Tugg Back, being confused in Bestine. Look, a dancing Stormtrooper!

Earlier today on Twitter, some people seemed to react when I mentioned that I planned to do some AFK-mining with my trader in Star Wars Galaxies. I can understand that, doing things AFK are almost the same as botting in other titles. I thought I’d return to the culture of AFK that is present in SWG in a later post, but inspired by Stargrace’s writings on Vanguard, I thought I’d take a look at crafting in Star Wars Galaxies.

Crafting in Vanguard is awesome. Crafting in Star Wars Galaxies is a science, at least for newbies like me. Poking around in it can be pretty fun, but if you’re going to try to make any credits out of it you’re in for a ride. Something I noticed when I decided to take my poor trader out of early retirement a few weeks ago. He went from simply pulling up worthless materials for easy credits to trying to wrap his poor Ithorian head about the finer details of weapon crafting…

Bear with me, because this might get a bit long.

Tugg Back, my budding crafter, was luckily already level 90. I grinded him to cap through the usual means – going for a structure trader, picking up a grind kit of materials and making statues until my eyes bled. It was horrible, took about three hours of insanity, and I don’t ever want to do it again. Sadly, a trader beneath level 90 is more or less worthless to the current community, seeing how old it is, so it was pretty much needed.

Re-speccing him to a munitions trader, putting my expertise points into weapon smithing (our guild city already has an awesome armor shop), I took a look at what I could put together. From the list of weapons I picked the Advanced Laser Rifle. It sounded basic enough, and “advanced” sounded better than the normal laser rifle. For it, I would need a frame, a receiver, a grip, a barrel, a core and an optional scope, stock and elemental chamber. Reasonable enough.

Then I started to take a look at what materials I would need, and that’s kind of where I am right now. In a state of miserable shock, trying to figure out if this project is worth the effort or not. For the frame, receiver and grip I will need some rather easy stuff – link-steel aluminium, non-ferrous metal and polymer. But the full list of stuff I will need to gather is a bit longer…

Rhodium Steel
Duralloy Steel
Duranium Steel
Ryll Amorphous Gemstone
Polysteel Copper
Carbonite Steel
Crystalline Gemstone
Inert Petro Chemical
Reactive Gas
Chromium Aluminium
Green Diamond Crystalline Gemstone
Corellian Deciduous Wood
Varium Carbonite Ore
Phrik Aluminium
Tolium Reactive Gas

This will get me an Advanced Laser Rifle with an acid elemental chamber. Sweet! Just go out and mine the stuff, right? Run up to a Reactive Gas-node and get the good old mining pick out? Oh, no. I’m just getting started.

Tugg Back placing an elite harvester... in a swamp!

You see, there is Rhodium Steel and there is Rhodium Steel. Materials in Star Wars Galaxies have stats. A freaking ton of stats. All of them don’t come into play when you’re going to craft something, for most of my stuff I just need to keep my eye on Overall Quality (OQ) and Shock Resistance (SR). But I still need to find the darn materials, and they need to have spawned somewhere in the galaxy in the first place. Different spawn, different stats. Luckily, some brave souls keep updating the list on the wonderful website SWGcraft, so lazy traders like me don’t need to scour every planet to find what they need.

All of the stuff on that list isn’t available at any given time. They might spawn, they might despawn, they might pop up when I least expect it and disappear before I have time to get my harvesters there. And then, of course, there are planets like Mustafar where you can’t even place harvesters so you have to rely on sampling – pulling up small quantities of materials from the ground. Which is where my trader is right now, AFK-mining away to get his hands on some sweet high-statted copper. Yum yum yum. I had plans to AFK-mine that really nice gemstone that had spawned the other day, but of course that was already gone…

Are we done yet? No, we’re not. Here comes the whole “you need money to make money”-thing. Because when you finally have the materials needed, you need to put it together. And to get the best result, you need to pray to the Gods of Chance – you will need to “experiment”. And to make sure that the Gods are smiling in your favor, you need to stack up on crafting gear. Which I surely don’t have right now, and can’t afford anyway. During Empire Day, they hand out a nice bandoleer with a lot of bonus Luck, but that’s about it for me right now.

I'm just going to sit here and stare for a bit...

So this is pretty much where I stand right now, confused and scared and excited at the same time. It might sound like I’m complaining. I’m really not. I’m looking forward to getting this project off the ground, slowly building up a nice stock of materials (I haven’t even mentioned things like weapon augmentations…) and trying to put up a small weapons shop in some corner of our guild city. It won’t be the fanciest shop in the world, but I’m going to sell some really nice weapons to my customers. That’s the plan, at least.

Wish me luck. I’m still trying to bend my head around all the concepts at play here. It’s an amazing system, with a nice depth. It’s light years ahead of other titles, and together with Vanguard it has one of the most interesting crafting systems of all time. The only games that come close is Ryzom and in a way EVE Online. And I never managed to get much crafting done in those two…

Or perhaps I’m just making it more complicated in my head than it actually is in reality. Hopefully that’s the case.

                          

Anyway, what I’m talking about is Star Wars Galaxies. I started out in November last year, planning to give the game a month to see if all its bad rep was deserved or not. I ended up falling in love with it, and the week after E3 I hit level 90 – the cap. During that time I have been a Jedi, a Bounty Hunter, a Smuggler and back to Jedi. I have grinded a Trader to level 90, I’ve picked up a second account where I got an Entertainer to cap as well.

Now I am getting ready for “endgame”, which in Star Wars Galaxies I’m not sure really exists. At least not in the traditional sense. I’ve put my foot in one of the heroic dungeons, the Temple of Exar Kun, and I’m hoping to finish up the few remaining heroic pre-quests I have left this week and see the rest of them soon. I’ve started to dabble in invasions, I’m trying to re-decorate my new house, trying to learn about crafting enough that I can actually use my Trader for…well, for something.

I feel at home in Star Wars Galaxies. It’s a great game, with a long and sad run. Seven years of constant controversy. But also seven years of sandboxy goodness, with a dedicated playerbase and ideas that haven’t been seen in other MMOs. I plan to stick around for a long time coming, even if I’ve started to feel the call of the classic fantasy MMO. My Lord of the Rings-account is still active, and Vanguard’s server merge has put it back on my radar…

What a long strange journey it’s been. And what a long strange journey I have yet to look forward to.

                          

No matter. I haven’t blogged in a while, so I’m not even sure why I’m posting this to say that I won’t blog for a while. I’ll be heading to LA tomorrow, for E3, and will be gone for a week – we’re heading back to Denmark/Sweden next Friday, which means we will be here at around 9am local time on Saturday. The team is pretty big, which is nice, and our boss and his girlfriend will be staying with us at the condo we’ve rented near Marina del Rey. It will be a lot of fun, and a lot of work, I just need to get over this particular bump and realize it too…

I’m very much looking forward to seeing Sera and Shawn (of Massively-fame), with an added bonus being the place where we’ve decided to meet up. There will be photos, trust me. I shall try to update my newly re-discovered Flickr account, but I won’t make any promises. I guess I will have a ton of photos to go through when I get back home, though.

Time to get the last packing done, before my brain implodes.

                          

I keep meaning to do some form of podcast, or force someone I know that makes a podcast have me as a guest, but Good Company is as close as it gets I suppose. It’s like a podcast in video form, featuring me and Andreas (producer and camera guy at GRTV), and this time we let it run for almost 30 minutes… Might be a bit long for video, but if you tab away you can listen to us talk about Star Wars, instant action in games, more Star Wars, Skate 3 and more Star Wars.

But yeah, podcasting. Should really look into that, because babbling is fun.

                          

It's pretty! I'll take it!

I am really glad for all the interesting comments I received on my last entry, and in case you’ve read them I’d direct you over to the Buzz-version of the thread where a couple of other MMO-bloggers (including Tobold, Spinks, Chris and Pete) chime in on the subject. Thanks to everyone! I have been giving this a lot of thought ever since the sparkle pony was released for World of Warcraft, and it’s great to take part of other views on RMT in subscription MMOs.

But I thought that I’d take an entry to explain why I believe this is happening. The reason for this is that I believe that partly the item shops are misunderstood, as I see the word “greed” thrown around a lot by critics. Ark pointed out, again, that there might be a difference of opinion depending on political standpoint of the viewer, and I am starting to agree with him. Because I don’t think it is about greed at all, except for the greed inherit in the capitalist system. It’s all about the money and how economics work.

Disclaimer: I am not an economist. I have never studied economic theory. This entry is based on my understanding of economics through the very limited reading I’ve done on the subject, including books like The Undercover Economist and various books by leftist economic and cultural theorists that would drive the more right-bent readers nuts if I mentioned them by name. If you are an economist, or have studies the subject, or just happen to know more than me – please comment and enlighten me. Economy is fascinating and I would love to learn more. Neither am I saying I am the only one, or the first one, to bring this up.

There are a couple of scenarios that I believe are bringing this change to MMOs. They have nothing to do with greed, at least not from a developer standpoint. Some have pointed out that they’d support the cash shops much more if they knew where the money goes – if it is invested back into the game or to the money-men at the top. The answer to that is complicated, as the money goes straight into the pockets of the company itself. But the company have to give money to a lot of people, including the ones on its payroll, investors, shareholders, etc.

Despite being highly critical of the highly overpriced mounts (subjective, I know), these reasons make sense to me. They are legitimate, even though I don’t condone them. But in an economic reality, we’ll probably have to accept them – especially when it comes to games like EQ2 and WoW.

Improved goblin graphics are not free, you know.

Reason 1: Development costs go up, while the subscription price stays the same. Stargrace (and someone else, I can’t remember who right now, sorry) names this as her reason to support this RMT over on Nomadic Gamer. It’s a perfectly fair point. Development costs do go up, a new MMO is much more expensive to develop now than it was 10 years ago (or even five, or two). Cataclysm is probably much more expensive to produce than The Burning Crusade was, for example. SOE is developing at least one new MMO (DC Universe Online), which is probably even more expensive than Cataclysm (since developing a game from scratch takes a larger team and more tech than a live team working on an expansion). And we know that Blizzard is working on a “next-gen MMO”.

At the same time, we can probably expect operation costs to go down – bandwidth gets cheaper and cheaper, and storage space gets cheaper by the minute. That’s not to say these costs evens out, even though most of the development investment is returned by box sales at launch. The live team, which then will keep the game updated (new content, squash bugs, QA, etc), is normally a lot smaller than the development team so the running costs become smaller again. These are all columns on a spreadsheet, but they do lead us on to the next point…

Reason 2: World of Warcraft and Everquest 2 are not making as much money now as they did. This is not to say that they are dying or anything of that nature. World of Warcraft is alive and kicking, and Cataclysm is bound to make Blizzard a crap-ton of money. Everquest 2 seems to be doing alright as well. But they are not as big as they used to be. People keep throwing around the 11 million subscriber number for World of Warcraft still, despite the fact that it’s been a long time since they published official sub numbers (which is enough proof for me to draw the conclusion that the game isn’t growing anymore). Also, there is all the trouble Blizzard has had in China – that’s a huge loss of revenue, and a lot of lost players. There’s also the simple fact that the games are aging.

Fluff items cost a lot of money to develop. Housing included.

World of Warcraft is still making Activision Blizzard millions of dollars each month – the large Western player base is enough to secure the game’s future for many years to come. But that doesn’t matter, especially since the two companies merged (Vivendi culture was a lot different, trust me). What does matter is that it isn’t making as much money as last year. If we put last year’s earnings, and this years earnings, next to each other it will produce a red number. And God forbid we compare it to two years ago! In this economic system, what matters is growth. Not subscriber number growth, the shareholders don’t care about that. Economic growth. You might have made us a billion dollars, but last year that number was 1.2 billion! Disaster!

While Activision Blizzard expect to make up for the investment for Cataclysm this year, we have to remember that they are working on their next MMO which probably has a long way to go before it is released. That’s a pure expense, it is making them no money at all right now. And as development ramps up, the cost will do nothing except increase. Saying that it will make the company even more billions in 2012/2013 doesn’t really cut it today.

SOE is developing DC Universe Online, which is another cost on the already pressured games company. The last game they released was Free Realms, and despite all the news we hear about registered accounts, we know nothing about how much money they are making from it. Insider sources, and with that I mean people in the actual MMO industry, have told me that Free Realms has been a disaster for SOE. Take that with a grain of salt, as with any unnamed source, but personally I have no real reason to doubt this person. More red numbers, more money that must be gained elsewhere.

I think that’s the whole reason why Blizzard introduced the pet shop, the reason why SOE started to dabble in pretty small scale RMT (not sure we can call the virtual card game small scale, though). With that success came the sparkle pony and with its success followed the prowler (I subscribe to the theory that SOE’s price point is not a coincidence). Not because they necessarily wanted to. Not that a developer thought it’d be a cool service. Not because they are greedy, or because they believe it gives the player more choice (the amount of mounts in both games are quite enough to give the player a lot of choices, with more or less grinds involved). But because they simply had to.

If you're lucky, you might be able to pick this up in Vanguard soon!

The price point – $25 – was with great certainty not picked out of a hat at a Activision board meeting. There’s probably a lot of science behind it, just like the 1200 point price for the Stimulus Package for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. It’s all about perceived value, and similar economic buzz words. That’s what they figured people would pay, and that’s what they needed to sell it for. And they were right, with the sparkle pony being a huge success (we still don’t have numbers for the prowler, do we?).

The other alternative would be to raise sub-prices, as Tobold mentions in the Buzz-thread linked at the beginning of this entry. And just like the $25 for mounts, I believe that only Blizzard can set that precedent. Expect a higher subscription fee when their next-gen MMO is released, or at least a pricing model that will be radically different from what we have now that will make them more money every month. Then the rest of the genre can follow suit. Otherwise, you risk having potential customers stay in whatever game they are playing now.

You know what? I can kind of buy it, if this theory is right. It doesn’t mean I condone this form of economic system, it causes a lot of problems, but I’ll accept is as a sad part of modern life right now. If this is what it takes to keep old games rolling (let’s face it, WoW and EQ2 are old), then it might be worth seeing 200 000 people rushing to buy a sparkly, flying pony the second it is released. It will sting in my eyes, but if the prowler keeps EQ2 out of trouble for a bit…well, I’ll accept it. I guess that’s where the choice comes in – more MMOs on the market is a good thing.

For now, this might be the price we have to either pay (and get a mount) or simply accept to keep our favorite games alive as they grow older. Let’s face it, a lot of us have rosy colored glasses on when it comes to what MMOs used to be back in the “good old days”. Many of us play games that were released 6 – 7 years ago (which includes World of Warcraft). If we don’t want the shareholders, or CEOs, or board of directors, give the developers we love trouble we might as well just pay the $25 when a sweet mount is put on sale. I know my gnome would look awesome on a proto-drake (preferably without the sparkles, please).

I can’t be bothered to be upset anymore. I’m just gonna go “meh” and move on. If they truly try to screw us completely in the future and the slippery slope we’re worried about becomes a landslide, I’ll be back. For now, I think I’ll just stop caring. Buy a prowler, support your lovely developers, and be happy.

                          

This entry craved a lolcat.

When Blizzard released the sparkling pony of doom I mentioned that I wanted a convincing argument and I’d stop criticizing MMO companies for going down the overpriced RMT + sub route. With SOE jumping on the bandwagon, giving the critics more fuel for their already very hot fires, I’m going to ask the question again. Last time I mostly got people agreeing with me, and only one “they are a business, they want more money” which doesn’t really make it any better.

The second the new prowler mounts (or “copykats”;  thanks, Ark) went up in the Everquest 2 item shop, both Beau and Cuppy praised it. Beau jumped straight in and bought one. So I know there are MMO-bloggers out there that support this. I am looking at you guys, and the people that share your opinions on this, to give me the answer I am looking for.

In short, the question I want answered is this:

- In what way is adding a mount to an item shop, and charging extra for it on top of the regular subscription fee, good for the consumer?

I really want an answer. I am ready to be convinced. We mostly get to hear the critics (because, let’s face it, we’re pretty loud), now I want to hear the people that support this development. Give me a reason, a reason that I can believe in and agree with. I won’t flame you, and I’ll of course delete any comments that do.

                          

Die, stupid flag!

Since I resubscribed to Star Wars Galaxies I’ve only managed to ding 8 levels. What burned me out last time was this obsession about getting to level cap, and I got stuck on doing terminal missions until my brain bled. They are not very fun, trust me. So this time I gave up on that, even though I do look forward to reaching level 90, and I’ve been doing whatever I’ve felt like at any given moment. Such as…

• Hunting on Kashyyyk. The design of the Wookie planet is a lot different from the other planets I’ve visited so far, and the long quest chains serve to slowly unlock different areas. I’ve so far gathered three different hunting trophies that are now hanging on the walls of my house. I’ve also ordered myself a new mount from a beast master in my guild, since my regular means of transportation are not available in the forest and I have to rely on my really slow (and ugly) cliff-jumper. A crafter in the guild is also buying any hides I might gather, which is a small cash bonus.
• Decorating my house. Moving stuff around, hanging new paintings and putting some things on display on top of my aquarium. Hanging a huge bantha hunting trophy next to my bed. Dear me, that will give me nightmares.
• Flying around in space. I’ve been moving up through the space tiers, currently working for Jabba the Hutt. Space is awesome, and I do hope that Bioware will include something similar in The Old Republic. I doubt they will though, unless it’s planned for an expansion in the same way Jump To Lightspeed was for Star Wars Galaxies.
• Finding random quests. If you don’t count the Legacy Quest-chain, there are no big arrows pointing out where you should go in SWG. You can run into a quest more or less anywhere. If it sounds interesting, and I believe I can pull it off, I’ll accept it and see where it takes me. I got my fancy clone trooper armor that way. I’ve also started to make my way through the Meatlump theme park, investigating the largest criminal gang on Corellia.
• Taking part in PvP invasions. Sure, I’m only level 55 right now, so I don’t go full PvP and fight other players. But I’ve joined forces together with a couple of guildies and attacked Bestine a couple of times. Epic and a lot of fun, with walkers and stormtroopers everywhere. I haven’t turned off my flag since last time, so I constantly get to fight stormtrooper NPCs while in Mos Eisley.
• Doing smuggler missions. I respeced from Jedi to smuggler and I don’t regret it at all. Doing smuggler missions for the Underworld faction might not be the most exciting activity in the world, but it’s a nice distraction and adds flavor.

I’m also considering taking my trader out of early retirement, perhaps respecing him to a chef or giving him an instrument and turn him into an entertainer, playing music and buffing others for tips at the Mos Eisley cantina. We’ll have to see about that, so far I haven’t had any money problems. Sooner or later I will, though.

Twitch-based pew pew in space. Eat your heart out, landlubber.

What Star Wars Galaxies has taught me this time is how shallow games like World of Warcraft is. I need at least some sandbox elements to stay happy. I haven’t logged into Lord of the Rings Online in the last couple of days and I don’t really feel like doing so either. I have to log into Age of Conan, since I’m reviewing Rise of the Godslayer, but I seriously doubt it would be able to keep me occupied over a long period of time.

Cataclysm, despite all the cool screenshots, has never looked as uninteresting as right now. I know I will never get my friends to play Star Wars Galaxies with me, since they only tend to go back to what they know or only see flaws where I see merits. That’s fair enough. But more than ever I’m quite sure that I want more sandboxes, more immersion. I want Vanguard more than I want Warcraft, I want Galaxies more than I want The Old Republic (of course I’ll play it when it comes out, it does look awesome).

                          

I has pretty horsie!

I’ve had a really bad day today, which culminated with a long discussion/argument with Openedge over Twitter (no hard feelings though). But instead of being a typical MMO-blogger/player and complaining about something game related on my blog when I’m in a bad mood, I’m going to do the opposite. Instead, I’m going to be all happy! See, I did promise a happy post on DFTM!

You know what, I am happy when it comes to the MMOs I’m in right now. I’m truly to starting to feel at home in Lord of the Rings Online, for example. My rune-keeper has hit level 36, which is way beyond anything I’ve reached in the game before. He’s a ton of fun to play, and getting the horse from the Spring Festival made me even happier about him. There is something about getting a proper mount in a MMO that always makes me feel that my character is more…well, real.

The kinship I’m in has been nothing except great, even though I hardly ever see any of the bloggers that’s in it as well (I’ve seen Syp once, still no sign of Blue Kae or the Casual Stroll-guys – damn your make-believe time zone). I’ve started to dabble a bit in skirmishes, trying to figure out which soldier will work the best together with my rune-keeper. So far, the warrior has been working better than the protector. It’s tricky to try to do both healing and some extra DPS with a rune-keeper…

I also decided to re-sub to Star Wars Galaxies the other day. It was a combination of the producer note for April which details some really cool changes, the neat stuff you get during the 30th Anniversary of Empire Strikes Back, and a brief discussion about the game with Ark. I was happy to find my house intact and myself still guilded. All I’ve done so far is putting some decorative things on top of the aquarium on the upper floor of my home, but it felt nice seeing Prometheus, our guild city, again.

And a cool aquarium. Beat that, World of Warcraft.

I’m considering respecing my Jedi as well. That’s the nice thing about SWG – you can actually respec over to other classes and retain your combat levels (it comes with an increasing cost, of course). I’m considering a bounty hunter, or a smuggler, but I have yet to decide. I’m also thinking about deleting my level 90 trader and replacing him with an entertainer (don’t want to respec him, he wouldn’t look too good on the dance floor).

To be honest, I’m actually pretty confident that MMOs will come out alright in the end, despite money grabbing F2P-games and sparkly ponies. I’m with Syp, the APB business model gave me back some confidence that it’s all not doom and gloom. Everything will be just fine.

                          

I has pony! Or, well, not me. I'd never play a Night Elf male to level 80. Brrrrr.

Oh no! This piece of juicy drama is not getting away from me. I know you’re all fed up reading about the Celestial Steed, so instead of beating that old dead horse (pun very much intended) I will keep this quick.

A few points on the discussion about the sparkly pony in World of Warcraft:

- The people that are sceptical, in a sane way, will not be persuaded to like the sparkly horse by being told to “deal with it” or “if you don’t like it, don’t buy it”. Those are not very good arguments, since they have nothing to do with the matter at hand. I’d go to as far as to say that they are not arguments at all. They are dismissals.
- The people that are sceptical, in a sane way, are usually grown up and have enough disposable income to buy the horse themselves. They are usually not jealous of the people that spent $25 dollars on it.
- The people that are sceptical, in a sane way, are usually worried about what kind of message this sends to the developers. Or, in this case, the publisher who is happy to charge outrageous prices for content already.

I’m not angry at the people buying the horse, but I’m not convinced this is a good move for the consumer either. I think the pricing is outrageous and don’t believe that the hundred of thousands of people that thought it is alright to pay $25 for it make the whole thing alright. I don’t think the pricing of the Stimulus Package is warranted either, but obviously the 2,5 million people who downloaded it during the first week thought so.

That’s where I believe the standard for future DLC from Acti Blizzard was set, by the way. If people will pay 1200 Microsoft Points for 5 maps (two of which are re-used from the first game), then why wouldn’t they pay $25 for a sparkly horsie? Obviously, they would. (Would I pay $25 for a proto drake? I’d rather not think about that, considering the amount of time I spent hunting for the Time-Lost Proto Drake.)

Here's what I think of your offer wall! Haiiaaah!

Neither will I ever apologize for thinking that Turbine made a mistake when they introduced the offer wall and only being glad that they took it away. Too many scams have been perpetrated through such offers, enough for me to believe that no serious business should get themselves involved with it. I don’t care how much money is being generated, or that a lot of people like the system. Being told that it’s the future, without any more tangible proof why I am wrong, will not convince me otherwise.

Zynga made a similar mistake during GDC. Instead of trying to explain why their game actually had something to offer, or explain in a good way why other devs could learn real and tangible lessons in gamedesign and not only new ways to milk the audience for more money, they just alienated themselves even further from the people who already hate them. And probably made even more people dislike them in the process.

Oh yeah!

The sparkly pony is just another move towards a future that I’m not sure that I like. Should I shut up about that because it seems like that future will win over one I’d prefer? Hardly. There might be great changes coming, I don’t doubt that they will. But I want more proper arguments why these changes will be good for the consumer before I accept them as a good thing. So far, I have yet to see one apologetic reason that has me convinced. Until then, I will remain sceptical and critical – of the F2P genre (which I really weren’t, until Allods and the rise of social gaming gave me another perspective on things), of the offer walls, of any sparkly ponies being sold for $25.

I am only happy to be proven wrong, though. There’s a comment section below, feel free to use it to convince me why I am not making any sense. Please, give me an argument that will blow my little ship out of the water. I’m inviting you to do so!

And while Activision Blizzard keep overcharging for their content, and offer walls keep generating income for the companies that use them, I will sit here hoping for someone to actually give them some competition by simple virtue of being less outrageous. Modern Warfare 2 has Battlefield Bad Company 2, which might give Acti a run for their Call of Duty-money in the future. Now we just need someone to show the consumer (and the industry) that you can deliver a great MMO (or social game), and show the industry that you can make a lot of money, by being much more reasonable when it comes to pricing.

Next up on DFTM: A happy post! Enough with the grumbling, let’s hold hands and be happy.

                          

Lesson 1: Not a MMO.

While I was away doing everything except blogging, a lot of stuff happened that I’ve thought I should blog about. I still haven’t finished my narrative on Allods Online, but I’ll get back to it sooner or later. Then there’s that new Cryptic-drama (take your pick of which drama it is this week), that I wanted to comment on. That last thing is actually kind of related to what I thought I’d write about now – social games.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to go on and on about how social games are not games and that they are nothing but spamfests etcetera. But social games have invaded the MMO-sphere lately (even getting their own column at Massively), with everyone talking about it. Come to think of it, social games have invaded every gaming sphere lately, not only MMOs, and GDC this year was a big Zynga-hatefest with Zynga hating everyone else and then being rude about it and making everyone hate them even more. Good job there. Thumbs up!

Anyway, I shall leave that part out. Let’s just say that I am not impressed by them, but they are obviously big business these days. I do have one major problem with them, though, a problem that I can’t seem to get out of my head.

Ever since three major corporations decided to wage a console war against each other (or other people decided that they were waging a war for them), people have speculated what life would be like with only one console. A single machine that would play all games. No more of this “exclusive” nonsense, just gaming. How sweet wouldn’t life be, no? And most of us gaming journos, and most people with some form of sense, have said that it would not be a very good idea at all. First of all, we journos like to report on drama and David Cage talking about Natal. Secondly, most people with some form of sense realize that competition is good for the consumer – lower prices, higher quality, etc. One single console would kill competition, and life would be generally less fun.

Lesson 2: Not a "social game".

So how about them “social games”? While we’re starting to see a bit more creative projects crop up, including Civilization (yay!), they do have one thing in common (except spamming your friends, hurr hurr). They are, to a vast majority, on Facebook. With all this talk about social media and life in 140 chars and making international connections and viral campaigns and all that stuff, everything seems to be centered around Facebook. And I can’t think of any of these “social games”, except Echo Bazaar, that takes place on another social media site.

And that, to me, is the big problem. Not only because I don’t like Facebook personally, because of their privacy issues, but because I don’t like seeing so much of the industry’s money being fueled towards one platform. Let’s be honest here, even you social gaming people, what is the one thing that keeps this whole genre together? Facebook. The idea that all those people that play FarmVille (85 million? Riiiight.) would seek out new games if Facebook disappeared is farfetched; to say the least. It’s all in there, your friends are there, you socialize there, you play your games there. Take that away…and what is left?

This is a problem for social media in general, of course – Facebook does not have proper competition. But with EA sacking 1500 people, while pumping in $300 million in Playfish, that effects my industry to such a huge extent that it’s hard not to sit up straight and go “lol wut?”. If Facebook screws up, and it’s hardly like they make all the right decisions, they will not fall alone. Unless we get some more bigger movers, that is also offering platforms for social gaming, the industry is building a lot of hope into one single platform. It’s like one gigantic console, that if it fails will bring a lot of money crashing down with it.

Hopefully, it won’t come to that. Hopefully something new will arise, it almost always does, and usurp Facebook and the circus will move on to the Next Great Thing there. Or Facebook will be like the Wii – game companies will pump in a lot of money into a lot of projects, find out that a lot of it won’t sell, the market will stabilize at a lower point that everybody that was talking about a revolution anticipated (don’t get me wrong, the Wii is selling tons, games for a mature audience on the machine is not). That’s probably more likely to happen than any doomsday scenario that I might paint up in my head. But until either of those two things happen, I will watch the boat from a distance and chew my fingernails and rant and rave at whoever will listen.