Or, Hooray for Hollywood (for real this time?)
If articles in the NY Times, Washington Post, The Economist, and even (today) CNN Money weren’t enough to make you think that maybe MMOs really are finally gaining mainstream credibility, there was the recent announcement about startup Multiverse and its Advisory Board, which includes Oscar-winning movie-makers James Cameron and Jon Landau, among others (full disclosure: they’ll let just about anyone onto one of these, apparently).
In a separate online Business Week article, Cameron said that his next movie project was going to have a companion MMO that would be released before the movie's debut. So is this yet another lame licensing deal, a bastard child between games and Hollywood, or does this signal something different? And what do this and Multiverse's announcement mean for MMOs in general?
First, the Hollywood side. In the BusinessWeek article, Cameron said:
If you look at the relationship with movies and games in the past, it has been unidirectional. Either a great movie comes out followed by a pretty crappy game, or some game intellectual property led to a pretty bad movie. It's gotten to the point where that isn't even happening much anymore.
What I'm visualizing is generating in parallel a game created by top developers that takes place in the same universe as the movie. There are some of the same characters, but players are empowered with their own characters. The game doesn't run against the action of the movie, but it doesn't necessarily have to follow the same action, either. Right now, actually, I'm looking at ways for to co-generate my stuff in the film with the world with the games.
This is an example of something I've been hearing from different directions recently. I've seen Hollywood and games try to work together in the past, and it has rarely ended well. This time... things seem to be a bit different. Figures like Cameron seem to understand that movies and MMOs are both views into a world, but views with different -- and potentially complementary -- properties and experiential value. If this thinking carries through to MMO development and deployment, we could see a new generation of games building on but not being bound by accompanying movie experiences.
Why hasn't this happened before? Well, first it sort of has a couple of times: Star Wars Galaxies and The Matrix Online are both movie licenses made into MMOs. In both cases however the games appear hobbled by their movie predecessors rather than being able to build on the slice of the world presented in the movie. The trick seems to be providing the same thematic experience for the players that they gain from a movie, but without running afoul of (or being limited by) the narrative line the movie takes.
Beyond these two cases, the two answers I come up with are that, first, prior to market-broadening successes like World of Warcraft, MMOs weren't often taken seriously as entertainment or as a business. $80M per month revenue does tend to make people take notice though.
Second and maybe more importantly, the barriers to entry into MMOs have been increasingly high. There are conceptual barriers surrounding gameplay, art, etc., but those, being conceptual, are easy for some to ignore (as demonstrated by well-financed MMO projects with gameplay that hasn't lived up to its promise). Just as significantly there are huge technological barriers: anyone who wants to build an MMO has to first invoke the dark arts of server, network, and client creation, to say nothing of the defocusing but necessary elements of login, security, billing, customer support, production tools, etc.
And this is where the growing group of MMO middleware and platform companies come into play. There are several of these now (Big World, Kaneva, Emergent, Nevrax, and Multiverse among them), each in different stages of development and each offering a different configuration of technology and licensing agreements. Multiverse's focus is on lowering the developer's up-front cost of server, client, and content tool creation to zero and seeing what people come up with when these technological obstacles are removed. This is a heady thought for indie developers, and as evidenced by James Cameron's involvement, reaches far beyond that group too.
Personally, I'm fascinated to see what happens when it doesn't take a million dollars or more (which might as well be an infinite amount of money for most developers who haven't managed to make a diabolical pact with a publisher) just to make a client and server platform sufficient to support a bona fide commercial-grade MMO. Creation of these games has become increasingly cut off from the vast majority of those who would like to try their hand at it. What happens when thousands of instances of "two guys in a dorm room" suddenly have the ability to create their vision of an MMO? Yes we'll no doubt get a lot of instances of "BabeQuest," but I bet we'll also get the MMO equivalent of Counterstrike, or even Yahoo (whatever those might look like). And what about the hundreds or thousands of professional indies out there, to say nothing of the many academics who have been pining for a way to create a research MMO, or those movie producers who might see a bit over the horizon to what really comes next?
What do you think? Is this the next revolution in MMO development, heralding in greater creativity and innovation from small projects to movie blockbusters, or is it just more techno-hype and false hope for current and potential MMO developers?
The thing that strikes me is that while Cameron talks about working on a movie that might also be realized within an online game, Multiverse isn't a specific game -- it's a generalized game building system.
Supporting a particular game is one thing; that has clear promotional impact on your movie. How does supporting a game builder that indies could use to create anything support one's particular film projects?
Is this Cameron's version of a Sundance Film Festival?
--Bart
Posted by: Bart Stewart | Feb 08, 2006 at 16:53
I have often lamented that movie franchises don't make for good MMOs. The limited number of protagonists and antagonists don't map well to a game with thousands of players. If everyone is the hero, no one is.
Flipping it the other way around could potentially work. Take the major happenings in the world and make a movie out of them.
Multiverse is a startup MMO company. They might come up with something great, but most new game companies even well funded ones fail. Then there's the hollywood factor. Alien and Terminator were great movie franchises, but those aren't necessarily good qualifications for making an MMO.
don
Posted by: Don McGlumphy III | Feb 08, 2006 at 16:59
Bart said, The thing that strikes me is that while Cameron talks about working on a movie that might also be realized within an online game, Multiverse isn't a specific game -- it's a generalized game building system.
Supporting a particular game is one thing; that has clear promotional impact on your movie. How does supporting a game builder that indies could use to create anything support one's particular film projects?
I think you're missing the point, Bart. You're right that Multiverse isn't a game but rather a platform for building MMOGs, but I think that's exactly why Cameron is so interested in it. It sounds to me like he may already have plans to use the Multiverse platform to create his own MMOG, based on the "Project 880" that same article mentioned he's working on. IMO, his presence on the Advisory Board is as much an endorsement of Multiverse's technology and business plan as it is an indication that he would like to use the tools himself.
Posted by: Samantha LeCraft | Feb 08, 2006 at 17:19
Some random thoughts...
1) Weren't Hollywood, book companies, and computer companies supposed to merge in the early 90's? I haven't heard the term "Multimedia" lately...
2) It's amazing how similar MMORPGs written from scratch are. How much variation will exist when they are all based on Multiverse, Kaneva, and friends? Of course, the toolkits can be designed for creative flexibility, but incorporating such design makes them more difficult/expensive to use, defeating some of the benefits of toolkits. (Disclosure: I am working on a toolkit for amateur authors, and often worry about such tradeoffs. I have taken the creativity but difficult-to-author approach.)
3) At some point, the news industry (TV and newspaper) may become so over-excited about MMORPGs that you'll wish you were back in the "good 'ole days" when very few people had heard of virtual worlds.
Posted by: Mike Rozak | Feb 08, 2006 at 18:04
It's amazing how similar MMORPGs written from scratch are. How much variation will exist when they are all based on Multiverse, Kaneva, and friends?
Constraints produce remarkable freedom. You can do a lot more, for example, when the law guarantees and enforces permission to, say... do academic research. (Bad example, but I'm a little frazzled today.)
Perhaps (part of) the reason they're so similar is because they had so much ground to cover that they skimped on actual creative development. In the MUD projects I've been involved in, the main thing was always technical; what we gonna code? How we gonna code? What server? Etc., etc.
Multiverse, I like to think, is analogous to a printing press. You can print crappy journalism, stellar reporting, a boring textbook, or a novel. It's just that, since crappy journalism is popular, everyone shoots for it. Innovators will come along.
At some point, the news industry (TV and newspaper) may become so over-excited about MMORPGs that you'll wish you were back in the "good 'ole days" when very few people had heard of virtual worlds.
Yes. =P
Posted by: Michael Chui | Feb 08, 2006 at 18:17
Michael Chui wrote:
Perhaps (part of) the reason they're so similar is because they had so much ground to cover that they skimped on actual creative development. In the MUD projects I've been involved in, the main thing was always technical; what we gonna code? How we gonna code? What server? Etc., etc.
Interesting. My experience has been the opposite. In the five text MUD projects (four successful releases, one in development) I've been a part of, asking how we're going to do something technically has never been an issue. The technical issues surrounding something as undemanding as the population size of a text MUD have always been pretty trivial compared to designing a game world that people will find compelling even through a text interface.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Feb 08, 2006 at 18:42
Matt I think you're agreeing with Michael here: because of your technological base and the lack of major issues around creating a text MUD, you've been able to be much more innovative in your designs than have graphical MMO developers. One hopes that's about to change for the better on the graphical side of things.
Posted by: Mike Sellers | Feb 08, 2006 at 19:05
James Cameron making an MMO ... hmmm... not sure how much fun a VW centered on the wreck of the Titanic would be =P
What about if Tom Hanks were making an MMO? Would it be set during World War II? Or would it take place in orbit around the Earth? On the Moon?
I have to pick on them because they seem so obsessed with these topics.
As for what will happen? I'm tempted to expect that whatever drips out of development will be a flop. But, who knows? Maybe this time it will be different.
Posted by: Chip Hinshaw | Feb 08, 2006 at 19:45
This is a place where cynicism about motives may produce a better outcome. Cameron may simply believe that lowering the technological startup cost for MMOs makes good business sense. If he is looking at “Project 880 the MMO” options then 10 candidates can pitch the idea to him using Multiverse as a presentation medium and he can factor out technological expertise and focus on art and gameplay. When he has a candidate, he can draw on the group of people he trusts who have worked in the Multiverse environment before and flesh out the game using that set of resources.
Posted by: Franek | Feb 09, 2006 at 08:01
It's not just about lowering the technological startup cost (though that's huge in itself). I think we're going to see more smaller MMOs once developers don't have to spend a year or more just cranking up to build yet another client-server system. This lowers the creative risk too, since you can try things out faster, see what works, and build on it. IMO the best current example of this is Puzzle Pirates. Three Rings built this on their own tech, but Daniel and his team did an amazing job of coming out with something small and then building steadily on it both before and after commercial deployment. I see this becoming a major part of MMO development in the future; the number of teams that will be willing and able to shoulder a build-it-all, $30M, 3+ year development path is a small and shrinking set.
Posted by: Mike Sellers | Feb 09, 2006 at 08:51
I can see this leading down two very different paths, as a result of MMO's and MMO building tools being thrust into James Cameron's camera reticle for public perusal.
In the first case, James Cameron's project does for MMO's what Counterstrike did for FPS modding. Free, easy to learn tools become more commonplace. As with FPS mods, there will be many lumps of coal, but it also means the odd diamond will be able to be forged that otherwise would never have seen the light of day.
In the second case, a huge success prompts Big Business to sit up and really take notice ($75M/month anyone?), and companies currently offering (or considering offering) free or low-cost MMO authoring tools will go commercial when shown a cheque with an obscenely large number printed on it, thus removing the tools from the indie and amateur would-be MMO developer.
Something I foresee being very interesting in the near future will be the synergy between the two newest ideas in MMO gaming.. opening the technological doors to the amateur author, and the concept of "free-basic-play/pay-for-upgraded-play" that some MMO publishers are considering. Will it eventually lead to modding tools being released with commercial titles, such as the Unreal Tournament FPS series, where you still need to buy the game's retail box in order to play a mod? Would all of this take the "massive" out of "massive multiplayer" when there are thousands of tiny (M)MOG's?
Fasten your seatbelts..... ;)
Posted by: Rick R. | Feb 09, 2006 at 09:17
The fundamental metric for Multiverse – from what I’ve been able to see – is the silk purse to sow’s ear ratio. Will the cost of maintaining the infrastructure for the number of developers that end up with unprofitable sows’ ears be greater than the income from silk purse sales? We do not have a lot of details on their revenue collection plans, but I suspect they get their money up front by collecting fees through the billing service they provide. I don’t know if that means they get a cut of revenue or a cut of profits. But it sounds like revenue.
In any case, association with the Camerons of the world gets them visibility into pots of money they would not otherwise have. And to Ricks recent point, it could lead to their charging for use of the platform if they get “/.-ed” by hosts of developers hoping to get Cameron’s ear. (No pun intended :) ) I would hope their effort turns into an indi-haven along the lines folks here have described. But I still see it as a strictly economic arc.
If I were to guess at the drivers for the direction they will go I would choose the ramp of the early revenue stream and the return horizon of the early investors. The pressure to get revenue out of every aspect of the business design will be increased if there are no early successes and the investors start getting jittery. If there are no revenues on the horizon, Multiverse folds. If there are big early successes then the open platform is vindicated. If it is somewhere in-between the pressure to start charging for everything grows.
As an aside, I suspect the game-asset market will end up being a quagmire for them unless they act more as a labor exchange than a market for goods.
Posted by: Franek | Feb 09, 2006 at 10:05
A year ago I spoke with Troy Hewitt, the head events implementer for Matrix Online, and he told me that the Matrix game was supposed to pick up from the movie trilogy and take over the canon. In MO, the key characters were enacted by events implementors and woven into the storylines and events in the game. His hope was that if a fourth Matrix movie were ever made, it would treat what had happened in the game as part of the "canon," and pick up from where the game had left those characters. AND, if you were a really dedicated and influential player (I know we're piling up the "if"'s here), your character might even have a bit part in that hypothetical fourth Matrix movie.
I could see an MMOG affecting a movie franchise the way that blogs affect, say, newspapers (or television shows). If you're planning to make a series of three movies about Aliens, you launch an MMOG with live events and player participation, and you weave that emergent storyline into the films. I have no idea how meaningful the back-and-forth could be, but that would be "multimedia." And bottom line, it's great brand-building - because the people who were playing the game would be extremely dedicated to the movies.
For a more concrete example: imagine in Star Wars if you had a Clone Wars MMOG between "Attack of the Clones" and the "Sith" movie. At the start of the "Sith" movie, Anakin Skywalker goes, "Man, those guys from Planet Blargleblargle really aided our cause." Thousands of geeks from the Blargleblargle server earn bragging rights.
Posted by: Chris Dahlen | Feb 09, 2006 at 16:27
A new programming/entertainment industry company, Multiverse, has announced that it is making available a complete MMOG platform development kit and hosting package... for free. No charge whatsoever to the developers until they start charging players, and then a revenue sharing model kicks-in with royalties going to the developers of 50-70% (details tbd).
See http://www.multiverse.net
Most of the costs, of course, of building a good MMOG have not been (historically) in the system and hosting. They are in the content development; artwork, story, game mechanics, etc. But a system like this begs (IMHO) for a distributed (i.e., Friedmanish "flat") team of developers. Or a very few core-team members and a viral system of "create for micro-payments" play-and-build. IE, make the creation of the game part of the game itself, and make getting paid for working on the game by later players part of the rewards system for those who "build early." A pyramid scheme for content creation? Perhaps...
Posted by: Andy Havens | Mar 01, 2006 at 09:57