The future of gaming, Part 1: Why big budgets matter

Scott Jennings left MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) game maker NCSoft. GigaOm interviewed him, but unfortunately misunderstood much of what they heard. Jennings posted a followup on his blog correcting some (not all) of the errors. Here's what's really going on.

• GigaOm gets it wrong when they say Jennings was attacking the model of subscription-based games. NCSoft is a hugely successful make of MMOs that are not subscription-based, specifically Guild Wars. Even if that wasn't Jennings' particular product, subscription-based pricing isn't really what is called into question here.
• However, Jennings is making an argument for small, agile, and/or open source development vs. big-budget closed-source projects.

Nice though that sounds, the big companies will have big advantages for the foreseeable future, at least in currently-established categories. Jennings in essence acknowledges this when he complains of the big budgets needed for games to be of high quality. That's because economies of scale are still active in three major areas: Technology, content, and community. Let me explain.

Technology

Game technology continues to advance at high speed. I play Lord of the Rings Online; its splendid graphics far outshine World of Warcraft's. The also far outshine those of my former game, Guild Wars. And Guild Wars has other significant technical drawbacks as well, plus some further missed technical opportunities. On the other hand, Guild Wars has a sophisticated combat system, reminiscent of Magic: The Gathering converted to RPG form, that LOTRO sadly doesn't come close to matching.

All of these will be pushed forward aggressively in the future. In particular, artificial intelligence has huge advances left ahead, on a whole number of frontiers.

Content

At least in the case of role-playing games, good games have a lot of content. Parts of the game need intricate art, and games are often judged on their most beautiful areas. (Even if you've never played Lord of the Rings Online, I bet you can guess what the most magnificent area is. Right -- Rivendell! You got it in one!) Sure, a lot of the game can be set in caves or barren wastelands, but a significant fraction must be gorgeously drawn. The same goes for music, the creation of noteworthy NPCs (i.e., what passes for characterization in these games), and so on.

Loyal players require ever more new content.

Community

MMOs can be structured so that solo play is highly practical. I very rarely played Guild Wars with anybody other than my wife, and most commonly played alone. But even so I relied on the standard forums and wiki for the game. Because these game world's are so vast, they're frustrating unless one way or the other one gets aid or at least advice, and the source of that is mainly fellow players.

Similarly, players are the last line of testing. LOTRO has its reliability problems (much more than Guild Wars ever did, and I plan to research some ideas as to why). But even so, they're uncovered quickly, and for the most part fixed relatively soon. LOTRO also does a nice job of simply revising aspects of the game if specific missions or whatever are generally flawed.

Even beyond that -- for many people, the whole essence of an MMO is community. And it turns out to require a lot of people playing overall to make whatever sub-community you're in retain critical mass.

Want to chat with me live online? I'll be the guest for a Network World chat where I'll be answering your questions about database management, text analytics, MMO gaming -- or anything else you want to talk about. 2 - 3 p.m. ET, Tuesday, August 19. No registration necessary. Just login at http://www.networkworld.com/chat/

• games
• gaming
• Guild Wars
• Lord of the Rings Online
• LOTRO
• MMO
• open source
• World of Warcraft