A Moment of Weakness

I’ve been looking with some interest for a while now at The Repopulation’s development. Recently, they made a change to the level of backing required to access the games alpha from $150 to $100, as well as turning the alpha servers on full time and not just for occasional tester weekends. So, for the last couple of days I’ve been dipping in and out of the alpha, but of course, I can’t tell you anything about it at all because of the NDA which is in place. However what I can talk about is that odd feeling that comes over me sometimes when I suddenly become all consumed by the notion that I must have the thing I want, and RIGHT NOW damn it.

In truth I imagine this is partly why so many game offer up some form of paid alpha/beta, apart from the fact that people are demonstrably willing to pay for it, it is clear such offers do appeal to a certain kind of gamer who must have all the things, and I can be one of those sorts at times. I almost paid into the alpha a week ago, and the feeling that comes over me at such times is a little hard to describe, but I get almost sweaty palmed with the anticipation of having something I’ve wanted for so long. I’ve never spent this much on alpha access before, and it felt like a lot of money to speculatively throw at a game that I may not end up liking as much in practice as I did on paper, but in some sense I’m happy enough to support these kind of titles monetarily even if I don’t fall in love with the end product. I’m just pleased to see these kinds of games being made.

But, this overwhelming desire to buy games is a huge weakness of mine. It’s why my Steam library is populated with games I’ve barely touched since purchase. I often say that in some senses I’ve become more obsessed with buying games than actually playing them at this point. Sometimes it’s the more straight forward desire to get a good deal, the notion that I simply must buy this game now because it’s so cheap! It might never be this cheap again! This is patently nonsense, it will usually be cheaper at some point, but the pull of a good deal is a strong one. Other times it’s more like a feeling of desire that comes over me, and I feel as though I can barely resist a purchase. Luckily, I’ve actually reached the point where there are very few titles I know about and am hugely interested in that I don’t already own.

I know I’m not alone in this, and a basic glance at most people’s Steam libraries will tell you that folks tend to buy a lot more games than they play, but I think there’s a curious quirk of psychology at play here, and I’d be interested in whether any of you guys have a similarly overwhelming desire to buy games at times.

The Future is Niche

For a a few years now, the release of MMOs has followed a predictable pattern. There is 2 years of excitement and anticipation, people stake their claim as to whether they are for or against it, and then it launches with high numbers. Those numbers take a huge hit at the end of the first month, and they continue to drop over the next 3 months, at which point the population begins to stabilise. That’s normally about that for a game without a change of business model which can rejuvenate a game at best, or keep it going longer at the worst. Essentially, most games are managing decline from the moment they launch. You’ll basically never be a more popular MMO than the day you launch.

There are many reasons why this cycle may seem so typical. It could be that people are bored of the genre, it could be there’s too much competition, it could be because so many launch with subscriptions, or any other number of points you can think of. Personally, I think MMOs just became to big a business. We have safe games, more of the same games. Give people what we know they like games. I’m not saying I hate MMOs, because clearly I don’t, I just think it’s a little hard to argue that the genre, at least the mainstream genre, hasn’t  gotten a little stagnant. I think it’s possible we could be moving to a more encouraging, albeit smaller scale, model for making MMOs. Games which are designed to appeal to a small player base, but offer something truly different, or at least different from what is on offer now.

If you take a look at titles like The Repopulation, Camelot Unchained, or Shroud of the Avatar, these are games which are clearly not intended to draw a large audience. Mark Jacobs, the lead developer of Camelot Unchained has been saying since their crowdfunding campaign that they intend to have a playerbase in the tens of thousands. I’m convinced this is a real alternative for making games, and recognising that you’re developing for a niche, and catering purely to that niche can lead to success over the long term. It is of course never going to lead to triple A games (except for Star Citizen maybe?), but my hope is that these smaller titles can shake up the landscape a little and coexist with larger titles, offering some new ideas to reenergise things.

Ever since playing Eve I’ve appreciated what launching small can do for a game. You can start with a small playerbase, build a game entirely for those players, and hope that it draws in more likeminded people over the course of its lifespan. Eve has never compromised on its core design choices, it has never made any apologies for being a difficult, hard game to learn and play. Yet it has grown steadily over a decade. I have high hopes that some of these new and smaller titles will be able to utilise a similar design path, and perhaps bring us something different from what we’ve seen so much of recently.