sure whether a "furry" theme counts as fantasy or not. I'd not group it in that genre myself as it's a completely different focus from fantasy.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Jan 04, 2006 at 22:02
If #6 is during 2005, then I'd agree with everyone on CoH. When the prediction was made was during the what-will-become-of-the-lawsuit days.
Could The Sims Online be included though? It theoretically hit 100k subscriptions in 2003, though not sure how accurate the numbers are. It's also probably a co-brand rather than a license, given EA publishes both it and the stuff that inspired it.
Otherwise, we'd have to get into wierd esoteric discussions about whether something like Final Fantasy XI uses the sort of "fantasy" that applies to really know whether it is corrollary to, say, the fantasy base of WoW or EQ2 :)
Posted by: Darniaq | Jan 04, 2006 at 22:36
Err, site ate my first paragraph. Ah well, just assume I agree with CoH being applicable given it isn't licensed :)
Posted by: Darniaq | Jan 04, 2006 at 22:37
Bruce/Matt: Hey, if there are non-SL MMOs that did it, all the better! I thought I was hosed since CoH did it in 2004 --CoV did it in 2005 but I figured all the complaints would be "you can't count a sequel! -- Habbo did it long ago, and I didn't know about any other examples in 2005.
Uri: Yes, there were many discussions within the Linden Corporate tower that went something like:
CSR Rep #1: We have to suspend Uri! He split three infinitives in one made up story and that qualifies as any or no reason to suspend him.
Cory Linden: Oh, no, please don't suspend him. I would lose the bet, which would mean that I would stop getting 7-figure offers to leave Linden Lab because my credibility would be shot.
CSR Rep #1: Why aren't you taking those offers?
Cory Linden: Because then I'd lose the bet! Don't you understand?!
Michael: s/Corey/Cory/ please
Posted by: Cory Ondrejka | Jan 04, 2006 at 22:42
Cory: Oh, actually, I don't know if the text based MMOs did it 2005 or not. I thought you were predicting that 2005 would be the first time it happened, and were ignoring Habbo as not being "world-y" enough.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Jan 04, 2006 at 22:47
Actually i'd say #6 was done fine...
the Lead Producer (Oveur) mentioned in the forums of Eve-Online that they have a bit over 100k subscribers back in december... although cant find the post at, (damn lack of search...)
Posted by: Cenn | Jan 05, 2006 at 04:39
I think the 100k thing was mentioned by kieron (community manager) in a forum thread, and I remember a clarification later that the number included active trial accounts. I imagine they would have made a news post or press release for 100k active subscriber accounts.
Posted by: Daniel Speed | Jan 05, 2006 at 06:26
IIRC that Kieron said EVE had over 100K but that included free trial accounts. I think it's 85K real accounts now (I wouldn't want to guess how many distinct players that is).
Posted by: Lacero | Jan 05, 2006 at 07:32
Over an hour of idle time before making a post, and "IIRC that" is terrible grammar. Sorry.. :)
Posted by: Lacero | Jan 05, 2006 at 07:38
Given the number of free accounts in SL, I'm not giving you #6, either. That one's going to go to COH/COV or EVE before SL has enough paid accounts to go over 100k.
Posted by: Marshall Astor | Jan 05, 2006 at 11:32
Cory, Sorry about that... just tired.
Posted by: Michael Steele | Jan 05, 2006 at 11:58
Cenn, Daniel, and Lacero: thanks for the data on Eve!
Marshall: Note that I didn't predict that SL would be over, just that an example would exist. I chose SL, plenty of folks have pointed out other examples.
Posted by: Cory Ondrejka | Jan 05, 2006 at 13:15
Looks like SL missed it by just a mere 5 days!
SL hits 100k
:)
Posted by: Darniaq | Jan 05, 2006 at 19:45
Nice set of predictions and results! I will stick my nose in on the 100k thing, too, to say that Puzzle Pirates has had over 1.3M 'users' if you count registered accounts, most of them this year. Paying customers is substantially less than that, however, at ~23k subscribers/equivalents. I am a little bit baffled by Second Life trumpeting (as I understand it) registered users to date -- surely it's paying customers that count, or peak simultaneous players, or active playing accounts (~100k in the last two weeks, for us)?
Posted by: Daniel James | Jan 07, 2006 at 02:45
-"8) A reality TV show based in a digital world will launch."
What the hell were you thinking?! Presumably all your eggs were in a basket named Korea with that prediction?
Posted by: Dom | Jan 07, 2006 at 16:08
RE: #7 - Fizik Baskeville said that his company (River Run Red) are using SL for concepting and stuff if you want to go look in the SL forums.
Posted by: AJ | Jan 12, 2006 at 18:00
I have to say that the decision by SL to start giving away free accounts pretty much invalidates it for #6.
We have tons of customers who made numerous accounts on SL just to goof off for a few days, for example. They even got my wife to participate.
Posted by: Michael Hartman | Jan 18, 2006 at 11:00