Loading... Battle Lines

by John Hoskin on Jun 06, 2008

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Welcome to the 844th Edition of Loading...

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First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.

If the Top 10 isn't enough, we now show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)

Age of Conan - 200 BPM World of Warcraft - 90 BPM Lord of the Rings Online - 37 BPM EverQuest 2 - 35 BPM EVE Online - 27 BPM Warhammer Online - 21 BPM Guild Wars - 18 BPM Vanguard - 18 BPM Lineage 2 - 16 BPM Sword of the New World - 13 BPM

Yesterday I mentioned that Turbine had raised $40 million. I cooked up some great questions for the folks with the newfound bags of money. I felt a bit like I was questioning Scrooge McDuck. I even came up with a great Looney Tunes / Warner Bros., MMOG tie-in. Jim Crowley, CEO of Turbine dodged all the important questions like whether or not they were going to make a game where people could dress up like Bugs Bunny in drag, but he did have this to say,

"Everyone at Turbine is very excited about the recent announcement. We are adding two world class backers to our organization. GGV, who has a very deep understanding of the Asian market and Time Warner who is one of the leading media companies on the planet. They bring a whole level of potential IPs, distribution expertise, and other entertainment expertise to our fold. We think that this furthers Turbine as a leader in the MMO space and opens up a tremendous number of new doors for us. Which we look forward to talking about with everyone in the next few weeks and months. We think it is a great step for our fans and our players because it just means more and more fun will be coming down the pipe." - Jim Crowley Turbine CEO

Thanks for being such a good sport Jim. That said, the next questions are going to Adam Mersky or Jeffrey Steefel. Those guys will answer ACME anvil and rabbit in drag questions for sure.

It's exciting when a AAA developer gets an influx of cash. It's equally exciting when a AAA developer announces that they are preparing to ship the one millionth copy of their game.

"DURHAM, N.C., BUSINESS WIRE -- Funcom is proud to announce that Age of Conan will pass the astounding "One Million Copies Shipped" milestone in less than three weeks after the launch of the game. Due to overwhelming demand Funcom's retail partner is now re-supplying retail boxes rapidly while also including new markets to the mix. As a result of the tremendous interest from gamers, Age of Conan has for the past few weeks been claiming number one spots on sales charts across the Western world - including the US, Germany, France and the UK - while receiving glowing review scores from gaming media.

"Sales data shows that Age of Conan is the biggest MMO launch since World of Warcraft," said Funcom Vice President of Sales and Marketing Morten Larssen. "The numbers are very promising, and we are very proud to be one of the fastest selling PC games ever in a launch month and the biggest simultaneous Europe/US MMO launch in history."

In the US, Age of Conan has a strong #1 chart position and is now moving past the 500,000 shipped mark. Meanwhile the attention for the game is growing across the globe, with over 8 million unique visitors from over 200 countries to the Age of Conan websites so far in 2008. The community surrounding the game is also growing fast, with over 800,000 signing up as members of the Clan of Conan fan club."

Eight million unique visitors showing an interest in a game is staggering. The real deal however is when they pay for it. I continue to have reached a 'wall' in Age of Conan where I'm not especially fond of the class that I chose, but I'm not especially eager to start over. This happens to me in most MMOGs. One area of AoC that I love and that seems to only get better are the dungeons. I have yet to visit one that didn't make me want to keep playing late into the night. The atmosphere of the dungeons that I have seen so far is gritty and ominous. I haven't seen dungeons with so much flavour since the original EverQuest, though EverQuest II holds honorable mention.

Age of Conan, Warhammer Online and Stargate Worlds are the next breed of MMOG. They are the largest ripples formed by the likes of EverQuest and Ultima Online. They hope to reach some semblance of success that would make their names as much a part of the social fabric as that of World of Warcraft. It is no coincidence that each of these games is using or is going to use a subscription based model rather than a microtransactions model. I mean no offense to any of the MT games that we cover, but I have yet to find one that comes close to the quality of a subscription based game. That isn't to say that they don't have their place in the industry. They are different and they cater to a market that is either unable or unwilling to pay a monthly subscription. Mark Jacobs recently talked to Gamasutra about this very issue.

"You know, everyone thinks it's just so cool to say that the subscription model is passé, that it's dead," notes Mark Jacobs, general manager and VP. "They love to talk about their new models and how they are going to revolutionize the MMOG world. But MMOG publishers are spending a lot more on their games than anyone thought they'd be spending five years ago." - Gamasutra

Mark went on to say this,

"The microtransaction guys will say that they are more successful," he argues. "Oh really? I find it very disingenuous when publishers talk about how many people are playing their game but won't talk about how much money they're making." - Gamasutra

Mark calls it like he sees it, at least he always has with Ten Ton Hammer. It would be interesting to have a panel consisting of only Mark Jacobs of EA-Mythic and Min Kim of Nexon, two of the most knowledgeable guys in the industry who happen to sit on opposite sides of the revenue debate. Maybe we should set that up. Mark, Min, you in?

Here is a question for you, the hundreds of thousands of Loading... readers, "If you could have a complimentary account for life to any game, with full VIP treatment including any perks that a subscription or microtransaction might give, what game would you play?"

That's it for today! The Loading Forums await you. Do you feel the need to contact me personally with naughty pictures or derogatory comments? Here's my E-mail.

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[A big thanks to Phil Comeau for putting together the links, headlines and taglines today. ]

16 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 70 in June! 1366 in 2008!

New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today

Images/Video

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Features

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Interviews

Warhammer Online: Crafting a Mechanic, Part 3

Previews

D&D 4th Edition: Behind the Scenes with D&D Insider

Reviews