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ION 08: MMOs and the television content model (SGW)
Joseph Ybarra, SVP of strategic operations at Firesky, the publishing subsidiary of Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, presented a session today at ION 08 about the Stargate Worlds production model that borrows heavily from Hollywood and TV models. The goal for SGW is to approach content updates for the game more like a production cycle for television, in which an episode takes a predictable amount of time to complete (14-16 weeks in the case of Stargate Atlantis). After some background on Firesky and CME, Ybarra showed the Stargate Worlds trailer and launched into a discussion of the strategy with SGW. The idea is to adopt a movie model for the development phase and a TV model for the post-launch "live" phase. They chose to use the BigWorld middleware platform and Unreal Engine technologies in an effort to use proven tools: "don't reinvent the wheel." This allows them to both minimize risk and focus on the content.
ION 08: John Smedley keynote shows off Free Realms and The Agency
When you think of Sony Online Entertainment, what comes to mind? I'm sure that Everquest, Everquest 2, Star Wars Galaxies and Planetside are some of the titles which most people think about. From what I've recently seen in John Smedley's keynote at ION 08 that's all going to be changing in the near future. While he did tease the audience with a hint that, "There's more Everquest in our future." Smedley left the topic of EQ at that. I've certainly had my thoughts on what the next Everquest experience should or could be like, but it's just my own personal wish.So why are we going to be looking at SOE in a different light in the near future? Two games are the reason why: Free Realms and The Agency.%Gallery-22870%
Sony Online Entertainment's John Smedley clarifies Free Realms/Agency RMT
Earlier today Sony Online Entertainment and Live Gamer released a joint statement announcing their intentions to collaborate on player-to-player RMT auction services for future titles. Both Free Realms and The Agency, in development at the moment, will offer this moderated transactional element at launch. In past SOE titles, such as EverQuest II, RMT services have been non-existant or highly limited. With these new games, all players will have the opportunity to engage in in-game item trading for real money.To clarify what the company has in store we contacted Mr. John Smedley, CEO of SOE. In our brief conversation about the announcement we touched on how this might affect the games' interactions with the PlayStation 3. We also talked about SOE's hopes for a farmer free playing environment, and what this might mean for the future of the company's relationship with Live Gamer. Mr. Smedley went even further, giving us a few sneak preview comments hinting at topics he'll be discussing in his keynote address today at ION 2008. Will a Pokemon-esque card battle system will be coming to Free Realms? Read on to find out.
ION 08: State of online games keynote
Globalization is one of the session tracks here at ION 08, as befitting an industry seeking the holy grail of a truly global marketplace for online games. Tuesday's keynote was delivered by Won II Suh of Neowiz, a Korean online games company with 20 titles currently supported or in development by 1000 employees across 8 regions around the world. Mr. Suh described the current landscape of online gaming in Asia and the state of East-West partnerships happening at an increasing rate around the world (Activision and Blizzard, Neowiz and EA, THQ and Shanda to name a few). Crossover from West to East already has some success stories (NBA Street, e.g.) while the East to West crossover is still fairly nascent. Suh spoke to a fundamental paradigm shift in the way games are made and played in both markets as part of the reason so much of this crossover is happening now. He stressed the importance of prioritizing human and cultural connections as predicates to success for Western companies hoping to break into Eastern markets, indicating that even if the business and financial plans make sense, companies are still prone to fail if they misunderstand or gloss over the critical steps of establishing real human relations and corporate culture due diligence when aspiring to do business in Asia. All of the slides from the keynote are available in our gallery.%Gallery-22795%
ION 08: Virtual worlds for the masses
What's a virtual world? Why do we even call them virtual worlds when we could easily call them digital worlds, or just simply, worlds? This was just one of the many interesting topics discussed at ION 08 this year in a panel entitled, "Redefining Virtual Worlds for Mass Markert Consumption" which is quite the mouthful. So lets put things in a more understandable -- and far more interesting -- perspective.Whether you're talking about Club Penguin, Gaia Online or Second Life the truth of the mater is that these "worlds" are here to stay and they all share similarities -- social interaction. Not only are they here to stay, but they've only just begun to grow as a market. Which is why this panel was all the more interesting. The panel includes Erik Bethke (GoPets Ltd), John K. Bates (Mindark/Entropia Universe), Craig Sherman (Gaia Online), Rob Lanphier (Linden Lab/Second Life) and was moderated by David Elchoness (Association of Virtual Worlds).%Gallery-22798%
ION 08: What can game developers learn from web 2.0?
This is becoming a popular topic. Adam Martin, lead core programmer at NCsoft, tackled this topic today in one of ION's morning sessions entitled "Web 2.0: How I learned to stop worrying and love the internet." In light of the low cost, high audience model of web destinations like Facebook and Myspace, are MMOs even a good idea at all? Is WoW the last major MMO we're going to see? Martin started off with a brief history of MMOs starting with Ultima Online and Lineage in 1997. UO did well for years, remaining in the top 3 or 4 properties in terms of subscriber numbers, while Lineage was absolutely dominating the Asian market. When Everquest came along two years later it addressed a number of the technological problems that had been massively underrated previously, although patching was still a big and painful issue.
Meet and greet the JGE boys at ION
For those who have never had the pleasure of doing, meeting one's favorite developers can be a really world-changing experience. Having the names and faces that you read so much about on the internet turn into real living, breathing human beings is surreal, but quite rewarding. It's something we have the pleasure of doing quite frequently, but we have a feeling they enjoy seeing fans more -- since they don't ask so many probing questions.Those attending to the ION Conference next month, or even just those in the Seattle area, might be interested to know that NetDevil's Hermann Peterscheck and Scott Brown will be holding a Meet and Greet for fans on May 14th. We're told that space is limited, so much sure and RSVP on their official forums ASAP if you're interested in a spot. Their website was down at the time of writing this, but hopefully it'll be back up again soon.
SOE prez to headline ION 2008
The 2008 ION Game Conference in Seattle, WA appears to have gained it's crown jewel, with the announcement that Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley, one of the key members of the original Everquest team, will be delivering the conference keynote. His speech will reportedly focus on the achievements of Sony Online Entertainment, and the keynote will serve as a springboard for him to talk at length about SOE's exciting new property -- The Agency. Normally I'd make some snarky remark about a company President trying to sell his game at a conference populated by the competition, but after having poured over our preview of the game from CES, I have to concede that I'm just happy we'll get to hear more about the game at length.ION, known formerly referred to by the considerably less cool sounding acronym OGDC, is a game development conference aimed at networking the increasingly international community of online game developers. Like the more generalist Game Developer's Conference, ION has lots of panels, expo space, speakers, and network opportunities aimed specifically at the guys and gals who make our favorite MMOs. Don't wait around for notes from the keynote though -- the conference isn't until the second week of May. We'll keep you posted though.
You down with OGDC? Sure, but ION sounds cooler
The Online Game Developer Conference, a place where all sorts of MMO industry luminaries can gather en mass to discuss all sorts of pertinent concepts. The conference otherwise known as the OGDC is going with a new name this year; ION Game Conference. The main reason behind this change in name and logo are said to be due to the conference's growing world-wide appeal. Last year the then-named OGDC managed to pull nearly 20% of their attendees from outside the United States. We suppose that when you're pulling that much of your attendance from Korea, Germany, Japan and Australia a moniker that evokes an electric charge of attraction is suitable.The ION Game Conference is scheduled to take place from May 13th to May 15th, 2008 in Seattle, WA at the Waterfront Marriott Hotel. If you decide to attend, early registration (including discounted attendee rates) open up on January 28th. ION claims it will offer "aggressive pricing" that won't "compromise" the conference's high quality. If you're interested in the MMO industry at all depending on the prices a trip up to Seattle in May doesn't sound so bad.[Via MMOWatch]
