Money Idea of the Day- The casual RPG

Let’s get this out of the way now, because it needs to be said. Storage limits are no longer a major consideration. That doesn’t mean they don’t have to be contended with, but if you have the game, odds are you can probably swing it. That’s not always true, of course, but it’s worth noting that storage sizes are so large that we have a real opportunity right now to reinvent a few wheels.

Grinding drives a lot of people towards RPGs, and it also drives a lot away. As a market, the grinding, arduous, 60-hour plus RPG has done exceedingly well. And the 100+ hour RPG, has also done exceedingly well.

I spend a lot of time talking about World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy, mainly because I truly think they do a lot right and a lot that is deplorable. I think that neither Blizzard nor Final Fantasy could reinvent the wheel, because of how much they have loaded on to their cart. Make no mistake, if Square doesn’t feel it is pushing an envelope, you are likely looking at a sequel or spin-off. This means that any space considerations are always going to be a prescient concern as they will always run out of it. So right there, I have little faith that the big dawg would come after me. And Blizzard? Too big and successful to care.

Bioware gets it. They keep their grinding short, and I would argue that many future RPG’s need to keep it shorter? How do they do it? Content, content, content.

The traditional RPG was meant for a Japanese audience, and audience that loved leveling up, either by traditional methods or over the long slog of many hours on a tactile grid, exchanging various experience points, using items, and casting various versions of fire.

That audience is shrinking in its overall profitability, probably for a multitude of reasons. But the point remains.

A shorter RPG, could be epic. It would be an event. Make leveling not a goal, let the events be what gains you something. A Zelda strength model for RPG! Does this put the game and skills more on a rail? To an extent, but it also means that, if you make the world large enough, that you are rewarded more for your ingénue than for how long you spend on a couch.

And SPACE is less a factor than ever. Imagine if you could create a game 5x the size of a big game, without the leveling to get in the way? Take graphics down a notch; the best games do. Counterstrike never looked cutting edge. World of Warcraft looks antiquated. Starcraft 2 is meant to run on even simple systems. Size matters, but the potential right now is smearing on the gameplay, on the addiction, . You would attract gamers who feel jaded by the new RPG’s, who are bored with current ones, or who simply don’t have the time or dedication they once did.

So when thinking about RPG’s and video games, what else do people do? More to the point: are there people who watch movies every day? Of course, but there’s also a lot of people who only watch movies on a Friday night.

Aha.

There’s also people who play Dungeons and Dragons once or twice a week, and a considerably smaller number who play every night.

A-ha!

Event gaming.

Take a big draw of World of Warcraft such as seasonal or sponsored events, and make that a game! Make a giant world that you can only see once! Keep it simple, maybe use a template or software, but tell an entire story arc in one night.

Just don’t make it an episode! People love episodes, but this ain’t Tivo! Make it an event, make it challenging enough for real gamers, but make it accessible! Charge pennies, but make millions. Put in-game advertising in on billboards, in witty ways to subsidize development costs, not as an add-on. This would let people in on a world, or a couple worlds. Make playing the game the reward, not persistently leveling up until 3 am the cost. Episodic gaming means that people have to be in a certain time, at a certain place. Have multiple servers? How about multiple start times? If movie theaters can do it, why can’t game companies? There is none of the overhead and a fraction of the investment- people bring their own seats! Hell, you can even charge more for off-peak gaming. Matinee servers! Smaller companies could offset larger costs during peak hours by diverting traffic to other hours, and create a significant margin overage during those peak hours and invest that balance into better servers! IF you have a real story to tell, you can get people excited. Keep them hungry! Everyone, from release schedules, from Blizzard to Bungie to Squenix, to Disney to Dreamworks to McDonald’s to Nintendo KNOWS THIS WORKS. But for video games, no one has ever tried it quite like this.

Then, you collect, say, a season’s worth of content, sell it as an anthology, and reap more profits! This is entirely possible with today’s technology. It would be fun gaming, renegade creativity. There’s a place for Pixar, but there’s also a place for Daffy Duck cartoons. Before Toy Story, remember, there was a DVD worth of animated shorts.

There’s gold in them thar hills, and the only limit is when people say “no”.