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PotBS devlog discusses the gold-spammer issue
"Do you annoy not afford new ship?" Anyone that has played Pirates of the Burning Sea since launch will have received countless private messages similar to the above, soliciting the sale of in-game currency. The latest devlog from the official PotBS site talks about how they are working to combat the spamming -- well, they tell us what they can, because if we can read it, so can the spammers.Some extremely good news is that a new command is on the way that will make reporting spammers a breeze. Currently players have to leave the game or alt-tab out to condemn these nuisances, but those days will soon be over. The process for Flying Lab Software to actually receive and act on these reports is being streamlined as well. Behind the scenes, they say that they are looking at better ways to catch the spammers before they even get to spam, but as per the above reason, don't expect these methods to be made public. FLS has attemped to deal with this problem from the very start, and it looks like the beginning of round two is on the horizon.
David Perry posits 70 Million player massive game
David Perry, a gent who used to be synonymous with the quirky developer Shiny Entertainment, is now best known for his work in the Massive games industry. He recently did an interview with the website videogame247, where he essentially said that World of Warcraft is still too niche for the potential MMOs represent. In fact, he could see a game someday existing that nets '70 million players'. As he puts it, "we haven't got anyone that's thinking down the Will Wright path."Perry is looking to outfits like Club Penguin or MapleStory as harbingers of the future. He posits that if World of Warcraft were to go free-to-play, it would be looking at a 25 million-strong playerbase instead of 'only' 10 million. He himself is very familiar with the free-to-play model, as several of the Acclaim online titles he's imported to the country of late are based on that paradigm. How successful do you think a free-to-play WoW would be? Will we ever get to a 70 million player game, or is that 'the crazy talk'?[Via RPS]
Lawyers representing gold farmers threaten Lum the Mad
Late last month Scott "Lum the Mad" Jennings put up a post on his well-known MMOG blog site about an ongoing legal battle. It involves former IGE (yeah, the gold farmers) CEO Brock Pierce and co-founder of the company Alan Debonneville. Lum's excellent post, which quotes heavily from the lawsuit documents unearthed by the site Virtually Blind, does little more than sum up the case in one location. Not only have we been following the case along with the VB site, but numerous others have as well.And yet, in a post on the Broken Toys site today, Lum notes that somehow he's the one that has received legal threats from Brock Pierce's legal team. They've basically asked him to take down the post by the close of business today (February 15th). Mr. Jennings, being a practical person and with no interest in going toe-to-toe with lawyers, is planning to do just that. He does get off a nice shot back at them in his response, saying "I welcome your client's renewed dedication to legal documentation and remind him that there are several outstanding end user licensing agreements attached to games I have assisted in operating in the past, regarding the explicitly forbidden trade of virtual items and characters in said games that he and his company have performed and expedited, that would benefit from his and his company's attention."Of course, their harshly worded note has prompted responses from other MMOGbloggers, such as these posts from Ryan Shwayder and Matt Mihaly. Perhaps Pierce's team should have considered the impact before they asked Lum to take down his post about the lawsuit. This one, over here on his site. His post concerning Brock Pierce and Alan Debonneville. This post right here.
The epic fight: Retail vs. Microtransactions
This past week's DICE event had several head-to-head events pitting warring concepts in the gaming industry against each other. The ongoing struggle between subscription fees and RMT/microtransactional business models was represented at the event by an excellent debate. And topical, considering that it appears questions over the business model may have in some way scuttled the Marvel comics MMO.On the side of retail/subscriptions was Kelly Flock, a veteran of THQ and Sony. Min Kim, the director of operations for Nexon America, carried the banner for microtransactions. Most of their sparring centered over the economic benefits both sides offer. Kim focused on the cheap production costs of free-to-play games, as well as the appeal to casual gamers. "Once people start playing games for free, I don't know why they're going to start paying for one.", he said. Flock, meanwhile, offered evidence of a strong retail market and possible customer mindset problems in the US. Both of them had some compelling things to say on the subject, but it seems from the writeup that Kim and RMT won the day. A sign of the times?
Live Gamer to develop in-game RMT client for EverQuest 2
We've previously discussed the Live Gamer service, a venture-capitalist funded enterprise looking to legitimize RMT in the US marketplace. Their collaboration with Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has been a topic of discussion since it was announced late last year, but not much was known about what precisely the two companies were working on. In an announcement this morning, they have revealed that Live Gamer (LG) will be effectively taking over SOE's Station Exchange (SE) service. LG will be absorbing the Station Exchange technologies, and retooling them into a service they're calling Live Gamer Exchange. By the end of March Live Gamer will be running SOE's RMT service as an independent third-party enterprise. LG eventually hopes to offer, among other tools, an in-game EverQuest 2 client to access the service. We had the opportunity to speak to SOE president John Smedley and Live Gamer President Andrew Schneider about this step towards legitimate 3rd party Real Money Transactions. Besides stressing that the Live Gamer Exchange will still just be limited to the two already existing SE servers, the two men had some interesting things to say about the future of RMT in the US. They went on at length about the pitfalls and frustrations of existing third-party goldsellers, along with a few plans for the future. Read on for a look at what a legitimate gold-selling industry might look like.
The Kwari model: Can RMT be taken to the next level?
I was in the bathroom the other day, reading Games for Windows (because let's be honest, where else would anybody read GfW?) and they had an article on an extremely interesting, though vaguely troubling new shooter called Kwari. Its basic premise is that players pony up a small amount of cash, the amount varying depending on the stakes of the game, and players lose or gain a portion of the pot based on their fragging prowess. Or to put it more simply, it's like online poker, but instead of cards, there are bullets. Designer Eddie Gill of Kwari Limited was hoping that in adding a financial incentive to the basic shooter model, it would result in an experience that was much more intense for the players involved. And if he took in a cut of the profits as well, what's the harm? By all accounts, Kwari utterly fails at delivering an engaging shooter experience, so whatever sociological implications the game would have had were rendered moot because of sloppiness on the developer's part. Still, this perception that online games could be tweaked to be a form of online gambling got me thinking. Is this business model just a developer supported real-money transaction (RMT) scheme, or is it even deeper down the rabbit hole of Shylock-esque shamelessness?
IGE founders in legal battle
Well, it seems like everyone else has had a chance to say bad things about RMT company IGE. Well, now co-founder Alan Debonneville has plenty of bad things to say himself, in his lawsuit for "among other things, numerous breaches of fiduciary duty, breaches of contract, and fraud" against IGE founder Brock Pierce. "Pierce has broken every fiduciary duty known to jurisprudence and stolen millions of dollars of shares of IGE US, LLC" the complaint asserts - and then it gets mean.
CES 2008: What the heck is Free Realms?
The popularity of titles like Club Penguin and Webkinz is undeniable. This past Christmas saw the Webkinz servers just crushed under the new load of happy plush owners. It shouldn't come as a surprise that traditional game-makers are looking to this niche as a new area for profit. Earlier this month we brought you the news from CES that Sony Online Entertainment would be rolling out a new 'pay-it-forward' style community outreach program with the title Free Realms. But ... what exactly is Free Realms? Today we've got some impressions of that title for you, gleaned from watching pre-recorded video of gameplay at the Consumer Electronics Show. We also spoke with Laura Naviaux, Director of Global Marketing for SOE and SOE CEO John Smedley about the project, to get a feel for their enthusiasm about the game. While generally here at Massively you're far more likely to see us discussing a game like Lord of the Rings Online or World of Warcraft, this is a title well worth looking into. Free Realms is essentially an attempting to combine the look and feel of a traditional MMO title with the conversation and mini-game focus of a kiddie game. With very little exposure to the public in a 'hands-on' format as of yet, it's hard to gauge how successfully the title actually achieves that goal.%Gallery-12980% The ideas they're introducing with the game are intriguing just the same. The developers have obviously looked to other casual titles for inspiration, and have taken notes from the successes and failures of these other online projects. What results is a mélange of the familiar and the original that almost begs for further clarification. Read on for descriptions of their loose 'class' system (which will be familiar to fans of The Agency), the idea behind their instant play system, and what exactly you're going to be able to buy with microtransactions.
Mythos' Executive Producer gets interviewed
Over at Stropp's World, there's a very good interview with Max Schaefer -- Executive Producer for Mythos. To clarify; Mythos is a top-down Diablo-style massively game that's been in beta testing for a very long time now.Upon release Flagship Studios plans for Mythos to be free-to-play with an RMT model. In the interview itself, Max discusses their decision to use an RMT system. Citing the developer's desire to provide players with a "robust free experience" but offer attractive options through RMT to obtain extra luxuries and ways to improve their adventure. One thing we were happy to take from the interview is that Flagship knows better than to just sell the best items in their game -- meaning the only way to get the best loot in Mythos is to kill stuff. Beyond the RMT issue (which some may or may not like, but hey the game's free right?) there is a lot of talk about future features. A crafting system is on the way, although not very much is known about it right now. There will be basic PvP dueling and the Shadow World; a series of portals throughout the regular game world, which lead to an exact mirror world where PvP is everywhere. Also, other modes like group vs. group, Capture the Flag-type and other non-player killing competitions are in the works. We have to admit that the Shadow World concept interests us, although it's not very surprising to hear.[Thanks, Stropp]
Upcoming Exteel patch to introduce in-game ads
Some notes for the next Exteel patch at the official site inform us of what's in store for NCsoft's free mech-battling MMO. The last thing to be mentioned in the short blurb is the inclusion of in-game ads after the patch is live. Players already participate in a microtransaction-based model in order to buy certain upgrades for their Mechanaught, but obviously this wasn't enough of a cash-spinner, so Exteel will be able to take its place in this table soon.Aside from the ads, there are a few other changes to come with the patch. A new map called Face-Off will be launched, two new Mechanaught sets will be available (one purchased with NCcoins from real money transactions), some changes to Territory Control rewards, weapon balancing, and a super-deformed gameplay option.
Anarchy Online moves to tiered subscriptions
With the news that Anarchy Online will offer free-to-play service for another year, you might be wondering why you'd want to ... pay for the free game. Well, that free service is severely limited. You can only reach a certain level, and you don't have access to the well-received Shadowlands expansion content. The only alternative to free status has previously been Anarchy Online's large-for-the-value $14.95 monthly fee. Funcom is now offering an in-between option, a $5/month package that gives you access to the Shadowlands on your formerly F2P account! You'll also be able to reach max level. The full-priced option still exists, and has no restrictions whatsoever in your progress within the game. There is a catch, though: once you upgrade from a free-to-play account, there's no going back. With the Shadowlands content unlocked on your account, you're always going to have to pay at least the $5 fee to keep it open.Just the same, as Mike Schramm noted in his previous post on AO's free service, it's great to see a now-venerable title being kept open by a small group of loyal users. Thanks to RMT, a small team of content developers, and now a new tiered pricing structure, the future of Anarchy Online looks brighter than you might have expected (given the gritty cyberpunk air and all).
When gold farmers attack!
There you are zipping around Paragon City looking for a criminal skull or two to bust when suddenly a "hero" (or villain if you're playing CoV) named "jlaksjdflakd" clad in pink spandex and green skin suddenly pops into your peripheral. No, it's not a small childlike noob entering the city for the first time. It's something far, far worse. It's... the attack of the bottom feeding, scum sucking gold farmer!!We've all had similar experiences. No MMO is immune to these ne'er-do-wells. But the CoX universe has remained relatively unscathed. Until now. Thankfully, gamers don't have to take this laying down... and neither do the developers. In fact, they're fighting back. W00t Studios head honcho Jester just began a recurring feature called The Fight Against Spam. The series will highlight the valiant efforts of various game developers as they fight the good fight against the nefarious Real Money Traders (RMT).This first entry highlights what NCsoft has done to hinder spammers in CoX. Several months ago they implemented the "/ignore_spammer" command which lets players ignore (and automatically report to the GM's) a would be trouble maker. Once several reports against the same account are logged, they're banned. The tide of battle seems to have swung in their favor, but the supergroup at NCsoft isn't resting on their laurels. As of yesterday the in-game mail system has been drastically restricted. Now players under level 12 no longer have mail privileges, forcing these malevolent miscreants to their knees by making them do some leveling work of their own. Granted, it may only slow them down... but it's a giant step in the right direction.
China's online gaming addiction to swell in the year of the Rat
It probably shouldn't be surprising to learn that the burgeoning community of online gamers in China is growing quickly, spurred by the staggering array of free-to-play titles available in that market. The China View site is reporting on a study conducted over the course of 2007 into the country's gaming habits. Last year's 48 million strong community is expected to pass 59 million players by the end of this year. The marketplace in 2006 racked up an impressive 9.36 billion yuan (1.2 billion US dollars) ... which grew by 57 percent over the course of last year.That prediction is in keeping with the general outlook for 2008 according to the Chinese Zodiac. Gamasutra Commentator Frank Yu looks back at last year's blockbuster success for the Chinese gaming market, particularly the online portion, while forecasting successes all around for partnerships this year. Yu specifically forsees good financial times for Zhengtu Online, a title we recently discussed because of the sordid gambling component to the game. I find all of this fascinating, from a cultural as well as business perspective. Here you have a culture whose youth is eating up the concept of RMT and microtransactions, making companies that use these business models extremely wealthy. The government itself is building a business complex meant to spur on investment into the online gaming/virtual worlds sector of the economy. This is a country literally building the future of online gaming for the rest of the world. At the same time, though, that same government is decrying online gaming as 'spiritual opium'. I've been reading about the country recently, and these contradictions seem somewhat petty compared to more serious social issues. It's important to keep in mind just the same: online gaming in the West has nothing on future of Eastern online gaming
Flying Lab banning for RMT already
In an almost "news of the weird" situation, word came out yesterday evening that the fine folks at Flying Lab are already seeing grey-market gold selling in their still-in-pre-launch game Pirates of the Burning Sea. While any MMO veteran knows just how pervasive gold selling is in any game, this is perhaps the first time we've heard of them opening up shop quite so openly before a game is even officially launched. As Aether states, "we will [be] following up with the appropriate disciplinary actions, which could include confiscation of the resources in question, and ultimately banning accounts that sell or buy these illicit resources." We certainly wish Flying Lab the absolute best of luck with stamping it out -- and hopefully keeping chat channels clear of the spam that seems to be everywhere these days. But you have to admit, the fact that the gold-selling companies are getting this brazen before official launch isn't exactly a good sign.
Gaia Online's virtual gear gets real
I haven't played Gaia Online at all, and we've only mentioned it once or twice here so far on Massively, but I am really impressed by their Gaia Gear online store. They are apparently taking in-game items, and recreating them in real-life form. Now, these items are all "donation items" (now known as Monthly collectibles)-- they're designed and sold by Gaia for real money, supposedly to support the server and associated costs of the game. So basically these are RMT items in-game, not special loots available only in certain places.But it is incredibly cool that they've faithfully recreated this stuff. And I can't help but imagine what it would be like for other games to do this. What if you could buy a Perdition's Blade to commemorate all that time you spent getting one in Molten Core? Or a real-life model of a Hulk, or actual reproductions of player-created items in Second Life? I'm sure this isn't a new idea (we're already willing to pay large amounts of money to make virtual items and people real). But it is an exciting one.[Via Wonderland]
Raph Koster on why MMOs should be free
The Rock, Paper, Shotgun interview recently posted with noted Massive designer Raph Koster starts off "Raph Koster knows a thing or two about MMOs". That's a bit of an understatement. Looking at Raph's CV is like stepping back through some of the most important moments in the online gaming genre. Most of them, as has been the norm in the USA, are subscription titles.Raph thinks that's quickly going to be an artifact of the past, as already there are more free-to-play games than flat-fee-per-month titles. He believes that big budget games are going to start to get the hint and offer tiered services, free-to-play special clients, and other ways to get an 'in' on those particular worlds.Ultimately I think that's one of the most important points he makes in this discussion. MMO developers (in the West at least) have always seemed to be resistant to the idea of 'just get everybody you can in there'. That seems counter-intuitive to me, because more than anything else butts in the seats are what makes a Massive environment seem truly alive.The rest of the interview is equally thought-provoking with discussion of the concept behind Metaplace, the misuse of the web by game developers, and the conceptual skeleton used by designers to make these games in the first place.
A CES interview with SOE CEO John Smedley (pt. 1)
At CES last week we had a chance to check out several of the newest titles in the works or on offer from Sony Online Entertainment. The Agency, Free Realms, and Legends of Norrath are three substantial departures from the company's big-budget fantasy past. Last week we brought you links to the company's full video presentation on The Agency. Today Dan O'Halloran has firsthand impressions of what the free-to-play kids title FreeRealms will offer.While we were in Las Vegas we had a chance to sit down with SOE's Chief Executive Officer, John Smedley, about these departures. Our chat focused on the economic changes the company is making in response to the shifting face of MMO gaming. He had some fascinating things to say on the subject of microtransactions and RMT, and unveiled a new community outreach program that will tie in to Free Realms called "Share the Wealth".Let's say you have your own website. You come to our site, fill out a form pretty much the same as the one for our Station Exchange service with a Social Security number, and give us your PayPal account information. You cut and paste some JavaScript to your site, and now you have a banner ad for Free Realms on your site. We are tracking every customer you give us, and once a month we'll give you somewhere between 5-10% of all the revenue from every customer you send us. That's as long as they are playing the game.Check out the full discussion on that subject below, and come back later today for the rest of the interview. Mr. Smedley offers us a sneak peek at big plans for subscriber's to SOE's Station Access pass.
Anarchy Online free for another year
Was it ever really going to be otherwise? Anarchy Online has announced, to the surprise of no one, that its "free play program" has been a "resounding success," and that they will stay free for another year. They make it sound like people are trying to break down the doors to pay money for the game, and that despite popular demand, they'll stay free on a trial basis, but I guess that sounds better than "thank the gods of Rubi-Ka we don't have to close the doors just yet!"Joking aside, this does show that it's possible to keep a low key, free-to-play (supported by RMT and in-game advertising) MMO on life support. AO is still pushing out new content, too. It's not that this is a bad game (heck, it landed on our list of best sci-fi MMOs), it's just that AO is a perfect example of how a developer can keep an MMO alive long after the large majority of players have abandoned it. In the future, MMOs won't die-- they'll just go free-to-play.[Via VW]
CES 2008: discussion panel on virtual worlds and the "MMO explosion"
Gamasutra has posted a panel discussion covering many different facets of virtual worlds and MMOs in general. The panel consists of several panelists coming from all sorts of companies from AMD to Turbine. Overall the panel discusses many of the issues you always hear about when virtual worlds/MMOs come up. You've got talk of evolution within the industry, in-game advertising, global relevance (aka "how can we conquer the world?"), virtual goods/secondary markets (RMT/item selling) and of course cannibalizing older markets.The discussion on each piece is mostly similar to what has been said already. There are a few intriuging quotes from some of the panelists throughout. Their conclusion to the discussion happens to be focused on a few aspects, but we found one was more interesting than the rest. Steve Goldstein from Flagship Studios had this to say, "As we spend the next three or four days talking about margins and monetizing, we shouldn't lose sight of the miraculous industry we're in, where people are selling imaginary gold and building real relationships across the world."Probably the most prolific statement of the entire discussion, Goldstein manages to bullseye the nail on the head.
Tabula Rasa Feedback Friday: Patch 1.4
The Tabula Rasa team has given us a nice little preview of what to expect in the upcoming 1.4 patch for the start of 2008. Some of the new features include Hybrid aliens (!!!), a hide helmet option, an Ability and Attribute respec and some bug fixes. We're especially interested in the Hybrid stuff, as it sounds very interesting.Another big fix will be focused on the issues Mires is having with performance, even with with the recent changes that were made to address this. The changes will be focused on creature count being a bit too high as well as many locations where enemy and friendly drop-ships have been appearing literally next to each other. Aside from the mires changes, the TR team is looking into the crackdown on RMT or "credit/gold" sellers. The large issue is the chat channel and their persistent adverts that keep popping up in the game. For now all we're told to do is use the /ignore command, but hopefully in the near future there will be better ways to deal with them.The patch will be coming to the public test server soon, so hopefully we can report back on how those changes are coming along in the near future.
