Transcript PowerPoint-presentation

2D1651 - Datorspelsdesign - 21 nov 2005
Daniel Pargman
Massiva
multispelarespel
massively multiplayer online games MMOG
051121 - 2D1651
• Me
• SvenskMUD
(moderately multiplayer online games)
• MMOG
(massively multiplayer online games)
• Money & economy
• Roundup
Daniel Pargman
University of Skövde, School of Humanities and
Informatics, Media/Computer game development
• Senior Lecturer 2005-
Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), School of Computer
Science and Communication, Media Technology
• Senior Lecturer 2002-
HCI consultant
• CR&T
Department of Communication studies, Linköping
university
• Ph.D. thesis: ”Code begets community: On social and technical
aspects of managing a virtual community (2000)”
Computer and systems sciences, Uppsala university
My interests
Computer sciences
Human-Computer
CMC
Interaction
Design
Social sciences
CSCW
Communities
Systems
Onlinespel
Sociology
Anthropology
Psychology
...
development
...
Technology
Society
Aarseth, “Playing research”
http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/dac/papers/Aarseth.pdf
Three dimensions characterize every
computer game:
• Gameplay (players, playing, motives)
• Game structure (game rules)
• Game world (content, design, artwork)
Leads to three research perspectives:
• Gameplay (psychology, ethnology, sociology...)
• Game rules (computer game design - CS/AI...)
• Game world (art, aesthetics, history, cultural
studies, media studies)
SvenskMud
Perspectives on SvenskMud
SvenskMud (SwedishMud) is:
• A game (adventure mud)
• A computer program (systems
development project)
• A hobby
SvenskMud as a game/computer program
• Takes place in a Tolkien-inspired fantasy world
and in a Sweden of the 19th century
• Contains 6000 distinct spaces (“rooms”) full of
monsters, treasures etc.
• Access limited to 100 simultaneous users at
peak hours
• Is officially a project at Lysator - the academic
computer club at Linköping University
• Developed for 13 years by 100+ persons
• Consists of ~ 3 million lines of “code”
• Developed as an open source project
SvenskMud
TDZK
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Browser-based MMORPG
Persistent online world
4000-5000 registered players
Space adventure game
– Gather resources, trading goods, upgrading
your ship, fighting your enemies
Semi-synchronous
“Symbolic” interface
Very complicated, knowledge intensive game
Played in 4-month rounds
Vad är detta?
SvenskMud
A window into a virtual world...
MMOG
From MUDs to MMOG
• Graphical interface = more accessible
• Three of four magnitudes larger = larger
breadth of player base
– Lineage, World of Warcraft
• Commercial enterprises = big business
(≠ hobby any more)
But - same social interaction and
same social phenomena
Massively Multiplayer Online Games
(MMOG)
• Persistent worlds (PW)
• Thousands of simultaneos players
– Lineage 4.000.000 players in Asia (Korea, Taiwan)
– Everquest 500.000 players in USA and Europe
• Complex social interaction/sociala phenomena
• Can be very captivating
• Subscription model (10-15$ / month for unlimited
online access)
Star Wars Galaxies
• Sony Online Entertainment
• Released in the US in June 2003 and in Europa
in November
• 125.000 subscribers the first week, 300.000
after the summer
• > 3.000.000 posted messages on the official
discussion forum on the web (spring 2004)!
• Costs 15$ / month
• Suffer from the same problems as other games
(released too early = many bugs = bad press)
Exempel
Money and
economy
Master’s thesis on MMOG & money
• Nine Master’s students at KTH, Stockholm
• All looking at “money and economy in and
around online games”
– In Star Wars Galaxies, Eve Online, Dark Age of
Camelot, Ultima Online, Ragnarök Online...
• Master’s thesis = 20 weeks of full-time work
– 10 weeks reading, preparation, analysis, writing
– 10 weeks full-time study
• Results will be published (on the web) during
2005
– Five finished this far
Perspectives on MMOG & money
Money and economy in online games
1. The real-world/game industry
economy
2. The in-game economy
3. The interface (E-bay) between ingame and real-world economies
MMOG economy (perspective 1)
(Mulligan & Patrovsky 2003)
• Costs (USD) for running a popular MMOG for three
months. (100-150.000 subscribers, 30.000 simultaneous
players.)











Server clusters
80.000 * 10
Player relations
4.000 * 12
Community relations
4.000 * 3
Live development team
6.000 * 12
Management
8.000 * 4
Account mgm + billing
4.000 * 5
Office space, furniture, PCs etc.
250.000
Bandwidth
20% of previous costs
Network operations personnel
5.000 * 5
Overhead costs
80.000
Total
> 2.000.000 USD
MMOG balance sheet (2002)
• Development costs: 7 (average) and 10-12 (typical)
million USD for AAA title
• Launch costs - 3-5 million USD (and rising)
+ Can bring in millions of dollars for 5-10 years
- 40-60% of revenue spent on running the game
+ A major hit (200.000+ subscribers in 6 months) can
pay for development/launch costs in < 1 year
Game market players
• Hard-core market (10%)
Will do anything to play games. 15 million
worldwide (2002)
• Moderate market (20%)
Money (equipment, fees) & time concerns
• Mass market (70%)
Play short, easy-to-learn games. 140-200 million
worldwide (2002)
Xbox 360
In-game economy (perspective 2)
• Economic systems emerge spontaneously
– Resources are limited
– Nothing is free
∑ People need to barter/trade with each other in the
game (e.g.the emergence of markets)
• Faucet - drain
– Tax vs service
 Virtual inflation, cartels, rares, crafting/trade vs
battle
In-game vs real-world economy (perspective 3)
 Norrath (in Everquest) is the 77th richest
country in the world! (Castronova 2001)
 GNP per capita = 2226 USD, hourly wage = 3,42 USD
(319 PP).
 Hourly wage < 3,42 USD in China, India (Mexico?)
 Black Snow Interactive set up a sweatshop in Tijuana
to capitalize on trade between Mexico, USA and
Norrath.
 How can this be? ...because of E-bay
 Norrath has production, labor supply, income,
inflation, foreign trade and currency exchange
(1 platinium piece ≈ 1 cent)
In-game vs real-world economy II
 To whom does the fruits of the labor belong
when someone develops virtual resources
(“works”?) within a game?
 The company that produce the game/owns the server?
 The player (who produces the economy)?
 Mythic entertainment vs Black Snow Interactive
 Infringement on intellectual property rights
 Unfair business practices
 The online game “There” hired an economist to
work full-time on in-game fiscal policy
Dark Age of Camelot commerce on E-bay
 Data from mid-Nov to mid-Dec 2004 (4 weeks)
 Info through Hammertap’s Deep analysis
 2350 sales - US$ 210.000 changed hands
 Virtual currency (67%)
 Accounts (31%)
 Virtual objects (2%)
 DAoC costs US$ 15/month - 30 servers (* 3 “realms”)
 Trade in virtual currencey - three actors account for
85% of all commerce
 Large scale advantages accept all major credit cards,
trust, customer service, E-bay “powersellers”
 Homework: Volume of E-bay trade in relation to
the total subscription fee?
Example of an E-bay ad
“Blade Of The Righteous - $210.
Well it’s really the best weapon...
Makes HUGE DAMAGE... So it’s a
Super Slayer”
In-game vs real-world economy III
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
In-game market place
E-bay
Trader
Employer (small scale) Black Snow
Company <www.ige.com> ”IGE is the world's
leading provider of value-added services to the
players and publishers of multiplayer online games”
Exempel
Roundup
A short reading list about MMOGs and money
•
Thomson (2005), ”Game theories”
http://www.walrusmagazine.com/article.pl?sid=04/05/06/19292
05&tid=1
•
Hunter & Lastowka (2003), ”Virtual property”
http://www.nyls.edu/pdfs/hunter_lastowka.pdf
•
Burke (2001), ”Rubicite breastplate priced to move, cheap”
http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/tburke1/Rubicite%20Breastp
late.pdf
•
Castronova (2001), ”Virtual worlds: A first-hand account of market
and society on the cybrarian frontier”
http://ssrn.com/abstract=294828
Next thesis subject Groups and guilds in online games
Gemeinschaft/Gesellschaft - Tönnies 1887
• Small (The village), rural,
slowness, tradition
• Friends and enemies
• Group (projects), belonging,
commitment
• Natural, unplanned organism
• Relationships as mutual,
significant, long-term,
informal, personal
• Big (The city), urban, speed,
variation, fashion, fance
• Strangers and competitors
• Individual (projects),
alienation, convenience
• Constructed, artficial
mechanism
• Relationships as instrumental,
convenient, transient,
anonymous
Onlinespel, spelcommunities och reklamspel, 5p
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
www.dsv.su.se/utbildning/su/sp5.html
23 jan - 24 feb 2006
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Contact:
Daniel Pargman
[email protected]
+46 8 790 82 80
KTH/Media Technology
100 44 Stockholm
www.nada.kth.se/~pargman/thesis