Money != Fun
Posted by Stropp on February 29, 2008The CEO of Activision, Bobby Kotick, thinks that an investment of half a billion to a billion dollars would be required to develop a MMO that might stand a chance at unseating World of Warcraft.
We don’t think that even if we made the USD 500 million or billion-dollar investment to get a product out [to compete with WOW] that we would even be successful doing it.
I think he is missing the point.
Sure, lot’s of money is required to build a big AAA modern game. Even more is required to build a big modern AAA MMO game. There’s a lot of investment required in developing the software, and the art and sound assets. If you want a huge game like WoW, you need to spend a bundle on the hardware infrastructure. I’d wager at least a quarter of WoW’s 60 million dollar budget went on hardware and support infrastructure.
But, like I said, he’s missing the point.
Throwing a lot of money at something doesn’t mean it will be good. Remember Alexander, the monster budget movie about Alexander the Great?
Flop.
The studio spent an insane amount of cash to produce a flop. How many big budget movies get panned by critics and moviegoers?
The same goes for games, music… everything.
To take on World of Warcraft, you don’t need a billion dollars. You need a game with the following.
- Good game mechanics.
- Lot’s of low end content.
- Lot’s of middle tier content.
- Lot’s of high end content.
- An understanding of what players want. (Which doesn’t mean an understanding of what players want in World of Warcraft.)
- Stable and scalable architecture.
- Fun.
- and some Luck.
Over the last twelve or so months, there have been several games released that could have made inroads into WoWs subscriber base. Unfortunately they lacked in some of the following points.
- Lord of the Rings Online. The biggest complaint I’ve heard about LotRO is the lack of high end content.
- Tabula Rasa. A fun SciFi game that also lacks high end content, and is also missing some of the features players expect.
- Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. While there was a lot of content, a way too early release meant the game wasn’t stable. Lots of subscribers left, never to return.
- Hellgate: London. Lots of potential there, but lots of bugs at release too.
With the recent Game Developers Conference there were a few big name game developers having a rant about how World of Warcraft is ruining things for everyone else. Come on people, sure WoW is big. Sure it’s going to take a bit to compete.
That doesn’t mean that:
- You cannot compete. Microsoft used this excuse to cancel Marvel Universe Online instead of being honest and telling us it just didn’t have the balls to try.
- You cannot look at another niche. Age of Conan and Warhammer are doing this.
Here’s the thing. World of Warcraft is currently filling it’s niche quite nicely. It’s a nice casual fantasy MMORPG. Blizzard didn’t expect it to be so successful. They got lucky.
Both Age of Conan and Warhammer Online are going for a different niche than World of Warcraft. Warhammer is aiming at the PvP-Realm vs Realm niche. Age of Conan is also going for the PvP, but is focusing on a mature rated audience. Neither of these areas are World of Warcraft territory, even though Blizzard is retooling for more PvP.
Who knows maybe this will ruin their formula and hurt them, allowing someone else to force open the door.
To the game developers. Stop thinking that money can solve your woes. Start getting creative. Maybe if you lower your budgets your games will get a bit more innovative.
At the very least, lower budgets mean your games will be far more successful with a smaller player base. And there is nothing wrong with that.
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I myself was looking forward to marvel universe online and have been left disappointed. Iv tried city of heros and villians and to be honest it gets very boring pretty fast.
Personally i can see where developers are coming from - its easy for us to say ‘have the balls challenge wow’ easier said than done, Warcraft has had the chance to build up its fan base over the years and learn (sometimes) from their mistakes. With the possible release of a WoW film in 2009 (which will no doubt attract even more players) i dont fancy the oppositions chances.
The one game which i thought would put up a good fight LoTRs online lacks the fun and pvp elements which makes warcraft the best there is.
I think the only way warcraft will be beaten is if blizzard make another similar game but obviously steer away from fantasy.
hi Super Ally,
Yep. I’m certainly engaging in a bit of armchair quarterbacking (not that I really know what quarterbacking involves) in criticising Microsoft. But my point really is that these guys are focusing on the wrong thing. MUO, for example, would have been a successful game - if done right - and would have made MS a lot of money. But because it wouldn’t have been as successful as WoW, they canned it.
I thought LotRO would have done better as well. Having said that, it’s not unsuccessful - just smaller.
I think that’s what we need to remember. A game doesn’t have to be a WoW beater to be successful.
And one day, a WoW beater will come along, maybe because a better game comes along, or perhaps Blizzard make some critical errors. Remember that not that long ago people were saying that Everquest 1 was the most that could be hoped for.
With all due respect, I think you missed the point of his comments. His company just merged with Blizzard. The comments are successful if he scares off some competition or dries up a funding source for them. It is also puffery, to get people talking about how hard it is to beat WoW, etc. He is a new parent, talking about how brilliant his kid is.
I would not assume that any game development thought lies behind the comments. And he is perfectly happy if most people take away “Don’t bother to compete with WoW directly.” (Which is the right thing for most development companies to think. If you cannot further improve upon DikuMUD with graphics, do something different than WoW.)
Hi Zubon,
The problem is at the moment there seems to be a mindset developing that World of Warcraft is this huge unstoppable beast and that it’s going to take a lot of money to overcome the obstacle that is WoW.
I know that Koticks comments were attempting to muddy the water, possibly aiming to scare away some competitors, but at the least he is speaking into a climate where developers are taking a defeatist attitude. “WoW is sucking all the air our of the room” and that sort of thing. Maybe he did get the point, but it seems that a lot of the bigger developers haven’t.
Your last sentence about improving upon DikuMUD is pretty much at the heart of my argument - sorry if I didn’t bring that across clearly - game devs need to be either looking at another niche or they need to enter the WoW domain with lower expectations. It doesn’t necessarily take money to do that.
Perhaps all it takes is courage.
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