Thats it! Thanks!
jk
Hmm. I think we can agree they are goign to get their asses sued off (or least a C&D) for the name and logo of their “MATRIX online game platform.”
Somone needs to explain Trademarks to these chaps.
JK
Yep - AOL/TW has deep pockets and legal staff.
My scoop on the MMO genre is that its requires so much work, technology and time that maintaing and creating such a game requires HUGE cashflow.
Thus, MMOs are quite demanding on getting monthly subscription fees from members who not only have to pay constant subscriptions but also have to spend huge amounts of time playing, to gain some level of importance in the game.
This makes selling such a product over a long period of time difficult. The only way an MMO can really succesfully compete are therefore:
1 - make the game original: unique fun to the many others
2 - limit subscription fee
3 - somehow change the gaming model so that
joe-schmoe who only has 1 hour every odd day
to play can enjoy it.
these restrictions along with the need of breaking many technological challenges ( security, latency etc) is tough one which can only be supported by a handful of rich studios with access to huge memberlists and groundbreaking internet:gaming technologies.
I initially thought that the home-alone developer could break in with a cool game on mobile phones, but after working on commercial product, the costs and skills involved in such work coupled with the graphics abilities of upcoming phones (nokiq ngage) makes it a difficult target for the garage startup developer.
Larry
[quote]My scoop on the MMO genre is that its requires so much work, technology and time that maintaing and creating such a game requires HUGE cashflow.
[/quote]
It all depends on your expectations. If you expect hundreds of thousands of subscribers on a massive world with bleeding-edge 3D graphics … well, yeah. You’re right.
However, there are a number of indie MMO efforts which are current successes. They won’t bring in millions of dollars a month, but then again, their development costs are so modest compared with the big dev houses they don’t need to in order to succeed. Look at Furcadia for example, or Runescape. I’ve run across a few others, but I can’t quite recall the URLs. There’s also a few up-and-comers, like Magicosm and Pernica.
[quote]I initially thought that the home-alone developer could break in with a cool game on mobile phones, but after working on commercial product, the costs and skills involved in such work coupled with the graphics abilities of upcoming phones (nokiq ngage) makes it a difficult target for the garage startup developer.
[/quote]
I respectfully disagree. There are a number of indie game developers who are making a very good living at it.
Take care,
Paul
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[quote]My scoop on the MMO genre is that its requires so much work, technology and time that maintaing and creating such a game requires HUGE cashflow.
[/quote]
Only bnecause of the nascenty state of the technology. As it matures costs will come down.
I agree the “casual persistant online game” that make sit mwork will probably be a catagory maker.
Again only because everyone is working today with stone knives and bear skins. Expect it to change.
Also I think you are mixing the idea of MMO with the idea of “persistant 3D RPG”. There are many MMO ideas that can be executed at significantly lower cost.
For a casual MMO game done by a small independant team in their garage, see “Puzzle Pirates.”
CQ
Our game Multiple Injury was a casual persistant online game. Imagine Quakeworld meets Starcraft. We’ve got mostly all the graphics, and a huge chunk of code already.
Unfortunately no matter which way we cut it we need a couple of million $ to write it and support it until it makes its own money back from subscriptions, and when we asked for venture capital they’d usually hang up the phone the first time the word “game” was mentioned, or if not then, when we subsequently went on to mention “Java”.
You never know, if Alien Flux does unexpectedly well we might just manage it one day…
Cas 