Which is better, indeed? You've got to love a question that's
guaranteed to instantly raise the hackles of both parties involved in
the discussion well before any details are even heard. Despite possible
appearances, I'm actually not trying to get anyone inflamed. The
question I (and numerous others before me) have posed is an interesting
one in any right, but especially in light of the responses I got from a
target="_blank">Forever
Fantasy article I did a couple weeks ago entitled
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/66859" target="_blank">From
the Page
to Your PC.
border="1">
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/66134" target="_blank">
alt="" src="/image/view/66134/preview"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 200px;">
Back, ya
mangy beast! Back I say!
In it, I talked about some fantasy book series I thought had enough
depth and scale to become full fledged MMOGs, while a side argument in
the article centered on how the realities of business would force most
development companies to create a game around an established
intellectual property just to get the necessary funding. Even though
readers were commenting on what books they'd like to see translated to
the digital world, almost everyone agreed they'd rather see original
creations.
The argument presents an interesting conundrum. At one point in time or
another, all of us have wished upon whatever magic the universe may
still hold in its heart that we could suddenly find ourselves in the
adventurous world we were reading about. Some of us more than others,
(my wife can laugh, but she's going to be grateful I'm there when we
get sucked into
target="_blank">D&D
land!) but I think most of us have done so on some primordial
level. On the other hand, the human race (and geeks in general) has
always had a pension for discovery. Whether that's the discovery of an
imaginary world someone has created or a new piece of technology makes
little difference.
I've mentioned this before, but by going with a proven IP, there's an
inherent assumption that a company will save drastic amounts of time
and energy in their marketing efforts by attracting the established
customer base. Now whether this actually works as well in practice as
in theory is arguable at best. I think it's safe to say that at the
very least a company should expect it to garner some much needed
interest and attention. Just by creating an MMOG centered around Uberly
Successful IP "X", word *will* spread. Whether that word is good or bad
depends on a number of factors.
By creating a game based on a popular IP, the company in question has a
huge responsibility to "do it right." Unfortunately, not everyone
realizes the reality of one little secret - every single fan out there
has a different idea of what "right" is. For every fan that thinks Luke
Skywalker was a raging bad ass, there's another fan that believes he
was a whiny pansy (like he really was) in the Star Wars movies. There's
no way to please everyone.
Lord of the Rings is a perfect example. For a person that may be
familiar with the movies and little else, it's a great game with an
impressive amount of depth and attention to detail. For the mass of
fanatical fans that have spent more time pouring over every book
Tolkien ever wrote than even Tolkien himself, *any* deviation from the
lore of his world is paramount to sacrilege on the most horrific scale.
Oh by the way... they'll also be more vocal about it than you could
ever begin to imagine.
In the case of established IPs, I think the only thing a development
team can realistically hope for is to create a game they think is fun
to play that just happens to be in the world of whatever IP they're
working with. If they accomplish this, they stand a reasonable chance
of garnering enough fans that the screams of the "faithful" won't bring
about Armageddon as they so often like to think any deviation from the
source material will ensure.
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href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/67242" target="_blank">
alt="" src="/image/view/67242/preview"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 200px;">
Farming is
never this fun in real life.
So how do you avoid the possibility of some crazed fan graphically
vocalizing his preferred method of your death because you ruined his
life by placing Town A thirty miles south of Town B when some obscure
reference he dug up *clearly* states it was thirty miles to the
southeast? Southeast!!! Yeah, it may seem like an exaggeration, but
you'd be surprised. In any case, the best way to avoid incidents like
this is to create your own IP.
For the sake of argument, and in the hopes of avoiding such, we'll
pretend that funds are not unlimited, but that you're also not working
on a miser's budget either. In that case,
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/67411" target="_blank">creating
your
own original world in which to host your new AAA MMOG allows
you to do virtually anything you damned well please. That is, of
course, if you can find or create the technology necessary to bring
your vision to it's ripe fruition.
Even with an original IP though, you run the risk of it becoming too
ripe, so to speak. If you've been working on a game for years and years
with no end in sight, and continually push it back with the excuse of
“We’re working on it” and nothing more, I
personally don't think you stand a chance in hell. I'm looking at you,
Huxley. The point is, players will only remain interested for so long.
If you continue to drag out production, even those interested at one
time will quickly find their attention waning. Something that seemed
unbelievably awesome five years ago has most likely been done by
someone else now, and
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/67357" target="_blank">they've
probably done it better than what you were planning.
The only way to avoid such a doom and gloom scenario is to not only
make your game in a normal amount of time, but to make sure your
original IP is awesome. I don't mean you and your mother think it's
awesome, I mean earth shattering awesome, on the scale of Mass Effect.
Even though it's not an MMOG (though I *SO* wish it was), it proved
that if you put the time in to make genuinely interesting characters,
races, and worlds, the sky is the limit.
So which is better? An original idea or an established IP? I think the
real answer is a mixture of both. If you don't have an original idea
capable of absolutely flooring your audience and making the lips of
your competition quiver, then you'd better start looking for a rock
solid IP. In today's market, there's no other choice if you want to
succeed.
