I forget who made this comment, but some developer stated he would rather make four 10 million dollar budget MMOs than make one $40 million dollar budget MMO. My first reaction to that comment was somewhat negative, as I imagined getting four half-assed games with some gimmick to sell a few copies over one high quality MMO that would really move the genre forward and provide months of entertainment.
Thinking about the statement a bit more however, I think I can also see his point in a slightly different light. Instead of assuming we would get four different versions of low budge WoW-like MMOs, what if instead we got four very focused games? One would be all min/max PvE (raiding), one would be all e-PvP, one could be a crafting/econ game, etc. Let’s say you built all of them off the same engine, and all the very basics were somewhat similar. You level up, you get gear, new skills, all that. But then at the end-game, which would be fairly easy to reach, you get that more focused game. So if you are playing the PvE game, you know that at the level cap, all that is available to you is to join a guild and go on some raids, and all developer focus would be to balance those raids and continue to expand that end-game. Same with the PvP game, skills and gear would always be balanced around PvP, and all development would be focused on improving the player’s enjoyment of that top end PvP, without any time wasted on new raiding or crafting.
This idea came to me when I was thinking about WoW and how that game really tries to do EVERYTHING all at once at the end-game. You have casual PvP (BG), hardcore PvP (Arena), casual PvE (5 mans), hardcore PvE (raiding), and crafting/auction house management all vying for developer attention, with any one tweak to a single area effecting all others, sometimes in a positive way but far too often in a negative. While WoW is an amazing game for many reasons, is it really a better game because all these things are options once you hit 70?
Would it not be better for everyone to break WoW into say four separate games, all still using the WoW engine and lore. The PvP crowd would have one game, and all the tweaks and changes would be focused on them. Instead of seeing new raid dungeons and quest zones, they would get improved battlegrounds and arena changes, and all skills would be primarily balanced for PvP. The PvE game would basically be the reverse, with no Arena to effect raiding skills, and no ‘easy epics’ just from being afk in a BG for a few months.
Even if you are a fan of both styles and like to mix it up, what if each WoW game cost say 5-10 a month, and you simply had to pick which game to load up before you start playing? With things like Vent and guild websites/message boards, you could still keep in contact with all your gaming friends, but instead of having to log in and wait to see who shows up for a raid, you could instead check vent, see it’s not going to happen, and instead load up PvP WoW and join your Arena team for a few matches. The added bonus to all that would be that you could play two characters, one that you liked to play for PvP, the other class that you like to raid with. Currently WoW forces you into both (unless you have an alt, but that gets tricky due to how gear dependent WoW is), so you might really like your class for PvE, but hate them in PvP, or vice versa.
If we also assume that such a focused game would cost a fraction of a ‘full’ MMO, player base expectations would be greatly reduced. A community of say 100,000 accounts would be considered a success, rather than a huge budget MMO getting 300,000 players and being considered a failure. And if MMOs have shown us one thing, it’s that a bigger community is often worst off than a smaller one. Compare the community in EVE to WoW and you start to see what I mean. Sure you will always get bad apples regardless, but the average tends to be a bit higher when your game is more focused.
Now the big question is whether that ‘four games instead of one’ idea actually follows the model above, or is it just another way of saying ‘we will clone WoW with four different settings on a smaller budget, hoping one of those clones gets enough sales to make us some easy money’. The cynic in me says option number two, but one can hope, right?
Hardcore Casual 
Although I agree that making 4 budget focused games would be better than making a single budget general game, I have to disagree with bringing WoW into the picture for one simple reason — WoW is a big budget title that easily COULD have 4 separate developer teams to support the four different types of gameplay in the same game. Unfortunately Blizzard doesn’t seem interested in doing this (or if they are, they’re doing so very poorly). Unlike the very stringent and detail oriented development process they use when creating a game that earned them their reputation as a developer, their post-release development procedures seem half-assed at best.
Anyway, back on topic. I think that there is a place for smaller MMOs focused on a single aspect of gameplay, assuming they don’t screw up their one gameplay type (Fury, I’m looking at you), but there is also a place for large MMOs that allow players to do everything within the same game world.
Well, context is everything.
The quote, which came to me via VirginWorlds, was that the studio in question would rather make 10 games with a four million dollar budget each than one 40 million dollar budget game. This was because they felt they could make 10 quality games that focused on a smaller audience each, while the 40 million dollar game would have to attract a such a big audience that it would have to be all things to all players to make back its money.
The context wasn’t to grind out crap (though I am sure there are other people out there who think that is a way to succeed) but to be able to make a good game that can be profitable with a smaller player base by focusing on a certain core set of features. Think more along the lines of “Puzzle Pirates” as opposed to “WoW Clone #12.”
I wish I could remember which episode of VW this quote came from. I just remember I was mining for tin with my druid in WoW while I was listening!
Well right, the company would never come out and say “we are making crap, but a lot of it”. But the fact remains that a smaller budget does mean some corners have to be cut, be it graphics, sounds, whatever. It just depends what they cut. If it’s a PvP game and you cut raid instances, thats ok. If it’s a PvE game and you have one end-game instance due to budget/time limits, thats a major issue.
Did you see the article about Nikelodeon planning to release something like 600 browser-based min-games on a play for free minitrans/advertising revenue model, all on a 100 million dollar budget? None of them will be “quality games” of course, but I’m sure that a few of them will be wildly successfull. The genius I see in the Nikelodeon idea is that the games are classified by age groups and gender so they can really tailor the game experience and of course the advertising too. There’s a synergy there with mainstream gaming too, because those kinds of sites are a great place to advertise hardcore games and draw casual gamers into the fold. Many casual gamers are just hardcore gamers who haven’t matured yet. :)
“Would it not be better for everyone to break WoW into say four separate games, all still using the WoW engine and lore”
Not for me. I like to respecc and change my playstyle every now and again without having to buy a different version of the game + pay its subs fee. One month I may go PvP, the next I’ll do some 5 man heroics, whilst always having an alt playing the econ side of things at the Auction House.
If the game was broken up into seperate ‘focused’ versions I’d have to pay a lot of seperate subs fees each month to get a little bit of each version. With wow I can play a bit of everything without breaking the bank.
I’ll freely admit that wow is akin to its own hyrbrid classes. It tries to be a jack of all trades but will never be as good as its pure counterpart.. however I still like to have the option of all gametypes open to me, restricted purely by the cost of a respecc from time to time.
Unfortuantly I dont have money to burn or Id have EVE/MxO/WoW/LOTR subs going each month :)
Hell, if I had that kind of cash Id move to Japan, learn the language then I’d never leave the Monster Hunter: Frontier mmo for another game :)