Brian Green is a bona-fide pioneer, standing firmly atop the shoulders of Richard Bartle. Meridian 59, which he designed independently in 1995, is really the “mother of graphical MMOGs” so to speak, but is generally considered a commercial disaster. After the independently produced game was published by 3DO, it closed down due to poor subscription rates. But, fueled by a small but adamant fan-base, Green purchased the game back, and today, with less than a thousand players, it is generates enough revenue to support a two-man team. Green was able to leverage that experience into a new project with a major publisher, even though he still subscribes to the indie ethic.
While Green’s talk was ostensibly about taking your game international, his scope was much broader he gave a very good overview of some of the key issues of producing small-scale, niche-oriented MMOGs. I think the blockbuster mentality of the mainstream game industry has been toxic for innovation, and this has only been worsened by World of Warcraft, which has raised expectations to an unattainable level. Green pointed out that a small team working on a reasonable-sized game can pull small numbers of devoted players and still be profitable.
Green’s advice to indie MMOG developers: echoing Josh Williams of Garage Games, who gave the opening keynote, “think small.” Shoot for smaller numbers, use a smaller team, exploit niches, and make smaller-scale, manageable worlds. Indies have the advantage of agility: we can do more, interact more directly with players, get more forgiveness, make rapid changes, do risky things and innovate.
On the economic side, Green cited a few alternatives to the standard subscription model, which he felt was a losing proposition for indies. Virtual item sales, tiered pricing (a low barrier of entry but higher fees for premium services) result in more revenue per customer. As an example, he pointed out that in Puzzle Pirates makes about three times more money from the free players who pay by buying currency than they do from the subscription players. He also pointed out that free accounts is a good model because it enlarges the community: one thing players are paying for is participation in a community so the more players you can get in, the better. You might have a certain percentage of low-participation players but they will help enhance the overall experience for everyone.
In terms of going international, he pointed out that games are popular everywhere, and cited international offerings such as Eve Online (Iceland), Anarchy Online (Norway), Legend of Mir II (China), and everything by NCsoft (Korea).
Why go international? Six million of World of Warcraft’s eight million subscribers are Chinese! Meridian 59 has had smaller-scale success overseas— about 25-33% of its revenues come from international licenses. Green attributes this success in part to the fact that they planned ahead and factored this into the game’s new design and architecture.
Some good tips for localization: A good lawyer with experience in international business and IP law, and a good licensee are essential. Combined they can handle issues such as foreign currency, local hosting and customer service, language/translation, local laws, and also, importantly, enforcement. He described one place in which a licensee’s local police contacts were called upon to shut down an unauthorized group hosting Meridian code that had been “released into the wild.” They also host local events, and the upside for the developer is international travel!
The downside is that it is a lot of work, frequently more than anticipated. Localization goes beyond language translation into cultural issues. Some countries have quirky rules, for instance, no company located outside of Italy can own a url ending in “it”. It’s also hard to protect yourself from getting ripped off by the licensee, and if you have a dispute with a foreign partner, you are not likely to prevail. One way to avoid some of these pitfalls is to get some of your money in advance. This provides motivation for the licensee to market the product. Also, talk to other developers who have worked prospective licensee in the past and find out what their experiences were like. All of these tips seem like equally good advice for domestic publishing and distribution deals.
Although you can’t compete with a company like NCsoft, if you can look at your game critically, you may be able to identify a niche. For instance, while PvP is highly niche in the U.S., its much more mainstream in international markets. Subscription models don’t work well in Asian markets (which do better with virtual item or premium-based type systems), but they have a higher tolerance for lower-tech, more stylized graphics.
During the Q&A, I asked Green how they managed to provide customer service with such a small team. He said they have coverage about 16 hours a day, through e-mail and a dummy character that functions as a petition queue in-game. They can log in and check this character periodically. I pointed out that Blizzard customer service is only opened 9-5 Pacific, which is the time that no-one plays. One good trick he mentioned: hire people in China to work your night shift for U.S. customer service.
I’ve heard Green before, and although he apologized in advance for talking too fast, I appreciate his vitamin-rich, information-packed, and highly practical presentations. I also have tremendous respect for his experience and contribution to the field, and frankly I would have flown to Minnesota for his presentation alone.
A few notes.
My slides for the talk are available online.
Also, I'm not actually one of the original developers of Meridian 59. I started a year after launch, but have worked on the game for a significant part of the last 9 years. Lots of people make the assumption that I'm one of the orignial developers. But, credit where credit is due.
But, thanks for the kind words about my presentation. I'm always happy when people learn something from it. :)
Have fun,
Posted by: Psychochild | April 18, 2007 at 01:06 PM
Oops, the comment system ate my hyperlink. My slides are available at: http://www.psychochild.org/?p=291
Take care!
Posted by: Psychochild | April 18, 2007 at 01:09 PM