[MUD-Dev] Commercial value of RP

[Koster]

On Tuesday, January 06, 1998 7:18 AM, JC 
Lawrence[SMTP:claw at under.Eng.Sun.COM] wrote:

> > On 29 Dec 97 at 13:39, JC Lawrence wrote:
>
> >>  Something that just struck me is that all the commercial
> >> representatives we have on the list seem to espouse their games 
as
> >> being RP games, and discuss their values in terms of the RP 
values
> >> generated by their games.

Jon A Lambert<jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com> then engaged in some back n 
forth which I've snipped to get to the next bit:

> Yes, but I'm looking at the more specific point that all of our
> (active) commercial members strongly espouse the traditional RP 
values
> of their games (ie immersive story based strongly characterised etc 
RP)..
> JeffK was particularly vehement in this regard, tho Raph and Mike
> also seem to concentrate on the traditional RP value set.  Even Dr 
Cat
> (rarely seen here alas) would seem to be pushing a traditional RP
> positioning for his game per his web pages.

Jeff was indeed quite vehement on it, in that his game is actually 
attempting (noble attempt indeed but boy, scary in a commercial sense) 
to model tabletop AD&D gaming to the smallest detail they can manage. 
Yikes.

Dr Cat is from a MUSH background, and Furcadia is very clearly a 
FurryMUCK in graphics, in many ways. So I'd go beyond "seems to be 
pushing." :)

> I don't think this clustering of even this tiny sized sample is
> accidental.  I doubt (see below) that the list's sample of the
> commercial game population is somehow skewed or weighted toward the 
RP
> side.  Instead the weighting appears to be a feature of the current
> state of the commercial MUD market offerings, and I'm very curious 
as
> to __WHY__ there is that level of agreement on a game style point 
that
> would seem on the face of it to have little mass market appeal (or
> does it?).

Well, there's some background there that's slightly off topic. RPGs in 
the recent past have been considered to be poor commercial moneymakers 
on PCs. They do phenomenally well in Japan and on consoles, but there 
are significant design differences between paper RPG, console RPG, 
computer RPG, what I'll call "Moria-style" RPGs, and muds. (Quite 
aside from the multiplayer aspect). Console RPGs are highly linear 
story games, with occasional tactical combat interludes. (Often 
irritatingly FREQUENT tactical combat interludes, but whatever. :) 
They sell very well in their market precisely because of storyline.

However, computer RPGs (henceforth CRPGs), while far more linear than 
paper RPGs or Moria-style games or muds, are traditionally less 
linear. This is probably because of mere tradition. There is virtually 
no crossover between console and crpgs--very few ports, etc, despite 
what would seem market interest. And when the ports do happen, they 
generally don't do all that well. A console rpg would probably be more 
likely labeled an "adventure game" by the PC gaming media...

> Wouldn't a 3D graphical yada yada version of a standard 
hack'n'slash
> (DIKU?) seem to have a more instant commercial appeal, or is it
> because those 3D graphical DIKU's are really games like Diablo 
which
> we've all tacitly agreed are not MUDs?

Diablo is essentially a nice graphical version of 
Hack/Rogue/Moria/Angband without around 1/100th the features and 
depth. It nonetheless has collected an impressive array of awards for 
RPG of the year. It also thus managed to validate the RPG genre in the 
recent past, and now people think it can make money again. (Literally 
a year or two ago, magazines tried to pick the top ten RPGs and found 
there were only three released in the year. Next year, there's 
probably a dozen major ones).

Yes, a more simplistic combat-oriented game would probably attract a 
wider audience. I'd note that all the basic elements of Diku-style 
combat are present in both M59 and UO. However, attracting the wider 
action-oriented market demands faster "twitch" response time which 
just isn't feasible over the general Internet yet at any large scale. 
So we couldn't really reach the mass market with that anyway.

One factor which really should not be ignored is that the folks who 
developed UO and M59 and others are mudders, and therefore their work 
is evolutions of muds. :) That may account for some of the design 
emphasis you perceive.

> The lutefisk is starting to smell funny in Denmark.  Why?
>
> > I do believe that some of those in commercial ventures do value 
RP
> > highly enough to move their games strongly away from the arcade
> > style of play like Quake.  However, the extreme end (which Ola
> > called role-acting) that exists on many Mushes like Amber and 
others
> > is not commercially viable.
>
> <nod>

And it will be interesting to see how much Furcadia therefore remains 
a chat-oriented environment, as opposed to a role-acting environment.

> > It's a smaller slice of the RP market.
> > Of course I could be wrong, the sheer numbers of customers on the
> > internet could make this slice commercially viable if marketed
> > right.  A way I could see this happening is someone with a very
> > successful commercial game establishing secondary games for
> > "hardcore" role-players and game-players.
> Quite the problem is publicity.  Given a large enough population 
sheer
> numbers might make it viable.  The problem is ensuring that your 
heavy
> RP game i know of by your potential heavy RP players.  As we all 
know,
> the 'net and Web are ideally organised and cross-indexed media for
> ensuring that all 'net users have instant and ready access to 
whatever
> services match their whimsical criteria...

Two factors here:

1) the computer game industry demands a very high return on 
investment. :P Way higher than a mature industry does. And RPGs have 
historically been expensive to develop in terms of manpower and time 
because of conversations, quests, etc etc. Online RPGs can minimize 
some of this, but add in of course all the online factors, which are 
considerable.

2) You won't get just heavy RP players even if you advertise only for 
said target market. We know this from muds, and we see the same story 
repeated in the commercial ventures. As we all know, it is extremely 
difficult to maintain an RP environment short of interviewing every 
player as they first connect.

> > I think if you, JCL, sold your server concept to someone, it 
would
> > likely get marketed as a role-playing game. <hehe>
>
> <nod>

Actually, it probably just wouldn't get made. :( Which makes me echo,

> O!  The shame!

-Raph