What would a hot day in Texas be without a little dust raising? It looks like Turbine’s VP of Product Development, Craig Alexander raised a little dust himself, as well as a few eyebrows when he took the stage on the last day of the GDC Austin 2009 event. In his presentation Alexander stated that the market of MMORPG’s on consoles, specifically Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3 could be worth in upwards of $2.3 billion a year. Obviously a number no one is willing to pass on. However, up until now, no one’s taken a fair stab at making this dream a reality. To this end, according to Alexander, Turbine’s about to take a serious run at tapping this multi-billion dollar market.
In his address, Alexander confirmed that the Westwood, MA based Turbine studios is in fact current at work on a console MMORPG. Citing the technical challenges of the physical operating procedure Sony’s PS3 employs, Alexander said that the team is developing for the PS3, with plans to shortly there after port the title to the Xbox. But if it sounds so easy on paper, why haven’t there been more serious attempts at addressing this market? In the end, it comes down to one simple answer: Money. According to Alexander, any decent attempt at this project is going to cost somewhere in the $20 million range just to develop. Given that Turbine has recently started receiving funding from a proposed $50 million investment round, their popular Lord of the Rings Online shows no signs of dipping in popularity, and their most recent experimentation into the world of hybrid subscriptions/microtransactions supported Dungeons and Dragons is out of the gate with a label of success, it’s fair to say that Turbine has the cheddar to make this a reality.
Alexander says that part of the difficulty in creating an MMORPG for a console is that in order to succeed, it must be radically different from the current state of play. A console MMO would need to have better graphics, less grind, and much more social interaction than is currently employed in the unofficial ‘standard elements your MMORPG must contain’ handbook. Speaking to the fact that many consider MMO’s a purely PC based form of play, Alexander was quick to point out that the same arguments were previously made when applied to sports sims and the FPS genre, but now market leaders Madden and Call of Duty have a massive console audience and following.
When talking monetization, Alexander primarily focused on subscriptions. Notably, he pointed out that reoccurring billing (subscriptions, if you will) options are already available on both platforms, and that the Xbox Live services are a clear indication that set top box players are willing to set up subscriptions and pay for additional enjoyment. If any of this sounds familiar, don’t forget that the rumor mill was rife with speculation back in May when the idea of LotRO microtransactions being utilized in the Xbox 360 item shop circulated. Alexander flatly and specifically denied this rumor of porting LotRO to the Xbox during his presentation.
And while the rumor didn’t pan out, it’s clear that with the implementation of a hybrid model with Dungeons and Dragons Online, and this confirmation that Turbine is seriously committed to a perhaps industry revolutionizing MMO for consoles project, clearly something major is afoot at Turbine. If they can truly hit the nail on the head and show us something that’s never been seen before, the pure subscription based model may have merit, but if they fall anything short of perfect, we may see them revert to something they’ve already seen work, and work well – the microtransaction/subscription hybrid model.
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