MMOG Demographics: Perspectives from Industry Insiders
This issue's 'virtual roundtable' features the following panelists who were kind enough to provide us with their opinions on a range of topics loosely related to the demographics of the MMOG audience and what we are doing or ought to be doing to try and increase the size of our audience. Please note that the panelists answered the questions individually by email, without seeing any of the other responses. And here we go...
Bill Bishop is the CEO of Red Mushroom (http://www.red-mushroom.com), a Beijing-based online game studio. Prior to joining Red Mushroom, Bill was the co-founder, EVP and GM of CBS MarketWatch. (http://www.marketwatch.com). Red Mushroom is developing Borderlands, a 3D fantasy MMORPG that the company hopes will appeal to the tastes of the Chinese audience as well as a wider global audience.
Chris Chung recently became Vice President of Game Publishing for NCsoft US (http://www.ncsoft.net) after having been business manager at Arena.net, developers of Guild Wars. NCsoft's fast growing portfolio of successful titles includes currently released Lineage, Lineage 2 and City of Heroes and soon to be released Guild Wars, Auto Assault and City of Villains.
Matt Firor is Vice President of Development and Executive Producer at Mythic Entertainment. He is responsible for overall vision and management of each project at Mythic. An expert in the development of online games, Matt has produced all of Mythic's titles, including the worldwide smash hit Dark Age of Camelot, and its expansion packs. He is currently working on Imperator, Mythic's new Sci-Fi MMO due for release in 2006.
Robin Harper joined Linden Lab in 2002. She is currently Senior Vice President, Community and Support, and is responsible for Second Life community development, growth and support, after spending her first two years managing all marketing activities. Earlier in her career she was the Vice President of Marketing at Maxis, where she helped establish SimCity as one of the most recognized brand names in entertainment software.
Ismini Boinodiris Roby is a leading member of the team at WomenGamers.com (http://www.womengamers.com) an online gaming site that aims to be a fun, dynamic forum that is female-friendly and caters to the interests and needs of different types of woman gamer. According to IDSA, women make up 43% of all PC gamers and 35% of console gamers-and the numbers are rising.
Won Il Suh has been CEO of Nexon Corporation since February of 2004. Established in 1994, Nexon developed the world's first graphical MMORPG, "The Kingdom of the Winds", and quickly became one of Korea's leading publishers of online content. Mr. Suh leads the 500+ creative minds at Nexon to deliver exciting game content to over 18 million registered gamers.
What is the profile of the 'average' MMOG player in your market(s)?
Chris: Although there were a number of games released during 2004 that helped to shift the profile of an 'average' MMOG player, the majority of MMOG gamers are late-teen to twenty-something males who play for more than 20 hours a week.
Won Il: In Korea, the player profiles vary greatly according to genre. South Korea has a very healthy user pool of players in their early teens or even younger. As for gender, males occupy 70~80% of the MMOG gaming population and for more casual games, our user base ranges from younger school children to men and women in their thirties.
Bill: In China players are usually male, teens to early 20's, at least a high school degree. Good demographic data on Chinese gamers is hard to come by, though the general consensus is that the Chinese MMO population is 85+% male, and skews younger than the US. One notable Chinese characteristic is that there is a population of players who are unemployed and actually play these games for a living, earning several hundred US dollars per month trading in virtual goods and currency. Robin: Well, Second Life is not your average MMOG! Our users tend to be a widely diverse group. Nearly half are female, the average age is just over 30, and a large percentage (about 20%) are from over 50 countries outside the US, with the UK and Canada having the largest non-US representation. Matt: There really is no "average" MMO game player. As far as we can tell, other than being mostly male (although far more females play MMOs that almost any other game type), our demographics go all over the place. Of course because we are a computer game, our average player is around 18-34 years of age, but we do have lots of children and older players as well. It's a hard group to pin down. Do you think there has been any shift in the profile of the 'average' MMOG player in your market over the past 12 months? Are we attracting a new breed of player to our genre? Robin: To the extent that MMORPGs, like Second Life, are digital worlds, I think we are attracting a new breed of player. Many people in Second Life tell us they've never spent extended time in online gaming before, but they find themselves spending hours in Second Life, both creating and playing games. Won Il: Our title Mabinogi has been extremely popular with female users and World of Warcraft has its share of "older" users. However, I would not say that the "average" MMOG user profile has changed greatly. With the influx of different genres of online games though, such as sports games and other relatively casual online games, we have seen a new demographic entering the online game market, such as younger girls and women in their teens and twenties. Bill: I think the player base has broadened somewhat in line with home broadband connections, but to my knowledge the profile of the hardcore Chinese MMO player has stayed fairly consistent. I think that World of Warcraft has clearly attracted a new breed of player in the US. Chris: I think that a number of recent successful games such as City of Heroes and World of Warcraft are slowly but surely changing the profile of average MMOG gamers. Both games also demonstrate fundamental shift in the design philosophy of the current generation of MMOGs. Both games have done an excellent job in providing innovative solutions to some of the problems associated with more hardcore MMOGs such as the level grind, heavy death penalties and endless travel time. Both games have succeeded in introducing the genre to segments of the population that have never played MMOG before. I have friends in the industry who told me that they were asked by their wives to join them in City of Heroes! While the perception used to be that MMOG was synonymous with hardcore games, I think the genre has shown that it has enough room for hardcore games as well as the games that appeal to a wider audience. Ismini: I have noticed a definite increase in couples that play online. According to The Daedalus Project (an excellent online resource full of MMOPRG related statistics and surveys, http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus), about 20% of MMORPG players play the game with a romantic partner, and 28% play with a family member. About 50% of MMORPG players work full-time. About 36% of players are married, and 22% have children. So the MMORPG demographic is getting fairly diverse. Matt: I think that World of Warcraft has brought in a younger game player into the MMO space. This has happened very recently, so I'm not sure what it means in terms of long-term impact on the market. The fact that WoW is attracting gamers who haven't played MMOs before can only be good for the entire genre. How important do you feel that tracking demographic data is to your company? What systems do you have in place to track demographics of your games? Won Il: We continually analyze our demographic data because all of our marketing strategy starts with "data mining." We track detailed information regarding the ratio of general users to paying-users, sex, and frequency of log in, etc. Because we have the largest online user base in Korea, we can data mine a lot of information which can aid us in promoting our games with exactly the right focus and I think this is one of Nexon's greatest strengths. Bill: Data tracking will be very important for us. Good demographic and usage data should always inform and improve game enhancements and new product development. Chris: We believe that the most important data for MMO developers is the consumption data of the gamers. NCsoft looks beyond the demographic data at play patterns and content consumption data to understand our customers. MMO games start with well-defined database architecture, so MMOG developers have access to an unprecedented amount of user data. Imagine if Amazon suddenly understood how their books were being read and consumed by their customers. With this data, they would know that a particular customer reads business books everyday from 7 to 8 AM and 6 to 7 PM. Amazon would understand from this consumption pattern that this particular customer is probably a commuter and be able to tailor their offering to this person. Likewise, captured game usage data can be used to better serve the customers by providing relevant content and also provide feedback to the development team to improve the game. NCsoft currently is actively working on several technologies to mine and analyze the consumption and demographic data to improve player experience. Robin: It's very important to us to know who's interested in Second Life, and why. Our users tend to be diverse, international, and very creative. We collect age and gender, plus location during the registration process. Then periodically we'll send out surveys to get beyond the demographics, and to find out if there are any special things we should understand or address, from affinity groups within the user base (for example, we have a high percentage of web designers among our users) to feature requests. Matt: We don't have many tracking mechanisms in Dark Age of Camelot, although that is changing. Up until recently, we've kept track of geographic data for each customer and the playing styles for each customer (which part of the game they spend the most time in, etc.). We have just implemented an in-game polling system, and we're looking at other ways to track customer demographics.
Were there any major strides forward in the online genre during 2004? What were they? Chris: The recent successes in the industry which I mentioned above have shown that MMOG is not only for hardcore gamers but with the right content and design we can attract a broad audience to the genre. Won Il: 2004 saw a boom in casual sports related online games in Korea, such as Pangya (golf), Kartrider (kart racing) and Freestyle – (basketball). Robin: Clearly World of Warcraft made a tremendous entry into the category, at a time when some were saying there wasn't room for more MMO games. When I asked a few Second Life players why WoW was so successful they talked about the fact that the game play goes beyond what they've seen before in games like Star Wars Galaxies or EverQuest. Rather than feeling like "computer generated gray wasteland content" one player, Kex Godel, described WoW's difference in this way: "In WoW, everything seems to have been intentionally placed there by a person, and not distributed pseudo randomly evenly throughout the game...WoW put a more human touch on the content." Another player, Belaya Statosky, brought up the scriptable, customizable UI using open standards. Bill: I am not so sure. I don't think that WOW represents any sort of genre breakthrough, just a better execution. Won Il: As far as MMORPG is concerned, I think we can say that WoW is the 'classic style perfected' but also that games such as RF Online, with its science fiction setting, and the lighter Mabinogi, did break some new ground in the market. Matt: 2004 had some great moments for MMOs. City of Heroes launched very well, and brought a wonderful sense of fun to the genre – it was very refreshing to me to see a game that didn't take itself too seriously. Also, as I said before, late 2004 saw the launch of two huge titles, EverQuest II and World of Warcraft. I don't know if they are major strides or not from a game design point of view (although both obviously did their homework very well), but hopefully they will bring in new gamers to the genre. What do we need to do to increase the appeal of MMOG to a wider audience? Ismini: MMOGs need to be more accessible to people who do not have hundreds of hours to sink into the game. Making a dungeon that takes 4 hours to traverse is not appealing to the person who only has an hour to play. MMOGs also need to break outside of the typical MMO model of game play. How can MMOGs create conflict in alternate ways? Can we make compelling non-violent MMOGs that still create a sense of conflict and tap into a market of gamers that would otherwise be wary of beating woodland creatures over the head? How can we eliminate the need to "farm mobs", "macro" and "mule"?
Bill: We have to make games that are easier to engage with, from the install to the opening screen to the first few hours in the game. We are planning a "lite" MMOG that will be somewhere between a casual game and a full-blown MMOG, as a way of attracting and migrating more players to the genre. Chris: Last year, NCsoft released two titles on the same day designed to appeal to two distinct audiences. Lineage 2 appeals to the very hardcore MMOG player while City of Heroes appeals to a much broader group of users. City of Heroes is only one of the games in NCsoft's portfolio that is intended to increase the appeal of MMOG to a wider audience. We will continue this tradition by releasing Guild Wars and Auto Assault this year. Guild Wars will be a radical departure in terms of the business model (editors note: Guild Wars eschews the monthly subscription model in favor of having players purchase episodic content updates) and the game design from traditional MMOGs. With the skill based game play, constant action and intense PvP battles, this will attract a lot of gamers who have so far found MMOGs too tedious and labor intensive. Auto Assault is another effort by NCsoft to make MMOGs appeal to a wider audience. In Auto Assault, your character is a vehicle rather than a traditional fantasy character. By integrating the Havoc engine for the first time in an MMOG, you can literally blow away anything and everything you see in this game. Its intense, action-oriented game play. I believe these two titles will continue to bring in more people who have not previously played MMO before. Matt: At Mythic, we're all about making great games. We always want our games to appeal to as wide a group of people as possible – so we're not going to do anything different than we always do: look at what people like to do, look at how other games are attempting to solve this same problem, design what we want to see in a new game, and then put the three together. Robin: We don't think of Second Life as a game with limited audience appeal. It's a digital world where anyone can find their niche, build their own experience, and develop their own path. Consequently we've attracted a wide range of people with differing goals and skills, but with a shared interest in creating something new that they can call their own. Won Il: We do not want to alter the basic elements that constitute a great MMO game experience. Nexon tries to make accessible games with an easy-to-play style, always remembering to put the most crucial factor of "fun" first. We continually try to make our games immediately accessible to newcomers.
Do you see any emerging business models that may be of interest to the US market? Won Il: Sure, value-added services that contrary to the monthly subscription business model, meet the varying needs of gamers more closely. Selling avatars and decorative items enables users to differentiate themselves from other players, while functional game items can enhance the performance of gamers. We need to be careful that the overall game balance is not harmed, but I believe that the item sales model creates a fairer, more enjoyable experience for a broader range of users. Premium service models where paying gamers enjoy an enhanced experience are also gaining popularity in our market. If online micro-payment becomes more feasible in the US, these business models could definitely work. Bill: Virtual goods exchange. I know it has been around for a while, but I think China's experience with people who actually make a living playing these games may be instructive. One terrible trend though that is happening in China is that of allowing players to level up and/or acquire more game items by paying more real cash. As we know, that can destroy the game balance and dramatically shorten the life span of the game. Chris: I think you will see a variety of business models transforming and adding to the richness of this industry. Guild Wars will be a very successful and consumer friendly model that will introduce the MMOG style of game play to a very broad audience. In countries such as Korea, it is a lot easier for new business models to emerge because of the infrastructure support for a variety of billing methods. More than 30% of Lineage users pay for their subscription fee via mobile phone. Also, there are a lot of micro-payment methods prevalent and accepted in Korea. We should also watch evolving business models in non-game content businesses that can impact our industry. I buy about a CD worth of music every week from iTunes and a lot of these are 99 cent transactions. Prior to the advent of iTunes, I used to purchase about two CDs a month. So, if you can provide a convenient way to purchase and consume content, many profitable business models will be possible. Beyond the traditional subscription model, I could see pay-for-content model which includes Guild Wars- like expansion pack driven model or play-for-free-pay-for-item-upgrade model present in other games. Robin: We've been experimenting with a business model that more closely aligns with how people use Second Life than a straight subscription model. Second Life residents pay a one time fee to join. They only pay monthly if they decide to get more deeply involved and claim their own virtual land in the world. The amount they pay is tied to how much land they choose to buy. Sony's experiment with Sony Station, allowing people to gain access to multiple worlds with a single fee is also an interesting model to watch, especially if they're successful bringing in other worlds beyond their own. Matt: Nothing on the near horizon, the U.S. seems to be quite content with the credit card subscription model. If you look at Asia you see all sorts of interesting experiments but the only one we don't have in the US that has really been proven to work is the gaming café system. We don't see that coming to the US any time soon especially as it seems to be in decline even in Asia. 2005 is set to be the 'Year of the Well-Known IP MMO'; how important is a strong IP for a successful game? Bill: We will certainly know once all these titles launch! Relying on established IP certainly lowers some development risks, but licensing that IP is not cheap, and in some cases, such as Middle Earth Online, where you have an existing, somewhat rabid fan base and an absolutely brilliant existing story, you risk alienating players if they don't like your "interpretation". From the perspective of a small, independent developer trying to build its own IP, re-purposing IP seems like a cop-out. But from the perspective of shareholders and corporate controllers, it is probably the sensible thing to do, given the skyrocketing costs of development. Matt: It's getting harder to make "noise" in this genre, and an easy, if expensive, way to get noticed is to acquire a license. World of Warcraft and the games you mention do this very thing. With Dark Age of Camelot, we used a public domain property – one that was very widely known – to great effect. We're attempting to do the same with Imperator, our science fiction title currently in development. It is based on the Roman Empire, which is very familiar to most gamers; however, this is an alternative distant future based upon the classic history of Rome. Won Il: As the market is now relatively mature, users have a much wider choice of games to play. So I do agree that we're going through a stage in which a strong IP brand (whether that's a product or a company) is becoming increasingly important for a successful game. However, the Korean MMO market is still in a transition phase so I'd say it will get much more important in the years to come than it is right now. One thing that makes it relatively difficult to create an MMORPG based on an existing IP is that there are limitations and restrictions to what and how much developers can mould the IP to their needs. Chris: Games first and foremost need to be fun. Having a strong, well recognized IP brand may help consumers to form an immediate bond with the world that the game is supposed to represent. But this can be a double-edged sword since users are likely to be disappointed if the developer's translation of the particular IP does not resonate with them. Especially in MMOG space, the developers must consider carefully whether a strong IP based on a movie or a novel with distinct small group of heroes can translate well into MMOG experience. If I was playing an MMOG which was a direct translation of the LOTR IP, I would want to either play Aragon or Gandalf. However, thousands of other people will want to play these characters as well. Would a game that has thousands of Aragons running around be fun? I am not so sure. Ismini: MMOGs rely on a solid and loyal subscriber base. A strong IP can add to a marketing effort and encourage gamers to try the game, but if the game can't stand up to the competition in terms of game play and appeal it will die. The original EverQuest did not have a strong IP behind it but it still has far better subscriber numbers than Star Wars Galaxies. Robin: I think it's been shown over the last few years that building franchises in the gaming world can be a successful strategy, as it is in the movie business. It remains to be seen whether or not that formula will also work uniformly for MMOGs. Lineage II certainly took off, although possibly at the expense of Lineage I. What do you think are the major obstacles to wider acceptance of the MMOG genre that are still to be overcome? Bill: Broadband penetration still needs to increase, though clearly the growth to date in broadband at home has helped fuel MMO usage. We really do have to make these things easier to engage with, from the install to the opening screen to the first few hours in the game. They are still too intimidating for the mass market (which is only a concern if we want to expand into the mass market). Won Il: First of all, a higher broadband penetration is essential in creating a wider audience for MMOGs. The game must run smoothly or people simply won't play. Secondly, MMOGs must be creative in a way that they attract non-traditional MMO gamers. The common "hack 'n slash" type of MMOG simply does not interest the majority of female or middle-aged gamers. Overcoming the wide perception that MMO games are difficult and hardcore is important. People tend to consider MMO to be something that is too "masculine" and time consuming. Chris: I think the major obstacles facing the MMOG format lie with the design and business model. Traditional MMOG games have made people travel for hours and experience an endless treadmill of level grind because they only had a certain amount of content and were trying to stretch the game play so people would stick around. However, City of Heroes and WoW changed much of that by focusing on the 'fun' part of the game and eliminating the grind. We need to continually create games that people can enjoy even for a short period of time everyday yet provide a sense of accomplishment and progress. I also think that providing as much choice to the user in terms of how he or she wants to play and consume the content will be important for a wider acceptance of the MMOG format. Whether the user wants to play solo, with a friend, or in large guilds, the game should be fun and accommodating to all different play styles. Also, we need to provide a variety of business models that will make it easier for the mass audience to purchase and consume our contents. I've already talked about various potential models in a previous question so I won't delve into it further here. Robin: Multiplayer online gaming is here to stay and should grow significantly over the next few years as the genre options expand beyond role playing games, and as technical constraints continue to fall. Broadband, better graphics cards, and cheaper CPUs make it possible for a wide variety of game genres to fall under the MMO designation. It seems safe to say that fundamentally people are drawn to the possibility of shared experiences with people from all over the world. Matt: Most gamers play games on consoles, not on PCs – and right now all of the big MMOs (with the exception of Final Fantasy) are on PCs. We need a console that is capable of delivering the capabilities we need to make an MMO, which are typically far more complex to develop than a console game and demands hard drive storage and keyboard style input at least as MMO's are currently conceived.
What game(s) are you playing for fun right now? MMO or not? Won Il: Kart Rider. Bill: WoW, EQ2, Lineage 2. Ismini: World of Warcraft. I also can't wait for Guild Wars and City of Villains although I'm not sure when I'm going to have the time to play all of those MMOGs! Chris: One of the benefits of being in the game industry is the ability to tell our spouses that the game we are playing is an extension of our work, and I try and take full advantage of the situation. At any given point in time, I am in the middle of two or three games simultaneously. I wish I had more hard drive space to accommodate all of the games I would like to play! Besides playing Guild Wars and other NCsoft games, I've just finished Sid Meier's Pirates and have just started playing Warhammer: Dawn of War, both of which are excellent games. On the MMO side, I’ve been putting in many pleasurable hours into WoW for the past couple of months. Robin: Second Life! (laughs) Matt: In the last two months I've played Half-Life 2, Pirates!, World of Warcraft, EverQuest 2, and FIFA Soccer 2005. I'm a huge soccer fan, so I spend way too much time in FS. I haven't yet scratched the surface, really, of WoW or EQ2, but they are both fun compelling games. What are your predictions as to how 2005 will shape up in the MMO sector? Matt: The road to Hades is paved with predictions! Actually, 2005 is going to be an exciting year, a year where we'll see the longer-term impact of WoW and EQ 2, as well as perhaps the launch of MEO and D&DO, among others. Won Il: We predict a strong on-going market growth and fierce competition since the market has reached the point where the inflow of game developers (worldwide big and small) and gamers is accelerating. We envisage that newer business models will be a driving force to increase the market size. Bill: Every MMO player in China tries WOW during the free, open-beta, but the actual paying player numbers disappoint, as the game play proves too complex for your average Chinese gamer. At least one of the big budget, licensed IP titles will prove to be a total bust, and off-shoring will became an increasingly knotty issue for MMO developers, as the cost of building these games continues to skyrocket. Robin: Finding ways to introduce user-created content will become increasingly prevalent as a way for publishers to counteract their own increased costs of art and content production. Speaking of production costs, we may see more and more new companies stepping up to take on the cost of hosting and supporting older MMO servers so that publishers can focus on developing new games and worlds. There will be a continued refinement of business models exploring alternatives to pure subscription, including an increasingly heavy reliance on product placement for revenue. Chris: I think 2005 will be another competitive year in the MMO sector. With WoW bringing in customers who are being exposed to the MMO world for the first time, we are going to see continued expansion of this market. Games such as Guild Wars, Matrix Online and Auto Assault will continue to change the perception of MMOG as an exclusively fantasy-based genre. I also think that games like WoW upped the ante for developers in terms of the quality of the user experience and many games in development are going to be reassessed according to this new standard. This will mean an increase in development time and resources required. Because of this, there will be developers and publishers that will drop of the race due to the large scale investment required. I also see a certain amount of industry consolidation. Also, because many people are looking at the success of WoW and will be trying to emulate them it could cause a problem of too many games with similar look and feel. I hope our development communities do not fall into this trap. This is a great time to be in this industry and there is enough room for a great number of ideas!