GDC 2008: The Future of MMOs

What self-respecting virtual worlds blogger could pass up the opportunity to attend an all-star GDC panel on "The Future of MMOs"? Not me, certainly. So at noon on Thursday I found myself in the first row of a crowded room, listening to John Wood (managing editor of MMORPG.com) pose a series of interesting questions to:

* Jack Emmert (Cryptic)
* Matt Miller (NCSOFT)
* Ray Muzyka (BioWare)
* Min Kim (Nexon America)
* Rob Pardo (Blizzard)

What follows are my notes on the session; in many cases the responses are not verbatim, but instead are condensed versions of the key points. I was very impressed with how articulate and thoughtful these questions and answers were; it was an hour well-spent.

First Question: There has been a trend towards outside IP-based games. Can an MMO be successful today without an outside content IP?

Jack: Investors/publishers love outside IP because of the guaranteed fan base. Developers/designers, on the other hand, prefer the creative flexibility of original content. Because the cost of MMOs has exploded, the pressure for outside IP will increase.

Matt: Yes, of course, there will be a trend towards outside IP because people want to play what they know. But smaller publishers will be able to take advantage of the flexibility of original creation.

Ray: All IP is original to begin with, no? The tradeoff between outside IP and original is the licensing vs original cost. To take advantage of licensed content properly you need to really understand the fan base and their needs, so you're simply trading one set of work for another.

Min Kim: We don't typically go towards outside IP, because it's too much of a headache to comply with the various restrictions. Depending on the genre, you may or may not need the name recognition of an outside IP.

Rob: WoW had the advantage of existing IP that the company owned (Warcraft world). It would have taken years longer to make if they'd started from ground zero on content/concept.

Second Question: Are MMOs headed towards consoles? Will companies in the future have to develop for cross-platform?

Jack: Yes.

(laughter)

Yes, of course. Champions Online (Cryptic's just-announced MMORPG) will be developed for consoles as well as PCs, and MMOs will almost definitely migrate. (But, he says pointedly, Blizzard shouldn't bother, it's much too hard, not worth it, etc. More laughter.)

Matt: The console base is larger than the PC base, it only makes sense to target it. [ed. Huh? That doesn't seem right...]

Ray: Not necessarily. There's a huge market on PCs, it's possible to be successful without targeting consoles. There are economic benefits to PCs because it's the largest "open market." Play patterns are different in the two contexts. It's a challenge that can be overcome, but you need to pick and choose your battles.

Min: I agree completely with Ray. Nexon is experimenting a bit with consoles. But for mass market, PC is still the way to go. It's our core market. For example, will consoles allow you to distribute the game for free? If not, the consoles won't work for our business model.

Rob: Of course there are going to be MMOs on consoles. We approach it as "what game do we want to make" and then "where should we put it"? RTS games don't do well on consoles due to user interface constraints. But web-based MMOs have demonstrated they can be huge as well. You just have to pick the system on which your game will be most fun.

Third Question: Will microtransactions be the future of MMO business?

Jack: It's ridiculous to think this is "the" future. Many people like paying one fee and not worrying about details. "Free to pay; buy the items" is fine for some contexts, but it's not the future. This is a 'buzz term' and I hate it. Monthly subscriptions are a much better business model (and even better when people forget about their monthly subscription...bonus free money, he says!) Depending on microtransactions is likely to be about as successful as spamming a million people with "send me a dollar" emails.

Matt: Bizdev folks want subscription income, it's much more reliable from a bookkeeping standpoint. Micropayments are much less predictable.

Ray: "Jack, how do you _really_ feel?" (laughter) It comes down to the game design. What drives your game? What will they be passionate about? If micropayments facilitate that, and fans are actively seeking it, it makes sense. It's the dominant and successful form in Asia, but not so much in the US. It really just depends on the game.

Min: Obviously I'm on the other end of the spectrum, since we only do the model Jack ridicules. We're bigger than NCSoft in Asia and Korea, because our market goes beyond the core market. We can expand to casual players because people can get in easily. Kids can't afford a subscription game; they need microtransactions. It all depends on who you're targeting.

Rob: This is very much an "east vs west" question. In Asia that's the dominant model, which presented a challenge for Blizzard. They didn't want to change the game design. Agrees with Ray--make the great game first, then decide what's the best model for it. Blizzard charges for name changes and server changes--they do that more as a deterrent than a profit motive, but they do make a nice profit from those transactions. Hybrid models would be interesting.

Jack: (Jumps in again, making sparks fly a bit...) Claims that microtransactions are bullshit, that the "pay for play" model that Blizzard uses in Asia doesn't constitute microtransactions. It's not a "magic bullet". It's not "east vs west" and Blizzard is proof of that.

Min: Points out that Maple Story is a great example of micropayments being successful.

Jack: I haven't really heard of Maple Story [ed. Ouch! His credibility just took a huge hit in my book.)

Min: Target has a huge virtual cards market that's evidence of how strong the micropayment model is.

Ray: This is about the people who play the game, and what are you making for them that they love? If you're not giving people who want microtransactions what they want, you're losing potential customers. The models don't need to be mutually exclusive; why not offer both modes of play? If you can do that without compromising your design, fabulous. If not, pick the model that works best for your audience.

Min: What we are selling is excellent user experience; you can make money by selling what users need to enhance that experience. The story they're hearing a lot from teenagers is "I've never played an MMO before, Maple Story is my first one".

Last moderator question: As time goes on, it's more and more expensive to build a topnotch MMO. Can you be successful now without multimillion dollar MMOs?

Jack: There are going to be two tiers of MMOs...the high-end like WoW, which everyone's afraid of, and the low-end. There will be no middle ground.

Matt: There will be small, low-budget MMOs that can be successful with 50K subscribers. There are people in this room making those kind of MMOs. If they get 100K they'll be successful beyond their dreams.

Ray: There are huge barriers to entry for the "WoW competitors". But there are new markets emerging--mobile, web-based, etc. We're making one (won't tell us what, though). Who would have imagined, five years ago, something like "Portal" being the game of the year? It's a small team with a brilliant idea executed perfectly. You can succeed with games like that if you know what you're doing. There is no one business model; you need to tune it to your game and to the audience. You have to know who you are.

Min: The uber-blockbuster won't be a realistic sustainable model for many companies. Nexon typically doesn't do that. None of our teams are over 100 people, and 85% of our revenue comes from item transactions. It's all about the social experience.

Rob: I'm delighted as a business person that nobody wants to make an MMO because Blizzard set the bar too high. But as a game player, I'm disappointed. I wants to see more stuff out there. But you're not just competing against WoW anymore, you're competing with WoW + expansions. Direct contrast is hard, because you're always playing catchup.

Ray: What *is* an MMO? Are multiple sessions of the same game, with strong community around them, MMOs? Lots of players sharing the same experience, if not the same exact sharded space...

First audience question: Can scifi as an MMO genre be as successful from the mainstream point of view? Can it succeed in a fantasy-driven market?

Jack: Yes, scifi can succeed (particularly IP based scifi). Fantasy has the advantage of a known conceptual model--what you do and how you do it is clear to the player. With scifi, players are immediately alienated (haha) because they have less of a strong conceptual model.

Matt: You can build off well-known single-player IP like Mass Effect.

Ray: MMOs at the core is role-playing, and it's an issue of what aspirational fantasy you're enabling. Different games fulfill different fantasies.

Min: It's harder to identify with scifi unless you have the existing well-known IP. I'd love to play "World of Starcraft"... (everyone looks at Rob, who's less than responsive).

Rob: All it takes is the right product. All worlds have their own challenges, but scifi or even contemporary (e.g. GTA) could be successful given the right approach.

Second audience question: What is your vision for user-generated content and addons in MMO?

Jack: Obviously those will have to be there in MMOs. Players want to be able to do this.

Ray: One of their pillars of game play in Neverwinter Nights was a pyramid of user types, based on Bartle's archetypes, that included creators. If you launch with it, and it's part of your campaign, you have great potential for it. Tack it on later, and you run more of a risk. You're most likely to be successful if you bring in great creators early on in the process.

Third audience question: What does the future of MMOs have to do with the future of everything else? (?!)

Ray: The answer is 42. (HA!)

Rob: I see an expansion almost as like another season of your favorite TV show, while a new console game might be more like a feature movie. [ed. fascinating comparison]

Fourth audience question: Is this a healthy industry, or is it really just a few super successful companies and lots of wannabes?

Jack: No, it's not a healthy industry at all. Investors are terrified of going up against WoW. It's scary if you're a fan.

Ray: At Bioware, we approach all of our development with both ambition and humility. We're at a nexus point, and it's an exciting time to be in this field as a developer.

Min: If you're purely targeting the WoW user, the future is bleak. But Maple Story is an example of targeting a different user base. Can you offer a successful and meaningful product to a broader user base?

Last audience question: In microtransactions are unofficial vendors problematic?

Rob: We take a very aggressive stance against outside sellers in WoW, in order to keep people from bringing RL advantages into the game. (That's not true, really, because those with more leisure time end up with an advantage.) For us, it's not a revenue problem but a gameplay problem.

Matt: It's an annoyance problem for players who are inundated with spam in the game. It's a customer service issue more than anything else.

Comments

[Wolfe]

1.

Too few in this industry seem to have the perspective of Rob Pardo. Worry about making it fun, all this time spent worrying about everything else is aimed at the wrong goals. Building a flawed design because of micro payments is nothing but a dent in the fun.

And then the obvious answer is that a WoW clone can not be more fun than WoW.

[Ahab Schmo]

2.

Jack Emmert seemed to have tunnel vision: he either saw WoW or nothing. He was bearly able to acknoledge the success of Micro-Transaction games

[greglas]

3.

Liz --

Thanks so much for posting this. Very interesting stuff.

[Nicholas Chambers]

4.

First of all, thanks a bunch for writing this out.

Now, I think Rob does have a good point there, "[...]keep people from bringing RL advantages into the game.". This is my major concern with the micro-transaction based MMOs. As R. Bartle points out in his book, spending RL money for a sword that makes customised sounds has little in common with spending RL money on a sword that does double the damage. While you can say (and you did :p) that some people have more time then the others to progress in an MMO, turning RL-money in the way to progress takes away the whole point of playing a GAME.

Take for example Achaea. You can buy virtually anything there, providing you're rich enough. Best items, checked. All the skills in the world, checked. Hire someone to pull you through the leveling, checked. The best scrips to do pretty much everything for you in combat, CHECKED. Now, as a game designer, you might see a problem here. Apart from the fact that the game should not be about just throwing your money into it, this sort of model can be rather depressing towards the elder players with a slightly thinner valet. If a person with big bucks achieves more in a week than you achieved in 3 years... well, you're getting the idea.

~~ Nicholas

[SVgr]

5.

While I wouldn't want to see microtransactions in my favorite MMO, there's a valid argument that it works in some cases.

"turning RL-money in the way to progress takes away the whole point of playing a GAME"

Imagine an MMO version of Space Invaders where everyone shoots the little guys and earns points. (deliberately simple example) Now imagine that players can pay RL money to upgrade their avatar into a spaceship and fly up past the invaders to play an Asteroids game in space.

So, is the Space Invaders portion no longer a game? Is it less fun? Can players still compete for the most points? Did the player who advanced to the space ship portion of the game cheat the ground-based player out of anything? Just some random thoughts.

In regard to the WoW vs all other MMO's question, I was think about the legality of creating an MMO where new players could get some sort of credit for their accomplishments in WoW (or any other game). For example, give them a badge for PvP success, or a special item for having a maxed-out WoW character. It's not any different than people posting on killboards or linking their character portraits and stats to Forum signatures, is it? Anyone have any knowledge about the legal issues there? If it's legal, it could be a way to wean players out one MMO and into another or even get some kind of rudimentary cross-game standings in MMO's.

[infocyde]

6.

Thanks for posting this. I wasn't able to make GDC this year, and it looks like my career is steering away from gaming, which is sad. I still like to keep a finger in what is going on, thanks again for this post.

[SVgr]

7.

One further thought on the microtrans model. Comments above indicated that you would need to radically change WoW if you wanted to microtrans it. I don't agree. In fact I strongly disagree. WoW is PERFECT for microtransing since it's already set up like a theme park. All you would need to do is create instanced content that is pay-to-play, just like a real life theme park. People will pay extra to experience good content, and some people will even pay to ride the same ride more than once if real life themeparks are a valid comparison.

[Clement Song]

8.

http://zt.ztgame.com/ Zhengtu online is one of the most popular MMOs in China - a quintessential free to play microtransaction based game. In this game, people can pay real money to gain power and rule others. Ironically, it sorta reflects the culture paradigm in today's China. The game developer/operator went public last year. They are making a lot of money milking people who have a lot of money at the expense of other players game experience. It's a good business because they successfully served the needs of their target group. Do people really want to spend hours killing boars in order to level up? I think No. Such is life and people kinda accept it. Now, I think the challenge is for the game designers to keep the thin wallet players to also have a fun time in the game.

[Occulte]

9.

WoW already has a micro-transaction setup involving trading cards that you purchase from retailers. If you happen to get a rare card in your pack, there's an NPC in-game that you can talk to and register it with.

The only difference is, the benefits you receive are innocuous to game play since they don't provide characters with additional enhancements.

Examples of these prizes are non-combative pets and riding mounts.

[Tom H.]

10.

SVgr,

If I understand correctly, Arena.net promises to recognize Guild Wars accomplishments in GW2 just as you propose - to wean players into the new MMO.

[SVgr]

11.

Yes. Essentially what I was thinking is that people are loath to give up a toon they have spent years building up. If you could give them a way to "bring their WoW character with them" at least in some iconic way then they may be more likely to try other games. Then you wouldn't leave players with the feeling of starting over completely from zero. Give them a little carrot to lure them over to the cart, so to speak.

[shander]

12.

Rob's comments about a WoW expansion being akin to a new TV season were interesting and on target I think.

This notion of the mmorg as streaming entertainment differs a bit from the virtual world concept. It tweaks the ideas of persistance and the pyche of advancement.

I migth add it might be a bit healthier for players who could see the games more as content that they can gradually see rather than as an obsession to achieve in world. Perhaps the goal would be more to savor content rather than rush forward in a grind.

The idea of content versus political game play/competition tilts more toward WoW being a theatrical production rather than a game.

As a platform for a living virtual reality WoW provides little room to make ones mark beyond politics of loot and organization of thematic raids into set pve instances.

But as visual entertainment there is a lot there. Not much is discussed here about the humor content of WoW. A lot of the bosses are tongue and cheek funny. "time for more fun" or the slow showman-like death of a murloc. The little seasonal quests are there for pure pleasure of constumes and non performace trinkets. Many quests are pretty funny in their frustrating activities beyond kill for drops.

While the promise of better loot is part accumulation it can also be seen as a way to pace a player through the content of the game (along with attunment and quests needed to unlock dungeons).

WoW might find a way to widen its audience and subscribers by tweaking its game play to allow advancemet without quite the huge time commitment.
The quality of items from quest rewards in the BC was a step in that direction assuring that a player could become well equipped without repeating the same dungeons dozens of times to get a special drop.

[SVgr]

13.

"This notion of the mmorg as streaming entertainment differs a bit from the virtual world concept. It tweaks the ideas of persistance and the pyche of advancement."

I think there's a distinction here between players and producers. For the people making MMOG's (and expansions) there's probably a lot of similarity to serial broadcast media. For players/viewers I think there is a significant difference between TV and MMOG's.

[Nuyan]

14.

You want to discuss the future of MMO's and for that you invite big business people that mostly just made EQ clones? That's stupid, why not invite a CCP instead.. Or a Raph Koster?

I didn't really see many new interesting thoughts here.

[Mark Terrano]

15.

I wanted to comment on the ed. note in this comment:

"Matt: The console base is larger than the PC base, it only makes sense to target it. [ed. Huh? That doesn't seem right...]"

The audience for people that will pay for a AAA game at retail is more than 6x the audience for PC games.

It gets a little trickier to compare if you are going to single out just one console platform - but I guess you can do the same thing if you are going to separate PC into laptop/desktop or graphical platforms (hardware T&L, etc).

If it is difficult to find this data I can follow up with some links that have actual numbers in them.

[LEKO]

16.

Some of you talk about MMO-Achievements... In real life good players usually get a trophy or a medal...

In those virtual world, the only thing that would permit that kind of stuff would be a "METAvatar" system. An "OpenID" for MMO games. Where some of your achievement data would be centralised in a database: specific goals, higher levels, time played, etc...

Then that data would be available to other dev. for usage in their game...

But, everyone on earth is so greedy, no one would ever want to let others use their "proprietary data".

Maybe, some fans could code AddOns (or plugins) to do that job, but then another problem would surface: data integrity.

[William Lederman]

17.

I never thought I would want to play a micro transaction game but I have been playing travian which is built off a micro transaction model. While not a traditional MMO by any means it is certainly a very interesting game and I strongly suggest people check it out.

The people that spend money get a pretty big advantage but the game is really meant to be played at a group or guild based level. The result is that each side has people spending money and people not spending money. Skill and time spent in game can make up for not spending money to a certain extent.

The game also involves some very serious forms of PVP and loss. Something that I never thought I would like.

The one issue I don't see mentioned is the future of non avatar based progression and the feasibility of placing soft caps on avatar progression in a mass market game.

[Mike Sellers]

18.

Reading this over (I wasn't able to attend the panel), it seems like a lot of the discussion was more about "how the past is or isn't going to work now" rather than about the future of MMOs. I'm reminded of the statement by Henry Ford that "if I'd listened to the experts, I’d have given them a faster horse." As recent spectacular MMO failures have shown, a next-gen "faster horse" is not the future.

Was there any serious discussion on the panel about things like Flash-based MMOs? Or moving out beyond the "huge world, huge server, graphically intense quest-based gameplay" model of MMOs?

Or any acknowledgment that MMOs seem to be at an inflection point right now? MMO tools were in abundance on the expo floor, but with very little new stuff to show in terms of who is using them successfully. Very quietly I heard questions about whether, given the turbulence in MMO development, the market for MMO middleware was going to emerge as a strong market (I believe it will -- in some sectors, especially those that support higher-end, not-just-fantasy-world games).

And in many conversations, people were at a loss to come up with an MMO expected to come out in the next year or so that they were excited about. This is hugely significant, IMO, and in line with the inability for people two years ago to answer the question, "if I'm playing WoW, why would I switch to your game?" In terms of upcoming games, Age of Conan and Warhammer were two that people reached for, but almost always with caveats like, "these aren't games I'm interested in, but I think they'll have a following" or "I want to try them out, but I don't think they'll attract a wide audience." Or the conversation turned to all the high-profile games that have been cancelled or cratered recently -- Vanguard, Tabula Rasa, Star Trek, Gods & Heroes, etc.

The real future of MMOs, IMO, is potentially very bright but also, by our own making, highly uncertain (but I've been singing this song for a while now). WoW continues to grow to previously unimagined user numbers. MMOs we love to forget -- Habbo Hotel, Runescape, etc. -- keep raking in the cash as well. And the fact that hugely successful games/worlds like Maple Story, Gaia Online, and even Club Penguin escape the notice of otherwise knowledgeable industry insiders says something about our insularity and the incipient failure of creativity in an industry that relies on it.

In terms of this GDC panel, it's telling to me that, as another poster above said, the people on this panel represented big companies, big MMOs, and those that were successful in the last generation. To look ahead, talk to the guys from Club Penguin, Areae, or anyone not trying to feed at the worn out trough of monolithic quest-based game worlds (though to be fair, it'd be nuts to bet against Rob Pardo or Blizzard -- whatever they do next will necessarily have a huge effect on the overall future of MMOs).

Given the proven lifespan of existing MMOs, existing games (those that already have users locked in) aren't going away any time soon -- I expect WoW will hum along for a good seven to ten years before quietly sunsetting. But as for the future, we won't find it by looking at the past. Look instead for lighter clients, easier entry experiences, more meaningful character interaction, broader (and much less quest-based) gameplay, new revenue models (microtransactions are the near and certain future, but not the end of the story), and new ways to involve the users that go beyond uploading simple content. Everything else is just a celebration of the past.

[Troy]

19.

WoW is neither invincible nor invulnerable. It has flaws in game play and can be bested or surpassed. Talk to any player for a while and you'll find a few.

The problem with competing directly with it, in my view, is two fold.

First, it's expensive. They put a lot of money in there, with a lot spent on polish and completeness. Any successful challenger will have to match that polish, which nobody has managed to do yet. To beat WoW you have to be *ready*, and there is a very strong industry force that pushes out games before they are really ready. Overoptimistic planning and schedules, delays, marketing commitments, whatever.

Second, Blizzard is king of incremental improvements. The target isn't standing still. They've done more to change, adapt, and improve WoW since release than EQ did over their entire lifespan. And they've been more successful in putting in the right changes than SWG or Vanguard. This is blizzard's greatest strength in my opinion. Their games always improve over time. D2 1.1 patch, the years of Starcraft improvements, and so on. If you do manage to fund and build a game to beat WoW, you have to beat not today's WoW, but the WoW of the future. And that's also very hard.