SOE chief John Smedley speaks in an interview about the MMO business. As one of the leading minds, he is listened to attentively. Especially what he has to say about players’ earning opportunities in his MMOs should alert anyone with a creative streak.
In an interview with Fortune magazine, John Smedley talks about all things MMO-related. His studio, Sony Online Entertainment, has some hot irons in the fire with DCUO, Planetside 2, and the upcoming titles Everquest Next, Everquest Landmark, and H1Z1. The interview touches on numerous topics.
$10,000 checks go out to Planetside 2 players.
Smedley firmly believes that content, meaning game content, should and must be created by the players themselves in the future. Players are motivated by being involved in the revenue from their creative work. 40% goes to the part-time designers when their creations are purchased in the in-game shops of other players. In Planetside 2, players have created “camouflage” that has generated over $100,000.
“We are now regularly writing checks over ten thousand dollars,” Smedley said. “That will become quite normal.”
Furthermore, player feedback is immensely important. In Planetside 2, a complex “implant” feature was planned that would have required at least six months of effort. However, when asked for player feedback, they found the very idea of such a feature to be terrible. So, they quickly forgot the idea and moved on to something else instead of wasting resources.
DC Universe Online earns the most money on Playstation 3 and 4
Smedley revealed another astonishing detail in the interview. It is not Planetside 2 that earns the highest revenue on consoles, but the superhero MMO DC Universe Online leads on PS3 and PS4. Here, too, Smedley feels confirmed: The advantages of a free-to-play model based on microtransactions are superior to the conventional subscription model. That belongs to the past.
On consoles, the idea of free-to-play titles had a harder time gaining traction than on PC. But now, seeing the immense revenues generated through microtransactions, other parts of Sony, SECA, and SCEE are also interested in the free-to-play model.
The future belongs to an open model, where games benefit from community feedback during their development, and later produce and deliver content in collaboration with players, ultimately funded through microtransactions.
Mein MMO says: If one imagines that in Everquest Next and Everquest Landmark, the sandbox is emphasized and that items designed for Player’s Studio become even more important than in Planetside 2, this could turn into a respectable side income for passionate players, provided they have good ideas, creative skills, and a sense of player demand.
