Yes, You Too

Can Fail at

Multiplayer!Games

20 Easy LessonsBy David Fox, VP Technology, iWin(dfox@iwin.com)

Multiplayer Games Are Like Restaurants

Not Launching

• Can’t Find Fun

• Running out of Budget

• Inability to Build Team

• Creative Tension

Flopping

• Location• Pricing• Quality• Accessibility• Appeal• Timing• More Effort than Worth

Most MP Games Don’t Launch

• Anecdotally, For Every MP Game you Play… 9 Never Go Live.

Most That Launch, Fail

• Mplayer• Won.net• Big Network• Imagination

Network• iGames• Heat.net• Etc.

What is Failure?

• Face it, everything fails

Success Is

• Reaching a Critical Mass

• Return on Investment

• Over Reasonable Life Span

MMOG Hype

Company Funded

Chapatiz $530,000

Handipoints $800,000

Dizzywood $1,000,000

PlayFish $1,000,000

Rebel Monkey $1,000,000

GoFish $1,500,000

Akoha $1,900,000

Seasky $3,000,000

Fluid Entertainment $3,200,000

FlowPlay $3,700,000

C3L3B Digital $4,000,000

Sparkplay Media $4,250,000

IGG, Inc. $4,500,000

ROCKETON $5,800,000

iOpener $6,000,000

Gizmoz $6,500,000

EveryScape $7,000,000

Vivox $7,800,000

Grockit $8,000,000

Gaia Online $12,000,000

Hidden City Games $15,000,000

Turbine $40,000,000

Realtime Worlds $50,000,000

9You $100,000,000

MMOG Fate

Source: Mmogchart.com

My Own Career

• Lots of Failure

• More Failure

• Some Successes (Whew!)

• Some Failures Actually Avoidable

Family Feud Online Party

Jewel Quest III Tournament

Cram In More Features. Good. Now More! 01

Lesson

Ah, PlayLink

Pogo

ClassicGames.com (Yahoo)

Features MatrixPlayLink ClassicGames Pogo PlaySite

Observing

Saving / Resuming

Automatic Tournaments

Enhanced Profiles

Expressive Chat

Custom

Avatars

Invite to Table

Play As Guest

Pogo’s Fate

• 17 million Registered Members

• Acquired by Electronic Arts in 2001 for approximately $40 million

ClassicGames’ Fate

• Acquired by Yahoo

• Became Yahoo Games

PlaySite’s Fate

• Acquired by Go2Net

• Acquired by InfoSpace

• Acquired by iWin

PlayLink’s Fate

• Acquired by a Shady Gold Mining Concern

• Left to Rust

Any Audience Worth Its Salt Will Build Organically 02

Lesson

First One at the Party…Nobody Wants to Be the

Last One at the Party…Nobody Wants to Be the

Tips To Reel Them In

• Bootstrap your community with Ringers

• Avoid the “empty lobby” deathtrap

• Don’t be ashamed to buy your traffic– Be sure you’re ready

• Virality

• Oh, and make a game worth playing

Tips To Keep Them

• Focus on happiness

• Watch your churn

• Oh, and make a game that scales

Get Massively! 03Lesson

Uneven Distribution

Shut Out

Mass is Critical

Watch Out For:

• Lost in The Crowd

• Alone on Empty Planet

Glitz Is All They Really Care About 04

Lesson

“Classic” Games

NEW IMPROVED Games!

The Result?

• Old Checkers: 200-300 PSUs

• New Checkers “Beta”: 5 PSUs

Why Don’t They Like Me?!

• You hired a UI Expert…

• Paid a fortune to a top Usability house…

• Read every book on Internet marketing…

Now, Now. Polite People Take Turns 05

Lesson

Wordscape Conversion

Wordscape Online Party

Turn-Based Blues

• Wait for others to start

• Wait for others to move

• Dropouts ruin the experience

• One winner, many losers

Pogo’s Top Games

Panacea?

Take Yer Winning Single-Player Mechanic Then “Drop In” More People! 06

Lesson

Take a Moment…

“Multi-player games are like ocean liners, but games developers are used to creating speedboats. Consequently, they tend to make their games multi-player by adding more seats. Not only does the resulting vessel fail to capture the magic of a cruise, it also loses a lot what's fun about speedboats.”

- Richard Bartle

Leaderboards Are Not Multiplayer

Is Bingo Really Multiplayer?

Panacea?!?

Can’t Go Wrong With a Big Brand! 07

Lesson

Trivial Pursuit Online Party

Innovate in Design at All Costs! 08

Lesson

Who Here Has Innovated?

• Raise Those Hands High!

• No, I Mean Really Innovated

List of Innovations• Citizen 01

• Balls

• Poker Blackjack

• Wordscape Java

• Jewel Quest Java

• Wordscape Online Party

• Jewel Quest Tournament Mode

• Mah Jong Quest Tournament

• Boggle Tournament

Jewel Quest Java

Emulate First

• Then Improve

What’re Ya a Wuss?!Build It Yourself! 09

Lesson

So Many Servers / Systems

• Web• Game• E-Commerce• Subscription Processing and

Renewals• Customer Service• Community (Chat, Forums)• Profiles• Avatars• Admin Tools• Reporting• Logging

Er, Right. I Meant…Buy All Your Tech! 10

Lesson

Out of the Box

• Nice:– Start focusing on the

game– Release something

superfast

• Not So Nice:– No control over bugs– Scaling limited– Integration– Pain to add features

Build on the Best

• For Goodness Sakes, use Standards!

• Use Best of Breed

• Just ‘cause Club Penguin used it doesn’t mean it’s right for you.

My Kung Fu Has No Weakness! 11

Lesson

PlayLink’s Downtime Problem

• One crash a day isn’t that bad, is it?

We’ll Worry About Scaling Later

• That’s a “success problem”, right?

Disasters Happen

Reality-Based Game Design

• Network latency isn’t an urban legend

Tips

• Load test with bots acting like real players

• Real beta test

• More hardware than you think you need

• Population monitors and alerts

• Quick response times

• Reliable Auto-updater

I’m Money with My AAA+++ Team 12

Lesson

Risk Online Party

Planned Network Design

Actual Network Design

Fire and Forget, Launch and Laugh,Gold Master and Go! 13

Lesson

Family Feud Flatness

Get Episodic!

Business Models Change

• Subscription plan– Terms– Payment Processors

• Trial length

• Distributed it on other sites

• Advertisements

Audiences Have Minds

• Reskinned• Added new awards• Round status in lobby• Removed bad

questions• Fixed tons of “why-

the-f-not?” answers

Data Data Data

• Design metrics up front

• More is better

• Uh… but what to do with data once you get it?

Gotsta Get Creative with Your Business Plan 14

Lesson

iWin’s Skill-Based Games

• Difficult to gain audience trust

• Heavy cheating

• Scales slowly

The Truth about Micro-Trans

• Design game around MT from ground-up

• Not a panacea

• Requires huge scale

The Truth about Advertising

• Requires education

• Requires finesse

• Requires mondo impressions

Go With What You Know

• Yahoo Advertises– Now in download games too!

• Club Membership Subs at Pogo

• Discounted Club Subs at Real/BigFish

Designers Design,Marketers Sell 15

Lesson

Game Is Marketing

• And Marketing is Game

• Audience is Lifeblood of MP Games

Business Models Matter

• Pass the basket around after the fiery sermon

• Pay inextricably linked with play

Free To Play is The Only Way 16

Lesson

People Want to Be Free

• But they will eventually pay, right?

• How?

• Remember, ads ain’t easy.

The Balance of Free

• Fun Enough To…– Build up core audience– “Earn the right” to charge

• But Painful Enough…– Feeling that something’s

missing– Need more and more

I’m on , I Can’t Lose! 17

Lesson

Facebook

• Doesn’t equal viral• Harder than ever for

apps to get noticed• Can’t spam

anymore• Too asynchronous

is just a single-player experience

Oh, And…

• No viable business model yet

Free Community Volunteers Can Do All the Dirty Work 18

Lesson

Watch Out

• Your biggest fan…

Volunteers Aren’t Employees

• Bad Bad Bad…

• Potential for Lawsuits

Tips

• Arm Community leaders– With admin tools

• Be active in your own forums and lists

• Read your customer service e-mails

• Pick the right leaders

• Keep your community leaders very happy

Cheaters Never Win in the End 19

Lesson

Cheating Takes Many Forms

Tips

• Server-Based Logic • Simple Cheat Prevention

– Staff must analyze

• Admin Tools– Staff (can be volunteer) to police

• Reasonable Response• Plan on it!

Give Up! 20Lesson

Money Money Money

• Hits are HITS

• Long, long income stream

Social Potential

• Change Society • Connect People In New Ways

Do It!

• Deep pockets

• Realistic expectations

• Intestinal fortitude

Hungry for More?

This Isn’t New Stuff…

• 1997: Dani Bunten Berry, Imaginary Playmates in Real-time or Why Online Games Suck http://www.anticlockwise.com/dani/personal/biz/online2.htm

• 1970s: Richard Bartle, Assorted Writings http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/

http://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/

Also…

Check out Kenny Rosenblatt’s Talk:

All Games Want To Be Great - Great Games Want To Be Multiplayer!

Tomorrow, 3pm

Let’s Discuss!1. Cram In More Features. Good. Now More!

11. My Kung Fu Has No Weakness!

2. Any Audience Worth Its Salt Will Build Organically

12. I’m Money with My AAA+++ Team

3. Get Massively 13. Fire and Forget, Launch and Laugh,Gold Master and Go!

4. Glitz Is All They Really Care About 14. Gotsta Get Creative with Your Business Plan

5. Now, Now. Polite People Take Turns 15. Designers Design, Marketers Sell

6. Take Yer Winning Single-Player Mechanic Then “Drop In” More People!

16. Free to Play Is the Only Way

7. Can’t Go Wrong With a Big Brand! 17. I’m on Facebook, I Can’t Lose!

8. Innovate in Design at All Costs! 18. Free Community Volunteers Can Do All the Dirty Work

9. What’re Ya, a Wuss? Build It Yourself! 19. Cheaters Never Win in the End

10. Er, Right. I Meant… Buy All Your Tech! 20. Give Up!