John Gaudiosi over at Forbes did an interview with Guild Wars 2 Lead Producer Chris Whiteside. I agree 100% with Chris Whiteside view on the old subscription model. Many players may gain interest in an up and coming MMO but one of the main questions “Is there a subscription fee?” Companies may be missing potential future customers by already limiting their player base by subscriptions. Subscriptions doesn’t make a game successful. Good development and good content does that. Subscriptions only make a game profitable for a time period.
GW2 Stratics want to thank Forbes John Gaudiosi and GW2 Lead Producer Chris Whiteside for the great interview for all the GW2 fans to read.
GW2 Stratics want to thank Forbes John Gaudiosi and GW2 Lead Producer Chris Whiteside for the great interview for all the GW2 fans to read.
John Gaudiosi, Contributor
I’ve been covering video games and technology for 20 years
8/10/2012 @ 2:26PM |13,582 views
Guild Wars 2 Lead Producer Chris Whiteside Believes Subscription MMO Model Offers Huge Barrier To Entry
With NCsoft readying to publish ArenaNet’s Guild Wars 2 on August 28, the game’s lead producer, Chris Whiteside, took a short break to discuss the evolvingWith NCsoft readying to publish ArenaNet’s Guild Wars 2 on August 28, the game’s lead producer, Chris Whiteside, took a short break to discuss the evolving massively multiplayer online (MMO) games business. The free-to-play model has changed the business, forcing even huge subscription-based games like Electronic Arts’ BioWare-developed Star Wars: The Old Republic to turn to the model
With only Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft succeeding with the old subscription-based model – and even that game is losing millions of subscribers – Whiteside discusses the future of MMOs in this exclusive interview. He also details the unique approach ArenaNet has taken with Guild Wars 2, which the developer hopes will open up the audience for MMO players beyond the core niche gamers
What have you been able to apply from your social and mobile gaming background to Guild Wars 2?
You develop the game for the business model you’ve agreed to sell with. One of the big things about this business model is it brings a lot more players through the doors in terms of accessibility. That’s where we have to make an accessible game that retains a much more diverse selection of gamers. Some people could see that as a negative in terms of making the development hard. For us, it’s certainly been a positive in understanding how to build a game for exactly the types of customers that will be coming through the doors.
What are the challenges of appeasing ArenaNet’s dedicated fan base, while also opening up Guild Wars 2 to a more mainstream audience?
MMOs at one point were a niche, mainly because of the technology required to play them and the way in which they were designed. I wouldn’t go so far as to saying they were spreadsheet design, but many of the early MMOs were niche in terms of fundamentals and mechanics of gameplay. While MMOs have certainly evolved, I still think there are certain staples within MMO design that have outstayed their welcome. This really opens up a good opportunity for the developer to understand that really the best game that you can make for a customer is the one the customer is telling you to make, or at least giving you advice on.
What’s been the key to ArenaNet’s approach with Guild Wars 2?
We worked from the understanding that the business model is going to open the doors to a lot more players, and you’ll have potentially a more diverse audience with arguably more casual than the hardcore niche. Then you have to think about the core mechanics and the core design of the product, and how you really bring the player into the game. These mechanics lead to more in-depth mechanics that are more typical of an MMO because we don’t want to alienate people that love the core complex mechanics of MMOs. I’m certainly one of those players. I think that that’s fantastic. As an industry, we could all do a better job of teaching the player how to get to the point where these more complex systems are in the game. And then have more enjoyment by understanding what they are, rather than feeling like an outsider. Having a more diverse community and listening to that feedback gives us metrics, and the information required, to really understand how to build a big, great accessible game.
What do you see as the challenges when it comes to the MMO free-to-play space as we see more and more games coming out and consumers having more choices?
From a dev point of view, you have the irony of having a subscription-based model in MMOs that’s a very polarizing area financially for people playing. Research indicates that the average gamer can’t really support more than two subscriptions. I know for me, I don’t really want to keep more than one subscription going. That makes things massively competitive and really polarizes not just people’s attention, but also where they flock towards. The game that has the most people flocking towards it has the biggest income, and therefore it becomes a self-fulfilling cycle. The interesting and ironic thing about it is when you do more free-to-play games it becomes more competitive, which is even better for the consumer. But it means you have a lot more people having a lot more choices and a lot more eyes on your product. You get a lot more feedback from gamers, and so I do see it shifting more towards that. I don’t think it’s going to make it any easier for developers. I think it’s going to create new problems.
After the failure of Star Wars: The Old Republic, do you see room for another big subscription MMO in the future?
It’s pretty simple. The best quality MMO is going to pull customers towards it. Certainly a subscription model does offer a huge barrier to entry, so unless the game that comes out with the subscription is miles and eons above anything in the free-to-play or traditional purchased box space, then it’s going to struggle. At the end of the day, the players and the communities are going to go to the game that matters to them the most.