07/10/2011 – 5:12 pm
In the just-concluded 2011 LOGIN Conference the Game Developer Conference, the famous game designer, known as “UO” father, Richard Garnett published a speech. This speech consists of three parts: the behavior analysis of today’s game players, exchange between game and global culture and three eras of game development. He expounded his views towards to three eras of game development, expressed now that the game industry has entered the stage of simple model, low cost and all ages, the MMO era is represented by Blizzard, SOE and NCsoft has ended yet.
He introduced that the first game era is the console game era. Limited by technology, hardware and other factors, game continuously developing from simple toward complex, from rough toward exquisite. Game studios full of talent and creative games appeared continuously, and then quietly disappeared in people’s vision, no matter console game or computer game, endless varieties of games. In this era, the game major consumers are those young men who have the certain consuming capacity.
The second game era belongs to MMO. As the Internet and game produce technology developed to a certain stage, those small workshop-style game companies with ten men and even a few people had been very difficult to survive, some network companies transformed from console game companies have begun to emerge, such as Blizzard, SOE and NCsoft. The advantage of online game is obvious that playing with friends is funnier than the game itself, this not only consistent with the keynote of the game early stage development, but also conform to the characteristic of the era. He then elaborated some train of thoughts on the game development of game companies in the MMO era, and a little mockery of his former master EA did not seize the opportunity of this era and poor investment in the “Ultima Online” sequel. He also said: in this era, the game major consumers are those young men who have the certain consuming capacity, but began to extend toward to teenagers, middle- aged salariat and women.
And now, the game industry has entered the third era, complete networking, even abolish the client then become a web game or SNS game, simple regress model, low-cost input as well as all age players. He explained that the current capital environment did not allow over the years development cycle and Invested millions of dollars in one “masterpiece” appeared. Players have many choices, their loyalty doesn’t size up to my expectations. Even if success, there is no guarantee that can get high profit, the price of failure is very heavy. The era of Blizzard, SOE and NCsoft has ended yet; new giants in this era are emerging, such as zynga and playfish. Then he introduced the characteristics of the era including European and American popular social games and several large free games operating platform.
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