Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games.  We love em.  We live in them.  Often we dedicate more time to them than we do to real life relationships.  Or our jobs.  Or sometimes our health.  We think about our characters, our guild, our equipment and our raiding strategies more than we like to admit.  Clearly we are part of a community of people that has found a strong connection with this medium, this genre.  Either that, or I’m in dire need of a padded room.

Be that as it may, I wondered today about the nature of the MMO.  Are companies like SOE and Blizzard trying to sell us a product to own, or are they selling us a service - an experience?  After thinking about it awhile, I came to a few conclusions:

1. Most of us buy a product - a game box with CD/DVDs and a rulebook in it;
2. That product is expanded over time by patches and expansions, some of which we also buy in a store;
3. Ultimately however, what MMO developers have really sold us is a service, an “experience”; and 
4. The service/experience can actually become ”the product” to differentiate themselves from competitors. 

Honestly, we’re being sold an experience - an entertainment experience.  A service that companies like SOE and Blizzard are more than happy to provide.  And to be honest, it’s a service I’m more than happy to pay for.  For my entertainment dollar, MMOs are still the most afforadle way to go for dollars to hours spent on a monthly basis.

Developers obviously spend a lot of time looking at the “experience” they are creating.  What setting is the game in?  What about races or classes?  Lore and history.  Graphical look.  PvP.  PvE.  Raiding.  Housing.  Mounts.  Guilds.  Skills/Abilities/Talents.  Each part in the process, each decision that is made, adds in one way or another to this conceptual soup that finally becomes the experience that we enjoy (or hate!). 

All of us have played more and more MMOs over the years.  As a group we are becoming more demanding in what we want to experience.  The bar keeps rising.  We want to see new things.  We want to see innovation.  What once delighted and surprised us now seems normal at best and boring at worst.  Jaded?  Maybe…but it’s like riding a rollercoaster one too many times.  Eventually it just doesn’t hold the excitement it once did.

Remember, players don’t take loot with them when they leave a game.  What do we take?  Emotions, experiences, and memories.  We’re human - we can’t help but walk away with those things.  Developers have to be focused on excellent service, and unique, entertaining experiences.  If MMOs are just a product, they ultimately will fail.

Share This

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 8th, 2007 at 9:36 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.