MMOGs take a long time to develop, and only a short time to disappear. Over at bit-tech, they look at success and failure in the world of online gaming. However…
There’s another kind of online world that usually isn’t mentioned on the regular gaming sites. Because such venues are aimed at the kid/teen market, and they don’t focus on violence. Yet, they are successful.
As a sort of counterpoint to the bit-tech post, there’s one on the Lightspeed blog about these “casual” (I hate to use that word) worlds. You’ve probably heard of some of them, such as Webkinz, NeoPets, and Club Penguin.
Those and three others each routinely draw in over 2 million unique users per month. I’ll bet Age Of Conan or Warhammer would love to have those numbers.
In fact, it would surprise me if any MMOG outside of WoW could pull in that many users per month on a regular basis. Which goes to show that you don’t need blood and guts (or adults!) to have a successful online product.
But what I’m wondering about is: what happens when the kids outgrow those online worlds? Do they go from Club Penguin to World of Warcraft? Do they just leave all that online stuff behind because it’s “kid stuff”?
Is there an in-between, a place for those who’ve been online as kids but don’t want to get involved in the “adult” hack’n’slash of WoW or AoC? Yes, there’s Second Life, The Sims, and Entropia (which gets very little PR).
And I think only The Sims comes close to the “kid stuff” in drawing power. So it seems to me there may be room here for something new in the MMOG line that would appeal to those uninterested in endless grinding and fighting. After all, most games with those features haven’t been doing too well of late.
They left out Free Realms which just launched last month and in the first 17 days had over a a million accounts created. My 10 year old has an account on there and it seems very kid friendly. If you are under 13, the chat functions are limited to per-determined words and phrases; you are unable to input any chat text besides those. The only thing that was unusual for a kid-type site was that it didn’t require a parent’s approval. During the sign up they had to put in their parent’s email, but all I got was an email notifying me of the account creation, not a link to click on for approval. As far as I know they could have put down anyone’s email instead of mine.
My daughter is on Webkinz. She just plays with the virtual pet there, an online version of the stuffed animal that she has. When you buy a Webkinz they come with an online code. I believe that the code is only good for a year too, so you would have to buy another stuffed animal after that - a backdoor subscription.
I tried free realms. It struck me as micro-transaction hell. Currently playing Runes of Magic as a WOW substitute. Free and you can buy a permanent mount rather than a term rental. More micro-transaction heck. Though really if add up even a modest micro-transaction habit WOW starts looking cheap. Until you start hopping servers at least.