Many of you may not be too familiar with this company though I'm sure you've heard of them or one of their famous products, World of Warcraft. I just wanted to take a quick minute to bring some praise to my favorite video game company.
(They primarily work with PC games and no, that is not why I love them)
They have a "we'll release it when it's done" philosophy on game design which has ended up creating high quality products that many people love and play for years and years. Starcraft players are treated like celebrities in South Korea where the game is still played extensively after 12 years. Many claim that Starcraft revolutionized the strategy game genre. Not quite sure if it revolutionized the genre but it definitely pushed it foward. 3 races with 3 different build orders and tech trees was a pretty new concept back then. This philosophy also allows them to release a beta version of a game that plays smoother than a majority of games from other companies on their initial release. Having put a lot of hours into the Starcraft 2 beta, I was pretty impressed at how smooth and bug free it was. They also continue to support their games after release with patches and updates and expansion packs.
Their whole design philosophy appears to revolve around what will be fun and enjoyable for the player. They don't hesitate to make major changes with a game several years after it's been in development to make sure their product is awesome. Diablo III has been in the works for five years now and they recently announced a major change and did away with the skill trees for the different classes!
One can only look to the success of World of Warcraft to see how well the company as done. They pretty much own the MMORPG market and with the release of the Cataclysm expansion pack, don't appear to be letting go of this anytime soon.
This may fall on deaf ears but if many other companies adopted their game design philosophy, there would be a lot more high quality, enjoyable games out there. I can only hope that their merger with Activision will not taint their products, which it doesn't seem to have done yet.
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A quick google search this morning yielded some older (2008) news that World of Warcraft had hit it's 11 million account mark. For the sake of this illustration, and fairness in numbers, I'm gonna round that down to 10 million.
ReplyDeleteEvery player needs to pay for a copy of the game ($30 new with the burning crusade expansion pack), and a years worth of time to play (30 for a 2 month card x 6 = 12 months of play for $180). This doesn't include extra fees for server changes, name changes, character changes, etc., so we won't factor in that extra income into the equation.
Those playing with at home will be able to tell you that that is a rough, 2.1 billion dollars. What... the... heck... I know that all that money came in from this year alone, because once a customer owns the game, they own it forever, but still. Subscription fees alone each year come to 1.8 billion. In any case, that's a lot of guaranteed coin on it's way in.
You'd think with a game that brings in that much money, not to mention being so incredibly popular, that we could hire an animator who could make the combat look better than to anime convention attendees beating each other with sticks until one get's tired and falls over.
Animation aside, where does the skill of a player even lie in WoW? Surely it isn't in any sort of physical dexterity I have... If I'm a skilled COD player, I could go to any xbox, with any controller, and play at my current level of talent. But if I were a talented WoW player, I couldn't replace my Level 75 Orc Mage and replace it for a level 6 tree dwarf and play the same - it isn't in the game's design. The game rewards time commitments and repitition, not skill, physical or mental.
And concerning their merger with Activision... I don't think the Mr. Kotick is gonna mind the dump trucks of money being unloaded at his office from WoW... that seems to be in their general business model - maximum profit with minimal exertion.
(continuing) Animation aside, where does the skill of a player even lie in WoW? Surely it isn't in any sort of physical dexterity I have... If I'm a skilled COD player, I could go to any xbox, with any controller, and play at my current level of talent. But if I were a talented WoW player, I couldn't replace my Level 75 Orc Mage and replace it for a level 6 tree dwarf and play the same - it isn't in the game's design. The game rewards time commitments and repitition, not skill, physical or mental.
ReplyDeleteAnd concerning their merger with Activision... I don't think the Mr. Kotick is gonna mind the dump trucks of money being unloaded at his office from WoW... that seems to be in their general business model - maximum profit with minimal exertion.
I agree with the OP and Amateria, but I have to fall in line more with Juniper.
ReplyDeleteI've heard from more than several people that they always release amazing games with little to no glitches and support them for many years.
I think it's unfair, even though I agree with you Amateria, to say that the game takes little to no skill. It's a different type of game and it rewards sticking with it and getting better and leveling up. If there was some skill based combat to the game w/o the RPG elements then this game wouldn't be the phenomenon that it is.
The animation is terrible, but again why update it if people are playing the hell out of it already?
You didn't even talk about Starcraft. That game was pretty revolutionary and I think we can all agree that it takes a good deal of strategy and skill to be good at RTS games.
I would like to see more companies take more time to tweek their games before release. I remember when Rainbow Six Vegas 2 launched the MP was so badly broken on all platforms that it was unplayable. Turns out that they barely play tested it before launch. I've recently had a bad run in with a game killing glitch and UPlay for the new Prince of Persia.
The game company has a good model and if people are willing to pay out the ass to play then that's their business.
Some of the very reasons Amateria brought up are why I don't play WoW anymore. There is some skill to the game but it is knowing which of your class skills counter other class skills and how much epic gear you have, which I do have a problem with... but yet, that game system seems to lie in almost every MMO game out today. WoW is very fun and very addicting and the world is HUGE. Some best game memories come from that game. Me and a friend figured out how to jump on top of this gate in a certain city so we took off all our gear and would fist-fight each other on top of the entrance to this city in our loinclothes... pretty freaking hilarious... but I do agree, the skill in that game is very, very different from skill in a shooter...
ReplyDelete...on the other hand, games like Warcraft 3 and the upcoming Starcraft 2, and even the action RPG Diablo, take a certain amount of skill. You want to own in an RTS, it can be pretty tough. Watch some tournament matches on youtube. Some of those players can micro manage so quick, it's insane.
I did forget about Starcraft and the other RTS games they've put out - quality stuff. I'm terrible at RTS so it's never been a huge interest of mine to look into deeper gameplay nuance, but I know when to be impressed.
ReplyDeleteIt'll be interesting to see how Starcraft 2 shapes up. It's hard to not be critical of a company who waits the better part of 10 years to drop a sequel, even if they've been faithful with patches like they still are with Diablo.
Sometimes I feel like Blizzard keeps making WoW expansions because they don't know how to stop the machine. I mean, even if they did want to revamp their franchise, would 11 million people let them? Would it even be worth it financially? It would almost be a better investment to create a second, smaller game company with the same creative team, to try and make a competing game.
To be fair, I've also been told that the PVP areas of WoW can be quite demanding on the "skill" front, but no matter what way you slice it, the more time you spend, the better you will be, not because of practice but the way it's designed. I can't think of many other activities that end up like that... maybe office work?
I actually spent quite a bit of time in Burning Crusade doing the arena, and to be successful in arena I found you need to have a good team composition and good communication, as well as top notch reflexes, awareness and general understanding of your class and other classes. I think that takes a fair bit of skill. It was loads of fun to be quite honest but also one of the most frustrating gaming experiences I've had to handle, purely because of balancing issues.
ReplyDelete@Amateria: I know what you mean about the animations, but I think they're trying to keep that Warcraft 3 aesthetic present in WoW. Also, what you're seeing is the auto-attack animations. There's actually unique animations for every skill, for every race and gender combination. When I rolled a female undead character I was really surprised at how drastic the animation changed from the male versions (They do flips!).
Also, Orcs can't be mages, you silly goose.
PS: You forgot to factor in merchandise and virtual items and services as part of their profits. They're selling pets and mounts now as well as gender changes, race changes, name changes, and server transfers. The first day of releasing one of their mounts in the Blizzard store, just basing the numbers on the amount of people in queue when the line got too full, they made over 1 million dollars. In one day. On something that does not even exist in the real world.
ReplyDeleteActivision: Hey guys! Those dumb fucks bought maps for $15! FUCKING MAPS! I wonder what else we can get them to buy?
Blizzard: During one of our shroomfests we thought of, like, a fucking blue horse that's see-through, but it's like, got fucking armor on
Activision: Holy shit
Blizzard: What? We were on shrooms
Activision: No, not that. We could sell this horse for $25, and I bet you a bag of cocaine it will sell like crazy
Blizzard: Fuck yeah
LOL! Sounds like a great conversation... and sadly, more and more people are spending their money on virtual goods...
ReplyDeleteI didn't intend this to turn into a WoW discussion and yes, Blizzard does take FOREVER between producing games... but I think it's quite interesting how that development and business model is the direct opposite of Activision's let's-flood-the-market-with-every-single-iteration-of-a-franchise-at-least-once-a-year model.
PS - Blizzard did pretty well before WoW, to the best of my knowledge... they've been around for quite some time and yes, they are really banking on WoW but they produced quality titles and succeeded as a company before WoW's income.
ReplyDelete