Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Stumbling Out of the Gate
Everquest II is not doing well.
There are several ways to tell when a game is not doing well:
1. A free trial appears on Fileplanet.
2. The price drops from $49.99 to $29.99 just 4 months after release. (Collector's Edition, originally $89.99 (!), is now $39.99.)
3. Everybody's playing the other game.
4. The publisher has to beg players to keep playing.
The first step in getting the game back on track is figuring out why people don't like it. The first step is NOT immediately copying everything people like about other games and shoehorning it into yours.
There are several ways to tell when a game is not doing well:
1. A free trial appears on Fileplanet.
2. The price drops from $49.99 to $29.99 just 4 months after release. (Collector's Edition, originally $89.99 (!), is now $39.99.)
3. Everybody's playing the other game.
4. The publisher has to beg players to keep playing.
The first step in getting the game back on track is figuring out why people don't like it. The first step is NOT immediately copying everything people like about other games and shoehorning it into yours.
- Exhibit A (mimicks WoW's mail system almost to a fault)
- Exhibit B (similar to City of Heroes' Sidekick system)
- Exhibits C, D, and E (catering to solo players, like WoW. Making instanced zones a bigger part of the game, like WoW...and Anarchy Online before it. Making all items stick to you--"attuned"--once you use them, just like all items in WoW become "soulbound".)
So what is it that people don't like about EQ2? That's a long answer, and it deserves its own entry.
