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West vs East low budget MMOs
gotha
Member UncommonPosts: 1,074
I have been in Korea for 2 years now. One thing i have noticed is the insane amount of MMOs they have here. Especially lower budget MMOs. Many of these suck (well actually most) but a have some have some very interesting mechanics and are diamonds in the rough.
In the west however we seem to have very few low budget MMOs. Makes me wondered if we are too spoiled with our MMOs, that it inhibits creativity because no small MMO can succeed.
Lets pretend for instance mount and blade decided to make an MMO based on their IP. They can only get a few million so they decide to go with their current single player setup (overhead map and instanced gameplay) . Lets say then because of money and balance issues they simplify classes or skills somewhat. We would all go screaming bloody murder and never play the game again. But when in reality we would be pissing on one of the best sandbox games to come out since eve.
Comments
I'm curious about their pricing models. Were they all F2P?
Yeh most are, some are time purchase though. Like Aion currently (i know not low budget as an example).
Most games have to work with the fact most people are playing from PC cafes. So the subscription method is not the most popular.
What it leads me to wonder is what Korean developers could do with a $100 million budget.
Yes I agree.
I think those business models (time purchase or F2P) really helps creating a diverse market, as opposed to the Western market dominated by the monthly subscription model, where no one likes paying a monthly subscription on a second+ game...
Tera, archage, Blade and soul. 3 pretty Unique MMOs. Archage is the only large budget sandbox game coming out currently. Tera has a pretty decent arcade style combat. B&S is traditional combat with kind of arcade tekken fighting game twist. Vey combo, counter, some fake dodging i think, and blocking based.
Now all we have to do is wonder about the grind.
Trying to think which low budget MMOs are currently coming out of the west.
Craft of Gods. Made in canada is the only one i can think of.
Perpetium maybe.
MO, DF, and Fallen earth are indy compared to the big boys. But i think all 3 had excess of 10 million dollar budgets.
Does anyone know what constitutes "low budget"???
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
It seems the online gaming market in Korea is more "mature" than the Western one, and MMOs probably have to compete with other online game formats, so the P2P for an "exclusive online social experience" etc probably is diluted? That's a guess? Besides their broadband connection speeds are some of the highest in the world across the whole country and as the OP says, there seems to be a big cultural thing with gaming: Eg cafes and comps etc??
You can see the Western market go through greater pricing hybridization in the next few years and besides as another poster pointed out (Imhoptepp I think) the engines are beginning to be sold at cheap prices that maybe budget/indie mmos will start to be made/appear eg one engine was somewhere like 5k$?
I still think the Eastern tastes are very different from Western ones and so this changes things a lot also. The consumer wants different things. I know I do!
Aim to visit Korea in the NY and talk to some ppl over there while I get the chance. ^^
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem