One thing that I absolutely hate is having to alt+tab in games, or having to play in windowed mode. I’d imagine that many other people probably feel the same way. This happens most often in MMOs, mainly because there’s often need to get to browser windows and media players during extended periods of unbroken play. Just because of the nature of the online game, I find myself sacrificing optimal brightness/contrast and graphical quality for the ability to quickly alt+tab. It’s more important to have information at the tips of my fingers than to have 5 trillion more shaders on my in-game fingertips.

This is why I can’t understand why more MMOs don’t have these same capabilities in-game. Even EQLive had a media player capable of playing mp3s, if rudimentary. EVE is capable of playing the same, and I know that there are several other games with similar capabilities, but what about the big players? There’s not the slightest semblance of a media player in EverQuest 2 and World of Warcraft, and the former is one of the biggest resource hogs known to man. Alt+tabbing EQ2 is like playing russian roulette.

To the game’s credit, though, after logging back in recently I was pleasantly surprised with the addition of a browser window. Given the open source nature of the Gecko browser engine and the prevalence of the firefox browser, I’m completely at a loss for why in-game browsers don’t come standard in games. I don’t want to imply that it would be a walk in the park to add that kind of capability, but clearly the tools are there. Standards-compliant browser rendering engines are available, for free, to whomever wants to use them. My cell phone has a browser, why not my game?

Being a student of economics, I realize that specialization of programs independently of each other will result in better software (that is, if a game company writes their own browsers and mp3 players in game, they’re taking time away from developing features in the game, etc), but in a world where music and the web are two of the most important components of daily life (ipod, iphone anyone?), I hardly see the harm in providing these to gamers. Maybe the innovators behind xfire will expand their aim to the media/browsing world in the near future. At least that’s my hope.

From gonintendo.com, yesterday (yesterday, and it’s already 9 pages back because they update so often):

Channels:
-Digital Clock added to the Wii Menu right under the channel bar
-Forecast Channel now displays the current condition (cloudy, raining, etc.) directly in the Wii Menu in the Forecast Channel box
-News Channel can now show 2 scrolling headlines at a time in the Wii Menu, 3 when you click on the button
-Message Board now has the “Today’s Accomplishments” message as a white message which allows it to stand out from other messages
-Address Book entries can now be shifted around using A+B but only to empty spaces. Not too convenient.
-Calendar in Message Board no longer shows “Today’s Accomplishment” only days as having messages
-Scrolling messages in the Message Board now uses a different sound

Wii Shop Channel Overhauled (Visual aesthetic is the same, changes made to organization and browsing methods mostly)
-New Welcome screen detailing 4 Recommended Titles and the points they cost (gone is the title screen bar that had linkable games). The title bar can be clicked on to bring up a list of 20 recommended games.
-Titles You’ve Downloaded was moved to the main shop menu
-New ways to browse
-Popular Titles (2 pages of 10 and includes launch games so not only based on recent info)
-Newest Additions remains the same
-Search for a title which can use partial names
-Search by Category
-System shows the different systems and how many titles have been released under each
-Publisher showing different publishers and amount of titles released
-Genre (different genres listed and amount of titles under each)

Settings
-Warning added pre-system update detailing that technically modified consoles may cease to function upon being updated. Also the only way to not accept an update is to power down the console by holding the button for 4 seconds (the user can’t back out of hitting I Accept w/o powering down)

Maybe they should focus on keeping the forecast channel up-to-date before they focus on moving it around. One time it was snowing in the middle of June and my Wii forecast channel said it was like 100 degrees Kelvin. It also said the data was from like 3 weeks in the past. Maybe I’ll trust my windows instead of my Wii.

I guess also there’s support for usb wired and wireless keyboards in the wii shop and wii internet channels now. Good, but it reportedly doesn’t work with all keyboards, so we’ll just have to wait until nintendo releases one for $940.

Instead of changing the Wii shop around, maybe they should just add a feature that tells me when I can buy Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask for N64 so I don’t have to keep checking every 30 minutes. What if they release it while I’m sleeping? I gotta get to the end game first.

Also, like many people have probably already said, there’s no new word on Miis or why Nintendo continues to make them suck. There’s also no word on why it takes an act of God to enter a friend code, or why it takes another act of God to even find your friend code in the first place.

Will someone just email me when Majora’s Mask releases for Virtual Console? Seriously.

Adrian Crook over at freetoplay.biz wrote an incredibly insightful and useful article regarding some strategies that online game designers can use to lower the barriers to entry to their games, as well as keep the players in their games longer while still monetizing a small percentage of them. I’m happy to have happened upon this article in complete accident (it gives me more hope that the internet is still filled with wonderful things).

Anyway, here is a short summary of the article, followed by a link to the original if you want more details (much has been cut). “Here are 10 ways to remove game-killing barriers to entry and create the largest possible addressable market.”

1. Free to Play
The Free to Play business model is here to stay - and growing every day. The focus now is on getting players through the front door, keeping them happy, then monetizing 5-15% of them. Non-paying customers become “content” for the paying minority, so don’t think you can ignore them.

2. Integrated graphics support

Enthusiasts who purchase the latest, greatest video card make up just 4% of the market. Integrated graphics (i.e. no dedicated video card and therefore lower graphics performance) accounts for over 60% of all new computer sales.

4. Little or no download

Get users into a game as fast as possible. If your game requires the user to download client software, make it as small as possible and give the user something to do while they wait for the game to download and install (i.e. setting up their character).

But better yet, make your game in Java, Flash, Shockwave or Silverlight so it’s playable within a browser. A game delivered via Java applet (i.e. Puzzle Pirates, Bang! Howdy, Runescape) can be downloaded and installed in under a minute. A signed Java applet will even avoid tripping a user’s installed spyware detectors.

5. Deferred sign up

Why not let a new player name and create their character, enter and start experiencing the product, then ask for sign up information along the way? A game that gets this right is Maid Marian’s Shockwave MMO Sherwood Dungeon, which allows you to start playing immediately after you enter your desired character’s name. Despite its simplistic graphics and lack of server-side character saves, Sherwood has attracted over 1M users to its Free to Play ad-supported game.

8. Warp, don’t walk

Spending precious minutes walking to destinations is, for many, a significant barrier to entry and a big waste of time. Many games and virtual worlds allow “warping” between areas to avoid long marches or simply a point-and-click interface with the world.

Source

With the recent explosion of new MMO’s that has occured in the last few years, the trends in the genre have certainly gone through changes. One of these fluctuations, although maybe not quite as obviously, has been the way in which these titles handle subscription fees; whether it be a controversially hefty one, or a complete lack thereof.

Take for instance data as posted on MMOGdata, a site dedicated to gathering up to date information regarding subscribers and accounts of most current MMO’s. One table lists exactly 122 games, and what their subscription plans are like: either free to play, pay to play (As in a recurring subscription), or box to play (corresponding to games that only require you purchase the box to play). When these three categories are compared, though close in numbers, the number of games that are free to play actually exceed those that require a subscription. Out of the 122, a total of 60, nearly half, are free to play, while 58 require a fee, and only 4 just a box price. So what makes companies decide to charge the players more for the game than others?

With the massive increase of MMO’s available to play, this gives the players an incredible chance to look through many different games to find the one that appeals to them the most. While a subscription cost may deter away a few customers, it may in fact grab many more. This is due to the fact that a company whose game requires a monthly fee undoubtedly exudes a certain kind of confidence that someone looking for a quality game can’t ignore. Obviously, this company must have more to offer me, the searching player might say. But is this really the case? In fact, in many ways it is. One can argue that by requiring a subscription, the company is entering a sort of ‘pact’ with the player; you keep paying, and we’ll keep producing. While this may make the game appear stronger, the company is also required to do just as it says (which, in some cases, the company seems to forget it has entered in to this agreement).

With the introduction of a large number of games, a door has been opened for a new type of gamer. One who is not solely dedicated to their game, but instead leap frogs across the genre, dipping in casually to a number of games that span all sorts of themes. A subscription, however, makes this rather difficult. Many players probably find it difficult to justify paying 15$ a month for a game that they login to maybe 5 times a month. Does this make subscription games out of reach for the leap frog gamer? Not necessarily. Lately, many companies have been making the jump to not only next-gen games, but to next-gen subscription methods.

What exactly does this mean? Where the common approach of providing a free month upon purchase has gone straight past regular toward almost required, many companies are finding new unique ways to handle the situation. Take for instance the upcoming Age of Conan, a game many are describing as having next-generation features. According to an interview from mmorpg.com, game director Gaute Godager states

It is important to tell players that the first 20 levels, the single player experience, will not feature a subscription fee. If you buy the game, you can play this portion for as long as you want, without subscription. It is only in the next 60 levels, the more “normal” MMO portion (though this game is no true MMO, but rather an Online Action RPG) there will be a subscription.

This ‘hybrid’ style game is certainly not alone though. Many games, such as Dofus, have mixed it up by doing a similar in-between method: the game is free to play, but if you want to experience all the content, you must subscribe. There are many aspects to this ‘optional’ subscription choice that players must find appealing.

And while there are many players who instantly turn away from a free game, and many who simply refuse to be charged monthly for playing a game, almost all will be relieved to see new trends emerging in the way companies charge their players. So rejoice MMO players; new options are becoming available, in the form of new subscription plans.

In a very interesting and through-provoking article over at Strangelands, author pixiestyx looks at the double-causation involved in defining an environment with your character versus defining your character through your environment. It reminds me of that quote (and the namesake of this post) from The Departed, when Jack Nicholson says:

I don’t wanna be a product of my environment, I want my environment to be a product of me.

It’s early in the movie and it really puts the rest of the movie into perspective, but I don’t want to talk about The Departed, I want to talk about computer games. Here is where I get to talk about what it means for fantasy in general, and role-playing games in particular. The main question in that post revolves around whether or not there needs to be an explicit declaration of the environment and background of where the game takes place in order for a player to feel comfortable playing a given fantasy-type character.

However, for example and there are many examples out, In the Dreseden files, the setting is the modern world and has fairies, elves and demons bouncing around quite happily in it. Would you be comfortable playing an elf in this environment ? Yes as the background clearly defines who you are and why am I here.

In the case of a MMOG, I think that this might be the case.

From what I know about RPGs in general and from the experience I’ve gained from those which I’ve played, I feel like a strong background is an important point in the development of a character. However, when I think about EverQuest II and the way that particular game started off, I begin to have doubts. Is there really very much character development going on in the beginning of this game?

EverQuest II begins (or, at least nearer release, began) on a boat where the captain asks you to perform some simple tasks for him. Before you leave the boat you achieve level 3, at which point you have no class or any other notion of what you are, other than your race. The races cover the gamut from regular (human) to completely wild (frog). Well, where’s the normality in this? What kind of environment could we possibly be living in where Frogs and Humans are on equal ground? In a world where racism for the smallest differences in human skin run rampant, what kind of ill-founded notions of equality must we shed in order to believe that a Human could possibly consider a Frog his equal?

After this ship experience, the player chooses the kind of adventurer they want to be and begin to perform more tasks on the island in pursuit of a new set of gear and the approval of the captain. At this point, the player begins to interact with the other player characters around them. They learn how to move fluidly, how to fight, how to move the camera, and how to interact with the user interface. Other people around them are busy learning the same things, and this forms a way for them to bond with one another.

There’s really no character development during this portion of the game. You’re on an island, there’s absolutely no lore behind the place, you got there from a boat onto which you were somehow taken by some mysterious force. There’s essentially no backstory to the beginning of this game, but there is something else which is equally important acting on the player: other people.

The story comes later, of course, as the adventurer makes his travels through the myriad cities and towns of post-shattering Norrath, but that’s not what kept people coming back in those vital first moments of the game. Not the story: the people.

Do you think that back-story and the environment is more important for defining your character for who they are, or do you think that the people who surround your character on a continuous basis are a more important foundation for your character?

Anyone who’s ever played a roleplaying game for any amount of time will tell you stories about their money. Maybe it’s how they had to grind 500 sewer rats to pay for their new wooden sword, or maybe they were up for 9 days solid in some obscure part of the world where “no one’s ever been” collecting a rare harvested material to price gouge in the marketplace to fund that new mount. Whatever the details are, it becomes very obvious that people treat their in-game money just as defensively (or even more defensively for the younger age groups who don’t have as much experience with earned “real”-life currency) as they treat the money they earn in their real jobs. Many players don’t even realize that they’re actively contributing to an economy that lives, breaths, and behaves just as one would expect under “real”-world conditions; they just want that new piece of gear, or to repair the gear that they’ve been fighting in for the last 12 hours solid.

Virtual money, just like the currencies used to fund nations in the “real” world, can be explained using extremely rudimentary economic concepts. The models of markets, of supply and demand shocks, of counterfeiters and others can all be used with some accuracy to predict (with varying accuracy) fluctuations in the economic conditions of a game world. However, there are several things which are markedly missing from today’s role-playing environments that any real, sustainable, thriving economy should have, and this does much to undermine the day-to-day reality of the game itself.

The most obvious thing that the roleplaying and other massively multiplayer games are missing are banks and other financial institutions. Banks in today’s games are a joke: most of the time they’re simply a geographically separated version of your wallet. Some games opt to not even offer this wallet service and instead find it O.K. to specialize only in providing a lock-box service for in-game items.

The ironic part of this whole mess is that even in the time periods during which some of these games are taking place (think: medieval, feudal) there were strong banking implements in place. Why is it that we have an auction-house or a broker that will take a certain percentage of your profits, but we don’t have a bank or money market that will pay a nominal rate of interest? Why is there magic, and the ability to have thriving cities and metropolitan areas in some of these worlds, but yet we have no means through which to invest our hard-earned money? Clearly there are people playing these games who have enough time invested such that their banking contributions would be non-negligible; for every workaholic you show me, I can show you a gamer who spends just as much time in front of their character.

Think of these possibilities: Guild, faction, or city banks. Guilds, factions, businesses and individuals within a city or region need natural resources to grow their empire. Buildings need wood, castles need bricks and mortar, and these two things need tools with which to be built. Who will provide this for them? Why not set up a faction banking system? Members of the guild deposit their funds in the short- or long-term to fund the project at a certain interest rate (a fair market rate of return based on what marginal value the newly funded resource will bring), the faction can use the funds in the interim for their benefit, and then will have to pay back the principal and the interest when the term expires. It works every day in real life, why not in the role-playing world? The entire financial infrastructure could be implemented on the server side (meaning that players wouldn’t have to keep track of what it is that they owed) and would have no less chance of failure than today’s modern auctioning systems.

Currently, the primary way to expand one’s own resources is to lend to other players (and collect interest), which may or may not work since online worlds are distinctly lacking legal systems as well (another day, another topic). Another way is to perform arbitrage within regional markets: that is, to buy something from someone low in one area, and sell it to someone else high without adding any value to it somewhere else. This is the meat-and-potatoes of the entire World of Warcraft economy, and it’s no secret. A third way, popular mostly to those with rare patterns, etc, is to buy the materials or required ingredients for a low price, craft them into usable resources (thereby adding value to the items) and reselling them for more than the sum of their parts.

Furthermore, a good financial intermediation system could allow new players to get up and running more quickly. Imagine being able to deposit your funds in a bank as an experienced player. This benefits you, as you’re now earning a nominal amount of interest on your money, rather than just keeping it in your inventory. Now, say Mr. Newbie comes along, and he really wants to buy that horse. He’s just the slightest bit short. So, he takes out a loan from the bank, buys the horse, and pays back the money he borrowed plus a little bit of interested when things are going better for him. Now we have three parties benefiting from this situation: First, the lender is earning interest on his money, so he’s happy. Second, the bank is earning interest on the money they loan out, so they’re happy. Third, Mr. Newbie gets his horse (because he’s willing to pay the bank back), so he’s happy. Without a good financial intermediation system like a bank, this situation would never arise. Simple in-game implementations of this could include taking a percentage of every unit of currency Mr. Newbie makes until his loan is paid off, as well as giving our original lender (the one earning interest by depositing in the bank) a slightly increased amount of money for each kill he makes.

Now, there’s nothing here that says the banks themselves have to be completely controlled by the players; that would leave to extremely ill-founded practices in some instances (praying on new players, among other things). It seems like it would be a safe assumption to say that the game designers, or the controllers of the game itself would have very in-depth knowledge of the inner-workings of their game’s monetary system. Even now, when dupes are found with currency, the problems are retracted relatively quickly. This hints at a monetary system which is at least somewhat secure (or, if not secure, prepared for the worst). Why not expand this?

Consider the scenario where the player above defaults on his loan. Well, in the real world, the bank would be out the money. The original investor would be shielded from this event by the bank and the FDIC, so the bank would take the hit. However, game companies are very good at filling out the details of certain situations. We now have extremely complicated PvP systems, extremely detailed and complicated raid zones for drones of mindless raiders to waste away in at night. Could not some of this energy be applied to creating a strong financial system? If done in a black-box fashion, a defaulted loan could simply result in a lower interest rate for future investors (in the short run), causing the bank to recoup its losses in a relatively quick manner (though there would likely be many defaults and thus many interest rate fluctuations in a given time period).

Of course even then there are downsides to all of this, but: aren’t there downsides to any aspect of any game? A simple implementation of this kind in a future game could set a trend that would make it a norm in online games. Money could grow, and it could encourage new players and the younger masses to not only use it to their advantage, but, in so doing, teach them valuable lessons about money and banking. That way, next time Mr. Newbie’s mom is screaming at him to get off of the computer and go to bed, instead of screaming back he can say “O.K., mom, just let me make this last deposit!”

In a time when making a PC game without online capabilities is suicide, having a generous pool of out-of-house testers is an invaluable asset to a company. Any gaming company with enough skill in marketing to create the slightest amount of buzz about their upcoming game is sure to have more than enough hands to make quick work of the network and non-ai testable features of the game. For a given game beta, who knows how many will apply? Certainly more than are needed. So who gets to play, and who gets the shaft? More importantly, why?

Personally, I’ve filled out so many applications for game betas that it doesn’t even phase me any more: I probably won’t win, but at least I can show my support for the game. I know that the person who will win in my stead likely has more hours per day to devote to the game, more background in beta testing games in general, and has probably even played through far more games than me in his lifetime. However, in all likelihood, this person will probably have a smaller social network, and will thus not be able to market the game as effectively as I could if I were chosen. So who is the right person to pick in this (somewhat polar, contrived) situation? Do you want someone to find bugs in the game, someone who will ceaselessly play the game for you so you can log his every move and figure out where the bugs are?

This person basically serves the same purpose as any well-scripted bot that the company can produce themselves; the only difference is that the human can be used to balance more aspects of the game, since it’s terribly difficult to script intelligence in bots to the point where weapons, maps, and other niche aspects can be balanced effectively. They’ll raise their own skill in the game and be better at it when it releases, and maybe even discourage some new players from continuing their patronage. This last scenario doesn’t matter in a one-time-fee game, but for online subscriptions it matters a great deal. Most subscription games, however, don’t allow persistence of your character from beta to release anyway.

On the other hand, there is the semi-hardcore gamer who will spend enough time playing your game to have made it worth your while in ways other than finding bugs. He still might find a bug or two, or at least get himself into a strange situation which will give you a good enough stack trace to figure out where the bug is. But, more importantly, and perhaps more valuably, he will talk with his friends about the game, raise hype, network socially with others online (and in person) and probably do more to promote the game in general than the introvert in the first example. To me, this seems a more valuable person to choose.

I say all of this because of a trend that seems to happen in gaming these days. Too many times, on too many beta applications there are so many small, finicky, nit-picky questions that are clearly there to weed out those who haven’t already beta-tested for 10 games in the past. How many games do you play in a given week? How many of those games are online? If this is an MMO/RPG, how many MMO/RPGs have you played in the past? Which ones have you spend more than 100 days playing? It’s questions like these which make it very obvious exactly what the company is looking for. However, none of these questions will yield anyone like the person from the second example, the socialite. If you want someone to actually test your game, fine. If you think your company is strong enough that it can’t use some free marketing (and really, who is so big that they can say that? if they can say that, then they probably won’t be staying big for very long).

In my opinion, the “beta test” marketing scheme is one of the best, as it gets people excited about your upcoming game. It gets people talking. If it’s a bad game, then bad news and reviews will come out before you’re even done. So what? For those who remember, the upcoming game Tabula Rasa was completely different in it’s first phase than it is now. It was so bad, so bland, so generic that the team actually listened to the people who would be playing the game and re-did it in it’s entirety. Now, that’s what I call useful beta test information. Alternatively, a game getting strongly positive hype in beta (a la, WoW, Halo 3, FFXI, EverQuest, need I go on?) will produce (I predict) a far greater stream of revenue in the beginning of the game’s life cycle than would a game without this same hype.

I’m not saying that game companies shouldn’t try their best to get the best candidates for the job; all I’m saying is that sometimes the best candidate for the job isn’t the introverted, downward-spiral game “g33k” who skips his own wedding for a raid. Sometimes, the best person for the job is the person who will make you the most money. Bugs can be fixed, but a game never releases twice.

All of the current-generation consoles (with the exception of the Wii, but that’s no surprise) are capable of producing an HDTV-quality video signal, helping to promote High-def in all of it’s un-standardized glory. This means bleeding-edge corpse explosions, pixel-by-pixel cleavage, and of course, extremely realistic terrain of a caliber previously unavailable. Or, at least that’s what they hope you’ll think so you go out and buy that $2,000 HDTV you’ve “had your eye on” for the last 7 minutes at Best Buy. Of course the image quality will be better on a High-definition TV; there’s no question that a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD will look better with twice (or higher) the resolution of your standard TV. The question is: With a $600 gaming console, and at 50% or higher prices on these High-definition DVDs, is the amount of extra money you’re paying for those pixels really giving you any advantage or status? Further, how much of the demand for High-definition entertainment equipment comes from “your buds” who need to see those extra pixels with their NFL Sunday-Ticket package versus gamers who want some illustrious “competitive edge” supposedly offered by being able to see an opponent from farther away?

Clearly this is a blog article and not an academic paper, so I don’t have the necessary data to back up my claims, but most people reading this article can likely understand where I’m coming from. We all know people who’ve gone out and dropped ridiculous amounts of money in order to make their games look better, to make their gaming experience more immersive. Everyone has a friend who found a “great deal” on some multiple-thousand dollar piece of equipment which still cost multiple-thousands of dollars. The tech industry must be loving it. If they aren’t already, there are a ton of ways these industries could capitalize off of the fleeting needs of the average gamer.

First: Re-release a High-def TV with one new feature and label it the “ultimate Halo 3 experience”. Mom’s basement would love another one of these, and there must be millions of kids nationwide who’d do anything for that new LCD screen with the 1ms-lower refresh rate.

Second: Re-release all of your old, poorly-rated (are there even any good movies that have been released on Blu-Ray/HDDVD? I think maybe the closest I’ve seen was Blue Crush or X-Men 12) movies with slightly higher quality and charge 50% more for them. This is the perfect match to step number 1, and will be highly complemented by the audio equipment you can get from step number 3.

Third: Take out some features from your $20,000 theater-quality speakers and audio subsystem and sell them in a premium audio store (since they’ve still got the brand name) for a large discount. For some reason, hearing Dolby 5.1 from five-thousand dollar speakers in 2007 sounds better than listening to Dolby 5.1 from five-hundred dollar speakers in 2000 when they introduced it. Has audio recording technology improved much since then?

While it’s hard to be sure what the actual percent of demand for these new technologies is, it’s a safe bet to say that a non-negligible portion of it is coming from today’s up-and-coming gamer generation. As long as you can make someone think that a technology will make them a little bit better playing their video games, or if you can convince them that going way past the marginal optimal spending levels for these technologies is a good then, then, well, I guess there’s no new information here.