World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

As I moved onto the last few of my questions, I found myself wondering whether the MMO industry history would work like what we’ve seen from Hollywood. It seems like – if you quantify Hollywood into its basest aspects – that the history of Tinsel Town operates on a cycle. You’ll have technological advancement, growth, regression, conglomeration, and a whole list of other aspects always occurring in these ten year spurts.

Since the MMO industry is so young, it’s hard to measure what the industry’s history might be like, but if we use EverQuest as an example, we might contend that the lifecycle of an MMO is really five years before it hits a peak and begins to decline.

I asked Hermann what his thoughts were on the topic, whether he thought World of Warcraft might have hit its peak or if we still had longer to wait before the game peaked out.

“I don't think [it’s peaked],” he said. “I think that MMOs worlds are more like brands than products, though they sit somewhere in between. For example, Coca Cola has been successful for 100 years or so, whereas movies have a life of a few years at most (with some exceptions). We haven't seen a successful MMO be turned off yet, so it's hard to know what the actual lifecycle is. For example, could you give WoW a massive graphics overhaul and give it 10 more years of life? Will my kids get hooked on it in a few years and then play for 4 more and so on. If the games are continuously updated and they are generational, this kind of thing may happen. Then again we may discover that MMOs have a 10-15 year life span and that's about it.”

Finally, I asked the gathered panelists whether we would ever see a merging of Hollywood and the MMO industry. Both Blizzard and EA are skirting Hollywood’s borders, but a true integration of the two mediums hasn’t happened yet. Again, the interviewees didn’t agree with each other, but that’s to be expected in topic like this one. To end this article, I’ll let the panelists involved speak for themselves:

Hermann Peterscheck:

I'm not sure what that kind of experience would look like to the players, so I suppose the answer is no. I'm sure we'll see even more movie licenses for MMOs and, possibly, the other way around; but the entertainment experience is completely different. I guess I also don't see the book and movie industry merging either, for precisely this reason. I suspect they will happily co-exist and just feed off each other where it makes sense.

Craig Alexander:

I think they can and they will. It will particularly happen in the film franchises. The Lord of the Rings is a *great* example of this; they’re just announcing the next two films. While entertainment franchises have typically been focused on the film, what greater opportunity than to build this sort of experience around an MMO? That community is so much more loyal and diehard than what you find with films…

The opportunity to blend the biggest franchises in the space around both MMOs and movies is an extremely exciting prospect. I’ve spent a good deal of my career trying to sort this out, and it goes far beyond the traditional “movie game.” This is a blending of communities in a desire to make an “ultimate destination” for these particular high profile properties.

Steve Preeg:

There’s already a ton of effort in that area. There are all of these assets in games that are coming up to the point of film where you can start sharing assets. I think people will still run into the problem of having an hour and a half long movie compared to a game you’ll play for months. It just doesn’t work out that well.

On top of that, historically gamers don’t really have good attitudes concerning “movie games,” because the studios had to spit them out so fast to release at the same time as the movie. Movies have such shorter cycles compared to games, especially MMO games, that you’d be compressing development time to an almost unbearable degree.

I think there’s a lot of desire for Hollywood and video games to merge, but I’m not sure it’s the best thing for either party. The models just don’t support each other very well. They’re two conflicting ideas that they’re trying to shove into the same box. There’d have to be some major changes in thinking between the two sides if that was ever to get done.

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There you have it folks! We've certainly answered some questions and come up with a whole lot more in our discussion here. While we may not see a true merging of Hollywood and the MMO industry for awhile, it certainly sounds like the potential is there and a number of parties are actively working towards that goal. What does that mean for gamers?

Only time will tell. Until then, keep on gaming Ten Ton Hammer readers!