GCDC: World of Fascism? Lord of the Communists?

Ask a loaded question, get a bunch of funny looks, and provoke a bunch of people to come up to you after a session and thank you for asking something no one else had the guts to. I just emerged from the "Life after WoW: MMO Games of 2008 and Beyond" panel starring Jeff Hickman (EA Mythic), Jeffrey Steefel (Turbine, Lord of the Rings Online), Matt Firor (ZeniMax Online Studios), and Robert Westmoreland (Cryptic Studios) where I had the bright idea to quiz the panel about the plausibility of future MMOs that might try simulating alternative socio-economic and/or political systems. Which of course elicited a predictable mock-response (World of Fascism! Lord of the Pinkos!) and pretty much an answer dodge.

But okay, so high concept doesn't go over well in a room packed with TV cameras and kids slavering after insider nibbles about this or that new MMO expansion or feature. It's still a great question. Not that I'm in any way advocating any one system over another, but what might it suggest if someone crafted -- let's just say a less market-driven MMO -- and it turned out to be popular? Entertaining? Addictive? Something to think about. You can't muck around with radically different economic systems in real life, so isn't that exactly where games have the potential to step up and let us play?

On a less esoteric note, the panel had some pretty interesting things to say about the near-future of MMOs, including:

- Hardcore gamers will continue to MMO-hop, i.e. play multiple MMOs at once, often in the same time space.

- "Don't try to out-EA EA." Or Blizzard.

- Traditional subscription-based models are around to stay, but choices may expand to accommodate longer versus shorter term MMO experiences.

- Gold master used to be the developer finish line -- now it's just the point at which real service begins.

- Casual MMOs (something of an oxymoron, I know) will need to embrace community more than opaque rules if publishers want franchise "stickiness."

- Hardcore gamers are easier to develop for, because they're fairly predictable -- they know what they want, and so do developers; casual gamers are far less predictable.

- We're starting to see hardcore casual gamers (who spend all day playing Poker or Hearts) and casual hardcore gamers (people like me who still have a level thirty-something WoW character and tend to play as much to hang out as level-grind or schedule massive 12 or 24-hour instances).

- Second Life is a platform, not a game.

- User-created content in MMOs that doesn't interfere with other players' experiences = the holy grail.

- MMOs on consoles are a bum deal. Or not, if you're already Microsoft or Sony. Three of the four panelists were anti-MMO-console, while the lone Microsoft developer was pro. My two cents: MMO developers are either (a) leery of paying console license fees to Microsoft and Sony or (b) Microsoft and Sony, in which case they have fee-free access to a massive market. Interface is not the issue. Expect to see console MMO offerings from the "big two" in the not too distant future. What this bodes for third party would-be developers is still unclear.

- PC MMOs will become hubs for multiple "accessory" platforms, i.e. consoles, mobile phones, PDAs, etc. The latter devices won't be core experience environments, but supplement the MMO in ways that mimic and transcend Nintendo's console-handheld approach.

- Most important lesson learned from WoW: Don't push things too fast. "Trying to figure out a game isn't gameplay anymore."

[GC Developers Conference]

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