console article

[Coreyh]

Voice communation doesn't sound appealing to me. I've played online enough to notice that people in most styles of competitive games are quite rude. I can also type faster then I can talk.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-08-30&res=l

I've played quite a few twitch games over dialup. The game just has to be able to use dead reckoning. I can't say that would work if the internet got even more laggy. I've had plenty of times when I couldn't play because of lag.

Personally I'd get into console internet gaming if the games were interesting and the community was polite.

I think having a nice community has a lot to do with a online game doing well. It the main thing I enjoyed about playing games online. The majority of the time i've spent gaming online was leveling on muds with other people. Its simple and very enjoyable till you get bored of leveling.

I'm pretty sure phantasy star online did pretty well for a console game. I would have played that but I don't enjoy leveling as much as I used too.

I have some hope in Resident Evil Online being good. I might have puzzles that involve people working together and shooting stuff. I would enjoy that. I have some hope that making people work together and use their brains might make for a nicer player base.

I'm hoping myst online might have puzzles like that too.

[JessicaM]

I can sympathize with you, but I suspect the voice commo will be one of the more popular features of XBox Live. Voice commo isn't the end-all/be-all, but t is part of the process. Before we can figure out how to let people effectively shut out the rude jerks (of which there DO seem to more than a fair share in gaming), we need some experience in just making VC work for console games.

[Mylon]

Why don't we have voice chat for PC games? Well, admittedly I'm a little behind on things since I don't like paying $50 for a game I'll likely get tired of in a week (and instead pay $10-20 for older games I hear good things about and often forget about in two weeks, more gameplay, less cost, especially with hardware!). Sure, there's Roger Wilco and whatnot, but if I'm not mistaken, that requires the other players to have an external program to manage it, which means additional setup time and quite probably low usage rate among most gamers.

[JessicaM]

Originally posted by Mylon
Why don't we have voice chat for PC games? Well, admittedly I'm a little behind on things since I don't like paying $50 for a game I'll likely get tired of in a week (and instead pay $10-20 for older games I hear good things about and often forget about in two weeks, more gameplay, less cost, especially with hardware!). Sure, there's Roger Wilco and whatnot, but if I'm not mistaken, that requires the other players to have an external program to manage it, which means additional setup time and quite probably low usage rate among most gamers.

This is part of what I was talking about in the column, in a roundabout kind of way. Since no one bothered to set up real standards for PC voice chat in games and enforce them, it became a catch-as-catch-can affair. What happened is that several vendors, Roger Wilco among them, went around to publishers and tried to get them to include the API in their games, with the predictable results: Some games use trhem, some don't, some players download the apps, some don't.

To be fair, the technology is still catching up with the trends and trying to enforce any kind of standard on PCs is a trial, to say the least. And if a player is motivated, he and his friends can acquire the software easily enough and learn to use it.

I expect we'll see Microsoft embed a useful voice chat and voice recognition feature set in Windows and DirectX one day, when it suits their purposes.

[Tappen]

I'm not convinced that voice chat is as effective an addition to console online gaming as Jessica suggests. Coreyh is right in saying (I'm paraphrasing) that having to read what various strangers type in MMORPGs is bad enough, but having their voices and choice of language in my living room is something I could probably do without. It's a much more attractive feature for playing games just with friends. This doesn't seem a huge breakthrough from the current audience for offline console games.

[MahrinSkel]

Microsoft is going a smarter route, in my opinion. They will be an aggregator and portal; developers of Xbox online games won’t need to cut their own deals for bandwidth, billing and account management services, et al. Microsoft will take the majority of the money, of course, but it will also take away from developers some significant and costly problems, so the trade-off is likely to be a wash and quite attractive to developers, especially small, innovative houses that can’t afford to offer these services themselves.

MS will own the bandwidth, the servers, the revenue stream, and through control of these the soul of any small developer that takes them up on this deal. What bargaining power would the developer have, when it comes time to negotiate how much of the revenue on their game they will be allowed to keep? How do they know if they are even getting what they are supposed to under the contract?

Compared to the costs of making and marketing an MMP (especially the next generation, which will have development costs in the 8 figure range), the setup costs are almost incidental. The history of aggregator/developer relationships has never turned out well for either party, and there's no reason to believe that XBox Live is going to be an exception.

In MMP's, whoever controls the money controls everything. Letting anyone get between you and the revenue stream is a recipe for indentured servitude.

--Dave

[JessicaM]

Originally posted by MahrinSkel
MS will own the bandwidth, the servers, the revenue stream, and through control of these the soul of any small developer that takes them up on this deal. What bargaining power would the developer have, when it comes time to negotiate how much of the revenue on their game they will be allowed to keep? How do they know if they are even getting what they are supposed to under the contract?

And what bargaining power do they have if they can't afford to provide the service in the first place? If the developer is even mediocre smart, they'll have the standard 'audit' clause in the contract and use it.

Sure, what developer wouldn't want to control it all? And how many can actually afford to do it?

Originally posted by MahrinSkel
Compared to the costs of making and marketing an MMP (especially the next generation, which will have development costs in the 8 figure range), the setup costs are almost incidental.

Dave, I usually agree with you, but the above is just plain silly. First, you don't have to spend 8 figures, as Mythic itself so amply proved, much to it's credit. The set-up costs are incidental only if you plan on providing sub-par, crappy service or can't afford any better; either loses you customers as fast as having a crappy, ill-tempered game. I doubt Mythic considers the set-up costs for live operations for DAoC 'incidental,' unless you are prepared to tell me that you spent less than $100,000 on hardware, bandwidth and CS reps for launch. For many small developers, even $100k is tough, if not impossible.

As well, not every developer will have investors and a retail publisher to provide cash or be able to attract such through experience and previous success; should those people not go with an aggregator, if it is the only way to get the game out there?

Originally posted by MahrinSkel
The history of aggregator/developer relationships has never turned out well for either party, and there's no reason to believe that XBox Live is going to be an exception.

I disagree, but only partially, because you're mostly right. It depends on the parties involved. I would think (or hope) that developers involved with GEnie during the Golden Age were more or less satisfied with the arrangement.

However, it still doesn't negate the fact that many small developers really have no choice. It can take years to build a big enough reputation and war chest to afford to do it right, or attract the money that will allow you to do it right.

Originally posted by MahrinSkel
In MMP's, whoever controls the money controls everything. Letting anyone get between you and the revenue stream is a recipe for indentured servitude.
--Dave

For a time, yes, you are correct. Some houses will have no choice. Mythic spent years in slavery to the likes of GEnie, AOL, Engage and Kesmai, bided it's time and made it work in the end. Your company is proof positive that the aggregator relationship doesn't have to be forever.

Nor is it proof that the relationship MUST be bad or that a develop will sell the company sould doing it. Is it better to find the cash to do it yourself? Damn straight. But to say that it can't or has never worked isn't a fact.

[Tappen]

Authors let publishers handle the money for their books. Certainly there is the occasional fraud but in general they get their cut of the sales and they aren't indentured servants to the publishing company. It's the same with music artists (with more fraud and sometimes closer to indentured servant status but that has something to do with the financial savvy of the artists). Microsoft has generally lived up to the letter of their agreements. It's in the network effects when titles succeed that their partners have gotten screwed because MS owns the standard.

If you create an XBox Live! game you can't go to another publishing company for the current game but you can hopefully switch for the next one if the deal seems rotten? I guess as usual it requires competition for a market system to work, so any developers going with MS had better hope other online console game services succeed.

[MahrinSkel]

Originally posted by JessicaM
And what bargaining power do they have if they can't afford to provide the service in the first place? If the developer is even mediocre smart, they'll have the standard 'audit' clause in the contract and use it.

Sure, what developer wouldn't want to control it all? And how many can actually afford to do it?
Can they afford not to? Audits don't seem to work really well for musicians or writers, it just makes the gateways use *really* byzantine accounting practices.

The only one who knows if the numbers are honest is the one who is generating them.
Dave, I usually agree with you, but the above is just plain silly. First, you don't have to spend 8 figures, as Mythic itself so amply proved, much to it's credit. The set-up costs are incidental only if you plan on providing sub-par, crappy service or can't afford any better; either loses you customers as fast as having a crappy, ill-tempered game. I doubt Mythic considers the set-up costs for live operations for DAoC 'incidental,' unless you are prepared to tell me that you spent less than $100,000 on hardware, bandwidth and CS reps for launch. For many small developers, even $100k is tough, if not impossible.
We spent more, but we were an exception in so many different ways. We used a 3rd party client engine, which we had already used to produce two games and knew the capabilities and limits of already. We had a server in the form of the Tempest engine that had been in use for text muds for over 10 years. The executives of the company had lots of experience with small online games, and they had people around who had been through a launch of a major MMP and knew what kinds of problems the jump in scale would cause (me and the same network admin I worked with at the EQ launch).

We made the game successfully and cheaply because we had *everything* going for us, and didn't make any of the kinds of mistakes that add months to the ship date and hundreds of thousands to the cost. Some of that was experience, and some was luck. Very few small developers are going to have that experience, and you can't count on luck. Those mistakes are going to cost them money.

Quite possibly Mark's greatest accomplishment was finding enough money to see the company through the two months from launch to the first billing. But it wasn't really all that much money involved compared to development costs, what really saved us was not having to dig into the reserves to meet payroll by launching late (having to buy the hardware outright at the last minute because of unreasonable lease terms didn't help, though it saved money in the long run). But Mark and Rob did something almost unheard of in game development: Budgeted a reserve.
As well, not every developer will have investors and a retail publisher to provide cash or be able to attract such through experience and previous success; should those people not go with an aggregator, if it is the only way to get the game out there?
If you can't come up with $4-5 million, maybe you don't have the ante and shouldn't get in the game (because it's unlikely you will be competitive). If you can, you don't *need* what the aggregator is offering.
I disagree, but only partially, because you're mostly right. It depends on the parties involved. I would think (or hope) that developers involved with GEnie during the Golden Age were more or less satisfied with the arrangement.

However, it still doesn't negate the fact that many small developers really have no choice. It can take years to build a big enough reputation and war chest to afford to do it right, or attract the money that will allow you to do it right.
Mythic was hand-to-mouth all through that phase of its existence, from what I am told. It built valuable experience, but never made enough money for a bid at the big-time. It was a movie/TV production investor that came up with the money for that.

Someone entering the market now can't afford the time to build experience, they're going to have to *buy* it. The list of experienced MMP devs isn't quite as short as it used to be, and the presence of just two veterans from EQ made Camelot launch a *lot* smoother than it might have been otherwise. Most of the problems that come up aren't that hard to solve, they're just hard to anticipate.

There's also a few books coming out in the next few months (I'm contributing to one, you're writing another) that will make a lot of that knowledge part of the "common wisdom" of the trade.

Also, from what I understand the PS2 contract terms are much more favorable to developers, in terms of allowing them to control their own destiny. As Tappen points out, competition is a good thing. Some developers will bet on MS because of the value-added they see in turning over administration and operation to XBox-Live, others will prefer to retain the control. But I really can't see how you can point to MS as taking the "smarter" route, except from the viewpoint of MS. It's arguable, but it certainly isn't clear.

--Dave

[JessicaM]

Originally posted by MahrinSkel
Can they afford not to? Audits don't seem to work really well for musicians or writers, it just makes the gateways use *really* byzantine accounting practices.

The only one who knows if the numbers are honest is the one who is generating them.

Perhaps, but as they say about rigged gambling games, "You can't win if you don't play." Of course the game is rigged; always has been, always will be and it is naive to think it has ever been any different. That still doesn't mean you shouldn't play. Hell, we paid less of a royalty rate in 1989 for MMOGs than many games get now; things have actually improved a bit, on that score.

That just means the creative types have to do what they've always done: get as much up front as you can, audit when you can and get into your own space as quickly as feasible for your team. I certainly wouldn't blow off someone with a flippant, "If you can't pay for it all yourself, maybe you shouldn't be in the industry in the first place." If that were the case, you wouldn't have a job, because Mythic wouldn't exist.

Originally posted by MahrinSkel
We spent more, but we were an exception in so many different ways. We used a 3rd party client engine, which we had already used to produce two games and knew the capabilities and limits of already. We had a server in the form of the Tempest engine that had been in use for text muds for over 10 years. The executives of the company had lots of experience with small online games, and they had people around who had been through a launch of a major MMP and knew what kinds of problems the jump in scale would cause (me and the same network admin I worked with at the EQ launch).

We made the game successfully and cheaply because we had *everything* going for us, and didn't make any of the kinds of mistakes that add months to the ship date and hundreds of thousands to the cost. Some of that was experience, and some was luck. Very few small developers are going to have that experience, and you can't count on luck. Those mistakes are going to cost them money.

Quite possibly Mark's greatest accomplishment was finding enough money to see the company through the two months from launch to the first billing. But it wasn't really all that much money involved compared to development costs, what really saved us was not having to dig into the reserves to meet payroll by launching late (having to buy the hardware outright at the last minute because of unreasonable lease terms didn't help, though it saved money in the long run). But Mark and Rob did something almost unheard of in game development: Budgeted a reserve.

Which serves to prove my point. Mark gained a lot of experience doing games for aggregators, then took that experience, his native business acumen and his access to an investor and made the right moves at just the right time. And it didn't hurt that he and Rob assembled a talented team. Mythic is one of those classic overnight success stories that was 17 years or so in the making.

Originally posted by MahrinSkel
If you can't come up with $4-5 million, maybe you don't have the ante and shouldn't get in the game (because it's unlikely you will be competitive). If you can, you don't *need* what the aggregator is offering.

While as a businessperson I can agree with you to a certain point, this is basically saying, "Go away, kid, you bother us formerly small but now successul developers." I'm sure EA, Verant and Microsoft's own inhouse teams would be overjoyed if the development community took this heart. EverQuest was started in a garage and was made for about half that, for instance, from what I am told.

I also worry much about the innovation factor. Most of the innovation in games in general over the past ten years has come from small shops. Some grew big with time, of course, but we need the spark of small, passionate teams driving toward their own goals, especially in online gaming.

And... if we went with that theory of getting into MMOGs, there wouldn't be an industry today, or certainly not one as far along as we've come. Without GEnie, CompuServe and other services being willing to provide game developers the hardware, bandwidth, customer service, billing and account administration, etc., all the small and even solo developers such as the Kesmais and AUSIs,of the mid-1980s through to 1995 or so would have had nowhere to go. More than one of the people trained during that era are still in the industry (although EA managed to gut Kesmai pretty thoroughly and send some of the best people running to other companies).

There have also been high profile aggregator failures, notably TEN, Engage and Mplayer, but I believe that was from inexperience in being a good aggregator and misunderstranding the wants of the customers. I do sometimes cry over trhe many tens of millions they tossed down trhe proverbial drain...

Originally posted by MahrinSkel
Mythic was hand-to-mouth all through that phase of its existence, from what I am told. It built valuable experience, but never made enough money for a bid at the big-time. It was a movie/TV production investor that came up with the money for that.

I know; I was on the front lines with the company (and others) and used to regularly attend the Friday Night Movie expeditions (I'll never forget the time we bull-rushed into the first night of Batman and cordoned off 50 seats for the late-comers; I thought there would be fights in the aisles). I was the Product Manager at GEnie that recommended AUSI get it's first contract, for Galaxy II, and if I remember correctly, it was the first time GEnie ever paid an advance for a game (and a REAL small one it was, I'm sure Mark and Janet enjoyed a nice dinner at McD's on it, but you have to start somewhere when training an aggregator to give up dough). Did the same when I was Interplay, first with a couple shelf unit ports and then with online games; in fact, AUSI's first 2-game contract with Interplay probably represented at the time the most advance money ever put up by any publisher for two MMOGs. I was actually rather stunned Interplay went for it.

So I know just how lean those years were, sometimes. And yet, without the GEnie, AOL and Engage/Interplay aggregator years, the current success couldn't have happened.

Originally posted by MahrinSkel
Someone entering the market now can't afford the time to build experience, they're going to have to *buy* it. The list of experienced MMP devs isn't quite as short as it used to be, and the presence of just two veterans from EQ made Camelot launch a *lot* smoother than it might have been otherwise. Most of the problems that come up aren't that hard to solve, they're just hard to anticipate.

I also only partially agree with this; it takes a long time to build one of these, regardless (even two years isn't short), and you need experienced people to have a much better shot at initial success. On the other hand, the Internet is going to be around for a long time, most of the people in the world aren't yet connected and a small, passionate team can still made a hole in the wire and crawl in, with a hand here and there. That is, if today's developers don't take your 'ante' remark to heart and shut them out with a self-fulfulling prophecy.

Originally posted by MahrinSkel
There's also a few books coming out in the next few months (I'm contributing to one, you're writing another) that will make a lot of that knowledge part of the "common wisdom" of the trade.

Which is one of the reasons Bridgette Patrovsky and I wrote this book and agreed to write a second one; to get the knowledge out there and ease the entry into the marketplace for more groups. And we don't pull any punches about the cost of doing it correctly. Now if we could just get someone with relevant experience to write a book with code samples... (hint, hint).

Originally posted by MahrinSkel
Also, from what I understand the PS2 contract terms are much more favorable to developers, in terms of allowing them to control their own destiny. As Tappen points out, competition is a good thing. Some developers will bet on MS because of the value-added they see in turning over administration and operation to XBox-Live, others will prefer to retain the control. But I really can't see how you can point to MS as taking the "smarter" route, except from the viewpoint of MS. It's arguable, but it certainly isn't clear.

I'm simply going from history. For example, the Amiga was clearly a superior machine for many things, compared to the PC and the Mac, and was priced less than the Mac and not that much higher than a PC clone. The one thing that Commodore neglected to do was set any kind of human interface standards, or standards of any kind or try to exert any meaningful quality control on developers. In a sense, they were the open source of their day. What resulted was chaos that made the PC game industry look positively organized. They were also the first major PC to crash and burn, although the fanatics hung on for years.

And yes, it IS smarter from MS's viewpoint, and CAN be smarter for the developer; your mileage may vary. They'll have more games quicker, and the players will have a less rough time learning them, overall. Whereas Sony, by not providing these services, faces more of an uphill battle in the acceptance department, as the offerings will be more scattered and the learning curve more chaotic.

Will MS get the lion's share and will developers be in a weaker position than doing it on their own? Of course. It doesn't have to mean a ball and chain forever, slaving for The Man, though.

[AngelKnight2780]

Personally, I'm not that impressed by XBox Live. To me, it smacks too much of an attempt by MS to control and make more money on the online market.

While aggregator services were useful in the past, I think that was due less to their inherent utility and more due to the fact that 10-15 years ago, the online world was not what it is today. Online services and providers were few, and the ability to get online relied on commands and settings bordering on the arcane. Aggregators were common sense, because it was difficult for the average player to get around online. But today, Internet access is widespread, and it's relatively easy to get around online. Thus, it's easier to set up a shingle on your own. Those modern aggregators failed in part, I think, because gamers wondered if the benefits outweighed the cost. And I think many decided they weren't.

There's also the fact that XBox Live will be isolated - a fact that has upset many other developers. Several developers won't use XBox Live because they have their own platform - agnostic system for their titles. The goal for them was to allow people using several different types of machines to play together online. MS defeats this by making its network limited to XBox units only.

Finally, there's the issue of double fees, which Jessica avoided. Already, Sega has announced that the XBox version of PSO will still have fees above and beyond the MS "entry fee". And other MMOG titles that will make it onto the network will have charges as well. This is going to be an issue, especailly as the bills for online access start to roll in.

While there are positive points to all this, I'm concerned how MS is going to use their online network.

[MahrinSkel]

Originally posted by JessicaM
While as a businessperson I can agree with you to a certain point, this is basically saying, "Go away, kid, you bother us formerly small but now successul developers." I'm sure EA, Verant and Microsoft's own inhouse teams would be overjoyed if the development community took this heart. EverQuest was started in a garage and was made for about half that, for instance, from what I am told.
That doesn't match with what I was told at the time, but I think my NDA may still apply. I can say it was $2.5 million for Camelot, and that was a *lot* less than EQ. AC, UO, and AO all came in over the $4 million US mark. Reports I have on E&B say it was well over the $10 million mark.

I'm just trying to inject some realism into the discussion. It is still possible that if you create an all new market, something no one else realized existed, that you can get in on the cheap and be very successful. More likely you join the ranks of M59, Jumpgate, and Mankind, also-rans that only people in the business and a handful of fans remember. Sure, you'll provide a valuable object lesson for the *next* guy who wants to take a run at that market, but it's unlikely you'll find that very comforting.

You want to play with the big boys, it costs $4-5 million to get a seat at the table.
There have also been high profile aggregator failures, notably TEN, Engage and Mplayer, but I believe that was from inexperience in being a good aggregator and misunderstranding the wants of the customers. I do sometimes cry over trhe many tens of millions they tossed down trhe proverbial drain...
Throw in several iterations of the AOL Games Channel.
I also only partially agree with this; it takes a long time to build one of these, regardless (even two years isn't short), and you need experienced people to have a much better shot at initial success. On the other hand, the Internet is going to be around for a long time, most of the people in the world aren't yet connected and a small, passionate team can still made a hole in the wire and crawl in, with a hand here and there. That is, if today's developers don't take your 'ante' remark to heart and shut them out with a self-fulfulling prophecy.
Hope springs eternal, there's certainly not a shortage of games in development propelled by high spirits and good intentions. But I'll bet on the guys with the fat bank accounts.

The longer you wait, the more crowded the space gets and the higher the bar moves. Camelot's number one problem at launch was the perception that we lacked content, even though we had more than any previous game had at launch. We weren't competing with what they had at launch, but what they had after two years of live updates and 2 expansions or more each. Now we're going hammer-and-tongs with us and EQ trying to cram in more. After two more years of that, what is it going to take to qualify as "enough" content in a fantasy MMP?

I would expect the same progression in almost any game type, there's going to be a cumulative advantage accruing to the existing leaders (once they've broken the 50K mark) that eventually raises the bar on new entries to insane levels. How much do you think Blizzard is going to have to spend on WoW?
Will MS get the lion's share and will developers be in a weaker position than doing it on their own? Of course. It doesn't have to mean a ball and chain forever, slaving for The Man, though.
If you want to build an online console game, you have two choices: PSO or XBL. If you go with PSO you're working without a net, but you get the full fruits of any success. If you go with XBL, you're going to get something less, and you may have to fight MicroSoft's lawyers to get what you feel is your share. You know, the guys who fought the Department of Justice to a draw?

If you're seriously planning on making a game for $2 million or less, and you really can't come up with more, maybe you'll have no choice but to go with XBL because they'll save you from having to scramble at the end for setup money. I'm sure a lot of people are going to try it, I'm equally certain that the vast majority will fail. Fail to ship, fail to sell well, fail to make enough money to take the next step. It's not that making online games is hard, it's that there are so many different ways to make mistakes.

--Dave

[JessicaM]

Originally posted by AngelKnight2780
Personally, I'm not that impressed by XBox Live. To me, it smacks too much of an attempt by MS to control and make more money on the online market.

While aggregator services were useful in the past, I think that was due less to their inherent utility and more due to the fact that 10-15 years ago, the online world was not what it is today. Online services and providers were few, and the ability to get online relied on commands and settings bordering on the arcane. Aggregators were common sense, because it was difficult for the average player to get around online. But today, Internet access is widespread, and it's relatively easy to get around online. Thus, it's easier to set up a shingle on your own. Those modern aggregators failed in part, I think, because gamers wondered if the benefits outweighed the cost. And I think many decided they weren't.

For the simple 2-8 player games that most aggregators tried to charge for, you are correct. For persistent worlds with more added value, there are more customers.

It may be physically easier to set out a shingle, but the cost can be stifling, especailly bandwidth, which is usually billed by the bit-rate, meaning the more you use, the more you pay. Neither is the equipment particularly cheap to lease or buy. If all you want is a few hundred or thousand subscribers, you ought to be able to scrap by. For an effort that actually supports itself and provides funds for further development, you need a lot more.

Originally posted by AngelKnight2780
There's also the fact that XBox Live will be isolated - a fact that has upset many other developers. Several developers won't use XBox Live because they have their own platform - agnostic system for their titles. The goal for them was to allow people using several different types of machines to play together online. MS defeats this by making its network limited to XBox units only.

Yes, I agree that is a draw-back, but I think it is also self-correcting. If the agnostic games using the PS2 or GameCube are more popular and make more money, MS will either change or shut down Xbox Live. In which case, I'd have to do another retrospective and eat crow online.

Originally posted by AngelKnight2780
Finally, there's the issue of double fees, which Jessica avoided. Already, Sega has announced that the XBox version of PSO will still have fees above and beyond the MS "entry fee". And other MMOG titles that will make it onto the network will have charges as well. This is going to be an issue, especailly as the bills for online access start to roll in.

LOL. I love the implication that I'm somehow avoiding an issue to make MS look good, when I've rarely taken their side in the past. This is what happens if one dares to praise the Dark Empire, :D.

Well, let's figure it out, then. Microsoft will be charging $49 for the first year of access. That works out to be $4.083 per month. The current standard rate for MMOGs is $12.95 per month, with a couple at $10 per month and one at $15. As long as Sega and other developers charge $8.867 or less per month, you wouldn't be paying above industry standard to play. If MS raises the price after the first year, it could, indeed, hurt. Or you could just cancel.

As for online access; you'd have to pay that to be online regardless, no differently than if you use broadband or dial-up today to access games. On the con side, broadband access is more expensive than dial-up; if you don't already have it, that would add somewhere between $175 and about $240 per year to your connection charges

Originally posted by AngelKnight2780
While there are positive points to all this, I'm concerned how MS is going to use their online network.

Obviously, one way is to make money any way they can by providing consumer services. If you don't like the price they charge, go to the competition.

[JessicaM]

Originally posted by MahrinSkel
That doesn't match with what I was told at the time, but I think my NDA may still apply. I can say it was $2.5 million for Camelot, and that was a *lot* less than EQ. AC, UO, and AO all came in over the $4 million US mark. Reports I have on E&B say it was well over the $10 million mark.

I'm just trying to inject some realism into the discussion. It is still possible that if you create an all new market, something no one else realized existed, that you can get in on the cheap and be very successful. More likely you join the ranks of M59, Jumpgate, and Mankind, also-rans that only people in the business and a handful of fans remember. Sure, you'll provide a valuable object lesson for the *next* guy who wants to take a run at that market, but it's unlikely you'll find that very comforting.

You want to play with the big boys, it costs $4-5 million to get a seat at the table.

Throw in several iterations of the AOL Games Channel.

Hope springs eternal, there's certainly not a shortage of games in development propelled by high spirits and good intentions. But I'll bet on the guys with the fat bank accounts.

The longer you wait, the more crowded the space gets and the higher the bar moves. Camelot's number one problem at launch was the perception that we lacked content, even though we had more than any previous game had at launch. We weren't competing with what they had at launch, but what they had after two years of live updates and 2 expansions or more each. Now we're going hammer-and-tongs with us and EQ trying to cram in more. After two more years of that, what is it going to take to qualify as "enough" content in a fantasy MMP?

I would expect the same progression in almost any game type, there's going to be a cumulative advantage accruing to the existing leaders (once they've broken the 50K mark) that eventually raises the bar on new entries to insane levels. How much do you think Blizzard is going to have to spend on WoW?

If you want to build an online console game, you have two choices: PSO or XBL. If you go with PSO you're working without a net, but you get the full fruits of any success. If you go with XBL, you're going to get something less, and you may have to fight MicroSoft's lawyers to get what you feel is your share. You know, the guys who fought the Department of Justice to a draw?

If you're seriously planning on making a game for $2 million or less, and you really can't come up with more, maybe you'll have no choice but to go with XBL because they'll save you from having to scramble at the end for setup money. I'm sure a lot of people are going to try it, I'm equally certain that the vast majority will fail. Fail to ship, fail to sell well, fail to make enough money to take the next step. It's not that making online games is hard, it's that there are so many different ways to make mistakes.

--Dave

I can agree with almost all of this, including betting on the guys with the fattest bank accounts; that's always a hefty advantage.

I think we can both agree that it is good that there is competition and two different business models to choose from. While I would be surprised to be proven wrong in my opinion of MS's aggregator choice as the smarter route, I would not be displeased.

[AngelKnight2780]

Jessica, you've been talking about how the aggregator sysem will help smaller devs, but fail to look at the bigger ones. Several of the major sports titles from EA won't have online play in their XBox versions, but will have it in the other platforms. The latest version of Tony Hawk Pro Skater will also be lacking online play in the XBox version. Square has noted their inability to use PlayOnline as part of their rationale for not working with the XBox.

Many of the larger devs CAN afford a "go it alone" strategy. In addition, while there will be console MMOGs, the primary titles will be the "twitch" games. It's worth noting that of the three consoles, only the Gamecube will be using a pseudo-MMOG (Phantasy Star Online) as their flagship online title - Sony put its weight behind SOCOM, and MS will be hyping Halo 2. The Dreamcast showed that on consoles, the most popular games for online play are sports titles and the such. Truth be told, MMOGs haven't really been tested, yet - but I don't think they're going to be the lion's share of the market at all.

As for voice, that's going to get thorny. It sounds great in theory, but the biggest complaint that's been cropping up (unsurprisingly) is language - and I don't mean people from other countries. With text chatting, it is easy to add filters to monitor the conversation - voice is going to be much harder to censor. This could potentially kill the preteen/teen market, as parents get concerned about exactly what the people on the other side of the line are saying.

[JessicaM]

Originally posted by AngelKnight2780
Jessica, you've been talking about how the aggregator sysem will help smaller devs, but fail to look at the bigger ones. Several of the major sports titles from EA won't have online play in their XBox versions, but will have it in the other platforms. The latest version of Tony Hawk Pro Skater will also be lacking online play in the XBox version. Square has noted their inability to use PlayOnline as part of their rationale for not working with the XBox.

The big guys can take care of themselves, if only by virtue of larger cash reserves to ameliorate failures. That was never in dispute. Where Dave and I were wrangling was on the issues of aggregator/developer relationships.

I’m not surprised EA is holding back re: Xbox, as EA.com and it’s control of the AOL Game Channel is a competitor to XBL, in a broad if not specific sense. The rumor mill says talks are ongoing, but you can bet if MS wants XBL titles from EA, they’ll have to give up significantly more to EA than just about anyone else, due to EA’s market power.

As for other large publishers: Sure, they’ll hold out for what they can get, too, or do it themselves via PS2 or GameCube.

Originally posted by AngelKnight2780
Many of the larger devs CAN afford a "go it alone" strategy. In addition, while there will be console MMOGs, the primary titles will be the "twitch" games. It's worth noting that of the three consoles, only the Gamecube will be using a pseudo-MMOG (Phantasy Star Online) as their flagship online title - Sony put its weight behind SOCOM, and MS will be hyping Halo 2. The Dreamcast showed that on consoles, the most popular games for online play are sports titles and the such. Truth be told, MMOGs haven't really been tested, yet - but I don't think they're going to be the lion's share of the market at all.

Of course some of the top twenty can go it alone, when it comes to online games in general; that was never in dispute. How many of them can actually afford it… that is a different story. Certainly five of them; beyond that, who knows?

And when it comes to putting together the hosting, bandwidth and CS for, say, a PS2 or GameCube online service… maybe three can really afford to do it right, although others can make a stab.

Originally posted by AngelKnight2780
As for voice, that's going to get thorny. It sounds great in theory, but the biggest complaint that's been cropping up (unsurprisingly) is language - and I don't mean people from other countries. With text chatting, it is easy to add filters to monitor the conversation - voice is going to be much harder to censor. This could potentially kill the preteen/teen market, as parents get concerned about exactly what the people on the other side of the line are saying.

Out of deference to my old employer, I left out references to voice griefing. I including an entire small section on it in The Themis Report, published around E3 and which is still for sale. When I heard about XBL’s required voice capability, it was my first thought. My second was: How long will it be before some predator sweet-talks a minor child to a hotel room and the parents sue Microsoft?

[AngelKnight2780]

Just one more point: XBox Live would leave a lot less of a sour taste in my mouth if it was set up as AN option for online play, not THE option. While the PS2 and the Cube might not have that integrated network, they do have the freedom of allowing a company to choose the best strategy for themselves.

[JessicaM]

Originally posted by AngelKnight2780
Just one more point: XBox Live would leave a lot less of a sour taste in my mouth if it was set up as AN option for online play, not THE option. While the PS2 and the Cube might not have that integrated network, they do have the freedom of allowing a company to choose the best strategy for themselves.

Well, you have the power of the consumer upon you; vote with your pocketbook. If enough people do, 'open' console networks will be the big winner and I'll have to eat crow in public.

[Mylon]

This is a little off topic, but has always bothered me about consoles... If companies loose money when selling hardware, why not endorse a emulator? Given that the console creators (supposedly) know all of the hardware function calls of the console, why not create a program that will allow them to be played on a PC? The additional game sales from PC gamers that don't want to pay $200 for a system might make the venture worthwhile.

And desite my love of the PC, I have to admit that the console games are a helluva lot better quality than PC games.

[JessicaM]

Originally posted by Mylon
This is a little off topic, but has always bothered me about consoles... If companies loose money when selling hardware, why not endorse a emulator? Given that the console creators (supposedly) know all of the hardware function calls of the console, why not create a program that will allow them to be played on a PC? The additional game sales from PC gamers that don't want to pay $200 for a system might make the venture worthwhile.

And desite my love of the PC, I have to admit that the console games are a helluva lot better quality than PC games.

As with everything to do with business, it all comes down to two issues: Control, which enhances revenue.

The 'control' part comes from controlling the use and market for the hardware and the software, which allows you to pick and choose how and where to make revenue. If you allow emulators, for instance, it rather takes away any additional shelf sales revenue you might make if you port the game from the console to the PC, and porting is a common practice.

That's what the whole Bleem episode was about, in my opinion; Sony saw that a lot of licensing and sales revenue could go away if PC gamers didn't have to buy a PC version of the game to play it.

[Mylon]

Originally posted by JessicaM
As with everything to do with business, it all comes down to two issues: Control, which enhances revenue.

The 'control' part comes from controlling the use and market for the hardware and the software, which allows you to pick and choose how and where to make revenue. If you allow emulators, for instance, it rather takes away any additional shelf sales revenue you might make if you port the game from the console to the PC, and porting is a common practice.

That's what the whole Bleem episode was about, in my opinion; Sony saw that a lot of licensing and sales revenue could go away if PC gamers didn't have to buy a PC version of the game to play it.

Err... What? I don't understand what the problem is. Far too many games are _not_ ported to the PC. Furthermore, why would anyone purchase both the console version and the PC version? To argue that an emulator steals from the sales of the imported version is pretty silly, because unless some is a true fanatic, they wouldn't want a PC version of a game that they already have anyway. That is, the only people that would purchase the PC version are the people that don't already have the game, which in turn is probably the same market that the emulator would target. The nice part about the emulator is once you have a solid emulator, you don't need to waste any time porting games. That is... You can spend 1000 manhours porting a game, or you can spend 10,000 manhours designing an emulator, which works with _every_ game. In turn, the concsole makers loose much less money producing the emulator than the do with producing the system, and they still get the same profit when people purchase the much more expensive console games.

[JessicaM]

Originally posted by Mylon
Err... What? I don't understand what the problem is. Far too many games are _not_ ported to the PC. Furthermore, why would anyone purchase both the console version and the PC version? To argue that an emulator steals from the sales of the imported version is pretty silly, because unless some is a true fanatic, they wouldn't want a PC version of a game that they already have anyway. That is, the only people that would purchase the PC version are the people that don't already have the game, which in turn is probably the same market that the emulator would target. The nice part about the emulator is once you have a solid emulator, you don't need to waste any time porting games. That is... You can spend 1000 manhours porting a game, or you can spend 10,000 manhours designing an emulator, which works with _every_ game. In turn, the concsole makers loose much less money producing the emulator than the do with producing the system, and they still get the same profit when people purchase the much more expensive console games.

I didn't say it had to make sense, :D. If Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft wanted there to be emulators, don't you think they'd have shipped them by now, given how (relatively) easy it is to make one? The only thing I can think of that would prevent it is that it would somehow cut into the revenue on the console game sales. If it were strictly a control issue, they could solve that by doing it themselves.

[cwocfn]

Originally posted by JessicaM
Since no one bothered to set up real standards for PC voice chat in games and enforce them, it became a catch-as-catch-can affair. What happened is that several vendors, Roger Wilco among them, went around to publishers and tried to get them to include the API in their games, with the predictable results: Some games use trhem, some don't, some players download the apps, some don't.


Jess, that it part of the reason. A bigger part of the reason was costs associated with voice chat moderation. At Kesmai, we had voice capability in all of our games. We didn't enable for the simple reason of moderation times and storage costs associated with logging. A single game shard can generate 100s of megs per day in text chat. Storing vox chat in a usable format meant 100s of GIGS per day - that have to (legally) be stored for a pretty long time. To research a complaint in text chat, a simple grep command is all that was required. More complex strings could be used for threaded conversations, but it was pretty quick. To research a vox complaint meant hours upon hours of listening to WAV files that may or may not be relevant. Sorting by threads was impossible.

We embraced companies like RW and BFC. In 3025, we even worked with them to develop their products to not conflict with our DirectX hooks. We encouraged players to use them. Because it was better than our included vox? No. Because we weren't liable for that peer-to-peer connection.

[temple]

Most people play online games with friends
They don't mind the voice chat, it actually becomes a cheap alternative to using the phone in some cases.

And people should and prolly can disable voice.

[Thorns]

Voice communication is something that truly adds a new level to online gaming, IMHO. Judging from the xbox live forums at www.teamxbox.com most people seem to find xbox live great. I hope it does well and forcers other developers/systems to add voice chat to their systems as well.

[AngelKnight2780]

I'll be honest, the more I learn about XBox Live, the less I like what I see. First off, the network will be for the most part peer-to-peer based, with centralized servers only for authentication and games that need it (MMOGs and the like.) Second, a credit card WILL be required for play, even if you choose to be a "yearling" and only use the service for the period you get with the kit. Third, the gamertag system, while interesting in theory, seems ripe for abuse - griefers could mass-negative rate someone they didn't like, effectively banning them from games.

It just seems that a lot of the hype is nothing but smoke and mirrors to hide the flaws in the system.