It’s like we’re stuck in these boxed product business models and funding structures, but they want you to build something that you never leave. It just doesn’t work.

I can sympathize with Roper. Atari was no great friend to DDO before, during, or after the game launched. Though I can’t wholly blame them, written promises notwithstanding. They didn’t have faith that such a inexpensive (production-wise) game could compete in the online game space. As it turns out, they were right–at least until the change in business model.

I think it’s more than just the publising funding model that’s broken for MMOs. The easiest analysis of why Roper has met with less success is simple: it’s the MMO market itself. Sure, independent measures of mediocre game quality point to part of the problem in Roper’s case (sorry). At the end of the day, though, developing an MMO is a very high mountain to climb. Cue Richard Kiley.

Successes in the biz did it early (SOE, Turbine, Mythic, CCP) and had a chance to build an infrastructure and learn from mistakes before costs exploded. Other winners in the space had money and time (Blizzard, and perhaps Bioware) to escape Roper’s dilemma by funding themselves with success. Everyone else faces an uphill battle. In addition to the sheer cost and complexity, today a would-be MMO developer must battle in a competitive landscape in which all the network effects work against them and work for their published competitors.

It doesn’t help that online game developers seem to be a disorganized mess of myopia, amateurism, and poor leadership. Or so the stories from colleagues tell me. A lot of investor capital came into the MMO space in the last decade in hopes of chasing EverQuest and then World of Warcraft. Most of that money was wasted. Witness the wreckage of the last five years.

Really, why would anyone fund or work on an MMO today? Both developers and investor capital have walked across the street to social game developers, where costs are lower and the potential gains are at least as high. Talent and money have moved on to the next big thing. MMOs have development expenses and a consumer business model that’s difficult to justify. In the fast-evolving online space, the MMO isn’t just an impossible dream. It’s a dinosaur in a tar pit.

I owe my start as a game developer to two such game successes.Though D&D was developed while I was in diapers, and I was in college while Richard was putting together Magic.

We should not expect this trend to continue for two reasons. The first, a bit theoretical. Our attention spans seem shorter, and we seem happy to move onto new things faster than ever. Remember when a hit game would consume us for months and months? Now, it’s lucky to last a few weeks. The second reason, perhaps more provably, is that today’s games struggle to create stickiness. Not only do they face more competition, but it’s my supposition that today’s platforms work against them. Let’s examine what I mean here by considering the platform, or format, behind a few leading multiplayer games.

Pen & Paper Games. Dungeons & Dragons, despite occasional competitors such as Vampire and others, was never dethroned as the king of paper RPGs. Even when it stopped publishing new product for almost a year. And what was the platform? A pile of hardback books, a character on a piece of paper, real-world friends, and your imagination.

Collectible Card Games. Magic: the Gathering was never dethroned as a paper card game, unless you count the craze of Pokemon, a highly collected game that was seldom played and which has long since crashed (probably not coincidentally). The platform: a pile of cards, and opponents that are real-world friends or acquaintances.

Multiplayer FPS. Every multiplayer console action game has a brief half-life. Even the most popular of multiplayer console games are displaced within a year by a successor, even if it’s a sequel from the same publisher. Is this something inherent about the “realistic” genres, or the fact that there’s no persistent character to get attached to, despite all the equipment unlocks? Here, the platform are consoles that are obsolete in a decade, and a CD. Largely anonymous and transient human contacts.

MMOs. Ultima Online… no, wait, EverQuest… no, wait, WoW ate their lunch. EverQuest was the leader from 1999 to 2004 — after which Blizzard owned the Western market (see below). At present, WoW seems unlikely to be dethroned, 5 years on. The platform: A Windows-based PC, an installed piece of software, your character. Persistent human contacts and relationships that are necessary to reach game content, though contact with other players grows more automated, more fleeting, and easier all the time.

The dominating swath of brown — WoW.

Social Games. Today, we have Facebook, the premier social networking site. And FarmVille, game leader for the past couple years. In about a week, Farmville will lose its #1 rank among Facebook’s application hierarchy to a lightweight Phrases app. No doubt the news will be hailed as a milestone moment in FarmVille’s decline from unstoppable industry giant to popular social game. Though you shouldn’t cry too much for Zynga. For now, anyway. Judging by its DAU/MAU, the core of the player base isn’t fleeing, and it’s those dedicated users that supply more of the cash.

More on point, the platform would seem to provide FarmVille with every advantage. Any internet browser and just about any mobile device allow players to access the game. State-of-the-art machinery isn’t a requirement. Really, no investment of any kind is necessary to start playing. Plus, you’ve got real world friends and acquaintances already hooked into the network. Of course, all of these reasons are the same causes that could lead to the game’s obsolescence. With prior gaming experiences, players had layers of investment keeping them attached. Books, cards, disks, consoles, subscriptions, etc. Those are all gone. It’s no wonder then that Zynga’s developers spend so much of their time trying to craft new Skinner boxes that keep the audience hooked (and measure their success as precisely as possibly). My long-term bet, though, is that this is a Sisyphean task. The social gaming platform works against you — it’s too easy to find the next game, suffer no investment loss, and play the next game with all your friends.

“How many MMOs have worked in US market? WOW and Everquest.”

Scott is right. Take Two shouldn’t make a Bioshock MMO. But he’s all wrong as to the reasons why. First, let’s ask Mr. Letterman to bring up The Top 10 Games Scott Zelnick Forgot Existed:

1. Ultima Online
2. Asheron’s Call
3. Dark Age of Camelot
4. Star Wars Galaxies
5. City of Heroes
6. Dungeons & Dragons Online
7. Lord of the Rings Online
8. Eve
9. EverQuest 2
10. Guild Wars

All of these MMO games captured a fanbase, were profitable, and to one level or another, successful in fulfilling their design. I happened to work on a couple of them myself. Now, none of them were ever the most popular MMO (er, except for Ultima Online).

Nevertheless, I get Scott’s point. Making an MMO is a big money bet, and a lot of money was lost in the last decade in an effort to cash in on the MMO craze (now all that venture money is in social games, of course). Most of those MMOs never shipped. On the other hand, if we look at all those failure cases, most belong to unheard-of studios developing second-tier or third-tier IPs. And, um, Microsoft. Couldn’t we say the same thing of any game genre?

There are two real and sensible reasons not to make a BioShock MMO. First, it would be dumb to integrate persistent multiplayer into this franchise. I would expect to succeed about as well as, well, putting instanced multiplayer into the IP (hi, Bioshock 2!) And more importantly, the lesson of MMOs today could be that only the largest and most financially successful franchises will be made into MMOs. Big franchises have been turned into successful MMOs. Little ones, not so much. Bioshock is not a successful, big franchise. My personal like of the game and its outstanding ratings aside, Bioshock has never sold like a big franchise. And I’m pretty sure we can agree two years later that it is not as big as Star Wars.

So yeah, I agree with Scott’s conclusion. He shouldn’t invest the $75M+ into making a Bioshock MMO. But watch out for the Bioshock facebook ap.

Update: Scott Jennings has a different list, but he points out that Scott’s ignorance is just as absurd.

The response from players to DDO Unlimited has been nothing short of phenomenal. We’ve known all along how great this game is and by implementing an innovative new model that put the players in charge of how they pay and play DDO Unlimited, we’ve successfully expanded our reach and injected new energy into the game.  Without a doubt, DDO Unlimited is a hit!

Equally important, of course, is the five-fold increase in revenue. Mild critical acclaim doesn’t hurt, but the bottom line drives development for Turbine as much as any other company. From what I hear, the newfold success has allowed for a mild increase in support and in future plans for the franchise.

It’s worth wondering why the free play structure appears to have worked so well with this product. I considered in my last post how both D&D players and MMO players include a great deal of highly price sensitive players. I still think that’s true. Giving those players a chance to try something new– without the $50 buy-in, even without the $15 monthly fee–is a good idea. I wish I had managed to convince the former regime in Westwood that DDO needed a different business model back in 2005. Because there are millions of lapsed D&D players out there, created by more than thirty years of the property. And now there are also millions of lapsed Warcraft players, and MMO players generally willing to consider something new. Give those people an easy opportunity, and some of the will stick around and put money in your pocket.

If you’re making a new MMO these days (even if you have a killer IP and a killer reputation like our corporate friends down in Austin), I encourage giving extra consideration to support a get-in-the-action experience. Include a demo or sample that can lead to subscription or other investment.

Dungeons & Now What?

It was worth commenting on before, but time flies and here we are. DDO freeplay has gone live. Someday I should compose something of a personal postmortem on the game, but until then, we can talk about this development.

Of course, by “free” it’s “freemium,” not absolutely free. There are ways — subscriptions and microtransactions — for players to put money into Turbine’s pocket (and no doubt Atari and Hasbro take a cut, or else they wouldn’t have agreed to the new business model). On balance, though, it does seem that Turbine has made it possible for the absolutely free player to earn access to all of the game’s content. The guy dropping the nickel just makes it easier. Not entirely unlike the latest social network games.  But with better graphics.

So what do I think ? It’s a savvy move, even if it’s widely regarded as a Hail Mary pass born of desperation. DDO was never designed (or marketed) to compete with games at the now-traditional $15 subscription. A smaller scope resulted in something between Diablo and a full MMO in terms of content, scope, and investment. We should expect the audience to be able to discriminate value when it doesn’t work in their favor, and Tubine failed that test. D&D players most everywhere prove highly sensitive to price; many believe a $30 Player’s Handbook is overpriced, when the cost per hour of entertainment quickly approaches zero. Finding ways to reduce, hide, or make costs incremental to the audience are all good ideas in this internet age.

Check back in a few months to see if Turbine announces additional content or an expansion (new business model success!) or cuts bait (patience was never their strong suit).