Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Fans and Gamers

David Chang explained that the audience for their two sports MMOGs, MLB Dugout Heroes and Shot Online, are in large part not only fans, but players of baseball and golf respectively. "Our Shot Online players play real golf on average of over 15 times a year and our MLB Dugout Heroes players regularly attend baseball games and play in high school baseball teams. So I would say that our players are fans of the sport first and foremost."

However, other online sports games developers, especially those seeking mass appeal beyond fans of the sport, take the MarioKart approach - seek to distinguish themselves by focusing on the entertainment aspect of the game rather than emulating the sport itself. Pangya, a casual online multiplayer golf game with an "anime-inspired style" and an "immersive fantastical storyline", is perhaps the most divergent of these crossover titles. "For some, golf can often be considered boring and slow," Ntreev's Operations / Project Manager Rhea Park noted. "We believe that in order to appeal to a wider audience, it is important that the game does not become a simulation, but rather reinvents the sport in a fun, casual way."

Pangya

Chang understands the impulse to stylize the game. "In a fantasy setting, you have a lot more creative freedom, in a sports setting, you have to deal with something that everyone knows and has probably experienced before. Want to create a football game where your quarterback can "tab" through his receivers and then click a button to rifle a pass? That seems too easy and unrealistic right? But that’s basically what every targeting MMO does . . . what would happen if your "targeting" action failed every once in a while in WOW? People would get nuts and report a bug or something."

The Future of Sports MMOGs

For the foreseeable future, pure sports games with impressive licenses and endorsements will continue to dominate the sales figures, and at the top of the pile is Madden, which routinely shifts two million copies in its first two weeks after release. But there are signs that the Madden formula may not be what it once was. Madden '10 sold 50k fewer copies on the Wii and about 263k less on the aging PlayStation 2 from Madden '09, with modest downticks on the Xbox 360 and PS3. This despite better ratings and reviews than in previous years.

FIFA Online

It should come as little surprise then that EA Sports is exploring new options. FIFA Online will represent EA's first toe in Western waters for microtransaction-driven online gaming when it launches later this year. Whether fans favor or reject the move could very well chart the course for EA Sports franchises in the near future, and as EA Sports goes, so goes a fat chunk of the North American and European sports games market. Chang offered his thoughts: "It will be up to EA to decide if they want to assert their dominance beyond the console in a meaningful way. I think there will always be a place for the brand 'Madden' but over time how you interact with that brand will change - and what EA probably thinks a lot about is trying to keep their margins up while diversifying into other gaming platforms like the iPhone, web, PC, etc."

"Will EA accept that the game industry is changing and embrace that change? I'm not sure to be honest, I think it’s hard for a large, public company like EA to come to terms with the fact that the industry that they were instrumental in creating may evolve into something that they are not currently well prepared for."

FIFA Online

In the meantime, regional publishers like GamesCampus will continue to walk where the mega-publishers fear to tread. And with increased acceptance of microtransaction-driven, free-to-play MMOGs following DDO's conversion last October, they might be harvesting the firstfruits of a burgeoning sports game migration.

Ten Ton Hammer thanks David Chang of GamesCampus and Ntreev's Rhea Park for contributing their comments to this article.
And we really do like curling, honest!