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PAX East 2014: The future looks bright for the next generation of MMOs
While last weekend saw a surprising lack of noteworthy announcements at PAX East 2014, one panel gathered several industry veterans to answer a not-so-simple question: How does the future look for the MMO industry as a whole? The panel, titled Next Generation MMO Games: What's Next for Multiplayer Trends?, featured Ian Fisher (Director of Design, Robot Entertainment), Stephen Frost (Game Design Producer, Carbine), Dave Georgeson (Director of Development, SOE), Kjartan Pierre Emilsson (Principal Game Designer, CCP), and Stephen Johnston (President, Guild Launch) in a roundtable discussion about where MMOs have been and where they're headed. While panelists agreed that there is a huge barrier to entry when funding, developing, and launching a new MMO, their outlook was positive overall, and in general they believe there is still plenty of room for growth in the industry.
Ex-Ensemble Studios lead designer responds to Bettner rant (update)
Aside from a very small handful of points, it would seem there's a major disconnect between two ex-Ensemble Studio employees over why the studio was shuttered by Microsoft last year. Ian Fischer (an ex-lead designer at Ensemble, now at Robot Entertainment) details on his blog the many disagreements he has with (claimed) ex-creative lead Paul Bettner's recent rant at the Game Developer's Conference in a panel called "Fired and Fired-up: Jobless Developer's Rant." We say "claimed," because even Bettner's job title is called into question during the response. "Neither you, nor anyone else, was 'Creative Director' at our studio," Fischer alleges. Further, Fischer rebutes Bettner's claim that Ensemble shut down due to a "reliance on crunch" to finish projects that got more and more expensive by the year, saying it had more to do with "chasing after the MMOs and FPSs and RPGs and RTS-differents we constantly had in prototype." He also says that the communication with Microsoft never broke down and that if the publisher had wanted to lower the developer's operating costs, "they could have done so with a phone call ... ES enjoyed a long relationship with Microsoft (as many ex-Studios people now at Robot or Bonfire still do), first as a partner and then as part of the corporation after 2001." So, according to Fisher, what was the reason that Ensemble shut down? "If you want to find mistakes with what we did, I'd suggest that those trips into the weeds, looking for new territory, with a partner who wasn't fond of being there, was more our error," he suggests, referencing the aforementioned prototypes. Update: You can find Paul Bettner's full response to Fischer's claims after the break.
