IndustryGamers interview
Matt Firor and I gave interviews to IndustryGamers for the run-up to GDCAustin, and the interviews are up now. Interesting to compare and contrast our answers, given that they are presented side by side (we did the interviews by email). Here’s one, follow the link for more!
IG: The MMO space is still largely controlled by fantasy games. Is this all gamers want, or are developers just unsure of what kinds of new genres to bring to the MMO sector?
Koster: This is just a symptom of the constrained market that AAA MMOs have been operating in. If you look at the MMO-like social games, we see a far broader array of genres being used quite successfully, and I would expect that trend to continue. Fantasy as a genre is a lot more mainstream than it used to be a decade or two ago, but I don’t think it is an accident that we see Mafia, farming, and restaurants as top genres in social games.
Firor: Fantasy games have one unique feature that has not yet been duplicated in other genres: they are approachable and easily understood by the player base. If you say a game is “fantasy,” then you know it’s going to be roughly based on medieval technology, with some magic, probably some elves, and monsters to slay. This is because fantasy games are based on legends and fables that we’ve been telling/reading to our children for hundreds of years. Fantasy stories are part of our culture, and just about everyone has been exposed to them. Because of this, fantasy games are easily understood by the player base.
— An evolving world – Feature: The State of the MMO Business – IndustryGamers.
11 Responses to “IndustryGamers interview”
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I’ve always thought it’d be fun to buy the game rights to MST3K. Would that not be the coolest MMO ever? Spend some of the dev budget buying the rights to crappy old movies. People making fun of them for rating, others kick back to sample the carnage. Customizable gumball dispenser robots.
In the not too distant future…
You really have to wonder what the constraints are to getting the telepresence-level of technology into a cable box.
Wha?
Fantasy is mainstream. Young Mr. Potter had a great deal to do with it, but Hollywood in the past few years has smelled the gold pieces as well.
Interestingly enough, the biggest upcoming MMOs are replete with spaceships and superheroes, and I think those genres are also quite approachable, given the properties in play.
My biggest beef so far with the just-launched Champions Online is that it throws too many mechanics at a new player all at once (competing with the beef that they discarded too much of the fine detail of creating your own powers that was the heart of the Hero system). In other words… players can handle mechanics of bewildering complexity, but if you don’t ease them in just right, they’ll see your magnificent clockwork assembly, turn tail and run (well, apart from players — like many of us here — who LOVE diving head-first into crunchy new designs and mechanics).
Interesting set of answers, ‘specially when laid alongside each other. You both have very different points of view, though I think you nailed most of them better than he; but then again, I always preferred UO to DAOC…
I have my money on Blizzard’s next MMO being steampunk’ish, incidentally…!
Yeah, the fantasy genre comment threw me too. I’m pretty sure modern urban settings are more easily understood by more people than fantasy, and yet the MMOG landscape is not made up of games that resemble GTA. Fantasy doing better because it has a setting familiarity bonus is something I’m highly skeptical about.
@Sebastian
I don’t know exactly why, but I smell Steampunk too. Maybe I read a hint somewhere. Or it’s just that I feel that the fantasy zeitgeist goes pretty much into that direction. See many movies and constant efforts of Mr. Burton as one of the main contributions of mainstream fantasy cinema. Anyhow, being game designer, I would love to do create an Steampunk MMO.
Fantasy it is suitable (and proven) to provide a framework for all sorts of fantasies people have. Well, you cannot be astronaut. Star Wars, in my opinion, works the same way. It provides a framework for ninja, knights, cowboys, princesses … Also, a such worlds are easy to understand, unlike reality. There are the good guys, there are the bad guys and so forth. Urban settings do not really have that, they are too close to the complexities of the real world. Just having different races with their cliche mentality makes things a lot easier. Elves are so and so and Dwarfes like to dig mines etc.
According to Box Office Mojo’s Box Office Results for Movies by Genre, the top ten highest-grossing genres by hits are:
1. romantic drama/historical — Titanic ($600.80M)
2. comic book adaptation/franchise — The Dark Knight ($533.30M)
3. CG animation/comedy/franchise — Shrek 2 ($441.20M)
4. sci-fi/franchise — Star Wars: The Phantom Menace ($431.10M)
5. period adventure/franchise — Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest ($423.30M)
6. sci-fi/franchise — Transformers 2 ($401.10M)
7. high fantasy/franchise — Lord of the Rings: Return of the King ($377.00M)
8. religious drama/historical — Passion of the Christ ($370.80M)
9. sci-fi/franchise — Jurassic Park ($357.10M)
10. CG animation/adventure — Finding Nemo ($339.70M)
I changed some genre names for accuracy and to emphasize the dominance of properties with already established audiences. Technically, fantasy makes the list at #3 with Shrek 2, but I think the first two genres (CG animation/comedy) are more influential in that instance. This leaves high fantasy, the sort of fantasy referred to by Firor, to enter at #7. (This is not a bias against fantasy, as The Dark Knight had sci-fi elements, which would have placed the sci-fi genre at #2.)
While not scientific (I would prefer to calculate the weight of genres by a larger sample of all-time grosses instead of just hits which could be outliers, but I don’t have time), I think this list suggests that more modern and urban genres are more attractive as a whole than high fantasy, at least in the moviegoers market.
There’s just a lot of crossover between fantasy, sci-fi, comic-book fans and gaming in general. One advantage of fantasy games is that exploration and talking (questing) play a bigger part in those games then they do in the other genres and then when you combine that with the core at the root of the MMPORG movement that includes AD&D and MUD guys, consider the impact of intellectual property rights … and bang you end up with fantasy MMPORGs.
What it comes down to is that the rights to the intellectual property has been treated as basically public domain. Make all the Elves and Dwarves you want, but only Lucas can make a game with a Jedi.
Comic Book adaptation is not a genre! Comics are a medium, not a genre. They meant to say “super-hero movie”.
CG animation is also not a genre.
What it comes down to is that the rights to the intellectual property has been treated as basically public domain. Make all the Elves and Dwarves you want, but only Lucas can make a game with a Jedi.
Close. It helps a lot that Tolkien had no problem with people taking inspiration from him; that was the point, after all. But Raph didn’t quote the rest of what Firor said:
What it actually is is that fantasy genre designs have narrowly defined themselves as Tolkien derivates. Either directly, with LOTRO, or indirectly, via influences that can trace themselves inevitably back to a ridiculously small subset. There are a lot of fantasy subgenres out there that aren’t being used.
Sci-fi didn’t bother doing this, because sci-fi culture itself has a lot more diversity and it’s all at the surface level: you can instantly see that “Oh, this is about robots!” or “Oh, this is about spaceships!” Thus, it’s a straightforward thing to break it off into subgenres.
Also, fantasy makes for crappy movies, Morgan. =P
EDIT: So I misread your quote as “sci-fi makes for crappy movies” and found the following data. Now I don’t have time to find the right data. Enjoy. ;p
I merged all of the sci-fi genres at Box Office Mojo for a total sample size of 276 sci-fi movies, from December 1978 to August 2009.
The combined total lifetime gross of these movies: $12,515,740,942. The average lifetime gross of a sci-fi movie: $45,511,785. The top ten sci-fi movies account for: $2,863,656,224. But I think any casual sci-fi moviegoer could recognize every top 100 movie.
Sci-fi movies made during the 1979-1989, 1990-1999, and 2000-2009 periods have respectively pulled in $2,095,278,097, $4,169,051,897, and $6,251,410,948. The combined total lifetime grosses of movies made during 1990-1999 and 2000-2009 respectively represent 200% and 150% growth rates. The number of theaters to which these movies were distributed scales with these increases, also respectively at ~200% and ~150% (data not complete).
The total number of $100M+ hits has doubled every decade for three decades: 1980s, 5; 1990s, 11; and 2000s, 21. (Compare with decreasing TLG growth rates.)
Unfortunately, Box Office Mojo’s data usually only stretches back to the 1970s, so we can’t get a “since the dawn of time” perspective. I think there’s a lot of data that hasn’t been entered into their database yet, too (i.e., they have a backlog.) So these are best guesses.