Why Don’t Game Developers Upgrade Their Games?
Posted by Stropp on April 8, 2008Some months ago I was feeling nostalgic and decided to dust off a MMORPG that I spent a goodly amount of time playing way back in 2002, Anarchy Online.
I couldn’t find my disks so I downloaded the free client, set up a new account, and logged in.
The first thing I noticed was how bad the graphics looked. After all, I’ve been playing World of Warcraft, Everquest 2, and Lord of the Rings Online amongst others; all very good looking games in their own way.
The second thing that I encountered was the control scheme. I remembered a lot of the interfaces of course — how to allocate skill points, get missions — those sort of things get sticky when you’ve used them a hundred times or more. It was the movement, and other key bindings that didn’t feel familiar.
That’s the problem with nostalgia. In reality it ain’t as pretty as you remember.
Now set the Wayback Machine to a few scant weeks ago and I saw a news item somewhere that Funcom is going to give Anarchy Online a graphical upgrade (there was no mention of a control system upgrade.)
This got me thinking. In fact it got me thinking about something that I’ve wondered for a few years now.
Why don’t game developers regularly upgrade their games?
One of the problems, I imagine, of running a MMORPG is that players are a little like magpies. Oooo Shiny.
When the next bright and shiny new game comes out, there will be a number of players who will depart for the greener pastures. After a few years of increasingly graphically superior games, not to mention improvements in gameplay and control systems, a MMORPG may be at a fraction of its former glory. Look at some of the early pioneers in the MMORPG genre; Everquest, Asheron’s Call, Ultima Online — all getting on or past ten years old. These games no longer command the subscriber numbers they one did.
Another point to look at is that most of the rest of the software industry doesn’t just stop at the first version of the software. Windows is up to version 7, Firefox is about to release version 3, and Photoshop is up to I don’t know what by now.
Game developers on the other hand seem to only ever release the equivalent of point versions of their games. Sure there are exceptions. World of Warcraft has released major client updates for the BC expansion and that included a small graphics update. Everquest 2 has released a graphical update as well.
Sure, there are the patches, but they tend to be for bug fixes and to update content. Even big selling single player games are just left to languish. The next version is never an upgrade, but a completely new game. The original Fallout and Fallout 2 were great games, but players wouldn’t buy them today. Would a full upgrade of these original games put them back on store shelves?
What about the old venerable MMORPG, Everquest? Or for that matter Asheron’s Call?
AC was my first MMORPG. I remember it fondly.
Turbine could give Asheron’s Call a complete graphical upgrade to make it look as good as Lord of the Rings Online. They could modernize a few of the gameplay elements that newer games consider essential, for example, including quest indicators.
Turbine, aside from cosmetic components, could pretty much leave the game itself untouched. There would be no need to do a complete revamp of the gameplay systems, as SOE did with Star Wars Galaxies. Okay, they might need to address some of the shortcomings that many players saw as unacceptable — the chronic macroers for example — but that would only improve the game for everyone.
Would improvements such as these breathe new life into Asheron’s Call? Would the game see not only the return of many former players, but new players interested in what the old timers were going on about?
It seems that Funcom think that an upgrade will help Anarchy Online.
What do you think?
How odd! I had been thinking about AO because of Tipa’s post about MMORPG Nostalgia(linked in my Trackback Tuesday #1 post)…had you read it?
I think EvE Online has been looked after in a great way. What with a past graphics upgrade & free extra content for all of @£7 a month, you have to impressed. It’s also the only MMO to tempt me back into the world of grind but I’m not going back just yet.
It makes me appreciate how shrewd WoW was by instituting that oft-maligned “cartoony” graphics look from the get-go. They built aging into their game from Day 1 by starting off “quaint” in appearance.
Really, with most of these games, the issue has got to be money. I have to believe a new house is more cost-effective (from a “return on investment” standpoint) than a renovated house any day of the week. The reason a lot of the older MMOs never get truly renovated is that the value has gone down, the neighborhood (i.e., that type of game) has gone to seed, and it makes more financial sense to build something totally new from the ground up.
DM. Also odd. I have only just discovered West Karana and have added it to my feed reader. And yes I did read that post. It, and several other nostalgia oriented posts from other bloggers, have probably fed into this article.
I forgot to mention Eve. Yes, they did a pretty big upgrade to their graphics recently too. I’ve played Eve before, and have resubscribed from time to time, but never last too long. Partly it’s the grind, but mostly I feel directionless. I think it’s just that I like a game that tries to involve me in its lore.
Jakob. That’s the thing about WoWs graphics. To a large extent they are fairly ageless and will only ever really need minor tweaking — unless something pretty major happens in the world of graphics technology. Lol. I don’t know if I’d call it quaint though.
You’re right. Money is a big factor, but on the other hand, maybe more can be made upgrading an existing game. Take Asheron’s Call as an example again. AC1 had a bunch of loyal players, I’m not sure how many exactly, I think it was close to 100K at the peak.
Then Turbine decided to create the second house, Asheron’s Call 2. They created a new and much graphically improved game, but changed a bunch of the mechanics from the original game. Asheron’s Call pretty much tanked. If they had spent all that money developing AC2 on upgrading the original, maybe AC1 would have many more subscribers today.
Am giving EVE Online a trial run of 21 days & am looking to address a few things about EO that includes the feel it has on a new player. Your comments about feeling directionless while playing EO are not uncommon but I think that is because CCP have given you free reign over the story of your game…can’t really comment more just now but I’ll be covering my MMO trial over the next 3 weeks, as an EO player your comments would be interesting.
Yeah. I saw you mention that on your blog. I’ll definitely keep an eye on that series. Eve is a game I best describe as be careful what you wish for. It offers unparalled freedom, but minimal direction. Perfect for players who like that sort of thing, which is why it is popular.
[...] Tobold has an interesting post up about the eventual decline of all MMO games. His argument is that with time players grow bored of the game, and as the game ages, the players depart for greener pastures. I touched on that idea a few days ago when I asked why game developers don’t upgrade their games. [...]
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