Six Years Later: Groundwork for OWE v 2.0

It's hard to believe that for myself, its been six years since I started down the road that I follow now. It was my first year of undergrad, and I wrote the OWE as a way to help comprehend concepts in my Macroecoomic course. It was during my time working with stratics as an editorialist, so I took the extra step in polishing it into a paper-style presentation for others to view. It was very well recieved and it did get a few references here and there, which surprised me. It also grabbed the interest of my economic professors, who convinced me to change majors into Econ.

And now, with a lot more education under my belt on the subjects, I look back and realize that the OWE is very basic and simplistic, and that it needs an overhaul, a second version. At the same time, the groundwork is solid. Concepts may have gotten glitzed up and polished over the past 6 years, but the mechanics still have the same roots.

But, it still needs an update. As a blog series, I'll cover the different sections of the original OWE, and point out some changes, thoughts , etc. on the paper, in an effort to lay groundwork for a V 2.0.

I suggest, if you haven't yet, to read the original paper linked to the left.

First up:

Changes in the General Analysis:


The Online World Population:

Populations have grown over the years. Ultima Online and EQ measured itself in hundreds of thousands. World of Warcraft shattered everything before it, measuring over 10 million subscriptions now. But there is two sides to the extreme. Smaller niche games tend to have a hundred thousand or less. Virtual worlds inside communities (such as facebook) tend to fluctuate. There is more choices out there for virtual worlds than ever before, and more people who play them as well.

But the mechanics still remain the same. Most MMO's tend to follow the Combat/Crafting/Gathering trifecta of activities and abilities for bothe NPCs and PCs. A fourth can be argued as a minimal group of PCs, that of Profiteers. With the addition of Auction house-style areas, there are some players who tend to manipulate markets in order to make a profit. These players tend to fall into one of three subcategories:

1) Arbitrageurs - Players who skim markets for below average cost items to resell for profit at the higher, average price listings
2) Mass Marketers - Exert Market force over a facet of the economy by selling items en masse, and either undercutting competition, or buying out cheaper product in order to maintain price levels.
3) Value Added Crafters- Partially a crafting ability, but it requires the use of the auctions. Players tend to use abilities to change cheaper items on the market into higher value items through construction or deconstruction. Much of the items are easily attainable through a network of friends and thier abilities, but the ease and availability of the auctions drives the price up (as the alternative is to spend time collecting and finding people to create the items).


The Player Characters:

The type of players most MMOs attract hasn't changed much over the years. Most of the players are attracted to a growth based system of conflict, whether that be economical or warfare. The tools in which such players gather have altered somewhat. Combat tends to be more socially orientated than it ever was. Many dungeons, or PvP encounters group people together in teams to achieve goals. "Raids" consisting of a large group of players have become a staple of many MMOs as one way to play out endgame scenarios, and the increased availability of high-speed internet has allowed for much larger encounters, more sophisticated ways of communicating, and increased populations to compete against for ranks amongst all abilities (Best crafter, Best raid, Best business, etc).

It isn't surprising then, that Bartle's player types still stand up strong. While things have gotten bigger and subdivisions are more profound, the players are still the same people as they always were. Theres just more of them, which allows to divide further ("Pro" Gamers, PvP Tounament players, Raiders, Auction-house players, etc come to mind and new types).

What's interesting to note is when games tend to exploit this subdivision, much in a way that politics plays voters. My home country of Canada is a great example to pitch, as theres multiple political parties. Most voters tend to go and vote in a two party system. One party is slightly left wing of the centre, and the other is just right of the central poltical line (Liberal and Conservative respectively), but there's always "fringe" parties that cater to those further away from the central politics. By being focused on certain groups, they tend to draw voters away from the central parties, mainly those nearer to thier view than that of the center. Its not a majority, but its enough to keep them alive and running. And the beleif is, if they last long enough, the median that is central politics shifts in thier favor, and more voters sign on to thier ideals (NDP are a prime example in Canada).

Niche games work the same way. A Tale in the Desert, Puzzle Priates, and other various games tend to focus on a particular player style, and while being profitable, the aim is to sway the median in thier direction as well. Economically, this is a form of Hotelling's Law in a theoretical game. The bigger the population of the distribution, the more effective niche markets become, as more identifiable player-types become apparent.

Given the population of Warcraft, it can be assumed that this is the median player now. If you take Bartle's player types, you develop not a linear Hotelling model, but a plane of interests, which is also included in the paper found here:

                                   ACTING
                 Killers            |                  Achievers
                                    |
                                    |
                                    |
                                    |
                                    |
         PLAYERS -----------------WoW------------------- WORLD
                                    |
                                    |
                                    |
                                    |
                                    |
                 Socialisers        |                  Explorers
                               INTERACTING

Now, if Wow is the median, try and imagine different online games and how far away they deviate in any direction. I won't do it here for lack of using technology correctly to place games, but I bet if you do it yourself, you'll notice that those games closest to the center mark tend to have more subscribers, while further out garner less. Also, any games close to one another will tend to fight over the same market, and reduce thier user base. Thus, prime markets for games tend to be in areas of the map where there is the least like games (while still being near the median as possible), or at the median and try to exert dominance.

In this article I mentioned the other day, it talks about new MMOs facing population declines after gamers switch back to WoW. This mainly shows that the games near the median haven't swayed the general populace enough to become the median, but still attempt the takeover. I tend to disagree with the fact that making WoW-like games isn't the best idea, you just need confidence in the ability to capture and keep the market. Once the tides turn, so to speak, a critical mass effect can occur, and a new game can become the median, and the new population topper. But because of the large gamble with big-budget MMOs and the potential downfall, becoming fringe may actually be more profitable. And enough fringe companies take on the big WoW Machine,it may chip away at its dominance.

Hostile takeover may not work, but divide and conquer could at this point.

Metaplaces

Ok, I'll admit it. Im jealous. Envious and jealous. And a bit sad.

It was a few weeks ago that I stumbled over this article on MMO population crises . It made sense. It was well written (which I find hard to come by sometimes when it involves games and social behaviour), and it brought up valid points on both the mammoth machine and industry standard WoW has become, and how the industry can't seem to shake it. But here's the thing, by the end of it, I couldn't even keep the subject on my mind.

Why? Simply because of the mention of Raph Koster and his new little endeavour, Metaplace.

For one, I grew into MMO's under Koster's creations. I was weaned on Ultima. I learned how to analyze game structure in Galaxies. I read his site, his philosophies, everything, which in turn molded my view on gameplay. I've always had a gamer crush on anything he touched. The EQ style of gaming won in the end with WoW, but still...there was more to Koster's games. And metaplace is no exception.

Metaplace is a potential melding pot of many different subjects of study. Its a community, much like MySpace or YouTube, but its a community that makes metaversal communities. In that sense, it's not only reactionary to it audience, but its audience potentially has reactions based on what it interacts with, since that audience is also creators of like media. Other members may end up developing games differently through learning and interacting through the community. As such, it not only is a community that grows and feeds on itself, but it might prove to be a lucrative testing/learning center for larger MMO firms in development philosophy.

It's low budget, with easy entry into an otherwise cost-prohibitive market. which opens up the market further. Much like opening beta-testing of games to gamers is a cost-saving module for developers, Metaplace can be a like savings grounds for games development. You have gamers developing games and ideas free of startup cost to companies. It not only allows for pretty open testing on a focus group, but it also gives companies a screening method to find new talent for developing all sorts of games.

And to top it off, it'll be a hotspot for intellectual property debate. Because, if a game gets good and has a big following...who's the owner? Who reaps the rewards? If a game makes enough followers in a focus group such as metaplace would be, it may be financially viable to look at expanding it into a subscription based game. With most games asking 15$USD a month to play, a small grassroots game can gain a profit fast if it catches on.

But thats only one (albeit the one with the most money at stake) facet. Gold farming is rampant in major MMOs, while some cope by selling in-game money to beat third party sellers and capture the market. If one or both become apparent in any of the games, will it be legal? Or for that matter, who decides if its legal?

But all this has nothing to do with my jealousy or sadness mentioned above, only my interest in the matter. The former all stems from "why didn't I think of that?" (which always is one of my gut reactions to anything I think is overly interesting and/or addictive...it's my admission that something in the gaming world is outright great in my mind) and the much more important "Dammit! I missed alpha signups!" . The whole idea plagues me now, because I'm on the outside looking in, wondering. In due time however, I have a feeling I'll get to see a lot more and analyze what happens, because this looks too promising to fall off the face of the planet any time soon.

Starting Over and Ramblings

I've decided to revive this blog. I'll leave the earlier posts here, but apparently, its been a lot longer than I thought it was since the last time I posted anything involving Metanomics. Heck, even the term is relatively new to me, newer than the posts here. It's been nearly a year, but between work and a lack of direction in my academic life, I gave it up after working on the blog for a month. The ideas still flowed forth, but I found I didn't have the time to actually put what I wanted into the blog. Work stole about 10 hours a day from me, and playing MMOs took most nights while I immersed myself in the metaverses.

I've scaled back since then. Less online play, not less work, but more focus on academics again. Im hoping to persue my PhD this fall, and if I learned anything yet in university, its that writing down my ideas tends to steer me in a direction that's much more concise that if I don't. It's how I stumbled on metanomics years ago, so I figure...its how I should end it as well.

I wrote a synopsis for my research a few weeks back, but not before it was a rambling explanation of where I was coming from. I'd like to share it here, as a new beginning to this blog:

Metanomics is a term that was just recently introduced to me. Oddly enough, it was by one of my fellow gamers in World of Warcraft. Metanomics, as described on the collaborative webpage (http://metanomics.net), is as follows;

“Metanomics” refers to the study of the business and policy aspects of the “metaverse” of virtual worlds. Metanomics can focus on issues arising within virtual worlds, such as how developers manage the economy of a game world (like World of Warcraft), or how residents of virtual worlds manage and regulate business. Metanomics also includes the study of how real-world businesses can use virtual worlds as part of their strategy, and how real-world law and regulation might apply to virtual-world activities. Finally, metanomics includes the use of virtual worlds as laboratories in which to study real-world business or policy issues.

It may not mean much to most people, but its been a driving force of research for myself for 5 years now. It’s just uncanny that others have finally tapped into the potential and organized such studies under a classification of its own.

I’d like to consider myself someone who actually was a part of the Massive Multiplayer history. It may be a minute ripple, but I still have had a participation in occurrences throughout the past ten years, rather than just an observer that can recount the history of a certain niche group of individuals and how their society reflects more mainstream. It may skew my own opinions of events, but at the same time, it can give meaning and understanding to them otherwise may be missed.

I grew up a Nintendo Kid in the eighties. I also owned a Tandy 1000, and played the Sierra Adventure games that were dominant at the time. Video Games were always (and probably will always be) a part of my life. The existence of stories that played out somewhat like movies, but with user interaction, captured my imagination in a way those same movies couldn’t. I was hooked. When I began French Immersion in grade seven, I convinced my mother that buying me the French version of Zelda for the SNES would help my language comprehension (it did, but it of course wasn’t the driving force of buying the game). I’ve owned just about every platform gaming system available.

When the internet became available to me, about when I was 13, I constantly wanted to play, to explore, to learn. I played with anything online available to me, learned of chat groups, instant messaging, and making a websites and communities on the early Geocities homepages sites. Needless to say, I had a lot of spare time on my hands to experience the new media frontier.

However, the breaking point was in 1997, around Christmas, when everything I ever loved to play finally tied into one package. Ultima Online, the first mainstream market Massively Multiplayer Online Game, was dropped into my hands, and the next ten years of my life, whether I wanted to admit it or not, revolved around online gaming.

By the time I had finished my first few years in university, I had been accepted into the seer program, (otherwise known as digiteers, or players with creative powers to make event-stories in game for other players) becoming their youngest volunteer/employee in the seer program. I had also beta-tested almost every single first-generation MMO and their expansions - including Everquest, which would vault MMO’s from just barely mainstream gaming to the media limelight with its subscriber base. I was discovering and learning about the digital landscape, certain basics that were predominant in all online games and gamers.

I gave up on my first foray into university, finding pure sciences were not my strengths. At the same time, UO made a historic move, severing ties with its volunteer corps when it was sued over its work scheduling. I was online at the time, and watched with confusion and sadness as the dismantling of something that I wholeheartedly believed was a community-building experience, and something that marked me with a desire to examine the hows and whys of the so-called metaverse better. However, at this point, I moved home, unsure of both my direction in school and online existence.

I went back the next year to university, closer to home, learning business administration to work in the family owned business. I became a development board regular for Star Wars Galaxies, posting design ideas, arguing player psychology becoming more and more involved with just not playing, but with those why’s and how’s involved. Dev board activity also gave me a break into my final choice for a degree, as to help with remembering my intro economics class theories, I wrote a pseudo-paper that explained how each theory worked into online world development. I showed it to my professor. He got me to switch fields, wanted me to write more on the subject. I have yet to go back directly and address gaping holes in the paper, but somehow it still gets referenced more in other’s works than anything else I have worked on up to and completing my master’s degree. My paper on Online World Economies, as well as my work on political/urban foundations in online worlds for SWG (which, whether they like to admit it, was copied directly into the game) is referenced now and then. These two papers created a bond between my research and my gaming that still exists today.

More online games have come and gone since. The desire to connect research in a meaningful way to gaming hasn’t left however. With my current levels of education, I am looking back to the beginning. I want to translate what I have done in the past ten years especially, into something that can be understood, and built upon. Political Economics, and more specifically this take on metanomics, has taken the forefront now for research angles; a mix of both my university education and my gaming pastime.

There’s still a part of me, the inner gamer that goes “I want to design a game”. I can’t help it, it’s ingrained into my very being. More than likely, the attitude permeates any paper I could write on the subject of digital media more than I would like it to. However, it is my hope that the desire to portray such mediums as a meaningful example of human behavior, in such a way that we can further understand ourselves in one way or another, shines through stronger and connects with you the reader.