Carbine Studios Interview

“How to create a world-beating MMO” is the main subject of this interview-article the folks at Develop had with Carbine Studios executive producer Jeremy Gaffney, who argues that the success of the MMO industry “brings concern” to developers. Other subjects discuss include social gaming and the free-to-play vs. subscription debate. Here’s a snippet:

MMO gaming is now mainstream; a shift that has in part happened virally and organically, and to some extent because the industry has matured and the experiences we are creating for gamers have improved. Thanks to both of these things, it’s now considered ‘˜normal’ and acceptable for a consumer to play MMOs.

From a development viewpoint, the success of this industry brings concern. I worry, for example, that mass market equals mass budget equals risk aversion equals conservative design. The great thing about the early MMOs games like Asheron’s Call, Ultima Online, EverQuest and Lineage was the fact they experimented; they weren’t afraid to take different directions. At NCsoft we recognise the importance of risk taking, not only with design, but with business models, genres and gameplay. The customer must always come first. And that means creating and continually developing quality experiences that they want to live in.

What’s really interesting as we approach the next wave in MMOs is how those experiences will change. Should we be developing for mass or niche markets? Is it time to add console and mobile development to the mix? Are social gamers the new MMO subscribers and, if they are, how do we attract them? What business model is the best one?

(…)

It’s possible to make fun games in both areas. With a mass market model, the aim is to achieve a huge number of day one box sales and then worry about retention. For niche MMOs, this is turned on its head; don’t worry about launch, just make sure each expansion increases your subscriber base.

But the goal in the MMO space generally is to achieve a subscriber base that continually increases over time. This can only be achieved by keeping players happy in the long haul through quality content and gameplay, making it a very different business proposition to traditional box shifters.