My Observations: The Massively Multiplayer Market
I've been doing quite a bit of reading lately, across various sites and through some major back and forth exchanges of history and ideas. From this I feel as though I'm starting to find a fairly decent grasp on some of the factors contributing to the current MMO market.
I'm going to be bringing quite a few games, and I can't promise I'll be particularly positive to your favorite. Still please bear with me and read the entire article before responding.
To begin with I want to cover a little bit about the who. Demographics I suppose it would be called, though I don't plan on tracking age, gender, or race so I'm not sure it counts (~.^). But I'll to try to examine who it is that I believe to be playing these games.
Consistent with most service industries I'm are not looking for what could be called a "normal" customer. Instead I would prefer to try and block out certain groups that we know to play these games.
Group A will consist of people who purchase two or more games a month and are probable to acquire any sufficiently marketed MMO within three months of launch. We'll call them the Nomads for my own ease.
Group B consists of persons under the age of 17 who are probable to play many different games a month but do not, on average, purchase the games themselves. We'll call them annoying little shi... Tweens, we'll call them Tweens.
Group C would be persons above the age of 17 who will purchase, on average, less than one game a month. While I'm loathe to open this can of worms, we'll call these people Casual Gamers.
Group D are self identified gamers who purchase fewer than one title per month. Gamers will do.
The first MMOs were created for our A and D groups. The current game industry as a whole is built by and for Gamers and Nomads, the concept of creating MMOs for them was a logical solution. UO and Everquest are the examples I'd use for that period. Neither game had great penetration in the B or C groups though both certainly attracted some amount of players from those groups.
I would theorize however that MMOs as a whole actually have only a small market share amongst Gamers and Nomads. Nomads especially are more often consumers than they are users, preferring the act of buying a product over paying for a service. Group C by comparison is much more likely to see the game as a service which naturally makes the business model more palatable.
Group B was soon discovered by games like Runescape, but group C remained an impossible market to gain a significant foothold in right up until 2005.
There are a few important things to note about World of Warcraft that allowed it to open that market while increase share in both markets B and D, Tweens and Gamers. WoW was a highly polished iterative evolution from a game play stand point, and while that was a major contributor to it's success it would also have been impossible for it to have affected such a paradigm shift alone. WoW's disruptive evolution in marketing campaigns has consistently pulled in the C and D markets allowing them to grow their target audience. WoW's western market consists of a little under five million. It has thus far been impossible for any other MMO to replicate those numbers, in fact Western subs rarely approach the one million mark.
The most important take away for business people is, however, that the B and C markets, Tweens and Casuals, are growing while the D market is fairly steady. Expect to see more games aimed at those two markets attempting to tangentially acquire members of the Gamer demographic.
Unfortunately we still have one loose end; the A market, Nomads. The Nomad demographic are high money spending players, but they have a generally lower amount of loyalty than the other groups, besides the Tweens. Nomads are also some of the most likely to frequent blogs and forums though. The industries sharp turn away from the Nomad's preferred type of game has left a segment of the market hurt and disillusioned. To a large extent, we are seeing the SWG CU and NGE style event happen on an industry wide level.
The companies are turning away from those who were there to support them early on to pursue the dream of these new markets. Since it's a more subtle, industry-wide, move it hasn't sparked off as many flames. On the other hand it has left a large segment of the population with a general feeling of negativity and betrayal that is hard to pin down and define.
At present moment, we have yet to see whether the markets WoW has penetrated are indeed open for the entire market. During the mean time we face the more immediate problem of the Nomads themselves. Having been burned by the market trends, they are highly likely to buy or subscribe to new MMOs but unlikely to give positive word of mouth or maintain long term attachments. This can lead to an even greater gap between early sales and actual long term subscription figures, and detract from overall sales.
Not to leave the industry out of the brow beating, we have seen a continuing problem with the business end of MMOs. It remains a common misconception that an MMO is a product when, in fact, it is a service. Despite their apparent success with EQ and EQ2, I actually consider SOE to be the greatest and most consistent offender on this count. Perhaps it is an error in my perception, but that is a failing I've felt every time I've begun a trial on one of their games. They are certainly not the only offender though, and it is a common problem throughout the industry. Luckily if it goes beyond certain limits it becomes a fatal flaw, so we should see very few examples of it's furthest extreme.
This is what I've pieced together through observation, feel free to pick it apart or shred it completely.
I'm going to be bringing quite a few games, and I can't promise I'll be particularly positive to your favorite. Still please bear with me and read the entire article before responding.
To begin with I want to cover a little bit about the who. Demographics I suppose it would be called, though I don't plan on tracking age, gender, or race so I'm not sure it counts (~.^). But I'll to try to examine who it is that I believe to be playing these games.
Consistent with most service industries I'm are not looking for what could be called a "normal" customer. Instead I would prefer to try and block out certain groups that we know to play these games.
Group A will consist of people who purchase two or more games a month and are probable to acquire any sufficiently marketed MMO within three months of launch. We'll call them the Nomads for my own ease.
Group B consists of persons under the age of 17 who are probable to play many different games a month but do not, on average, purchase the games themselves. We'll call them annoying little shi... Tweens, we'll call them Tweens.
Group C would be persons above the age of 17 who will purchase, on average, less than one game a month. While I'm loathe to open this can of worms, we'll call these people Casual Gamers.
Group D are self identified gamers who purchase fewer than one title per month. Gamers will do.
The first MMOs were created for our A and D groups. The current game industry as a whole is built by and for Gamers and Nomads, the concept of creating MMOs for them was a logical solution. UO and Everquest are the examples I'd use for that period. Neither game had great penetration in the B or C groups though both certainly attracted some amount of players from those groups.
I would theorize however that MMOs as a whole actually have only a small market share amongst Gamers and Nomads. Nomads especially are more often consumers than they are users, preferring the act of buying a product over paying for a service. Group C by comparison is much more likely to see the game as a service which naturally makes the business model more palatable.
Group B was soon discovered by games like Runescape, but group C remained an impossible market to gain a significant foothold in right up until 2005.
There are a few important things to note about World of Warcraft that allowed it to open that market while increase share in both markets B and D, Tweens and Gamers. WoW was a highly polished iterative evolution from a game play stand point, and while that was a major contributor to it's success it would also have been impossible for it to have affected such a paradigm shift alone. WoW's disruptive evolution in marketing campaigns has consistently pulled in the C and D markets allowing them to grow their target audience. WoW's western market consists of a little under five million. It has thus far been impossible for any other MMO to replicate those numbers, in fact Western subs rarely approach the one million mark.
The most important take away for business people is, however, that the B and C markets, Tweens and Casuals, are growing while the D market is fairly steady. Expect to see more games aimed at those two markets attempting to tangentially acquire members of the Gamer demographic.
Unfortunately we still have one loose end; the A market, Nomads. The Nomad demographic are high money spending players, but they have a generally lower amount of loyalty than the other groups, besides the Tweens. Nomads are also some of the most likely to frequent blogs and forums though. The industries sharp turn away from the Nomad's preferred type of game has left a segment of the market hurt and disillusioned. To a large extent, we are seeing the SWG CU and NGE style event happen on an industry wide level.
The companies are turning away from those who were there to support them early on to pursue the dream of these new markets. Since it's a more subtle, industry-wide, move it hasn't sparked off as many flames. On the other hand it has left a large segment of the population with a general feeling of negativity and betrayal that is hard to pin down and define.
At present moment, we have yet to see whether the markets WoW has penetrated are indeed open for the entire market. During the mean time we face the more immediate problem of the Nomads themselves. Having been burned by the market trends, they are highly likely to buy or subscribe to new MMOs but unlikely to give positive word of mouth or maintain long term attachments. This can lead to an even greater gap between early sales and actual long term subscription figures, and detract from overall sales.
Not to leave the industry out of the brow beating, we have seen a continuing problem with the business end of MMOs. It remains a common misconception that an MMO is a product when, in fact, it is a service. Despite their apparent success with EQ and EQ2, I actually consider SOE to be the greatest and most consistent offender on this count. Perhaps it is an error in my perception, but that is a failing I've felt every time I've begun a trial on one of their games. They are certainly not the only offender though, and it is a common problem throughout the industry. Luckily if it goes beyond certain limits it becomes a fatal flaw, so we should see very few examples of it's furthest extreme.
This is what I've pieced together through observation, feel free to pick it apart or shred it completely.
Tags: analysis, design, discussion, market, mmo, observations
6 Comments
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Comment by Sara Pickell on July 2, 2008 at 8:58am -
I do understand what you are saying, but the article was going long and I was too tired to start thinking about going into the evolving dynamics.
The thing is, there is a lot that can happen on the micro, thousands of individual variables all going in entirely different directions. I'm purposefully attempting to pull back and look at a snapshot of the macro and get some perspective. Even if 10% of nomads are moving to other groups every year another 10% stupid college kids are entering it from group B. The numbers may fluctuate a bit here and there but the group as a whole should continue to exist for the foreseeable future.
In fact people leaving group A to join C or D is part of what is growing those markets. What I more wanted to address was just that group A is kind of getting the butt end of the market right now. Just like you said in your last paragraph.
Blah, I'm just trying to say that while I think the dynamics are important, I'm more concerned with whether or not the overall model is expressing reality or fantasy.
And honestly, what do any of us know? It's hard to sit back and analyze something without any good numbers to go on. We've got a million anecdotes but crap for statistics and metrics.
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Comment by Jade Talon on July 2, 2008 at 9:30am -
I was just interested in the general preconceptions of the new members of the groups, and how they would/could change the overall group itself.
ie: The Tweens of group B 10 years ago did not grow up with the same games that group B has now. So... when those from group B move over to other groups, their expectations are carried over from their past gaming experiences.
Yea, we're just spitting in the wind though. Speculation without statistics can be aggravating.
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Comment by SquirrelsOfWar on July 2, 2008 at 10:04am -
"To begin with I want to cover a little bit about the who"
Can you do Pinball Wizard?
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Comment by Sigfried Trent on July 2, 2008 at 5:40pm -
I've always though one of the biggest problems with any MMO... the players!
Seriously there is a big section of folks that like soloing in multi player games and sometimes I'm one of them. Actualy I really like playing wtih a small group of palls, sometimes I like playing with strangers but usualy not. And sometimes I just want to futz around at my own pace and stare at walls or look for holes in plygons or meticulously test weapon damage and so on. Other folks are just going to put pressure on me to crank through mobs or quests or whatever.
So really a balance needs to be there in most games unless the whole premice of the game really is socialization, and thats not really the heart of many MMO games. Really it is more a shared expereince that matters. You can get together and talk about it with common context and compare achievements in a common playfield. That's more how most folks get into it. They want to play along but they none the less want it to be a shared expereince. After all we don't all need to be in the same theature to share the expereince of watching the same movie.
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Comment by ArgentR on July 3, 2008 at 5:59pm - Group A represent the early adopters and is waiting for the next true innovation in the genre to latch on to a game. While the industry just rehash old concepts, Group A will continue to act as tourists, checking out the sights, coming to the conclusion that the gameplay is just more of the same and moving on. Works fine for the rest of the videogame industry but not if you expect to get subs out of them.
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© 2008 Created by Gary Gannon
Back when I first started really gaming. Those days of all night sessions on M-Player, TEN, Kali and the like... I would have really considered myself a part of Group A. Buying new games all the time, playing Forsaken, Everquest and Total Annihilation for endless hours a week.
Two things started to happen though.
The game industry started to grow... companies started to see the massive amount of profit that could be made... they altered to open themselves up to, and market to, demographics with larger populations.
And also... Those gamers who were parts of the main groups you outlined started to grow as well. Work, family... everything changed. Some may still buy a lot of games, but it seems that most seems to border groups C and D.
It really seems to come down to this:
There are too many moving parts to this machine to localize the problems. Too many variables, especially with the people in those demographics changing in their own unique ways.
Companies seek profit. Products aim for a more diverse market. And the result is that... These games now, are not the ones you grew up on. But you want those games. Those games were targeted to a more narrow market... The opportunity for profit seems to outweigh the desire to make those few people happy now.
Shit... what the hell do I know though, eh?