MMORPG Distribution
by Tom Kidd · in General Discussion · 07/11/2001 (12:10 pm) · 13 replies
Okay, first off I do not want to make a MMORPG - I'm not too big on those kinds of games, and I'm not interested. However, I do notice that with the recent titles like WWII Online and Anarchy Online, the titles debut with numerous bugs, turning the purchasers into unwilling beta testers.
Being a passionate PC gamer, I sympathize with these games - I understand and accept the notion of bugs that don't or won't surface until mass usage. But I also see the point of the casual end user - it sucks to have to not only pay the $50 for the client on a CD in a box, but to have to pay every month until the game gets stable.
Then I had a notion - give away the client software and allow everyone to play the game for free for six months. Not six months from the day they get the game, six months from the day the game is released. This way, the main complaint people have - that the game isn't finished and they had to pay for it - is groundless. People are probably more likely to give useful criticism, instead of SomethingAwful.com-esque flame wars that come along with having wasted money.
Now here's the part that's different. I know that the ethos of GG.com and other places is to download the games online. Neat and all, but I have an idea to get people's attention. You can have the client for download online all you want, but what needs to happen is the client be placed on a CD and shrinkwrapped in a jewel case (or even one of those pseudo-cardboard sleeves). Make a display of them at the checkout at Babbage's. They slip demo CD's into people's bags all the time - and people always like to pick up free stuff.
This would get people's attention a little faster, and they're more likely to fire it up (after they get their fix of Deer Hunter 4 or whatever they play). They'll probably like it and six months (for the early adopters) is a long time. By the time six months rolls around they might want to continue their game. For all the people who would wind up with this CD, either through POS displays or through magazine covers (witness the success of AOL), even if only a small percentage of the people who play it go on to pay to play, that's still more people than most MMORPG's launch with. Plus, by the time most people bow out, the stress level on the servers would be pretty good, making future expansion and scaling a breeze.
There are some problems of course. Why Babbage's and other places would want any part in handing out free demos for a game which will never hit their shelves may be a stumbling point. They'll want some incentive - ads or a kickback, or maybe a bribe to get it in their stores. Also, since there will be no retail client sales (no Everquest in a box), the amount of money to be invested in merely getting the CD's and stuff printed can't be recopuped by the sale of the client ("So no one wants to keep playing it - at least we've got their $50"). And since the developers and publishers won't see dime one for six months, it's not only a huge investment, but a huge risk.
I do realize that all MMORPG's go through a closed beta and, in the case of Asheron's Call, a very short open beta through a magazine CD (and I don't remember it having all these problems), but I'm saying go the next step - don't make them pay $50 for a client and a "free" month of play - make the client free, use clever tactics to get it into people's hands, and give everyone six months of free play to get the bugs ironed out. Perhaps some GG'ers out there wanting to do a MMORPG could implement something similar to this.
Schnapple
Being a passionate PC gamer, I sympathize with these games - I understand and accept the notion of bugs that don't or won't surface until mass usage. But I also see the point of the casual end user - it sucks to have to not only pay the $50 for the client on a CD in a box, but to have to pay every month until the game gets stable.
Then I had a notion - give away the client software and allow everyone to play the game for free for six months. Not six months from the day they get the game, six months from the day the game is released. This way, the main complaint people have - that the game isn't finished and they had to pay for it - is groundless. People are probably more likely to give useful criticism, instead of SomethingAwful.com-esque flame wars that come along with having wasted money.
Now here's the part that's different. I know that the ethos of GG.com and other places is to download the games online. Neat and all, but I have an idea to get people's attention. You can have the client for download online all you want, but what needs to happen is the client be placed on a CD and shrinkwrapped in a jewel case (or even one of those pseudo-cardboard sleeves). Make a display of them at the checkout at Babbage's. They slip demo CD's into people's bags all the time - and people always like to pick up free stuff.
This would get people's attention a little faster, and they're more likely to fire it up (after they get their fix of Deer Hunter 4 or whatever they play). They'll probably like it and six months (for the early adopters) is a long time. By the time six months rolls around they might want to continue their game. For all the people who would wind up with this CD, either through POS displays or through magazine covers (witness the success of AOL), even if only a small percentage of the people who play it go on to pay to play, that's still more people than most MMORPG's launch with. Plus, by the time most people bow out, the stress level on the servers would be pretty good, making future expansion and scaling a breeze.
There are some problems of course. Why Babbage's and other places would want any part in handing out free demos for a game which will never hit their shelves may be a stumbling point. They'll want some incentive - ads or a kickback, or maybe a bribe to get it in their stores. Also, since there will be no retail client sales (no Everquest in a box), the amount of money to be invested in merely getting the CD's and stuff printed can't be recopuped by the sale of the client ("So no one wants to keep playing it - at least we've got their $50"). And since the developers and publishers won't see dime one for six months, it's not only a huge investment, but a huge risk.
I do realize that all MMORPG's go through a closed beta and, in the case of Asheron's Call, a very short open beta through a magazine CD (and I don't remember it having all these problems), but I'm saying go the next step - don't make them pay $50 for a client and a "free" month of play - make the client free, use clever tactics to get it into people's hands, and give everyone six months of free play to get the bugs ironed out. Perhaps some GG'ers out there wanting to do a MMORPG could implement something similar to this.
Schnapple
About the author
#2
This is what Origin (now just EA) sees with Ultima Online to this day - only they have more like 200,000 active clients. It's not difficult to see why Ultima Online 2 got cancelled - the original's making so much money why mess it up?
But you're right in the respect that I'm not an economics or business major and I'm looking at a dead simple model based on what I thought up. I don't know how much of that million would have to go to maintenance of servers each month. I figure that 10% of the people would stay, but I don't really know that. It could be more than a year before there's a profit (though this does look more feasible than Daikatana - 3 years and $30 million, ugh).
Plus there's one big problem as I see it with MMORPG's - there's too many of them. Eversmack, Neverrest - people spend all their time on these games. But if a large number of them are competing for the same amount of time then a number of them will fail due to the fact that people can't play them all. I have a number of games I don't play that often. If I never touch my copy of Half-Life again, it's no real skin off of Valve's nose. If I quit playing Everquest then I quit paying for it - problem for Verant. By that logic then, I'm less likely to buy a MMORPG game I might not be playing in six months since it's a waste of investment in the first place. I have less of a problem with beating Elite Force and then shelving it for a while.
Still, if a MMORPG comes out on GG.com, I think it should go this way (no cost client download at least, maybe the six month thing as well). The CD thing is optional, but I just figured it would get more people's attention. People are a bit gunshy about going to a website to download something for free - too many dot coms blew this one for us.
Schnapple
07/11/2001 (1:00 pm)
Well, let's say that a million people get a hold of the game (again - compare the dist. to AOL CD's). Let's say 10% stick around for the game after six months. Let's say they pay $9.99 per month. That's a million dollars a month right there. If the game costs $5 million dollars to make, then after 5 months you start to see profit (11 months from the date of release).This is what Origin (now just EA) sees with Ultima Online to this day - only they have more like 200,000 active clients. It's not difficult to see why Ultima Online 2 got cancelled - the original's making so much money why mess it up?
But you're right in the respect that I'm not an economics or business major and I'm looking at a dead simple model based on what I thought up. I don't know how much of that million would have to go to maintenance of servers each month. I figure that 10% of the people would stay, but I don't really know that. It could be more than a year before there's a profit (though this does look more feasible than Daikatana - 3 years and $30 million, ugh).
Plus there's one big problem as I see it with MMORPG's - there's too many of them. Eversmack, Neverrest - people spend all their time on these games. But if a large number of them are competing for the same amount of time then a number of them will fail due to the fact that people can't play them all. I have a number of games I don't play that often. If I never touch my copy of Half-Life again, it's no real skin off of Valve's nose. If I quit playing Everquest then I quit paying for it - problem for Verant. By that logic then, I'm less likely to buy a MMORPG game I might not be playing in six months since it's a waste of investment in the first place. I have less of a problem with beating Elite Force and then shelving it for a while.
Still, if a MMORPG comes out on GG.com, I think it should go this way (no cost client download at least, maybe the six month thing as well). The CD thing is optional, but I just figured it would get more people's attention. People are a bit gunshy about going to a website to download something for free - too many dot coms blew this one for us.
Schnapple
#3
Schnapple
07/11/2001 (1:03 pm)
Oh, and while I don't know about the Anarchy Online folks, but in the case of the WWII Online debacle, the main investor decided rather abruptly that they wanted their money back unless the product shipped immediately. Since the money had already been sank into development, there was no real choice in the matter.Schnapple
#4
07/11/2001 (1:10 pm)
ya, hence the problem of having investors that don't know what the game dev world is like. it's not like building a hotel, where you can keep it to within a 2 day window of your schedule if you do stuff right.
#5
-So fixed one time cost of ~500$/machine
-150$/co-located machine
-admin/maintince cost which varies, you could do it yourself, if not the current rates go from 50-100$/hour.
-bandwidth costs depend upon your co-located setup, but usually for the co-location fee, you can transfer 50GB/month, any excess will be billed.
So that works out to around 1500$ one time cost, 675$ maintaince cost assuming 3 hours of maintience per month.
6months * 675 = 4050$. So a 1000 player base what percentage must be subscribes and how much must they pay to offset the cost of the free 6 monthers? Hmmm ....
Say a reasonable subscription fee of 5$/month. So given that cost you will need 810 subscribers, or 81% of the 1000 player base must be subsribers. Rather high, but as you can see you'll either have to charge more / subscriber to reduce the % from the 1k player base, or increase the player base, but that also has its associated costs, more servers, maintaince, and the demand must be there, etc..
Well Good Luck
-ddn
07/11/2001 (1:10 pm)
Do a cost analysis of the cost of giving away 6 months of free service, and the expected income from the sign ups. Say a 1000 player user base, can proably be handled by 1-2 server machines + the backend WEB/DB support machine, thats about 3 machines running full time + administrator/maintaince time + co-location fee for all the machines and bandwidth costs. -So fixed one time cost of ~500$/machine
-150$/co-located machine
-admin/maintince cost which varies, you could do it yourself, if not the current rates go from 50-100$/hour.
-bandwidth costs depend upon your co-located setup, but usually for the co-location fee, you can transfer 50GB/month, any excess will be billed.
So that works out to around 1500$ one time cost, 675$ maintaince cost assuming 3 hours of maintience per month.
6months * 675 = 4050$. So a 1000 player base what percentage must be subscribes and how much must they pay to offset the cost of the free 6 monthers? Hmmm ....
Say a reasonable subscription fee of 5$/month. So given that cost you will need 810 subscribers, or 81% of the 1000 player base must be subsribers. Rather high, but as you can see you'll either have to charge more / subscriber to reduce the % from the 1k player base, or increase the player base, but that also has its associated costs, more servers, maintaince, and the demand must be there, etc..
Well Good Luck
-ddn
#6
It would be an interesting idea for an indie developer though. It would take a heck of a lot of dedecation though...the work to complete one must be insane.
GF
07/11/2001 (1:12 pm)
It's also that most games shelf life is only about 2 or 3 months and with no investment into the game there is no extra incentive to play it. When you pay monthly to play you are going to play for that month and at the end of that month you've built up a character which you don't want to see die so you invest in another month. With no initial cost or monthly fee people probably won't play it for very long because the time it takes to make a decent charater is usually substantial and there isn't as much incentive to continue playing.It would be an interesting idea for an indie developer though. It would take a heck of a lot of dedecation though...the work to complete one must be insane.
GF
#7
It's a perfect project for the indie developer since they won't have to quit their day job to see it through to completion, but a horrible project for the indie developer since it's in the spare hours they have to do it - making it less likely to ever get done.
Still - pretend it's Sierra or Activision doing it and they could spare a few million dollars to throw at it - sound more reasonable?
Schnapple
07/11/2001 (1:51 pm)
Well understand that I am not implying to stay in the black or break even each month - this would require a huge investment and the company would be in the red for a while. This is easy for me to speculate about, since I don't plan on doing it and don't have to worry about ponying up the dough.It's a perfect project for the indie developer since they won't have to quit their day job to see it through to completion, but a horrible project for the indie developer since it's in the spare hours they have to do it - making it less likely to ever get done.
Still - pretend it's Sierra or Activision doing it and they could spare a few million dollars to throw at it - sound more reasonable?
Schnapple
#8
Those commercial services able to attact the largest user bases and more effiecenty utilize the given bandwidth and processor power, will succeed as the margins shirnk due to compeition. This isnt to say indie MMORPG wont thrive in such enviroements, as most likely they will. Indie MMORPG will proably cater to 1-2k loyal paying subsribers. When the player base is that small, even a moderate investement in effiecent bandwidth and processor usage, will reap large benifits. For instance if you had 2 machines hosting your world, and could now fit the world into 1 machine you've just slash your server cost by 1/2, while a commerical MMORPG catering to 50-100k , one or two machines proably make up 5% of their server farms, and they proably wont risk the loss of peak capacity to take down 1/2 of their network even if they could optimzie it down to 50%.
So to the indie they just nearly double their profit, while the commerical venture has to keep filling a large percentage of capcitiy just to make a profit, some will, most won't.
But the idea of giving away a free short term subsriptions seems resaonable, but it has to be weighted against those other factors.
-ddn
07/12/2001 (3:08 pm)
The numbers still stand even if you multiple the playerbase by say 100. The initial investement would be extremely large and the maintaince cost considerable. If one of those houses tried to set up a MMORPG game and it didnt suceeded, the maintaince and bandwidth cost would be a major drain on revenues, possibly endangering other projects or the company itself. Unlike traditional games, which are released and have fairly short lifespans and maintence cost, MMORPG have enormous maintence costs and to even break even you'll have to run the service for months if not years. Currently there are few major players in the market but once there are more, the cost of subscriptions will follow the law of supply, demand and competition and drop. Those commercial services able to attact the largest user bases and more effiecenty utilize the given bandwidth and processor power, will succeed as the margins shirnk due to compeition. This isnt to say indie MMORPG wont thrive in such enviroements, as most likely they will. Indie MMORPG will proably cater to 1-2k loyal paying subsribers. When the player base is that small, even a moderate investement in effiecent bandwidth and processor usage, will reap large benifits. For instance if you had 2 machines hosting your world, and could now fit the world into 1 machine you've just slash your server cost by 1/2, while a commerical MMORPG catering to 50-100k , one or two machines proably make up 5% of their server farms, and they proably wont risk the loss of peak capacity to take down 1/2 of their network even if they could optimzie it down to 50%.
So to the indie they just nearly double their profit, while the commerical venture has to keep filling a large percentage of capcitiy just to make a profit, some will, most won't.
But the idea of giving away a free short term subsriptions seems resaonable, but it has to be weighted against those other factors.
-ddn
#9
That way they dont even need to make boxes or deal with a publisher! that suits me down to the ground. But the problems arise with the size of the game. bloodpledge is a fairly small download around 100mb. I can see any 3d mmpog being around 500mb at least. This isnt a problem for broadband users but could be for dialup. so what do you do? I think the option of having burn on demand as well as downloadable from a website would be the way to go. Those who want to play and dont want to try and dl a huge install can order the cd for shipping fee , and those that are confident can DL the whole thing.
People then register thier account online, fill in billing details and away they go!
Maybe you could give 1 month free access for trial as well.
anyway, I like this way of distibution and hopefully it will become more common in the future.
07/12/2001 (5:09 pm)
I rather like the way linage bloodpledge handles thier software. You download the client from thier site, and you pay a monthly fee (29.95 i think this one is?)That way they dont even need to make boxes or deal with a publisher! that suits me down to the ground. But the problems arise with the size of the game. bloodpledge is a fairly small download around 100mb. I can see any 3d mmpog being around 500mb at least. This isnt a problem for broadband users but could be for dialup. so what do you do? I think the option of having burn on demand as well as downloadable from a website would be the way to go. Those who want to play and dont want to try and dl a huge install can order the cd for shipping fee , and those that are confident can DL the whole thing.
People then register thier account online, fill in billing details and away they go!
Maybe you could give 1 month free access for trial as well.
anyway, I like this way of distibution and hopefully it will become more common in the future.
#11
07/12/2001 (6:53 pm)
Sounds like what you are talking about is a longer Beta period :) Both of the products mentioned would have benefited drastically from larger and longer Beta periods, it appears.
#12
However, I see a different change coming in the online game market. You pay a subscription fee (say $10/month) and have access to a network of games rather than $10/month per game. So lets say Sony opens up their "gaming network" which contains EverQuest, Star Wars (is that one Sony?), and Planetside.
Meanwhile, Microsoft makes a play for your cash with AC, AC2, and ... uh those other two ...
I can easily see paying $10/month if they can keep cranking out a game each year or so for me to play. I wouldn't need to kill my account, and they'd end up with more money. All the data centers could be shared, as well as the pipes, and even the support/web/login/registration/community stuff too. Significant reduction in costs once you've got three games running off the same foundation services.
--Bryan
07/13/2001 (12:09 pm)
Interesting idea, although I think 6 months is a bit too long. Maybe 3 max. You really want to pull the early adopters and curious, but not bloat their tummy of your game. The money comes when Jane and Jill sign up and play with their friends.. to me it seems they would do that well within 6 months (they did for EQ).However, I see a different change coming in the online game market. You pay a subscription fee (say $10/month) and have access to a network of games rather than $10/month per game. So lets say Sony opens up their "gaming network" which contains EverQuest, Star Wars (is that one Sony?), and Planetside.
Meanwhile, Microsoft makes a play for your cash with AC, AC2, and ... uh those other two ...
I can easily see paying $10/month if they can keep cranking out a game each year or so for me to play. I wouldn't need to kill my account, and they'd end up with more money. All the data centers could be shared, as well as the pipes, and even the support/web/login/registration/community stuff too. Significant reduction in costs once you've got three games running off the same foundation services.
--Bryan
#13
07/13/2001 (12:14 pm)
thats not bad brian. i can see where sharing the engines/software for the games would be an advantage too. i mean, other than gameplay, shouldn't the differences be genre specific, ie models, animations, skins, maps, etc? 
Torque Owner Josh Goldshlag
How would you make any money?
You aren't charging at the start, you don't get box sales, and a signifigant potion of your users will leave at or before the 6 months are up.
It seems to me as though the AO and WW2OL guys should have concentrated on stability first, then added all that content. People wouldn't be complaining nearly as loudly if the game didn't crash, but there just wasn't too much for them to do yet. By the time people got into the game enough to start noticing that, hopefully enough content would be added.
Just my 0.02...
Josh