[MUD-Dev] Indie MMOG's

[ceo]

Rob C wrote:
> Adam M wrote:

>> the mainstream games industry; the financials of the three main
>> business models for an MMOG give indie developers a much better
>> chance than those of a mainstream game.

....

>> Hence funding is much less of an issue IMHO.

> I'm also curious to hear what you feel the three business models
> for an MMOG are? Please feel free to send me a private e-mail if
> you want.

Bait for the start of a new thread ;) but I'll kick off with:

  1. monthly subscription for all players in the 1xbudget game /
  0.25xfull-price game range

  2. advertising for all players (often combined with optional
  subscription in the 0.5xbudget game per month range, which gets
  rid of the ads and provides some extra features)

  3. selling in-game items for real cash

1 is the traditional pioneered model, and the one which most people
still think of first and foremost, although it's starting to die out
in reality (giving way to more sophisticated models), e.g. with
neither SOE nor EA operating that model IIRC (any more).

2 is extremely popular with small indies and non-games-industry
people whose approach to advertising seems more pragmatic than many
games-industry people (i.e. they don't assume it's incapable of
generating enough revenue, and hence actually try it and find they
can make a decent amount of money)

3 has seen a huge surge in popularity in the game-designs submitted
to Grex in the last 12 months. This could be expected to translate
to a rash of (indie) games in about 6-9 months time. I'm starting to
get bored of these, because they all cite the same few commercial
success examples over and over again. That makes some sense, though,
since the numbers are genuinely impressive (although none yet have
mentioned Achaea as a reference, which I find disappointing).

[ caveat retained for clarity ]

> Let me put a caveat to what I'm about to say, without a very solid
> game design and a plan on how to bring it to market, no team
> should be assembled to start developing a game.

> That being said, once you have a strong foundation be create from,
> funding can solve most of the problems that a small team runs
> into.

That assumption is what much of the dotcom madness was built on, and
I consider it a dangerously misleading statement, and a piece of
unhelpful spin. Logically, it's true; money *can* solve problems
(just like it *can* make you happy :P).

However, funding is not what makes a business successful. Nor is
"funding + great idea" (possibly the most pithy summary of the worst
of the dotcom business plans!). Even "funding + great idea +
competitive protection + detailed business plan + excellent people"
isn't enough, although it's been so long since I've been involved in
teaching this stuff that I don't recall any prime examples :(. To
put it another way, if it were that simple then VC's wouldn't stil
be aiming for a 10% success rate and feel they were doing well!

Having been heavily involved in the Cambridge University startup
scene for a number of years ("Silicon Fen") - a place renowned for
the problem of "brilliant people, lots of money, great idea,
ultra-strong patents ... dismal commmercial failure" - I've
certainly seen plenty of examples. A particular problem I've noticed
is that money is often extremely damaging in ways that people in
Derek's situation don't seem to realize until years later (if at
all).

In the most general summary: if you don't have money then you think
much more carefully about almost everything you do. It is widely
known that scarcity breeds invention / hardship breeds excellence,
and whilst it's far from an automatic relationship, it's a valid
tendency. It also appears to be much harder to achieve those means
without their corresponding hardship/scarcity - c.f. corporate
histories for large incumbents: one of the biggest recurring
problems for blue-chip executives is getting the company as a whole
to feel sufficiently threatened that6 individuals rise to fulfil
their full potential.

Adam M
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