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Reality Gap's Hood: U.S. Free To Play MMO Market Saturated
by Staff, Brandon Sheffield [PC, Console/PC]
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September 11, 2009
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As smaller companies look for ways to compete with MMO giants like Activision Blizzard, many turn to the burgeoning free-to-play business model. But in the U.S., the space is becoming increasingly crowded, according to J. Mark Hood, co-founder of free-to-play MMO company Reality Gap.
"I think it is saturated here, and I think there's a real simple reason why most people [release free-to-play games]," he told Gamasutra. "The basic reason is -- how do you compete with [the massive budgets] that Activision Blizzard and EA are doing right now? Unless you have a huge company and a huge amount of capital, there are not a lot of ways to do that."
Today, a lot of companies vying for their share of the online market enter the casual space, social gaming, lower-budget online games, or taking Asian MMOs and porting them over for Western audiences.
But porting, Hood said, poses problems. "One is just to get titles over here. That doesn't work anymore. In fact, I'm not sure that it ever really did, except in a few cases. But what you're really trying to do is look for a particular type of title, a really unique, cool title. They do exist, but it takes a lot of looking. A lot of looking."
Free-to-play MMO saturation isn't exclusive to the U.S., Hood said. "...The Korean market is super-saturated right now. It's just crazy…Over here, it's a little different… Good titles do really good, and bad titles don't do very good. I know there's been a lot of schlock where it's just sort of come over here."
"It's not just schlock," he said. "There are some good games that have come over here, but they weren't good necessarily for the U.S. market. A lot of things we've found, [like games based around] vanity items and things that are very, very popular in Asia…aren't necessarily as popular here."
"Things that are more important here are actually how the game plays, getting yourself more advancement and skill. So, it is really different."
For more about Hood's background in the games industry, the founding of Reality Gap with Nolan Bushnell, and the concept of running a virtual economy in an MMO with no item stores, read the full Gamasutra feature interview.
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I've noticed the problem cited here as a consumer. I got to looking up free to play MMO's because there's a low barrier to entry and there are decent web resources that review them. I found myself seeing a different cost in them that I was spending a lot of time and HDD space downloading them. It wouldn't be such a problem, but I have yet to find one that I really enjoy playing. I fully intend to part with a few of my hard earned dollars to support the developers and pimp out my character, but only when I find one I like enough.
Getting back to the quote, gameplay is always the problem I have with these games. I can't justify spending my time regardless of how aesthetically pleasing the games are, if they are not fun. To offer some ideas on what goes wrong with these games I'll leave yall with a few gameplay issues that I see often. First problem: grind and only grind. I know there are people that like grinding in RPGs, but for many gamers like myself it's deal breaker. It was an acceptable game mechanic back in the 80's and early 90's maybe, but now you really need it to be more fun and less tedious task. If your game resembles progress quest, you've got this problem.
Another problem: It takes too long to feel like you as a player or your player character is worth anything. Let me explain: Like many games Free MMO's often start the player with relatively nothing and the player must earn or buy things. The problem here is not that you start with very little, it is the degree to which this is done. Basically I feel the need to have 1-2 long sittings of playing the game to get rolling with it on basics, the bare minimum. From there I feel it will take about 10 sittings to get to where I'm not a generic n00b character that does nothing more than grind. This may be in part because I don't have enough skills, because I look like all the other characters, or simply because gameplay isn't meaningful until the 15+ hour mark. When in doubt, reference Guild Wars (it's not exactly the same market though). It does a great job of making the beginning of the game awesome and really draw you in. You have a full set of skills from early on and they are useful then and later in the game. The environments look cool, the characters are even cool looking despite the very limited customization options when compared to later in the game.
Ok, enough of the rant, you get the picture. Sounds like Hood and Bushnell are on the right track with their new company, and hopefully others in the Free MMO realm will follow suit.
There are some solid free MMOs out there right now, and playing them offers an interesting insight into where bigger budget MMOs may be heading. For example, Atlantica Online offers gameplay which is closer to group based Final Fantasy combat than traditional hack and slash MMO, and has some incredibly innovative systems to build community (such as the "give a gift to a newbie" system, and sharing information about encounters).
Also with MMO's what happens when the online community dwindles? I lose the ability to play the game or on very limited independent servers. The whole genre isn't for me.
My 2 cents - US f2p market is still in it's infancy. There's no single western world produced really high quality popular f2p title yet.
This obviously going to change in next 3-4 years, but for now - there's not much competition there. More important - there's no competition from "big boys" - both EA or Activision are lagging and won't deliver any serious competitive product in 2010-2011.