Here’s an interesting post about the design aspects that make some modern RTS games like Company of Heroes and Dawn of War less suitable for high level play than Starcraft.  The OpEd theorizes that being less suitable for continued high-level play is one of the reasons why these games, despite their strong critical reception, are nowhere nearly as big a phenomenon as the afore-mentioned Blizzard Machine.

 http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18326

I think the points are excellent and I’ve seen them in other guises (e.g. board games).  Namely, degrees of randomness can work for and against you.  Also, simple presentation = gameplay clarity.  I still think fondly of Civ I largely because the map was SO readable, unit combats had a simple abstract animation, and so on.

But design reasons aside, I think the Starcraft vs EVERYTHING is a bit like the WoW vs EVERYTHING phenomenon.  Both benefited enormously be being “first to market”.  Ok, Starcraft wasn’t the first RTS (I believe Dune was?) and WoW was behind UO, Everquest, etc.

But both games redefined their genres in terms of COMMERCIAL SUCCESS.  Starcraft inspired legions of RTS knock-offs hoping for a piece of the pie, and WoW completely blew everyone’s idea of a success/revenue into the stratosphere.  So in those regards, they were first-to-market of a New World.

The core of the question is this: if another WoW or Starcraft came out today–and by that I mean a game equally well designed, executed, etc.–would they succeed even one-half as much?  I think the answer is “no”, because of consumer fragmentation.  There are too many “me toos” on the market today, so many that even the good ones get lost in the noise in terms of market impact.  Many of the products have great innovations, engrossing worlds, and so on, but who has time for them all?

Myself, I’m a great example of a fragmented consumer.  I played WoW off and on for about two years (and have recently reinstalled it…uh oh).  Since then I’ve played bits of Lord of the Rings, Tabula Rasa, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Eve Online, and more.  I’ve really enjoyed aspects of each, and wish I could continue characters in all of them for various reasons.  But the reality is, financially I don’t want 5 MMO subscriptions of course, but even more prescient: there’s no way I have time to play all 5.  If I’m playing LOTRO, I’m not playing WoW.  If I’m playing WoW, I’m not playing Eve.  And so on.

This consumer fragmentation means a couple of things.  First of all, since each of these persistent world games really depends on a certain player population to make the world economics and social dynamics interesting (like POTBS and Eve’s amazing economies), this puts them all in jeopardy.  Second, commercial success comes largely via word-of-mouth.  If only 2% of applicable mouths are playing a game, it can be hard to garner critical mass even if that game is great.  Put in chemistry terms, you need to generate enough heat to cause an exothermic reaction–one that will continue to react faster and faster due to the heat it is generating.  A positive feedback loop, if you will.

Although I doubt any other MMORPG will be as large as WoW or RTS as large as Starcraft, I do think that to even have a chance, there must be a lull in the market which will create a demand for a “better moustrap” and a consumer base ready to embrace it.  But as long as one decent MMO is coming out every couple of months…Tabula->POTBS->Conan->etc, I can’t see the MMO subscriber base (amongst core gamers at least) being much more than 90% WoW and 10% Adventure Tourism.  (Note that Second Life, Maple Story, are a seperate demographic actually.)

This isn’t doom and gloom, though.  As always, other demands and opportunities get created when there is raging success in certain arenas.  I think there is excellent opportunity for:

• Low-subscription MMOs: instead of choosing “Wow or this”, why not choose “WoW + this”?  If I had a $3.99/month MMO that was fun, I wouldn’t necessarily have to make it go head to head with Blizzard each month for a piece of my bank account.
• “Moderately Multiplayer”: instead of trying to be the next WoW, developers should look for games that don’t need millions of players to be successful.  Even Online is actually a good example of this: all players are in one server/realm/shard.  With appx 200,000 subscribers, around 40k are online at any one time, I believe, which ensures a viable world dynamic.  Also, 200k subscribers (and growing?) can still be a financial success.  We all want to bring in 120million a month, but chasing that with every new product is akin to day-trading in the dot com era and being unsatisfied with anything below 100% ROI.  Remember that 20% profit a year sustains many a profitable business.

15+ years after it hit the market, Magic: the Gathering still dwarfs all other trading card games.

30+ years after it hit the market, D&D still dwarfs (har har) all other RPGs.

Is there any reason to believe WoW won’t in 2020 or Starcraft IV won’t in 2030?  Tough to say.

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