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Ensemble's Console, MMO Plans
by Maarten Goldstein, Apr 03, 2006 7:10am PDTEnsemble Talks MMO Plans is the latest article as part of Next Generation's Dallas developer tour, this time talking to Ensemble Studios CEO Tony Goodman. He talks about the start of the company and Microsoft not believing in a historical strategy game, the company's business strategy and the 2000 acquisition by Microsoft. The conversation then shifts to plans for a console strategy game ("When they got it to the point where we had Age of Empires up and running, and our people with gamepads could beat the people with mice, then we knew we really had totally reconstructed the control systems.") and the possibility of an MMO game by Ensemble
"Maybe it's not crazy to go spend thirty or forty million bucks to actually make one of these things." [Executive producer Patrick] Hudson points out, "At some point, they'll get tired of WoW and want to play something else." "We haven't settled on anything," Hudson cautions. "It's safe to say we won't be chasing the fantasy genre. It seems like there are so many coming out. [We're] still pretty far out from even thinking of taking that prototype to a greenlight phase." As for monthly subscription fees: "Yeah, I think that's the business model we mostly believe in," Hudson says. "There could be things that come along and change our mind, but there's a lot of people trying different things... If anything, WoW is charging too little, not too much."
Comments
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After Age of Empires III, I pretty much lost all faith in Ensemble. Especially after reading an interview where they said something to the effect of, When we started work on AoEIII we made a game that was really unique, played entirely different from typical RTS games, and was really fun, BUT we decided to scrap that and make another bland "Age" sequel so as not to alienate fans.
*Cringe*
That's the kind of thinking that is ruining the "art" of making games. Damn commercialization.
However, I'm very intrigued by this quote:
"When they got it to the point where we had Age of Empires up and running, and our people with gamepads could beat the people with mice, then we knew we really had totally reconstructed the control systems."
That's pretty nuts right there.
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Netflix charges over $20 for 3 movies a month (once you are past their new sub special). There is no way you'd get as many hours of entertainment from Netflix as you would from WoW.
Gamefly charges $25. Cable TV is at least $40.
If they raised their prices to $20 month, they might lose 20% of their customers. But they's increase profit by at least 70%. And spend less on bandwidth / servers / CS etc.
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I have to wonder, if WoW upped the sub price to $20 or $25 a month, what kind of impact that would have on the current number of subscriptions, and their future subscription growth. Would it slow down, stay the same? Would more people start quitting? Would they lose the casual Wow'er?
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As if the estimated (15x6million =) $90 million a month WoW makes isn't adequate, holy fuck comon.
Now, if he is saying that entertainment could be pushed to another level through the support of higher monthly revenue in some way, that would be one thing, but something pretty friggin incredible better happen before they go raising prices again.
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Yes, and if your game isnt anywhere close to being as good, they wont even bother with it.