RE: What are MMO customers paying for?

Upon reading the Gamasutra coverage of the GDC Online, a number of things were brought to my attention. For now, I want to briefly discuss why many MMO developers seem to keep missing the point.

This article is packed with some interesting and (for the most part) pertinent advice. I quickly realized, however, that the issue was less that developers don't have great ideas, and more that their Vision simply does not span the periphery as much as they'd hope. Communication with a player base is key, as they would be the most likely candidates to have an intimate awareness of what does and does not work for them.

"Really from launch, even from a year afterward, it's still part of the development process," said Sony Online Entertainment Executive Director of Development Lorin Jameson. "…You kind of transition from looking for the audience you want to understanding the players that you have."

My concern is the scope of this statement. Let's be honest: Which players? The convenient ones? Let's consider that the totality of SOE's MMO holdings might equate to WoW's, but their individual games hardly amount to the same number of subscriptions. I'm then forced to wonder why there are so many class balancing issues in EQ2 (and have been for years), for example, of which players are aware when there's all this understanding going on. The dialogue between developer and player leaves much to be desired in many an example beyond this. The SWG combat "upgrade" also comes to mind, which I think could have been avoided if Lucasarts had spent more time acknowledging their existing players over attempting to market the game behind the Episode I-III movie hype. I understand players tend to gripe, but when they've been making essentially the same complaint for quite some time, I can't help but think there's a lapse in communication somewhere.

Nathan Richardsson, executive producer at EVE Online developer CCP, said that focusing on a game's core audience has been one key to EVE's longevity. "About 20 percent of the people who played at launch are still playing EVE, so there is a very strong core audience." He added, "The EVE development team has never been bigger than it is today."

I think EVE is a very solid game. However, solid does not mean - in any conceivable fashion - that the game is easy for the solo newcomer when it's you v. entire mining fleets that can stripmine solar systems. That core 20% has had time to root themselves into the complexities of developmental creation, construct lasting corporations, and while I'm not privy to the number of new subscriptions EVE manages to keep, I wouldn't be surprised if the number is low when compared to the raw number of new subscriptions that don't make it past six months. Without active support or immense individual craftiness, EVE is one of the more difficult MMOs to begin. Perhaps that's part of the game's charm. Regardless, Richardsson's later comment about free expansions makes quite a bit of sense in light of trying to keep those players that stick do around.

Alternatively, we have people like EA Mythic exec. producer Jeff Hickman that are all about opening up games to new players: "…You have got to make sure that it's very easy for players to get into your game." Obviously, one wants to engage existing players while not frightening away new ones. The Free-to-Play model appears to be the latest attempt of offering a new sort flexibility to play style that will draw in new players:

"It all comes down to giving flexibility to the consumer -- then all of a sudden they're much more engaged," both in terms of playing the game and spending money, [Jeff] Steefel said. "…Engagement is what drives how they spend money."

What F2P does not do is offer much to existing players who have already invested a great deal of time into a game, and who don't particularly desire to participate in shiny new microtransactions when they've already sunk in hundreds of dollars. I suppose the ability to open up new areas/equipment one might not have access to normally could be attractive to existing players, persistence remains a necessary trait for most MMOs - the returns seem diminishing for loyal, longterm customers.

To preempt a question: Yes, MMOs are multiplayer entities. However, they are not always entirely cooperative entities. Richard Bartle and others have already done a great deal of exploration into this concept and shown that the multiplayer experience is incredibly diverse and complicated. It's then not surprising that an efficient answer to engaging both new and old players, solo and cooperative, yet remains rather enigmatic.

MCH