Some Gamers Don't Trust Cryptic with D&D, but I Trust Shane Hensley to Deliver

The official Neverwinter MMORPG trailer is out and it looks good.

Check out the Blue Dragon at the end of the video...it looks like D&D. I am officially excited.

I have faith in the gameplay, now if they can only release anywhere close to GenCon.

Blizzard Finds Method to Create Profitable Commercial: Sam Raimi to Direct "World of Warcraft" Film

A couple of years ago movie going audiences started seeing advertisements for Blizzard Entertainment designed video games. First came the advertisements for Warcraft III, then came the advertisements for World of Warcraft. The advertisements were exciting, entertaining, and conveyed an accurate depiction of what consumers could expect from the video game products.

The advertisements also worked. Warcraft III sold 1 million copies in its first month of release. Given that Blizzard shipped 4.4 million copies upon release in order to meet demand and that Warcraft III related products are still on top 20 sales lists for PC games, we can guess that Warcraft III has sold in excess of 4 million copies. Better yet, as of the end of the first quarter of 2009 World of Warcraft had subscription revenues of $314 million for the first quarter of 2009. With the World of Warcraft MMORPG, Activision-Blizzard essentially has a blockbuster movie a month in revenue with a cost of goods sold of less than $20 million per $100 million. Not a bad revenue stream.

Marketing is one effective way to increase a revenue stream, but Activision-Blizzard do an ample amount of marketing and marketing isn't free...or is it? What if Activision-Blizzard made a movie for $100 million, with an established genre director, and the movie turned a profit? What if people who watched the movie, but hadn't played World of Warcraft the game yet, became subscribers to the game? Wouldn't that be an advertisement that not only paid for itself in new subscribers, but literally paid for itself because people paid admission to watch the advertisement?

BRILLIANT!

This is exactly what Activision-Blizzard announced today. In 2006, we mentioned that Legendary Pictures was interested in making a World of Warcraft movie, now Blizzard Entertainment and Legendary Pictures have signed Sam Raimi to direct a World of Warcraft motion picture. As a director and producer Sam Raimi has been involved in several successful "geek" genre ventures. From his successful Spider-Man comic book adaptations to Army of Darkness,, Hercules, Xena, and Legend of the Seeker, Raimi has demonstrated that he approaches these ventures with a "fan's eye." One can easily see how Raimi's ability to combine humor and darker elements will be a virtue for the World of Warcraft movie. According to Variety, Raimi will pick up the reins after he completes his work on Spider-Man 4.

Geek reaction to Raimi's involvement is certain to be mixed. Some fans will yawn, others will grown, still others will cheer.

Put us among those that will cheer, but with a slight tapering worry based sigh at the end of the cheer. Raimi can make a great World of Warcraft film, but only if he concentrates on making a great fantasy movie that takes place in the World of Warcraft and avoids trying to simulate playing sessions as film.

End of Gaming as We Know It Announced at GDC: Hello Kitty MMORPG to Be Released in the US

Every so often there is a paradigm shifting event that occurs within the media. Sometimes it is something like Poe's invention of the detective mystery or the Lucas/Spielberg invention of the blockbuster. In the 1980s, one huge paradigm shift in afternoon animation was the shift to cartoons that were blatant advertisements for lines of toys. When the toys being advertised through cartoon stories were things like GI JOE and TRANSFORMERS, children had much reason to rejoice. But when the next shift came, the STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE and MY LITTLE PONY shift, teenage boys throughout America wept as they watched their favorite shows replaced by talking ponies.

This week at the Game Developers Convention in San Francisco, a paradigm shift of monumental proportions was announced. Sanrio, the makers of those cute HELLO KITTY artifacts we find at malls across America, are going to be launching a HELLO KITTY MMORPG in the United States. Just when beautiful women like Felicia Day were giving fathers everywhere hope that their daughters could share the joys of crushing Horde Guilds in PvP Raids, Sanrio dashes all those hopes aside by creating this game. Now the young girls of the world will be able to:



"Just soak up the super-cute atmosphere?!" We're doomed. No instanced dungeons slaying the minions of a diabolical lich. No riding giant tigers and Gryphons. No mining for ore to manufacture our sweet rifles so that we can shoot our Orcish enemies. Nope. We can spend money at malls...interact with Sanrio characters...and cultivate our own farm. This gives new meaning to "farming" in an MMO.

What is the father of twin daughters to do?

Oh well...maybe I can customize my character to be like Pochacco. He's cute as can be after all.

Is the Geek Sexy Star of The Guild Felicia Day a Griefer?

Will Hindmarsh, of the excellent game design discussion website GamePlayWright, posted the following excerpt from Jimmy Fallon's late night show. In the piece, sweet and innocent Felicia Day -- star of THE GUILD and Dr. Horrible (among other things) -- decides to help Jimmy Fallon in his quest to become a better MMORPG player. The bit is humorous, and was obviously intended to be, but it touches upon one of negative aspects of online gaming...that of the griefer -- the person who likes to run around killing n00bs.

Watch the video below to see if you catch what I am referring to.



Did you notice her reaction when Fallon mentioned that he called his character Davarnon? She shows an understandable amount of revulsion at the childish name (though it's better than Lothar of the Hill People -- see below -- an actual Mike Myers D&D character), but she also expresses that the name may be why Fallon is griefed so often when playing the game. The implication, from the limited representation of her gaming style in this video, is that she would have griefed him as well.

One of the major drawbacks of MMOs is the tendency of some players to take great enjoyment in killing new players over and over again...for laughs. As a gamer, it can get irritating when one is on the victim side of the equation, and we find of Player vs. Player action to be juvenile at best. MMO companies have yet to find good solutions to this style of play, as those who most enjoy it will pursue ways around any in game fixes. A famous example would be when Asheron's Call veterans, unable to attack less experienced characters directly, would antagonize some large beast, have it chase them, and then run by some newer player leaving the new players character crushed by the monstrosity.

The Fallon piece, and Hindmarch's comments, also makes clear the distinction between the fanciful suspension of disbelief of the new player and the pragmatic "assumed systemic" worldview of the veteran. The veteran seems to no longer be participating in a narrative fantasy simulation experience, rather they are viewing the experience through the rational systems underlying the mechanical functions of the game universe. This usually occurs gradually as the experienced player discovers the limitation of the given simulation and adapts their expectations to suit the mechanical framework. In a computer simulation, this is the only possible response, other than complaining to the programmers to expand the scope of the simulation.

One of the advantages of table top gaming is that it need not suffer from this problem. If a table top game's systems cannot emulate a given desired narrative situation, the players and game master can make up the difference through player interaction or Game Master fiat. This can be one of the more rewarding experience in a table top game, the crafting of new rules on the fly. You cannot do that in a computer simulation, you must accept the systemic framework you are given.

The jadedness of such limitations may be partially explanatory for the griefing phenomenon, but given Felicia's recent tweets regarding a D&D game she is playing in as a Death Knight...I am thinking that she vents her frustrations on the console/gaming table. That's something that both tabletop and computer based gaming can offer...stress relief.

It breaks our heart to think that Felicia Day might be a cruel griefer, we'll chalk it all up to stress relief.

Michelle Nephew has some words about role taking in gaming environments in her dissertation, we'll have to pull that out for a post on role playing as wish fulfillment on a later post.