MMO Longevity
A few days ago Raph Koster posted this graph and its been buzzing around in my mind ever since:
WoW population curves
The phenomena, in a nutshell, is a consistent slope in the peak and fall of any given game’s population no matter what. The success with World Of Warcraft, shown in the graph above, is the result of accessing new markets - essentially stacking the slopes. The bottom line is, though, that sooner or later they’ll run out of new markets, and the players are going to get sick of walking the road Blizzard has laid out for them.
Is there a solution? Can a world be created that we won’t just get sick of sooner or later?
Julie Whitefeather posted an insightful article today over on the VirginWorlds Blog about linear vs. non-linear games. At the heart of the matter was the idea that as soon as a player sees where the road leads, or what the target is, the game loses its attraction. Her theory is that virtual worlds like Second Life or Entropia Universe will live longer than others because there will never be a single destination or target to hit. Being there and experiencing it is its own goal.
When thinking back to old games that I still love to play, I’m seeing a similar pattern. Generally I blasted through those games to the end, and then went back to play different sections. Was there a hidden area behind that rock? Can I beat that guy without ever getting hit? How fast can I do that section? Crash Bandicoot was like that, and Super Mario Bros. 3 of course… but even Space Quest 3, with its seemingly linear plot, had me going back through it over and over trying to find little easter eggs or alternate ways of doing the same thing. The endings are largely incidental. I have no real interest in what the “progress” I was supposed to undergo during the game was. I just restore my saved game to wherever I feel like playing, and off I go. I just like to play with it, like it’s a toy.
What other MMOs have that “toy factor”, where you just like to play with them and don’t care too much about winning? Other than Second Life and Entropia Universe, maybe only Starcraft had that magic… and its longevity is beyond question. It’s still huge, with television-broadcast tournaments in Korea still being held to this day. I wonder if its any coincidence that Starcraft doesn’t have a role-playing component.
Maybe that’s the stripped-down key to longevity: games die quickly, but toys last for ages.
June 26th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Meh, I think worlds like SL suffer for having so little point. Unless someone finds something to latch on to then you’ll get bored quickly. EVE Online is a great example of a game with a road which leads the player down a path, but then branches out at the end, and that’s why EVE has such great retention once players start.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Well that’s a good point… EVE people are the hardest of the hardcore.
Still, the difference is that EVE doesn’t have a “the end”. The game is other players, which means that the game is infinite in possibilities.