Lecture 6: (26 September 07)
MMOG Online
Game Development Planning
Abstract: This lectures focuses on how best to plan for the development
of a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG), as well
as other kinds of MMOGs (for example, MMO action games, MMO science
learning games, or Game-based Virtual Worlds).
MMOGs pose different kinds of game development issues and challenges,
as well as community management issues, compared to single-player or
casual games.
- Conceiving
- Prototyping
- Play testing
- Marketing and deployment
- Community management and maintenance
MMOGs will also move to game play experiences that move across
different media or devices (for example, from networked PCs to Web
sites to cell phones, and possibly to broadcast television).
MMOG Conception
- In the
history of MMORPGs since 1997, one MMORPG dominates the
end-user market, with another 3-5 likely to be financially successful
- Dominant
MMORPGs in past 10 years
- Ultima
Online--upwards of 250,000 registered end-users
(subscribers), with >100,000 as of 2006, with
approximately
50% of current users in Japan!
- Two sequels, eight expansion releases, five special
package releases
- First MMORPG to reach 100,000 subscribers.
- Longest running MMORPG ever!
- As of July 2006, still appears to have more than
100,000 subscribers
- Everquest
(and Everquest II)--upwards
of 700,000 registered end-users
- Lineage
(and Lineage II)--Korean
MMORPG, more than 3M registered end-users at peak
- Runespace--Java-based
MMORPG, 9M active free user accounts; 1M subscribers
- World of
Warcraft--upwards of 9,000,000 registered end-users
("subscribers")
- 2.0M in U.S.
- 1.5M in Europe
- 3.5M in China
- Guild
Wars--Korean MMORPG, 2M active users
- MapleStory--Korean 2D MMORPG, greater than 5M total users
- Lord of the Rings Online--New 3D MMORPG, fastest growing MMOG user base (1M subscribers, five months past first release)
- Growing interest in business opportunities around the
growth of MMOGs, according to recent
IBM study of MMOGs
- MMORPGs typically take 2-4 years to develop!!!
- World of Warcraft
- Development announced: 2001
- First Release: November 2004, 10 years after first
Warcraft game release
- 2M registered users in first 6 months; 4.5M users in
12 months
- New MMORPGs allow for both PC and console-based online
game play
- Financial basis for MMORPG development critical (see Interplay
financial disclosures)
- $30M-$100M budgets for MMORPG production and release
already anticipated
- Trade press indicates that as many as 50 or more MMORPGs
are in development
- Vast majority of MMORPGs will fail, and therefore
represent a
risky financial investment!
- MMOG narratives and scenarios
- MMOG scenarios are typically (still) targeted to
role-playing games (RPGs)
- Character scenarios, appearance, behaviors, and so
forth are critical to game/story design (following World of Warcraft)
- Races (10)
- Classes (9)
- Character types
- Player character (end-user avatars)
- Non-player characters (AI-based)
- Friendly NPCs
- Hostile NPCs
- Neutral NPCs
- Professions/roles (character skill sets)
- Primary
- Gathering (3)
- Crafting (8 plus specializations)
- Items and equipment
- Mounts (allows character to "ride" another object,
like an animal character)
- PvP (Player versus Player) ranking (points scoring)
- Reputation level
- Worlds and world scenarios (in-game environments or
play settings where game-related events occur)
- Realms (server clusters that allow end-users to choose
their preferred gameplay type)
- Scenarios must address where/how end-users can
communicate in-game via their characters
- Text-chat
- Voice-chat
- Game portal (discussion forums, Web site, and more)
- Scenarios also needed for game-related commerce and/or
in-game economic system
- New MMOGs like those for Action/FPS games (MMOFPS) still
framed as RPGs
- New/innovative MMOGs
- MM Mobile Games, such as Disney's Pirates of the Carribean Multiplayer Mobile
- MMOGs for Dancing (Dance
Online) announced and now in development
- MMOGs for education and training
- MMO Science Learning Games (MMOSLG) that interlink a
network
of interactive, hands-on learning exhibits in different regional
science centers/museums
- MMO Language Learning Games (MMOLLG) that leverage
social
networking practices in national markets and games, along with various
"reading, writing, and pronunciation" tools, as might be found in
online collaboration environments
- Co-located MMOGs--Stadium-area games
- Large-scale Game-based Virtual Worlds are similar to
"story-free" MMORPGs, where end-users can create their own stories
- MMOG business/revenue models
- Retail purchase (most popular in the U.S.)
- Subscription (most popular in the U.S.)
- In-game item purchase/microtransactions (most popular in
Asia)
- Free-to-play (new to U.S., popular in Asia)
- Advertisement supported
- in-game advertising--not likely
- user-created advertising
- corporate sponsored end-users!
- MMOGs require database management system to capture/log all
in-game events and activities by end-users
MMOG Prototyping
- Many known issues and challenges in single-site and
multi-site
large development team approaches to prototyping in online game
development
- Key issues in MMOG prototyping
increasingly will include demonstrating
- emerging MMOG storylines and
narratives
- business practices for continuous MMOG
content and game play prototyping
- to support long-term MMOG
product development capability by the game development studio
- MMOG development is moving to a
continuous game
software and game content development model
- Free/open source software
development projects already use continuous software development
processes and practices
- how to use beta-testing results
to improve ongoing content and game play development
- also, how to minimize the need
for end-users to report common game play usage problems, like
"griefing"
- add in-game functionality for
end-users to suppress/block undesirable behavior of other users
- robustness, security,
reliability, and "cheat-free" capabilities of end-user online
payment systems
- via use of third-party security
"hackers" (can the system withstand their attempts to penetrate or
corrupt the payment system)
- via outsourcing to a commercial
payment services providers
- use quality of service
contract (this will not be cheap, but may be worth the cost!)
- mitigating end-user
chargebacks and fraudulent chargebacks
- migrate to use of
non-monetized game points in place of monetized currencies, if possible
- viability and scalability of game
operations infrastructure
- build or buy infrastructure?
- building new infrastructure
is very costly!
- outsourcing may be a better
alternative, unless already a large game publisher or GSP
- game services provisioning and
game service providers (similar to Internet Services Providers--ISPs)
- best GSPs own and operate
their own network and servers
- Emergent Game Technologies
- IBM
- robustness, security,
reliability, and "cheat-free" capabilities of game Web
servers and game operations servers
- number one source of security
problems are attacks on game Web servers!
MMOG Play Testing
- Many known issues and challenges in single-site and
multi-site
large development team approaches to play testing in online game
development
- MMOGs may need to set goal of tens of thousands of end-user
beta-testers prior to full game release!
- MMOG will need to accommodate continuous testing
approach
- Beta-testing for early expansion pack or new release may
be structured as a "reward" to high-commitment game players
MMOG Marketing and Deployment
Marketing
- MMOG marketing campaign may need to set goal for five to
ten years of promotion
- MMOG product life cycle will feature multiple enhanced
product version releases and multiple expansion packs
- Multi-version product releases are part of marketing
strategy to
maintain end-user awareness and interest in product, ongoing game play,
and ongoing community activity
- MMOG marketing budget can approach MMOG game development
costs ($25M-$50M), in effort to build sustainable end-user community!
- World of Warcraft launched with 6.5M end-users
pre-registered within its first 18 months of release, according
to Vivendi Games
- Blizzard Entertainment, on a percentage basis, the
most profitable business unit of Vivendi
- Planning for a smaller marketing budget therefore will
require more inherent interest ("viral marketing" or
"recruit-a-friend") in the MMOG.
Deployment
- World of Warcraft MMORPG runs on 9,000 servers, globally
dispersed
- WoW employs 1,300 game masters for end-user support in six
different natural languages!
- English, Korean, French, German, Traditional Chinese,
Chinese--Spanish, Japanese, Thai, Portuguese, and Russian planned
MMOG Community Management and Maintenance
- Building and sustaining (long-term) end-user community is a
core business
function for a MMOG development studio
- MMO game masters are the critical employees who will
ultimately support (and satisfy) the end-users
- How end-users should be assigned to each game
master--5000? 10,000? more/less?
- MMOGs may need to set goal of pre-registering 1M+ end-users
prior to full game release!
- MMOG end-user communities may need to be operational up to
12 months (or more) prior to full game release
- MMOG communities may increasingly be targeted to narrow
demographic audiences
- Children
- Teenagers
- Young adults (via social networking)
- Established game players
- Women (18-45 years old)
- Seniors
- MMOG communities may be increasingly targeted to audiences
interested in certain kinds of game genres or game play experiences
- Sword of
the New World features a political system, multi-character
control, and "high kills per second"
- Casual MMOGs will attract differ audience than
traditional MMOGs
- Short-term, frequent drop-in style game play versus
sustained long-play user sessions focused on team/guild-style game play
- MMOG communities may also need to be localized
- Chinese end-users of World of Warcraft have some cultural
values incorporated into game play (dead character corpses are
transformed into graves)
- Game play payment systems differ by culture
- Chinese end-users primarily play in Internet cafes,
thus require pay-per-usage or per-time-allotment payment mechanisms
- U.S. end-users prefer retail purchase and subscription
(credit card purchases)
MMOG play experiences across media/devices
- When and how will MMOGs like
World of Warcraft move into other media?
- The WoW media crossovers so far
- traditional card game
- feature film (production budget estimated at $100M)
- audio soundtrack
- television programming
- BlizzCon (2005, 2006, 2007)
- End-user created media
- Fan art (graphic illustrations)
- Machinima (user-created game cinema)
- Comics (user-created graphic storytelling)
- Professional photography (sample)
