The Game Dame

Notes for a next generation MMO

A little part of me has died today. Our guild master told us that he was taking several months off from the game, with an eye toward quitting altogether. Last week, another key guildie, also from For The Horde, announced his intention to take a financial vacation from the game. As I mentioned in my last post, the game is also getting old for me. My main point was that Blizzard has failed to bank on and expand what makes the game most addictive and fun: its social aspects. 

I’ve looked at other MMOs, and have been pretty bored by what they offer. All of them seem to be copying WoW. None of them is really thinking outside of the software box. The only differences among them are graphics style/quality, content (storyline), and play style (PvE, PvP, strategy, sims). Even the genres are limited to Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Nothing new. All you have to do is paste those labels onto some dice, roll them, and *POOF!* you’ve got a new MMO! Of course, by “new” I really mean “same old, same old.” How can these MMOs compete with Blizzard if they are only imitations?

Way back in the dark ages, I interviewed with Blizzard for Subscription Marketing Manager. It was essentially a customer loyalty job: how do we keep current subscribers and bring back former ones? I was (and still am) uniquely qualified for that job, but they passed on hiring me. I gave them a list of things both in my interview and follow-up emails which I thought they should use for customer retention. If they’d only have listened to me…

Here are just a few of the things that Blizzard could’ve spent time and money on to improve the game, rather than just crank out new dungeons  which are merely mish-mashes of old dungeons:

Cross-realm communication
We should be able to send in-game mail to – or EGADS! even be able to chat with — our friends on other realms. I’m not even talking about being able to send gold/items to my other toons, but simply being able to communicate with other players better makes it easier to find times to play together online.

Don’t half-ass the voice chat
If Blizzard can’t make it happen under their own software (because of bandwidth or whatever), at least make a partnership with a vent provider or Skype or something. People would probably even pay a little more per month for that privilege, especially casual players who don’t know how to use vent. Gadzooks, if you could figure out a way to make video chat work in-game, you’d really be cookin’ with gas.

While you’re at it, don’t half-ass LFG
The current Looking-for-Group/Looking-for-More system blows and Blizzard knows it. Most people look for groups for questing by either asking in General chat, (/cringe) Trade chat, or just plain YELLING in a faction city. A lot of instance grouping occurs this way also. My guild usually ends up whispering all the people on our friends list one at a time, trying to find someone who’s free. There should be a more effective way of searching for people to fill groups that are going to run either in a few minutes or in a few days.

Extend the community outside of the game
Quite frankly, Blizzard relies on the aftermarket to do its social marketing. As a result, Blizzard as a company has no impact or control over the community (other than, say, frequent lawsuits). It can’t even market to these customers. When I spoke with them I called it mind-share which is similar to the marketing concept of wallet-share (how much of a person’s allocated income they spend on your products). How much of your free-time mind do you spend thinking about, planning for, and enjoying the game? Blizzard should’ve factored in social marketing ideas like Raptr, created its own haven for free WoW blogging sites, offered out-of-game customized email domains, provided guild sites, and give out automatically updated email signatures & avatars. Again, a lot of this stuff is partner-able if you don’t want to spend the time or cash to develop it yourself. But it should be an integral part of the game design.

Trigger external actions for in-game events
Why can’t the game automatically send a message to your Twitter account when you gain achievements or level up like Raptr does? Then you can brag to all your friends about what your in-game accomplishments are – and your non-game friends can see how much fun you’re having. What about personalized emails to players upon certain in-game triggers, like Azeroth Advisor does? It doesn’t have to be elaborate, but it could be helpful and it fosters loyalty: “Hm. Blizzard actually cares about my game progress!” Maybe screenshot feeds via Flickr? Even something simple like being able to send a URL link in game chat would be awesome. “Hey, dudes, check me out, I just took this screenie of me making the killing blow on Arthas!”

Embrace diversity
WoW’s demographic in the U.S. is overwhelmingly white and male. Part of that, I admit, is simply the nature of the Fantasy genre. However, I believe the world’s largest MMORPG could have a bigger impact on mainstreaming gaming than it has. (Is Mr. T really the best you could do to represent African Americans who play the game??) The truth is they haven’t tried very hard. Sometimes I think the Little Boys’ Club of gaming is happy to stay locked away in their tree house while doing the barest lip service to expansion of the industry.

Bottom line
Build a better, sustainable community inherent in the game universe. Don’t rely on the aftermarket to do the work for you and expect to have it reap loyalty rewards for Blizzard. The next great MMO, the so-called WoW-killer, will take advantage of these ideas and more. The big question is: will that game be made by Blizzard?

PS: No, that’s not me in either of the photos and, yes, I changed the blog design theme. Again.