2009's Most Interesting Stories, Part One

With December in full swing and the New year nearly upon us, Shannon Drake writes this look back at some of the most interesting stories of 2009.

2009 was a year of adjustment, which is a polite way of saying that the economy crashed into the sea, all the would-be World of Warcraft killers couldn't leave a dent in the beast, and a significant numbers of us wound up looking for jobs at one point or another, your humble correspondent included.

On the other hand, there were launches, shutdowns, announcements, pushbacks, and all the other usual causes for celebration and Internet Drama in the MMO space, and there were other interesting stories that came and went, maybe noticed at the time, but quickly forgotten as the latest story came to the fore.

As an aside, announcements and pushbacks do not (usually) concern me, because the following were all marked "coming in 2009" at some point, be it by the press or be it by official company line: Darkfall, DC Universe Online, All Points Bulletin, The Agency, Stargate Worlds, Free Realms, Aion, Lego Universe, FusionFall, Jumpgate Evolution, Black Prophecy, Earthrise, MechScape, Huxley, The Chronicles of Spellborn (US), Guild Wars 2. Of these, only Darkfall, Free Realms, Aion, FusionFall, and Spellborn (US) made it out. Announcing a game is something pretty much anyone can do and pushing back a game is something pretty much everyone does. Actually releasing a game, though, proves to be the tricky bit, which is why there aren't any announcements in here (though there certainly were some intriguing ones).

Accordingly, this is my own highly biased take on what I found most interesting in 2009, with a focus on the business side, because very, very few companies spend $30 million on a game out of the kindness and benevolence of their golden hearts.

In no particular order, my Most Important MMO Stories of 2009 are:

FusionFall Launches.

January begins with Big Content stomping into the MMO space in the form of Cartoon Network Universe: Fusionfall. Originally scheduled for a Summer 2008 release, the family-friendly game featured a powerhouse lineup of Cartoon Network properties, the financial backing of Turner Broadcasting, and the development expertise of Korea's Grigon Entertainment and drew writeups from Wired, MacWorld, and The Washington Post in addition to the usual MMO and tech sites. The world held its breath. Would Fusionfall herald a new world of entertainment synergy, where we'd play alongside our favorite characters from our favorite movie and TV properties?

The answer is pretty much: no.

The problem with launching an MMO targeted at kids (and stoners watching Adult Swim) is that the average MMO player is 26 and other studies show gamers tend to be older, male, and possibly deeply depressed, which is hardly a market down for hanging out with Dexter, Dee Dee, and the Kids Next Door (though others are certainly trying to compete in the space).

Fusionfall is not unsuccessful, persay, since it is currently still active, but it rather remarkably disappeared off the face of the earth after its January launch. The game rolled out, and nobody seems to have said a word about it since, save for a few mentions in Unity engine promotional materials and a blurb or two on them moving it into Asian markets, and silence seldom indicates "our game is massively successful," especially among publicly held companies, where you trumpet anything remotely good to boost your stock price and make everyone happy. Aside from its initial burst of buzz, nobody seems to be saying anything good or bad about FusionFall, proving it is possible to launch with a massive budget and promotional backing from a major network and still slip into obscurity.

No new MMO actually makes it onto the 360 or the Playstation 3.

This one is simple. Of the new games announced with console support--including Champions Online and Age of Conan--how many can you actually play right now on your XBox 360 or Playstation 3? While some are coming or "still in development, we promise," the answer is none, none whatsoever. Time to renew that Final Fantasy XI subscription, hunker down, and hope for the best.

Darkfall and Fallen Earth Launches.

Darkfall was something of an internet in-joke for years, with an eight year development timeline and a hyperaggressive, hyperdefensive community dedicated to the "hardcorer than thou" PvP aesthetic that largely died out after the launch of Trammel.

And then it actually came out, launching in July (and earlier in Europe). Despite ongoing Internet Drama, it continues to be out, and people continue to play it, with two expansions out and the team working away on more new content and features, proving that at least some of their most-vocal fans are putting their money where their mouth is and are signing up to play the game they've been clamoring about for years.

The big question for Darkfall in 2010 will be the same one that confronts PvP games and servers everywhere: can a game full of the "wolves" survive without a steady stream of "sheep" to keep them entertained? PvP servers and games tend to launch in big bursts of hype, then deflate as the 90% of would-be hardcore players realize no, they're not actually as good as the 10% that actually are the wolves, the way the loudmouth on any FPS server mysteriously disappears when someone better than him shows up.

Fallen Earth is in a similar niche product vein, though with considerably less drama. Post-apocalyptic games are hard enough to come by, but a post-apocalyptic modern game built around the sort of serious crafting game play last seen in pre-NGE Star Wars Galaxies? More than that, the world is desolate and rather bleak. While it is appealing to a certain part of the brain to romp around being chased by giant mutants, it takes a different sort of aesthetic taste to enjoy doing it in the reds and tans of the Arizona desert, surrounded by the remains of modern human civilization.

Still, the launch and continued success of Darkfall is heartening, if only for providing proof that a niche game with a specific for a specialized, niche audience can make it through launch and do well enough to merit subscriptions and playtime. Perhaps more developers will consider it, rather than taking a swing at the AAA MMO fences.

Mythic is Gutted.

Speculation was rampant when Mythic Entertainment was absorbed into the body of the all-consuming Electronic Arts. EA's history with MMOs hasn't exactly been sterling and successful, but they also brought a serious budget and promotional campaign to the launch of Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, enough that any game should theoretically get off the ground. And it did seem to be doing well--1.2 million box sales as of September 2008 and 300,000 subscribers as of the end of March 2009--though considering Mark Jacobs' claim that anything less than 500,000 subscribers would be considered a failure, as would having to merge servers, the game obviously didn't meet its projections.

The usual bloodletting occurred throughout the year, with layoffs in January and February, as well as Jacobs' own resignation in June and another round of layoffs in November as EA cleaned house on, well, pretty much everything. Thus the mouthy upstart that launched Dark Age of Camelot becomes another of those EA acquisitions that tend to be benignly (or not-so-benignly) neglected, though Warhammer soldiers on, much depleted, but still hanging in there. For now.

Champions Online Charges for Respecs.

While Champions Online is (or can be) a largely enjoyable game, there was one hint of microtransaction creep that might prove ominous in the future. While Free to Play games usually have all kinds of ways to charge you, from EXP Boosts to shiny new hairstyles, subscription games have largely kept the microtransactions to fluff items like pets and other non-gameplay items. However, when Champions launched, perched right there in with the costumes and emblems and other doodads were in-game respecs (Retcons), which was a bit of a concern for three reasons:

The first was that respecs usually had an in-game cost, rather than a real dollar cost, though defenders were quick to maintain that respecs should be infrequent and quite painful to keep people from constantly changing whatever they were specialized in and stick with a character concept. The second concern was Champions' rather opaque skill system, which requires quite a bit of dabbling to get right (ask me about the three gimped/broken characters perched above my play character!) and figure out what you want to do and what powers are actually worth taking.

The third, and largest, was what happened when the inevitable balancing patches changed your previously awesome character into a pile of nerf blocks? The inevitable happened, in that patches came out and changed everything, Cryptic swore up and down they couldn't give anybody free retcons, no-way no-how, then mysteriously discovered that they could actually give everybody retcons after a significant amount of forum drama. To their credit, retcons regularly come after balancing patches now, but it made for an interesting few days since the question came down to: Do I shell out a bunch of money to fix my broken character, do I soldier on, or do I quit the game?

Tabula Rasa Shuts Down.

Richard Garriott was the creator of the Ultima series, one of the first great RPG series, and owner of a castle from his RPG deeds and "Lord British" days, so things looked bright when he stepped in at NCSoft Austin. And then Tabula Rasa, Garriott's baby and pride and joy (to the point that he even changed his name to General British) went through seven years of development hell and several overhauls, revisions, and changes along the way.

At one point, it featured unicorns, giant spiders, and magic (and screenshot evidence exists here, too!), a far cry from the semi-grim sci-fi game that eventually staggered out the door.

The game did poorly, and, depending on whose account you believe, Garriott resigned with an official letter on the Tabula Rasa site or was shoved out the door as quickly as possible. He went on to become a Rocketman, fleeing/run out of an industry that he helped create, as well as suing NCSoft for potential shenanigans. It's a sad way for one of the old lions of the industry to go out.

Blizzard Provokes A Governmental Crisis.

Ah, China, the golden land where by some accounts everyone plays MMORPGs all the time and companies can't wait to get a slice of millions and millions of Chinese gamers, as well as the revenue they represent. World of Warcraft went to China--since it's everywhere in the known universe--and seemed to be doing well there. But there are some perils even World of Warcraft can't overcome, a lesson that while China may be a potential goldmine for revenues, access to that goldmine is controlled by a government that can pretty much do what it wants, even if sometimes it doesn't know what that is.

Previous clashes have involved Chinese values and internet skeletons, delays of the Wrath of the Lich Kinge expansion and slapfighting with Chinese operator The9, and picking a new service provider, but this year, Blizzard managed to provoke a governmental crisis. November saw the Chinese General Administration of Press and Publication and the Ministry of Culture slapfighting in the press about who had the authority to regulate World of Warcraft. There ain't no drama like WoW Drama and it's even more intense when a multibillion dollar industry is at risk because of it.

However, the big challenge confronting the China goldrushers is simply this: the government, obviously, can turn off the money tap any time it wants. From talking to Chinese developers, they work within a bizarre realm of government restrictions--which explains some of the genre's eccentricity--and the Chinese government takes a dim view of outside companies bringing in corrupting influences, which means whatever they want it to mean at any given moment. So while there may be a vast market to be tapped, one government decree stops the money train, and it could go away at any given time.