Mark Jacobs (EA Mythic) on MMOG design & costs

[Itzena]

MTV Multiplayer » Mythic VP Explains What Went Wrong With ‘Hellgate,’ Why He Wanted ‘Age of Conan’ To Succeed

Seems like he's actually got his head screwed on straight:

Mythic VP and lead “Warhammer Online” designer Mark Jacobs told me some of the things needed to make a successful MMO. But he also said if you’re looking to make an online game nowadays, the odds are against you.

“If you look at the numbers, MMOs have the highest failure rates of any entertainment product,” Jacobs said. Going all the way back 11 years to the release of “Ultima Online,” the first MMO to reach 100,000 subscribers, he said that there have only a been handful of successful MMOs compared to the number of them being developed.

I mentioned how the measure of success nowadays might be if your game still exists in a year. “It does seem that way,” he said, “and it is just tremendously sad when you look at the amount of money and effort that goes into MMOs.”

In our recent conversation about the state of online games, we also touched on why last year’s “Hellgate: London” went under, and what the troubled “Age of Conan” can do to prevent the same fate.

First, we discussed “Hellgate: London,” the online action-RPG was made by Jacobs’ long-time friend Bill Roper. Though Roper had experience as VP of Blizzard North working on the “Diablo” series, his company Flagship Studios recently closed its doors following the release of “Hellgate,” its first title, last October. So what went wrong?

“I know for a fact that sometimes just having talent is not enough,” Jacobs said after a long sigh. “You need leadership and you need patience. And what’s most important — something that so many developers forget — is you also need to deflate the ego a little bit. You really have to remember that as good as you were then — ‘Diablo’ was a great game — you’re not always going to be right… I think for ‘Hellgate,’ that was part of the problem.”

“What’s most important — something that so many developers forget — is you also need to deflate the ego a little bit.”

He also said that no matter how great you think your game is, developers must listen to the community. “It doesn’t mean you have to follow what they say, but you always have to listen,” he said. “The test of greatness is to know how to look at it and either incorporate it or learn from it. We might listen to the wrong advice, but we always listen. That’s how I think all developers have to be because nobody is that smart and nobody is right all the time.”

On the topic of the listening to the community, I wondered what Jacobs thought about Funcom’s May-released MMO “Age of Conan” and the trouble the company has had in terms of delivering promises to its fanbase. Blizzard president Mike Morhaime recently said that 40 percent of “WoW” players who left for “Conan” have since returned.

“If I was a ‘WoW’ subscriber, and I played another game hoping it would be great and it wasn’t, of course I would come back,” he said. “I’m not saying ‘Conan’ sucks but obviously the people who left it thought it sucked, otherwise they wouldn’t have left it. And the same thing may happen to us… ‘Conan’ had great sales initially, but then [Funcom] failed to follow up with continued great sales. If you’re not selling boxes anymore, if players aren’t talking about how good your game is, then obviously people are not happy with it.”

“When they looked at ['Age of Conan'] when they were ready to launch, I can’t imagine how they didn’t see the issues that other people saw.”

With Jacobs having played the game and having read fan postings on both the “Warhammer” and “Age of Conan” forums, he thought that Funcom should have delayed the game. “I think that the greatest mistake that they made was not listening and not learning from what had gone before,” Jacobs said, referring to the launch issues of Funcom’s “Anarchy Online” in 2001. “When they looked at ['Age of Conan'] when they were ready to launch, I can’t imagine how they didn’t see the issues that other people saw. According to their annual reports, they had plenty of money. They should’ve looked at it and said, ‘We need to delay this game.’ There are probably reasons I’m not aware of… but I think that’s their biggest sin.”

Jacobs said not all was lost for “Conan,” but with “Warhammer” and another “WoW” expansion on the way, they’ve now lost their head start. “If they’re willing to spend the time and the money to fix the things that — according to the players — are broken, and put in the things that players say they didn’t put in, they can turn it around,” he said. “But now they’re going to have to leapfrog over us and then leapfrog over Blizzard in order to bring back a ton of players — that’s going to be tough. They won’t be what they could’ve been.”

“We need to show the world that it’s not just Blizzard who can make a great game.”

Though “Age of Conan” is competition, Jacobs told me he actually wanted the game to do well. “At some level I wanted ‘Conan’ to succeed because for the last few years people have been saying it’s all Blizzard and nobody else can do it,” he said. “‘Only Blizzard can get those kind of numbers,’ and so far they’ve been right. But now it’s our turn.”

He added, “If we don’t succeed with EA behind us, the ‘Warhammer’ IP behind us, with one of the most experienced teams in the industry, that’s not going to be good for the industry. We need to show the world that it’s not just Blizzard who can make a great game, and that the audience is absolutely willing to try new things and to play a game other than ‘WoW.’”

Oh, and he's set a hard target for WAR's minimum subs too:

Mythic VP and lead “Warhammer Online” designer Mark Jacobs said it wouldn’t take a billion dollars for a competing MMO to take on “World of Warcraft” — maybe only $100 million.

“When certain people throw out ridiculous numbers, you know they’re throwing out ridiculous numbers because they want to scare off competition or they want to make themselves seem invincible and that sort of nonsense,” he said, referring to a statement Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick made at an investor meeting earlier this year.

“Realistically, if you’re going into this space for the first time, and you want to compete with ‘WoW’ and you want to compete with us — because we’re going into that same space — you’ve got to make sure that you have at least 100 million dollars,” he said.

When I sat down with Jacobs last week during a demo of the game, we talked about what makes an MMO successful. Having worked in the industry creating MUDs in the ’80s, online games in the ’90s, and Mythic’s biggest hit “Dark Age of Camelot” in 2001, he had some advice for those wanting to make it in the MMO business.

So why is $100 million the magic number?

“The reason [you need $100 million] is that no real first-timer has ever succeeded with these games,” he said. “And when I mean succeeded, no first-timer has gone in and said, ‘Okay, I can do this in two or three years and actually do it where it comes out on time and on budget. So it is really tough.”

“When you’re competing with ‘WoW,’ you’re not competing with ‘WoW’ at launch. You’re competing with ‘WoW’ in 2008 or 2009 with all the additional content.”

Jacobs said part of problem with competing against “WoW” is that the game has a head start on content with all its expansion packs. “[Blizzard president] Mike Morhaime said when you’re competing with ‘WoW,’ you’re not competing with ‘WoW’ at launch,” Jacobs explained. “You’re competing with ‘WoW’ in 2008 or 2009 with all the additional content. That is absolutely true. That’s what we did with ‘Camelot,’ that’s what Sony did with ‘EverQuest’ and that’s what we’re going to do with ‘Warhammer.’ So it will get more and more difficult every year for somebody to come in and compete with whoever the leaders are.”

He also told me that it takes three to four years to create an MMO, and that $100 million is needed not just for development of a market-competitive title, but also for a safety net.”If you don’t want to compete with these games, then certainly you could do it for less,” he said. ”It’s 100 million if they want to be sure that when they mess up, that they have the money to recover,” he clarified. “A lot of start-ups fail because they run out of money. It’s not because they don’t work hard; it’s like ‘Oops, it took an extra year or two, now what do we do?’ If you look at the history of successful MMOs every one of them, except for ‘Camelot,’ took longer than was expected.”

“When you have an experienced team with great tech who’s done this before, how much harder is that for somebody who’s never done it?”

I asked if Mythic’s parent company EA spent $100 million on “Warhammer Online.” “No, but you look at what we did spend, it was lot of money,” he said. Jacobs would only tell me that they’ve spent south of $100 million on “Warhammer Online,” and that’s because he and his team have the experience and the technology behind the game. “We are one of the most experienced MMO teams in the industry, and we had to delay the game obviously more than once,” he said. “And if we had that happen, when you have an experienced team with great tech who’s done this before, how much harder is that for somebody who’s never done it? No matter how talented the team is, they’re going to make mistakes.”

With EA and the resources backing “Warhammer Online,” I asked Jacobs how one would measure a successful MMO in the age of “WoW” with its 11 million worldwide subscribers. “I would say we don’t have to get anywhere near that number to be considered successful,” he said. “Would I like us to be number one? Well, of course. Do we have to be number one to be successful? No. I want us to be no less than number two; that would make me very happy.” For the number two spot, Jacobs reasoned that “Warhammer” would need at least a half-million subscribers, which he guessed was close to what “Final Fantasy” and “EverQuest 2” have now. “Let’s just say north of half a million would mean we’re successful. Now how a far north? I wouldn’t mind being a little bit cold.”

“Look at us six months out. Look at us six weeks out. If we’re not adding servers, we’re not doing well.”

According to Jacobs, another way to measure success is to look at the number of servers a game has added in a six-month period. “The corollary to that is if you’ve seen a game consolidate servers, you know it’s in deep, deep trouble — that’s not a healthy sign for an MMO,” he said, citing Sony’s January-released “Pirates of the Burning Sea” as a recent example. “It will be the same for ‘Warhammer.’ Look at us six months out. Look at us six weeks out. If we’re not adding servers, we’re not doing well.”

But ultimately, Jacobs said they can’t worry too much about the competition. “Activision Blizzard, it’s just another company with just another game,” he said. “It’s a big game, it’s a great game that’s made a lot of money and made people very happy but it’s just somebody else to compete with. It doesn’t phase us; we’ll do what we need to do.”

[Burning_Samurai]

I think Conan had 700k sales? I really don't see Warhammer not being able to reach a million.

EDIT: I see AoC got out their millionth sale a while ago. I understand that steady subscription growth is different than pure box sales, but I think WH:AoR will have the box sales, quicker, and a much higher retention rate than AoC.

[Ukerric]

“When you’re competing with ‘WoW,’ you’re not competing with ‘WoW’ at launch. You’re competing with ‘WoW’ in 2008 or 2009 with all the additional content.”

Ah. At least someone sees the light. I've seen numerous people on forums (here and elsewhere) that seem to think you need to compare a new game with WoW at launch. That's not true. Specially given WoW's low barrier to entry.

[spentmotiff]

Originally Posted by Burning_Samurai

I think Conan had 700k sales? I really don't see Warhammer not being able to reach a million.

I don't see why WAR couldn't reach a million. The buzz is good enough for anyone who is bored of WoW/pissed at Funcom to give it a shot. How well they can retain those subs after WotLK releases is one thing, but I think they have a good head of steam heading towards release.

[OhSeven]

I really hope this game does great. Regardless if I make the switch from WoW or not, something really needs to light a fire under Blizzards ass. Competition = good.

[Saban]

Remember when WoW launched? Who had any guess as to the sub numbers it would have even a year later.

[kaid]

Hell in the preview weekend I already had played more war than I did when I had bought conan for a month. It also looks like warhammer is hitting a decent window of probably a couple months at least before the WoW expansion comes out. Had they came out at the same time it would have likely been grim for WAR.

[Wilfan]

“When you’re competing with ‘WoW,’ you’re not competing with ‘WoW’ at launch. You’re competing with ‘WoW’ in 2008 or 2009 with all the additional content.”

I have a minor quibble with that. It's not content that's giving the head start to WoW, it's just about every other thing about that game, from polish and engine to mainstream acceptance and brand name. Content doesn't matter that much as it's repeatedly being thrown away (and that's a good thing and we don't need another discussion about that).

[Dashal]

Of course the content is part of it though. Jacobs is right to say you cant compare yourself to WoW at launch. Saying WoW only had X,Y, and Z at launch is irrelevant because since then they've added A,B, C as well and that's what you're competing against.

Its a very significant advantage on top of the things you mention like polish engine and brand name. Of course the 4 years they've had to add content also works against them in the form of burned out players and the "familiarity breeds contempt" that we see in all MMO's from a certain percentage of its players.

[AladainAF]

Content doesn't matter that much as it's repeatedly being thrown away

Bullseye.

Believe it or not, FFXI is the only MMO I am aware of where all released content from its multiple expansions previous to the current (zilart/promathia/aht urghan) is still heavily populated, and needed to progress to the end game, and not bring thrown away. Games like Everquest -- absolutely no one ever needs to go to places like kurns tower, howling stones, south karana, lake rathe, east karana, etc. You can spend all day in West Karana and probably have less than 10 people show up.

I recognize you say that's a good thing, but I think its bad myself. I think its disappointing where the "mainstream" MMOs (WoW, EQ2, and now EQ1) are going these days - to a model of "Expansion 2 100% obsoletes Expansion 1". All it does it make less content available to guilds, because going back to do old content is never worth it. Looking at the state of EQ1 now, for example, groupable XP mobs drop items very very comparable to previous expansion raid gear. It wouldn't surprise me if we saw 600-700hp/mana items dropping off XP mobs in this next expansion.

Just sucks, really. So much content, but so little use.

[Wilfan]

Originally Posted by Dashal

Saying WoW only had X,Y, and Z at launch is irrelevant because since then they've added A,B, C as well and that's what you're competing against.

Replaced, not added. That's the point I was trying to get across. While WoW's content grows with every expansion and most of the patches, Blizzard prunes the actually played content every now and then by reducing exp per level and bridging the gear gap with each expansion. While X,Y,Z (eh, let's just call it by its name: Stat, Scholo and MC) are technically still available, virtually no one goes there. Same goes for all old non-leveling dungeons and raids. Even more, new players don't miss it at all.

What's been "added" since launch is that A,B,C are tuned and locked to a reasonably-sized group, have more involved fights, proper itemization (lol at initial caster blues), more class balance (3 out of 9 tanks not 1 out of 8) and so on.

What this means for the companies starting on their MMOs is that excuses about not having enough content are invalid. All WoW head start is about 120-240 (latter for the first timers) hours of rather barren, old content. The real deal is leveling content in the new expansion and even more important, the at-the-level-cap content. That's what you're competing with content-wise. Blizzard can and does remake that every 2 years.

What they can bitch about is not knowing what network gameplay brings to the table, hiring decent artists, misjudging hardware requirements, not knowing how to make combat fun, lack of funding, general software development incompetence and so on.

[Prime]

if you've never played WoW, then the 1-60 content isn't old. There are still quite a lot of people and groups to be found while leveling. Sure it isn't like release, but 1-60 certainly isn't empty and boring if you are new to the game.

[Braen]

Change a few words around...

Originally Posted by Mark Jacobs

“I know for a fact that sometimes just having talent is not enough,” Jacobs said after a long sigh. “You need leadership and you need patience. And what’s most important — something that so many developers forget — is you also need to deflate the ego a little bit. You really have to remember that as good as you were then — ‘EverQuest’ was a great game — you’re not always going to be right… I think for ‘Vanguard,’ that was part of the problem.”

[Jaded]

You know, I wish I could say WAR was going to have similar (or higher) sales than AOC, but at this point I just don't see it happening. This is purely anecdotal and useless but I look at what I hear from MMO-playing friends, both "real life" and online gaming buddies, and I don't hear nearly the buzz about WAR that I heard about AOC. They're just not excited about it.

The few of us that have been waiting for another PVP-centric game and played DAOC are ravenous, but the folks I know that still play WoW couldn't care less. The common response? "Enh, I'll probably pick it up but it'll only be for a few months until WotLK comes out."

AOC seemed to have a lot more word of mouth before release. People bought it up, saw it sucked, and left. I think WAR's going to have a good deal fewer box sales but a lot more of those sales are going to stick around, minus the crowd killing time before WoW's expansion.

I really hope I'm wrong here, but all I have to go on is what I hear from friends right now.

[NativityInBlack]

Half my guild pre-orderered WAR, and I was the only one that bought AoC, I really wonder if WAR won't sell more than AoC, perhaps just my crew tho.

“Look at us six months out. Look at us six weeks out. If we’re not adding servers, we’re not doing well.”

The guy sounds honest at least.