My two cents didn't arrive yesterday, as promised, but at least now I have something to write about.
What am I talking about? I posted a link to
this article on
Salon.com yesterday, which discusses the future of online worlds - or MMOGs - and, more specifically, the launch of
Star Wars Galaxies and
The Sims Online later this year, and how those games will affect the
other online games out there - including (although the article neglects to mention it)
Anarchy Online.
It's an excellent article, and it touches on some very important topics that I've thought about for some now: that of the hardcore gamer "ghetto", and how unfriendly - and unwieldy - online worlds might appear to a broader audience of gamers and non-gamers.
I think the "massively multiplayer online game" genre - and online role-playing games in particular - will grow to become much more than a niche market, and that MMOGs - in various shapes, forms, and sizes - will become an increasingly important part of the industry, both in terms of profit and prestige. The really
big online worlds will catch the attention of mass-media and a mass-market intrigued by the "virtual reality" of it all. Like
The Matrix, without the goo and the tubes and the unpleasantness.
But I also agree that online worlds have to move on from post-apocalyptic sci-fi and Tolkiensque fantasy worlds (and, hey, I'm just as guilty as anyone - AO's backstory revolves around, yes, a nuclear apocalypse wiping out the majority of Earth's population). I love my fantasy and sci-fi as much as the next geek, but then again, I'm a geek and a gamer. But I also see the need - as well as the creative possibilities - in doing Something Else. A different type of world, a different style of game-play, an easier learning-curve (I'm not the smartest egg in the basket, and I actually had a tough time getting started with both
Everquest and AO.
Asheron's Call, for some reason, was much easier, and I've never played
Ultima Online, although I probably should have).
With
Midgard, we did try to do something else, although we took the easy way out and went back to one of the main sources for all modern fantasy: Norse mythology. The upside was that this was a setting familiar to many, with an amazing amount of potential research material, and a rich and varied mythology. The downside was that it could easily be perceived as Just Another Fantasy Game, because it had all those mainstays of modern fantasy: swords, magic, trolls, elfs, dwarves, gods...you name it, we had it. (
Midgard is currently on hold.)
Another factor that may scare away the non-hardcore players is current MMOGs emphasis on combat (AO included), and character development through killing monsters, gaining experience-points, looting the corpses for, uh,
loot, and leveling up. It's a treadmill that might only appeal to hardcore online gamers. Yeah, it works - EQ had more than 100,000 people playing at the same time last weekend - but that potential market might be getting a
bit satured. Heck, I don't understand how I'm going to have time to play AO (yes, I
do play AO!),
Asheron's Call 2 (which I will definitely be spending a lot of time with),
Star Wars Galaxies (oooh), and
The Sims Online (aaah). I can't possibly play more than two of 'em, and AO has to stay, for obvious reasons. And I'm guessing a lot of working adults - with a limited amount of free time - can sympathise with me. Besides, I still want to have the chance to play single-player PC games, as well as console games. Something's got to give, and that goes for everyone. There's no room in the market for a hundred online worlds - there isn't even room for a dozen of them! Not unless these worlds become more approachable to non-hardcore, non-online gamers and non-gamers.
So what do we do? An important thing to remember is that we can't ever ignore the hardcore online gamers, not for the forseeable future. They are a dependent bunch of players, and the only proven market for online worlds. If we choose to "open" these games up - getting out of the ghetto, so to speak - they will still have to appeal to the hardcore players
in addition to the new players. What this entails - more accessible worlds, more layered game-play, much easier learning curve, and so on - is an entirely different issue. And not something I have time to discuss right now.
