The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer
SOE and LucasArts have just announced massive changes to Galaxies. The game is becoming class-based and centering on twitchier combat. The crafting professions will be consolidated into one class.
Why is this of interest here? Simply put, it’s the largest set of proposed changes to an existing MMO that I’ve ever seen. If successful, it could change the rules as to how much designers can mess with the formula of a live MMO.
Lost Garden has a great article on what he calls ‘Village Games’, which is to say, small-scale MMOs in the vein of Puzzle Pirates and Achaea.
Retail games can make over a billion dollars with a single title. That is rather exciting. However, as a developer, you are going to see approximately none of it…A successful village game will produce a steady profit, but the money never becomes astronomical. Instead, you’ll be able to provide above average salaries and many years of job security. This is far better than most games can promise.
Just some other random thoughts from AGD.
The conference still has too many panels. Panels are good and all if the participants squabble (as Ted Castranova and the guy from IGE nearly did), but the best talks are when one speaker gets a chance to talk at length about some hair-brained idea he has. That’s actually how I sold my speech to the powers that be. In a panel, if someone says something totally on crack, the moderator steers things back on track, and too often you end up with a beginner’s course on any given field. To go off the deep end, a talker needs a chance to really be able to spout crack, and then have the time to back it up. Continue reading
I previously pointed out this Escapist magazine article about EA and Origin. Seems that Greg Costikyan is even more critical of it than I was, saying that no matter what the problems were between EA and Origin, Trip was long gone before the dark days heralding Origin’s decline. Here’s his outsider viewpoint, on of all places, a Heroes of Might and Magic fan site.
Remember what EA stands for? It stands for “Electronic Arts,” and in its early days (e.g., when Trip was its co-founder and still running the joint), it ran ads asking “Can a game make you cry?” and actively promoting artists like Chris Crawford and Dan Bunten as the leading lights and innovators of a new form of digital entertainment. That EA stands for nothing like this today is an indictment of its current management – but not of Trip.
Greg is, once again, more correct and eloquent than I. There is, needless to say, serious history between Trip and the Garriott boys, but truth be told, that history has little to do with the winding decline of Origin Studios. In retrospect, it’s surprising that history was overcome when Origin was ACQUIRED.
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