Global Agenda Dev: Small Studios Can Make Successful MMOs Too

[John Funk]

Global Agenda Dev: Small Studios Can Make Successful MMOs Too

The producer on Global Agenda thinks that for an MMO developer, trying to aim for the success of World of Warcraft is akin to shooting yourself in the foot.

In the eyes of many gamers, MMOs are seen as the "big" genre - they even have the word "Massive" right there in the genre description! The worlds are big, the playerbases are enormous, the budgets are large, and sometimes even the failures [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103563-Ex-Realtime-Worlds-Employee-Examines-APB-Fiasco] are epic-level crash-and-burn spectacles.

But while EA is currently Next-Gen.biz [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/100967-Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic-is-EAs-Most-Expensive-Project-in-History], Hi-Rez Studio's Todd Harris - the executive producer on "spy-fi" jetpack MMO Global Agenda - said that it was perfectly possible for a smaller studio to thrive on a smaller MMO, provided they didn't try to ape the fortunes of WoW.

"What seems to be the trend," says Harris, "is people chasing the success of WOW, spending inordinate amounts of money setting the expectation bar incredibly high, launching and then seeing their numbers decline post launch." That, by the way, would rather aptly describe the fate of every single so-called "WoW killer" from Guild Wars to Warhammer Online.

But even with the crumbling of APB - a game that had cost hundreds of millions of dollars to develop - Harris thinks that there is room for other studios to thrive in the MMO space. "I think small [developers] can do it if they're conservative with their projections and their costs. So even a more niche title, if it grabs 10,000 or even 5,000 subscribers, can support a business if it's right sized."

Global Agenda launched early last year with a dual-tiered model (one subscription-based and one merely buy-to-play), though it ditched the subscription several months later to fully embrace the buy-to-play style popularized by Guild Wars. "Feedback from our users, and us looking at the game, told us it wasn't yet at a point where it justified that subscription, so we never charged them [for the subscription]," says Harris of the genre-straddling third-person-shooter/MMO hybrid.

(Via Edge [http://www.next-gen.biz/news/small-studios-can-make-successful-mmogs])

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[Keava]

Hi-Rez is actually one of the small-scale MMO devs i have respect for.

They did launched with plans of subscription, but since on release date they knew they haven't managed to implement all promised features they didn't ask for money over first months. Some time before the 1.3 patch was about to go live, which would include those missing features, they surveyed their player base and figured out that their game still doesn't exactly fit the idea of full blown monthly subscription.

Same time you had indie companies like devs of MO or Darkfall that not only asked full blown price up front for pre-order of game that wasn't about to be released within next 6 months, they asked for subscription fee right from the start and still didn't managed to get majority of promised content on the release date despite several delays.

 

[Ruairi iliffe]

Well i mean for MMO's dosn't make more scense to make a game for a certain crowd? alot of good MMO's out there that have there own unquie feel and gameplay to WoW are doing well for themselves.

You dont have to be WoW to be good in the online market.

 

[Azhrarn-101]

Just remember EVE Online, CCP was a tiny unknown developer when the game released in 2003, by going a direction that no MMO at the time was taking and gambled on making it work. (sci-fi setting and no levels for one, although Ultima also had full loot PvP)
And they have, EVE has shown constant year-over-year growth ever since its start.

They're nowhere near the size of WoW obviously, but 330,000 - 340,000 subs isn't bad at all, especially since they'll have more every year. Their studio is fairly substantial now (400+ developers in 3 locations) and they're working on a 2nd MMO (World of Darkness).

They're a great example of a small developer making a successful MMO.

 

[Ghengis John]

An important thing to note, that you can be successful if you don't try to ape the fortunes of wow and well said. Too many people come up with a product that's successful but abandon it or consider it a failure because it's not a mega-smash box office breaker. You see it in television, games, movies, printing. A profit is still a profit. No reason to shutter the doors because you're seeing 10% above costs instead of 1000%.

 

[xyrafhoan]

Every game should shoot for the stars in my opinion.

Don't just say ''Well, we are no where near that game's league so we are going to make a shitty MMO and justify it by saying that it is from a small studio.''

You shouldn't make a shitty MMO and expect it to be number 1. What I am saying is that every MMO, as well as every game in general, should make the game they always wanted to be on the market but was never there.

So you'd rather see a company pour millions of dollars into a game just to watch it crash and burn, and then never have the chance to make another game ever again because it's drowning in debt?

Not everyone can have a #1 game, so the next best thing is to work with a modest budget to make a modest game. It doesn't mean the game has to be a bad game, it just means you aren't sinking as much money into marketing, or you can't afford to hire the greatest and grandest graphic artists. I know a lot of people who enjoy lower budget games such as Ragnarok Online, Global Agenda, and Mabinogi, even though the populations of these games pale compared to a monster like WoW.

 

[Marowit]

I played Global Agenda for a bit, and it was fun. The problem I had, which I heard they're approaching, was that it seemed like the game was no more than a lobby with instanced combat. If they're really adding a fun open-world area I'd definitely go back.

 

[Jared]

I think if an MMO can have a fiarly decent following, then thats the main thing - It dosnt need huge budgets to be good

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Ugh... I hate Global Agenda, a waste of $50, the new item system that they introduced completely unbalanced the game making it unplayable.

I played Global Agenda for a bit, and it was fun. The problem I had, which I heard they're approaching, was that it seemed like the game was no more than a lobby with instanced combat. If they're really adding a fun open-world area I'd definitely go back.

They are, but as I said, they ruined the equipment system by getting rid of equipment points and replacing it with a WoWesque badge system. Meaning you no longer have to balance the weapons you take.

 

[gekidoslair]

The Chinese market has dozens of small-scale MMO's that are very successful for what they are trying to be. They have a completely different approach to the market & design of this style of game - short dev cycle, get a small set of loyal subscribers (~10k or so) and are fairly short-lived as well. It's something that western dev's haven't figured out yet, but I think it's not only doable, but absolutely necessary for smaller dev's to approach the market in this fashion.