Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Why are there no niche investors, niche developers, to milk dry the niche market?
LeegOfChldrn
Member Posts: 364
Something I have trouble understanding is the dividing line between AAA MMORPG (300+ million budget) and Crappy Cheap Browser MMORPG (if you could even call it a MMORPG).
Granted there ARE always "in the works" several niche games for niche markets, but they never seem to get released, project closes, gets abandoned, funding drops, or the vision significantly alters to lose their target market. Perhaps it is the recession? Idk.
It really seems as though developers / producers are wanting either a WoW Killer or a crappy Browser cash shop game. There is no middle ground. No remake of UO with better graphics. No DAoC 2. Only one attempt at remaking Everquest.
I am no business tycoon, but I have played Business Tycoon 3 before. Joking aside, from what I typically understand all portions of the market are niche, with the mainstream being labeled the "Mainstream Niche". The term Market Niche was created to slice up the target market (players, gamers) and in this topic then to take players/gamers and place them into smaller sub-groups which can then be developed for. In most busines areas, the niche markets are targeted even though they are smaller. MTV targets YOUTH, LIFETIME targets WOMEN, SPIKE TV targets MEN. These are niche channels which won't compete with primetime television like FOX, but they were created niche for niche. Yet every game producer and developer develops for the WoW crowd, the MOBA crowd, or the Browser crowd. There is no middle ground. There is no Sci-Fi channel, LIFETIME channel, MTV, or Spike TV. It's all **** gold or get off the pot.
It's either "Develop a game to clone the big shot winners, Develop a cheap browser game to milk gamblers dry, fail to develop your A or AA MMORPG without us." A big F*** you to anyone that doesnt want to challenge WoW, League of Legends, or Call of Duty.
Where are the mediocre budgets? Where are the small teams hired by AAA companies to produce smaller games?
There are certainly enough people to develop a niche game for. Hundreds of thousands of players who want FFA PvP games, and what happens? Darkfall is pretty much it, and that was a FLUKE! Why? The Greek government funded Darkfall. It wasn't real business, it was a Tech Grant. Tax Payers payed for Darkfall.
The permadeath crowd may be small, but a small AAA budget could easily profit if targeting those players. The FFA PvP crowd is huge, but since it's not WoW huge all of that potential profit is ignored.
Projects take as much time and money as the size of the project determines. You don't need to make Call of Duty budget or Crysis graphics to make a video game. AAA companies know this, and still don't want to try to make a MMORPG for the niche crowd. It bewilders me. There's plenty of profit to be made with niche markets made with niche budgets. Yet the corporate parasites who worship the Dollar don't want to milk us dry? Very strange indeed.
I could be wrong, and they are trying, which is the result of all these stupid MMORPG's and beta websites that pop up and never get much buzz. Of course, they all seem to be WoW clones, so that doesn't surprise me. This is innovation? Oi vei!
Comments
I am not saying this is accurate, as I believe hybrid and sandbox games can be made, if done properly, with a budget to get a nice sub base...It is just the perception, and people are blinded by WoW.
Would you rather win the Mega Millions (was recently like $600 million) lottery, or a scratch off that caps at $10,000....That is the mentality...It is try to make something as safe as you can, for as cheap as you can, hype it up, and then pray you strike it rich...Even if not, you did things 'safe', and people feel more comfortable being 'safe'.
When the internet was newer, I think people saw it as a gold mine, and were more willing to take risks, but now people are all about playing numbers, using current data, trends...
So while I say I think a hybrid/sandbox can be huge, if done right, the data was always skewed to WoW, but recently, it appears we are getting out of that, from what is in development, and I think people may be banking on the 'WoW crowd', being tired of WoW, and looking for something new... A lot more Hybrid/Sandbox mmos are being announced and slated for release. I think a good hybrid that captures the positive aspects of a themepark/sandbox will be the next big thing....Then you may see what some think is inconcievable right now, a march towards more sandboxish hybrids, as the hybrid was farther from themepark, and it worked...
I feel the more choices, and different play styles you can accomodate, and make them all worth playing, the wider the audience you will attract. Themeparks do not generally offer quality crafting/harvesting, side games/distractions, and explorable content imo...They have been doing rails/quest hubs/instances almost to a formulated science...I think people are ready to open the world up, and accomodate more...I think people are tired of daily token/point grinds, that make you feel like you log in every 24 hours and complete a checklist.
Just a little correction on your use of the word niche. That terminology of niche has long since been defunct. World of Warcraft was a part of the MMO niche, until MMOs became big enough to become their own market. A niche is a market subset that is intended to impact a smaller subset market of a larger one. A great example of this is how Shreddies are designed to target all cereal lovers while naturalistic cereals are designed to target only people who are willing to pay extra for natural granola.
If the market was to shift in a major way that naturalistic cereals became a massive market with large amounts of competition then at that point it stops being a niche and simply becomes a market. From here people might make niche markets from this market of naturalistic cereals with grain fed cow milk.
The theory you stated is out dated because our current standard simply maintains a constant branching of markets based on popularity. In this understanding then something that was once popular and has hence become far less popular can also become a niche. So say the naturalistic cereals were to suddenly become popular and people would stop making them. Their position in the grocery store aisle to a very small corner will indicate how niche it is.
Niche MMOs largely do not exist because they 100% need a target audience in order to survive. Thing about niche products is in order for them to survive people always have to pay extra or else the business goes bankrupt.
Most niche MMOs on the market are free to play with a Pay2Win format.
Uncharted Waters Online is very much niche and people are willing to pay hundreds of dollars to be on top in this game.
LEGO Universe was set to be a niche as well. LEGO wanted to attract a child audience to the game by giving them MMO adventures and also the ability to build things using blocks. After going so far into development they cancelled the product because no one wants to build anything with blocks. Ironically they've charted Minecraft's team to build LEGO Minecraft.
The biggest thing hitting the niche development is the lack of indie MMO developers. Considering how hard it is to make an MMO decent it is not surprising there are very few independent MMO developers out there. Eve hit a niche by making a thinking man's game. Rift hit a niche by giving people dynamic content and fast updates.
But the money made by Trion and CCP is pennies on the dollar compared to what Perfect World International or Blizzard Entertainment (well I guess technically Activision) are making.
Case in point if you want a niche game, you have to be the one to make it. If you lack the technical expertise to make it... well now you have your answer.
Website: http://www.thegameguru.me / YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/users/thetroublmaker
Part of it is that small developers with good reputation get snagged up by bigger companies. Small developers with bad reputations go bankrupt rather quickly. There's not much left after these.
Even Zynga of Facebook fame is buying up developers so they can gain market share.
What amazes me is that it's fairly common for a developer to get bought out, and then the new owners run it into the ground. I guess profits mean more than reputation.
Why should an AAA company do that? Many of the niche players (or shall I say "many of the posters on this site"?) buy their AAA themeparks anyway, even though they complain about them. They complain, but as soon as a new AAA game releases "many of us here" stand in the line and are happy (or even hyped up) to give those AAA companies our money.
Thus it's much smarter - from a business point of view - to streamline the MMORPGs to appeal to people that don't play an MMORPG yet. The business from "us vets" is virtually assured and doesn't need more effort than a middle-sized marketing campaign.
(And this is only a little bit sarcasm. I really do think that we have to stop buying their games before we see some change, fat chance for that to happen though ...)
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
I mostly agree with this thread, and this post, however it will always boggle my mind that people actually think businesses are getting rich with extreme greed by running a project into the ground.
Obviously that's bad business. Sometimes it happens in response to the market (WoW has made countless games destroy themselves by trying to mimic it), sometimes it happens because of an attempt to reach a larger audience, and sometimes it happens due to ineptitude of people without the proper vision being in charge. Usually it's a combination of these. Companies don't intentionally destroy their own MMOs to make money, however.
I also want to point out that there are some very successful cases of independent funding which has worked great. The biggest example: LoL. Riot Games is a startup company, and the MOBA market did not exist financially until they came into the picture (with the possible exception of DemiGod).
It would be publishers doing it, not AAA companies, but the answer is money. Just like the indie movie market became established after My Big Fat Greek Wedding (or sometime around then), the indie game market is becoming established now with the Minecrafts and Portals of the world.
Investing in indie games is a lot like MMORPGs, probably. They probably lose money on most investments, but those that are successful can be wildly successful. Indie games also cost less money.
This surge will hit mmorpgs as well, because any publisher with their ear to the ground will hear a new market begging to be established.
One can only hope for a talented Indie who's got a passion for the game instead of for profits.
Sadly, I have seen this work against the company as well.
In the case of Perpetuum, I think the devs let their personal agenda go too far in the pasison of the game and it kinda turned off people wanting to sub but starting with a clear disadvantage compared to those in the know, right from release is pretty much a no-no.
It is happening somewhere. but remember that smaller indies develop slower since they don't have those investors and budgets staff.
Everyone wants to be like blizzard. they want to make that kind of cash, so they tend to make games simular to Wow in the hopes they can garner those subscribers attention. thats why it's all going down the tubes. and pretty much every MMO releasing is simular to old EQ/Wow in almost everyway.
Sure it's bleak and will remain that way until enough people are sick of themeparks and start demanding more freedom in the MMOs they play. but even then what your speaking of is not possible until another flook like Wow comes along that has just the right amount of niche to make it more then the flavor of the month themey.
We are looking at the downfall of the modern MMOG. it's a circle that has to be ompleted though if we want something truly amazing to play.
Nothing can change this right now. if blizzard who holds a large part of the market fails? then maybe we will see the break from tradional MMO mechanics and the re-assertion of true virtual worlds again.
All that is coming down the pipe that is made in the united states is pure or watered down themepark of Wow with some twist.
Simple.
The minimum entrance fee to make even a decent MMO is high. You have to have server, back-end, game client and so on. So you need at least millions, if not 10s of millions to get have a prayer.
The initial investment is too high for small investors.
Plus, the risk is high. There are much BETTER options (like single player games) for small, independent developers.
This actually isn't true.
There are people who have developed MMORPG's (albeit crappy ones, or unpopular ones) for free or relatively low cost (< a few thousand).
If you don't believe me, there are actually MMORPG's made using engines like TORQUE or UNITY, with placeholder graphics sold by said company, and they actually are active MMORPG's.
You don't need any money to make any game. You need the money to hire people to make it for you, make it quickly, make it with flash graphics, do complex mathmatics for physics, e
I am actually impressed by all of the respones.
Thank you everyone! Great reads all around!
QFT.
the quoted post might have been correct in the 1990's when hardware was still weak and "pricy" but today, joe blow down the street and pick up a server cheaply and host a "minecraft" style MMO they made them selves no problem.
there are loads of "free" game eng's out there if they lack the ability or knowledge to make their own. as for graphics.. meh dwarf fortress is still popular and its what.. 8bit graphics if that.. take that game make it an mmo and bam no problems.
server hosting is also really bloody cheap, a quality ISP can sell you a company IP for as little as 100 bucks which generally is more then enough for starting up a mmo, after words you just upgrade
unless you live in an area that hasnt heard of cable or fiber optics... in which case.. MOVE then make an mmo lol.
haven and hearth was built by 2 collage guys, hosted them selves (if i understand their history correctly) now they are making salem.. i really do not think they had millions in the bank to make HnH. making WoW wouldnt cost millions either, paying the staff maybe..
LeegOfChldrn is totally correct, you only need money to pay people to make it for you lol.
There is also Indies like Masthead who were frankly, incompetent and had no business publishing a game. It was unfortunate, and their response upon shutting down was even more unfortunate. They blamed the lack of funding and interest on it's failure instead of their inability to code. So once again, They reenforced the perception that there is no market for a sandbox, when the truth is that there is no market for incompetence.
well thats only haft truth - sure, you can make mmorpg like haven & hearth or wurm for very low money .... but then dont count on having more that several thousands players at most.
if you want to have some semi-decent population, you need money and a lot of them
We are talking about commercially viable games serving PAYING customers .. even niche ones.
You can't make any money, even from a niche market, with placeholder graphics, and no content. Look at all the mods of various games done on the cheap .. 99.9% are not viable commercial products.
I've always wondered why smaller studios don't pick-up an open source engine.
For example, the Ryzom client and server code is open source (artwork, landscape, characters, mobs, animations, sounds, etc. are not open source). Sure, an engine that is 8 years old by now might not do all what you want - but for a smaller studio it's better to cut a feature or two and take an engine that's known to be working than to come up with an engine of your own. In the case of Ryzom you even have a running reference game that shows that it works.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
Here's to hoping "Kickstart" provides the means for some small, brilliant companies to make some really cool stuff... cuz your run of the mill investor simply won't touch an MMO catering to a niche. Especially given the records of MMO's that have tried. Eve and Eve alone manages to thrive with a niche community, and we saw how fragile that was when they tried to pull the game in a direction the players didn't like.
Look at the hundreds of MMOs listed in the game forum section here on mmorpg
Then look at how many peopel talk about them as a rough estimate as to how many people play them.
There is your answer.
Though I've never played it myself, Minecraft seems to be hugely popular without the fancy graphics and crap. The reason for this is because it obviously delivers something its (niche) audience wants, and graphics aren't necessarily a part of that equasion.
Graphics by no means makes the game. Take a look at how much pretty-looking junk is out there compared to how many games with "outdated" graphics people still play. You're a huge WoW fan, right? WoW's look is very dated, yet its still commercially viable.
Content-wise, quality is tantamount to quantity. Quantity can always be added later once the game is made. Quality will sell the game, quantity will simply keep people playing it. It doesn't take a team of 200 people to come up with quality content. It takes 200 people to come up with quantity.
I will agree, however, that an MMO is probably the absolute worst project you could choose to undertake as your first game. Dreaming big is nice, but trying to start at the finish line doesn't work. I think this is probably why a lot of indies go down. There aren't many large-scale inependent game companies out there (Insomniac is the only one that comes to mind). Knowing what you're getting yourself into when you're small is what will make the difference of whether you grow or get eaten.
You should check the mmorpg listing on this site. There are tones of mmorpg, you are just not playing it(well, neither them I). But the games are there, you're just not playing it.
I have played Business Tycoon 3 before. Joking aside, from what I typically understand all portions of the market are niche, with the mainstream being labeled the "Mainstream Niche". The term Market Niche was created to slice up the target market (players, gamers) and in this topic then to take players/gamers and place them into smaller sub-groups which can then be developed for.
Supporting Evidence: Minecraft is only played by 1003 people, until it upgraded to Crysis graphics and THEN became popular. Right? Right? Wrong.
Everything you just said was a lie.
You can't make money with bad graphics and no content?
Wow, I guess someone should email MINECRAFT and tell them they aren't commercially viable.
My god, QUICK, inform Notch that his money is not real! SOUND THE ALARMS! Minecraft is actually highly unsuccessful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
^ a post as ridiculously asinine as yours.
Did you really say "milk dry the niche market"?
I believe you did not mean to say "milk dry" - because that would mean a developers purpose is to extinguish all space left for possible customers.
On top of that you can not "milk dry" niches, because then niches would not be niches anymore.
The word "niche" means a smaller group who's interests are not shared by a majority.
To actively intervene with this market (which is no real existing market) would mean you transform a niche product/group of people to something popular.
If something is in a niche means, that means it is in a STATE of not-so-big interest. That state can alter. But you can not "milk dry a niche".
And again, on top of that "milk dry" is a negative term of abusing. Why would you do something like that? Are you an american economist? LOL
You are correct in saying that "milky dry" is a negative term of abusing. That is EXACTLY why I used it. If you don't get it, explaining won't help. It's quite obvious why I stated asking why a AAA company refuses to milk dry the niche market.
Another equally successful negative term of abusing would be to parasite a piece of the market until it is shriveled and dead.
I'd also like to inform you that "niche" doesn't necessarily mean small. Niche Marketing, which is what people refer to when they talk about business and niche MMORPG design concepts, includes the "Mainstream niche".
Mainstream is typically very large. Also, a niche market can be quite large, or else MTV wouldn't be so popular or successful.
"Large" and "Small" portions are entirely self-defined as well, so there is little meaning in self-proclaiming a design concept to be "niche", as if it could not be successful or profitable. What is "Large" in one context could be Tiny in another. A market being "large" or "small" is rather irrelevant (not to mention vague in definition). If there was a universal amount of market that is the 'whole' then large or small would be better defined. Unfortunately, one cannot merely say "All MMORPG gamers" make up all of the market. WoW gamers aren't even necessarily 100% of the market. The % of actual gamers in the market is impossible to predict or measure. Even so, comparing to a game as big as WoW may be irrational definition in business when games do not reach WoW-level of populations and instead should be compared to realistic population expectancies. Even so, the WoW figure is blown out of proportion with the large majority being Chinese players who don't even play or pay the same way.
In the end, "Large" or "Small" needs a context, and that context is not universally defined, thus "niche" cannot be universally defined unless it is acceptably small by all context's definitions. This is certainly not so, as EVE does quite well.