Innovation or Evolution?
While Weathers argued for the wind powered car, there was far more varied opinion on the evolution vs. innovation debate. Others took a more conservative approach.
"If you try for too much innovation, you turn people off," argued Firor. "That's the Catch-22 of MMO development. MMOs are about giving people a world they are comfortable in, and if you don't follow the rules they expect, then they are not comfortable and look for online housing elsewhere."
And Firor wasn't alone in a call for balance.
"We have the job of making great games, running great games and innovating," said SOE's Smedley. "I think you have to balance it. If you go too crazy with innovation, you might drive your loyal customers out." He then noted that if there is not enough, then their audience grow beyond the current core gamers.
All agreed, though, that the absolute key to success is a focus on quality regardless of the approach taken. It sounds simple and obvious, but it's the big thing that separates games like World of Warcraft from the rest of the pack.
For his part, Stinnett brought up a great counterpoint to Firor and Smedley's position. "The Nintendo Wii disproves that theory," he said of the argument that people need some kind of familiarity to enjoy their online worlds. "People will buy games that are fun whether they are fresh and innovative or simply a surprisingly good implementation of a tried-and-true formula."
While people at game conferences often stand up and pontificate about the lack of innovation and proliferation of derivative gameplay, this group was not quite as outraged as some might expect.
"I think the industry is incredibly innovative. People who don't see the innovation simply aren't looking for it," argued Macris. "It reminds me of a friend of mine, who used an exploit in Asheron's Call to level up to 40 without ever leaving one spot in Dereth, then cancelled because the game was boring. "
And it's a valid point. MMOs have been defined by many - our website included - as a subscription-based virtual world that people must buy in stores. More recently, digital distribution has become an increasingly acceptable method of selling and delivering games, but the real meat and potatos of the industry might lie somewhere else entirely these days. The question is, where?
"I think we're seeing the emergence of a massive amount of non-traditional MMOs, the Barbie.coms, the Club Penguins," said Smedley. "The emergence of the much more casual player into the MMO-space."
Together, these games and others like Runescape may well represent more players than all of the subscription-based MMOs combined in North America, World of Warcraft included. Yet, they don't get the hype. They don't get the press. They're largely ignored by regular gaming journalists, let alone the mainstream media, and obviously have zero presence in traditional retail outlets. Yet, they have millions of players and in some cases - like Runescape - even millions of subscribers.
These companies all started small and have quietly grown into epic businesses, but it is often small companies that make it big that really push the boundaries in terms of new ideas.
"The next big thing is not going to be a sword-and-board, stylized-looking, smack-the-pellet-bar Skinner box. I don't mean to say there isn't plenty of room for further success in that category, but the next thing that makes the mainstream do a double take won't look like it's related to WoW," said Weathers. "I think that now that we're down to two giant behemoths roaming the earth, it's time for the monkeys to climb down out of the trees and evolve into the next big thing."
