Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

That"s the rub: Capital spent vs. revenue earned. If a movie like Blair Witch, which cost 50k to make (I think), sells 1 million dollars worth of tickets, it"s a resounding success. If a movie costs 1million to make, and sells 1.1 million in tickets, it"s considered a flop.

It"s like saying the XBox1 was a success. On some levels it was, but when you compare what they funneled into the project (advertising, development, etc) vs. what they actually made, you"d realize it wasn"t as shiny a business prospect as they might have you believe.

Requiem said:

IMO, the days of those games ended long ago. The MMOs that actually survived wow have adopted so many of it"s concepts that they don"t even fall under that category anymore. The Pillar, EQ, is a prime example of that. It"s not even EQ anymore, and it hasn"t been for a long time. Wow has been so successful and has had so much reach in the MMO market that it has actually shifted what the majority of people find acceptable. At one time it was ok to be forced to look at your spellbook to med, lose one fifth of a levelandlose a considerable amount of additional time CRing when you died, rely completely on your own knowledge of the world to get from point A to point B(no map), find NPCs in cities yourself, have a very capable and balanced group to get much of anything accomplished, etc. Many still argue that things are better that way, myself included, but many more who were there and experienced all of that would consider these things to be completely unacceptable in a game they played today because they have been what I like to call "wowified."

Yes, today, we like to have our map and even little markers for where we"re going. Looking for something? Just ask the friendly NPC, he"ll fix you right up. We like 10 foot radius, non-social aggro. We want to find 4 other random people and wade through legions of mobs in instances set up just for us as if we"re playing Smash TV. Caring about death is so 1999. And hey, if your group isn"t efficient or well balanced and you"re not wading through those mobs at warp speed, it doesn"t really matter since the exp from mobs is pretty much an afterthought.

Massive success reshapes the entire industry, it"s the nature of this particular beast. EQ did it when it came out, wow did it when it came out, and until somebody proves that there"s another way, we"re just going to see more and more of the same.

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Wow, pretty much summed my thoughts up to a T. When I bought Vanguard, I ignored common sense, and was just hoping for EQ1 with better graphics. Obviously I was sorely disappointed.

I think what it boils down to though is: Is it really the grind that is fun, or was it the idea of the grind that we liked so much, but not necessarily in practice.

Maxxius said:

You are missing the second point of what I said. The game could NOT have been made in the first place without it having ALREADY EXISTED as it did. It would have been some totally different game. Or to put it another way, it isn"t a question of hey let"s make this MMO and call it WOW, it is a question of hey let"s turn this already popular and existing game called WOW into a MMO. The Bnet got them in the door, the great design of the game kept them there. Would it be as successful if it were a totally different game but same game design? Who the hell knows. But stop discounting the game"s history as impacting its success.

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Sure it could have.

It could have been World of Warcraft....it could have looked and played exactly like it does now. The only difference would have been people wouldn"t have known its name.

Now...take WOW as it released. It looks the same and it plays the same. It had an 8 month open beta. Would people have played it?? Sure they would have. You"re playing the hypothetical game just as much as I am, you just think that its ok from your point of view. -shrug- Its the same point of view....what if.

History means very little any more. The only folks calling WOW the Bnet game tended to be the haters. Once again the majority of folks didn"t even know what Bnet was. As Ngruk has been saying these games are becoming more like movies and pure entertainment where the decision to watch said movie is based on what other people are saying about it rather than who made it.

Honestly we have gotten to the point where word of mouth and reviews have more influence on peoples decisions than who made the game or what they did before. People have learned that even the best track record can still produce a crap game and no track record at all only means you have to wait and see.

History doesn"t matter...product matters. The product is the be all and end all of what drives people to your game. Period. You can easily prove it too.

Can you name any games, with an IP, that suck BUT have a successful and growing player base??

Can you name any games, without an IP, that rock BUT don"t have a successful and growing player base??

I miss the old days of telephone calls, back when you couldn"t dial a number on your own...you had to speak with a real operator and have them connect you! That personal touch!

And don"t get me started on ATMs and self-checkout supermarkets!!! I want the old HARDCORE days of having to stand in banklines or being forced to write checks instead of swiping a card!

my great grandmother had the last party line on the street- she got a dedicated phone for her house in 1970...my grandmother, who lived upstairs from her mom, didn"t even have a phone til 1980. if she got a call, my great grandmother would bang on the heating pipe, 2 hits for grandmother phone call, 3 for grandfather....

now those were the days...

Gaereth said:

. . . .. You"re playing the hypothetical game just as much as I am, you just think that its ok from your point of view. -shrug- Its the same point of view....what if. . . .

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Not playing a hypothetical game at all. Basing it off of what exactly happened. WOW had an existing popular franchise game. Tons played it and Starcraft off Bnet. WOW targeted that market. They turned their EXISTING, highly popular game into a MMO. And they did it in a polished fashion. Perfect forumula for success.

Had ZERO to do with a start up company making a startup MMO from scratch. And we have YET to see a repetition of WOW. Not to say that it won"t happen but my guess is WAR will have the closest shot because it too has a franchise history to work off of. That doesn"t mean it will succeed, but it certainly helps. And that was my point here to any startup company that is serious about getting into the business.

You can have a great designed game, but if people are not interested it just doesn"t matter. Same with a great movie; great reviews, the public still yawns.

Now Curt apparently is shooting for the 10-20 million subscriber range, despite the fact that no game in history has come close to that except WOW at the low end. He also feels his game will be the greatest. I am going to cut him slack at this stage since I am assuming it is mostly exuberance on his part and I really don"t want to rain on his parade. But if it continues and little is shown for it, there will be cloud bursts ;p

The market was really poised for a WoW. People had been interested in online games for the past 5-7 years. Many were turned off by certain aspects of the previous games, such as the gankfests that UO could be or the poopsocking of EQ. WoW came alone with a strong formula that appealed to casuals and hardcores alike. The IP and company name certainly didn"t hurt, but I think another game could have done the same thing. SWG for example.. had it not flat-out sucked, it could be the WoW of today.

I do agree that Curt is really digging a hole for himself as I noted earlier though.

I did catch that comment of yours twobit heheh. But as for whether a generic MMO doing what WOW did, I just don"t think so. We EQers are a different breed than the Bnet crowd, where the large growth came from. And that growth was a play right off WOW"s already existing franchise.

As for SWG, it never had a shot. Can be summed up in one word, "Brad." Enough said there heheh.

I think the analogy to movies is the most spot on. Developing an MMO really requires the production team to figure out what they"re shooting for. You can as with some movies the entire goal is for commercial success, selling the most tickets, boxes , generating the most revenue. It"s not to say that these arent good products in and of themselves but most people would not consider Top Gun to be one of the best movies of all time.

On the other hand you can direct your production to a vision or a piece of art and see it that way. I think for most people, they remember EQ in its original form as a work of art. I don"t think any of original EQ was at all tailored to the general public or to the lowest common denominator. In the newer generation of games, one like Eve with a smaller following but is praised for its system falls in a similar category.

Where WoW falls is debateable.

This is not to say the two categories in either film or gaming are mutually exclusive. Certainly there will be games that are great visions and do well commercially, and of course there are films that win academy awards that smash box office numbers. But more often than not, its really a matter of what the production team is shooting and aiming for initially.

Maxxius said:

Not playing a hypothetical game at all. Basing it off of what exactly happened. WOW had an existing popular franchise game. Tons played it and Starcraft off Bnet. WOW targeted that market. They turned their EXISTING, highly popular game into a MMO. And they did it in a polished fashion. Perfect forumula for success.

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Yes...but you are hypothetically saying that if WOW hadn"t had the history it wouldn"t have done as well. You are saying, hypothetically, that any game that doesn"t have an existing franchise and fan base won"t do so well.

Its a hypothetical.

We just happen to have differing hypothetical opinions. I think that if a no name had released WOW, with no history, no fans, but with the same game as we received and in the same manner Blizz had it would have done extremely well.

You disagree.

However, both are hypothetical statements. I believe that the game trumps all and you believe that franchise and fans trumps all. I believe that WOW"s numbers came firstly from how much fun and solid the game is and you believe its due to its franchise and fans.

I guess we just have to shelve the discussion until a no name releases a solid game since we are essentially just saying nuhuh to each other. When a solid, fun game of the quality of WOW is released we can revisit and see what we can see.

Well if you want to go negative inference, but I already said that. I said who the hell knows what would have happened. But you still miss the point, there never would have been a WOW clone to begin with to compare. If WOW never existed, you honestly think a WOW type game would have been made? And yeah we are going in circles now.

*edit*

Edited out the word clone since how can you have a clone of something that never existed ;p

Maxxius said:

Well if you want to go negative inference, but I already said that. I said who the hell knows what would have happened. But you still miss the point, there never would have been a WOW clone to begin with to compare. If WOW never existed, you honestly think a WOW type game would have been made? And yeah we are going in circles now.

*edit*

Edited out the word clone since how can you have a clone of something that never existed ;p

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I think what you are debating is this.

1) Would the WoW MMO have as many subs as it has, or had, without the pre-existing WoW and Starcraft franchise?

I think it would have. Given the hype created during BETA, and the fact that at no point was the hype overblown with regards to the physical product. Rarely does a game get hyped, beta"d, and still exceed expectations.

I think I may be in the minority with that opinion as well, but I do think the market was primed for that game to come along when it did. I guess the flip side would be this. Would another MMO, as polished in all aspects as WoW is and was, have garnered the same size audience as WoW did, if WoW the MMO had never been made? Now that I think like that I wonder.

It"s amazing how many more movie industry comparisons arise as we continue the discussion. The Top Gun example is a great one. I remember thinking what a great movie it was when it came out. I also remember flipping channels 3-4 years ago and it was on, and I watched it. When it was over I remember thinking how incredibly corny every second of that movie was to me now.

Don"t forget perspective. We all, and I think I am in the majority here, thought EQ was the end all be all. I think it was. Given what they did, when they did it, and how they did it, it was a genre changing product. A world changing product if you think about the impact it had.

Now I am older, I"ve seen more, played more, and I look at EQ with an incredibly different perspective. It still is the things I stated above, but I wouldn"t play it. There"s too much out there that I love playing now and only so many hours in a day. I guess that"s another movie comparison isn"t it?

And yes, it really does boil down to dev costs vs revenue when you are looking at a product as a success or failure. Very few companies can take a bath in a product from a dev costs standpoint while not expecting a good return. Though there are products we are talking about, working on, where the return is literally one of the least important aspects of the picture.

Creating a place for ourselves, making a name for ourselves, building a huge global fan base that trusts us implicitly, from customer service to product integrity involves doing a lot of things that require capital to create but will not return the tangible revenue and other things that a ful blown sku will.

Then again if you do want to be someone in the space, have a presence and become the best you have to have the trust of the people that pay their hard earned dollars to buy your games and services.

Cheat them on even one small aspect of it, and you are going to lose somewhere.

Ngruk said:

Now I am older, I"ve seen more, played more, and I look at EQ with an incredibly different perspective. It still is the things I stated above, but I wouldn"t play it. There"s too much out there that I love playing now and only so many hours in a day. I guess that"s another movie comparison isn"t it?

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I would play it in a heartbeat. I played it for 6 years. I eventually just lost interest because i played it for so long. It was just time for me to move on from that game. I still dont think EQ was ever corny. Some of the stuff i did was probalby a little insane. Waiting for spawn and camping 1 stupid item for so long. (hate you shrink wand).

Ngruk said:

. . .
Now I am older, I"ve seen more, played more, and I look at EQ with an incredibly different perspective. It still is the things I stated above, but I wouldn"t play it. There"s too much out there that I love playing now and only so many hours in a day. . . .

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I agree with you 100% there. It had it"s time, just isn"t now. Would also agree that it was a milestone game, as was WOW, and as even is the WII console game.

You guys can come up with the most absurd unrelated world references you can to try to be funny all you want, but they are just that - absurd unrelated world references to try to be funny.

LOL FUNNEH, BUT WE GOT IT A COUPLE YEARS AGO
Is that what you were after?

Btw, you"re proving my point incase you didn"t realize that.

I think I may be in the minority with that opinion as well, but I do think the market was primed for that game to come along when it did. I guess the flip side would be this. Would another MMO, as polished in all aspects as WoW is and was, have garnered the same size audience as WoW did, if WoW the MMO had never been made? Now that I think like that I wonder.

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I would say that WoW benefited from huge momentum based on the franchise. But a franchise in and of itself cant carry a game. Look at Star Wars Galaxies. Certainly it has a bigger franchise than Warcraft could ever claim. Probably one of the biggest franchises in the entertainment world. But a game thats designed poorly, and unpolished regardless of how much momentum and fanbase will ultimately underperform.

I think at the time when WoW came out, the player base had gotten a taste of a somewhat complete game. Between the release of EQ and WoW there were a few other games with some polish but for the most part many of the releases were bogged down by catastrophic failures technically or design wise.

I would argue that WoW took full advantage of its franchise but that it"s game design and completeness is what ultimately was important. Barring blizzards name, Im certain it would have been successful but would have had taken a much flatter path towards being #1.

One of the bigger difference is that WoW is based on a playerbase of game buyers. The comparison to other franchises, such are Star Wars isn"t quite accurate. Likewise, tapping into the fanbase of Curt and Co is more complicated since you"re radically changing the format of how they are fans, if that makes any sense.

I"m really surprised that EA hasn"t made more of an effort to create Madden Online as an mmo like subscription service. They already have a franchise based on people buying slightly newer versions of the same game every year, it"s not a huge stretch to get them to pay a monthly fee.

Part of the reason why WoW succeeded was that back in 2004 EverQuest was a MMO that was showing signs of age. SOE had just released probably 2 of the worst expansions in EQ"s history: Gates of Discord and Omens of War. Those expansions promoted more raiding at the expense of casual players. EQ started out as a group friendly, casual friendly MMO but ended up turning into a game for powergamers and uberguilders. When you stop attracting new players to your game, you start the inevitable march of death for your MMO.

Player dissatisfaction with EQ and SOE was very high back in those days. Shameless arrogance, poor product quality, outsourcing customer service and other shenanigans were just the tip of the iceberg with what was wrong with SOE. WoW was a breath of fresh air and at long last provided us with an alternative to the SOE monopoly. WoW was a MMO that offered casual gamers with an opportunity to experience a fantasy MMO without the ridiculous barriers to entry that EQ had at the time.

The real genius of WoW is that it is a triumph of craftsmanship and polish. From the art direction to the gameplay mechanics to the lore and to the interface to the design of the encounters. All of that takes time and money to create. You also need to have a sense of patient vision and confident leadership. Those qualities are almost non-existent in the video game industry except for a few companies like Blizzard. Oh and let"s not forget that Blizzard is basically it"s own publisher. Pressure from publishers to release product for Christmas and other arbitrary dates is the number one reason most games fall short.

Don"t get me wrong, I believe that WoW has many serious and critical flaws which 38 Studios can learn from if they do their homework. There is a growing rumbling in the ranks of WoW players that the direction of that MMO is starting to go down the very same road of elitism that EQ ended up with. There"s going to be a great opportunity for a smart company to take many subscribers from WoW in the near future.

To dethrone WoW it will take nothing less then a leader of a company with courage to think outside the box and usher in a revolution for the MMO world. I read this interview with Curt Schilling where he was not taking "NO" for an answer and challenged his staff as to why they thought things were impossible. That"s exactly the kind of maverick we need in the MMO business! Every invention throughout history was considered "impossible" and laughed at by the so-called experts until someone stood up and dared to think differently. I"m really hoping for something extraordinary from 38 Studios.

Yes but "willing it" and actually being able to do it are two different things.

True...but "willing it" is the first step.

Many houses don"t even get that far.