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TGS: Turbine's Crowley On 'MMO 2.0'
by Simon Carless
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October 10, 2008
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In a Tokyo Game Show Forum keynote attended by Gamasutra, Turbine CEO Jim Crowley spoke to an overwhelmingly Japanese audience on the collision of social networking, virtual worlds, and online games, revealing a Facebook-style social network plan for its games such as Lord Of The Rings Online.
Crowley started by discussing the history of Turbine, which currently produces The Lord Of The Rings Online, Dungeons & Dragons Online, and Asheron's Call, noting that each game "is an evergreen property" and suggesting that their worlds could conceivably each be around for "more than a decade."
He then focused on the "born digital" generation, which he defined as those born from 1995 onwards, and explained that those people are living their lives publicly in the digital space.
As a result, the customer has become the company, and the community is the brand, says Crowley -- and so worlds "will have to turn themselves out," creating an open ecosystem.
He then argued, debatably, that the intersection of social networks, games, and virtual worlds are "core" MMOs such as Turbine's titles or World Of Warcraft -- implying they have the best features of all three phenomena.
Crowley commented that virtual worlds such as Second Life "have become the mall of the twenty-first century," and although they often lack a unified thematic structure, he pointed to their excellence in marketing and advertising purposes.
MMOs' thematic structures work well, but their models "need to evolve" to meet the needs of the born digital generation -- thus the Turbine CEO introduced the concept of "MMO 2.0."
Apart from building on traditional strengths, the MMO must "step out of its shell... and start reaching a much broader and deeper audience," says Crowley. He focused on multiplatform access, arguing MMOs "need to be on console."
In particular, "turning the game inside out" is vital, and that, according to Turbine, should be a real-time layer of Web 2.0-style tools -- social tools both in and out of the game, and mobile access where appropriate.
Crowley then revealed early mock-ups of a "My LOTRO" page -- a Facebook/MySpace-style social networking website that sits on top of a Lord Of The Rings Online subscriber's in-world experience. He later mentioned that it would launch late in the fourth quarter of 2008.
Player profiles, friends, character achievements, blogging, player videos, and screenshots -- as well as banner-based advertising -- were all displayed via a web interface and linked into the game world. He indicated that a fleshed-out version of this concept would roll out over Turbine's games over the next few months.
Crowley made it clear that the ideal situation is to have multi-SKU MMOs across PC/Mac, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 (and even "at some point in time, a Wii") directly linked to the MMO-oriented social network.
There would then be syndication or app-style hooks into sites like Facebook and MySpace, with mini-game plug-ins for those two social networks leading people back into the game with the hope that the community will help to virally spread subscription demand.
Crowley didn't give any hints as to which of Turbine's properties would be the first to receive that multiple-SKU treatment -- although recent job postings and comments by executives make it clear that console MMOs are actively in development at the studio.
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Banner based ads, Myspace style social networking? Really? Hold on let me call up all my homies and let them know that they finally get to have MORE Myspace and Banner ads then they previously had. Boy that'll sure fill some kind of void in the market...Maybe you could advertise that all the kids need a 2nd or 3rd cell phone too while you're at it. Redundancy for all! Wait no, give them a 2nd cell phone with your 2nd type of myspace + an extra screen that plays banner ads for Viagra, that's what the kids will be jumpin for.
OR maybe you could stop shoving re-hashes of Everquest in our faces and try investing in some engaging multiplayer gameplay. All your games < Battlefield 1942. Fix that if you want more money, or go try to get a refund on that business degree from Phoenix University.
It's sad when open-world, s-player games match or excel the feeling of scope and scale of MMOs.
Not to mention the majority of game system and combat designers appear to be beaten harshly with the conformity stick (it has +7 to pain and suffering, allegedly).
When flying in space with twitch play (I'm a sucker for an X-wing) and playing a midi-lute are the two main things I've taken note of in an MMO for the past half decade.. something, somewhere has gone wrong (although I'll admit it could well be with my face).
Shoe-horning TurbineSpace into the fair land of middle earth near enough brings a tear to my eye. It's neither funny, or clever. Hopefully it'll at least be detached from the game world, lest immersion take a running leap through the 3rd floor window.
If MMO 2.0's main promise consists of facebook and multi-platform play, lord knows how many more generations we'll need to endure to reach gameplay innovation and variety.
Either way, Gandalf is not amused.
Heh.