Free for All: Are kids' games valid?
I had the dream again, but this time with a twist. I walked through the store, admiring the shelves and shelves of tiny robots, toy trains and action figures. Cool toys lined every shelf, articulated robots and little army men with swappable guns. Tanks, space marines, huge dragons and all sort of wind-ups tempted me. This time, though, I talked to the store owner about how I frequently have this dream, and that normally I find a section of really cheap toys that I pile up in my arms to buy. He proceeded to show me a stack of those type of toys, clearance toys, and offered me entire armies and model kits for just a few dollars. As usual, I woke up before I can buy them and take them home to adorn my office with. It's a slightly frustrating dream, but always a lot of fun.
In the meanwhile, I stopped long ago with collecting toys. They take up too much space, gather too much dust and generally get no use at all. I have replaced these toys, though, and now have a new collection of bright and shinies: kids' free-to-play MMORPGs. I have played every one of them I can get my hands on, sometimes getting pretty high up in the game, and sometimes just exploring or talking with other players. They give me that same feeling that a toy gives you. Yes, adult reader, you know the one I am talking about and surely you too have at least a few toys adorning your office as well?
Do these kids' games have more value than that, though? Do the experiences they give match the experiences that one might get in an "adult" game like Darkfall or Vanguard? Should we dismiss kids' games as nothing more than a toy, to be enjoyed for a bit and giggled at? I actually claim the opposite, and here's why.
First of all, we must consider how successful the kids' market has been. If you look at the information that we recently published, ".. Blizzard's World of Warcraft has the most number of players in the U.S. out of all the MMOs it tracked, just in front of NeoPets and Club Penguin. Other MMOs in the top five include Disney ToonTown and RuneScape."
Look at the games that are following right behind World of Warcraft, notice the trend? Point being that these games for younger players are doing very, very well. So, developers would be smart to notice and to possibly develop their own game for that market. Look at the success of many "tween" market items like music, toys, even home decor. Ask the Olsen twins where their millions came from and they would point squarely at their younger consumers.
Next, we need to weigh the experiences that the younger audiences have. Are they less than the experiences we adults have in our dragon-killing, PvP-heavy, 40 man raiding games? It is my feeling that they are the same, actually, although proportionally. If you asked a 2 year old to point to the red firetruck, it might be somewhat of a challenge. Ask a 33 year old to point to the 32nd president of the United States, and he might feel the same level of challenge. Even then, many of the younger audience's games would still pose a challenge to an older player. My wife hosts a podcast for the MMO Wizard 101, and while she receives adorable email after adorable email from younger players, she has much more than a handful of adult listeners. That's the secret behind the success of that kids' game; it's ability to be easy to learn yet hard to master.
Many kids' games can have much more variety of game play, also. If you compare World of Warcraft and its simple crafting and limited classes to a game like Free Realms or the skill-based Mabinogi, you can see that shrugging off many kids' games could result in a player missing some pretty in-depth activities. Maybe it is because a kids' game is targeting players that have never experienced a game before, and so do not have as much of a jaded attitude about how to play, or how to succeed? In an environment like that, do developers have more freedom to try out new systems, or different graphics?
There is little difference between a 24 year old player gathering minerals in Darkfall (which consists of targeting the node and clicking) and a 13 year old player matching colored blocks to gain a level in Free Realms. It's the same tiny difference between a 32 year old player healing his teammates in Lord of the Rings Online and a 16 year old player healing his teammates in Mabinogi. While there are some differences in the level of challenge, the event is received the same for each player. It is exciting, fun and an adventure.
How about graphically? Do kids' games typically have graphics that only a child could love? Well, let's compare. Here's Free Realms compared to World of Warcraft:
Then we have Runescape compared to Ultima Online:
