feature piece - Stewart Schley Content Services

Chaos never looked so entertaining as it does in this still
image from World of Warcraft, the 800-pound gorilla of online
games. Faster computers and high-speed connections make it
possible to play intense, graphically rich online video games.
Let the Games
Beguile!
SHEATHED IN A GREEN SHIRT, my chestnut
hair f lowing past my shoulders and the
muscles in my arms swollen in effort, I
make quick work of the fir tree with a
hatchet supplied to me by the lithe and
beautiful Bryanna, a siren of the forest if
ever there was.
Quick now: There is a fire to be built,
and I am just the man to do it, what with
my growing portfolio of skills and a leather
knapsack that seems to yield exactly the
proper implements at exactly the right time.
The task accomplished, the logs crackling
at my feet with flame, I am infused with
a radiant inner strength. I welcome any
challenge. But suddenly and without warning a stranger materializes on my right. A
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PAUSE | DECEMBER 2006
ONLINE PC GAMES, BOTH
CASUAL AND IMMERSIVE,
ARE CAPTIVATING MILLIONS
BY STEWART SCHLEY
stranger with an ominous name: “Diablo.”
Perhaps I have strayed too far into the
woods. Perhaps, in the end, I am not yet fit
for the rigors of Tutorial Island.
Good story, right? And guess what: It’s
all true. Better still, it all happened within
about five minutes after I logged on, created a password and a user name and slipped
my way into the electronic world of Runescape, a sort of fantasy-storybook land
where monsters lurk and damsels beckon.
I wasn’t alone. A counter on my screen
told me that on this otherwise normal Monday afternoon in August, exactly 198,439
people – some of whom probably should
have been working – were enjoying a little
escape of their own.
Runescape is one of the dozens of immersive video games known as “MMOGs,”
or “massively multiplayer online games,”
a category that’s fast transforming your
garden-variety PC from an instrument
of sullen spreadsheets and tax forms to a
phantasmagorical gaming machine.
MMOGs are bursting with popularity.
The Yankee Group, one of those well-respected consulting outfits that writes with
stead fast seriousness about things like
video games and (chuckle) “mobilizing
the enterprise,” sees rising momentum
for MMOGs like Runescape, which lets
players interact with virtual beings controlled by other players around the world.
The titanic leader of the category, though,
is Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft. An often-quoted MMOG guru, Bruce
Woodcock, estimates that Warcraft has
attracted more than 6.5 million subscribers, giving it a paying audience bigger than
that of The New York Times.
That spells big money. It costs $13$15 to keep an active subscription t o
Warcraft, and the subscription MMOG
category at large rakes in more than $2
billion a year, although a growing number
A Brief
Taxonomy of
Video Games
1. DOWNLOADED
Users purchase the entire
game – often a larger version
of an online game – and can
play without logging on.
1
2
4
3
2. SINGLE-PLAYER ONLINE
The gamer logs on to a site
and plays games hosted on
a server. Most casual games
work this way.
3. MULTIPLAYER
The most common type.
Gamers play alone or
through a network with
other game owners.
4. MMOG
Players gather online –
sometimes randomly – in an
environment hosted by
large arrays of servers.
of games, like Runescape, contain advertising and are free. But the price to play
is well worth it to Warcraft loyalists. The
game site was so overwhelmed with Internet traffic shortly after its November 2004
debut that many of its servers crashed.
What’s behind the MMOG uprising?
Plenty of factors that will keep sociologists
up late at night writing studied essays about
community and identity in the Internet
age, to be sure. But undeniably, there are
big technology drivers at work, too. For
one thing, the trusty old PC can do a lot
more graphically and in terms of response
times than it used to. In fact, despite all
the dust-up over exciting new video game
consoles like Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Sony’s
PlayStation 2 and the highly anticipated
Nintendo Wii, the most popular gaming
platform in the world is the PC. There are
hundreds of millions of PCs in the world,
and game industry experts figure about
half are used at least occasionally to play
video games.
But the PC is just one part of gaming’s
new technology food chain. At the other
end are high-speed broadband Internet
connections provided by communications
companies like Mediacom. They’ve unleashed new possibilities in the realm of
videogames, with MMOGs providing an
obvious example. “MMOGs have become
richer and deeper with faster Internet access,” says a recent Yankee Group report.
It’s a valid point. But with broadband Internet speeds getting faster – Mediacom,
for example, offers an upgraded Internet
WELL, THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE
PopCap Games’ Zuma – one of the most
popular “casual” online games – puts you
in the role of a stone frog that protects gold
statues from menacing, rolling gemstones,
by destroying them with balls you shoot
from your mouth.
A
Publication
service, Mediacom Online Max, that tops
out at a swift 10 megabits per second of
data – the possibilities for graphic ally
rich, fleet-fingered interactive games are
growing by the day.
GOING CASUAL
At the other end of the spectrum is a different breed of games that also flows over
today’s revved-up Internet lines. Even
as highly immersive MMOGs captivate
zealots, the category of so-called “casual
games” is growing even faster. Typified by
simple, addictive word games and puzzles
like Zuma, Diner Dash and Sudoku, the
casual games category is almost singlehandedly responsible for broadening the
video-gaming demographic beyond the
stereotypical notion of the sleep-deprived
teen with two empty Cheetos bags under
his chair.
According to research from several industry followers, slightly more than half
of online casual game players are women,
most of them over 35. Many seem to be
smitten by a few attributes common to
most casual games. For one thing, casual
games reward thinking skills and are slyly
PAUSE | DECEMBER 2006
17
ONLINE VIDEO GAMES
G4
Mainstreaming
the Medium
GSN (WWW.GSN.COM) IS CELEBRATING ITS
10TH ANNIVERSARY, extending its franchise
to blend innovative original game concepts
with reality production. GSN, for example,
features 84 hours per week of interactive
programming. It gives viewers a chance to
win prizes by playing along with GSN’s televised games via GSN.com.
The network also features game shows,
documentaries, alternative sports and casino-type games. In December, GSN plans
to cover the first Worldwide Web Games
Championship.
Created by FUN Technologies Inc., one of
the world’s leading online casual gaming
providers, the WorldWide Web Games will
let millions of players vie for the championship round by competing in three of the
most popular skill-based games: Bejeweled 2,
Solitaire or Zuma. The best all-around player
G4 at E3: Hosts Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb of X-Play with Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn of Attack of the Show report on the latest in
will win a $1 million grand prize.
gaming cool at the Electronic Entertainment Expo.
At G4 (www.g4tv.com), this past May was
G4’s video game programming includes Electric Playground, Cheat
the network’s highest-rated month ever thanks to week-long, highand
X-Play. Among the network’s offerings, X-Play has become the
definition coverage of E3, the games industry’s annual mega-conmost
downloaded podcast. And from G4’s interactive video game
vention and product showcase. The network also has covered the
roots,
Star Trek 2.0 and Attack of the Show have become major hits.
Tokyo Games Show, as well as last autumn’s launch of Xbox 360.
Slightly more than one half of online casual game
players are women, most of them over 35.
“Casual games,” says Julie Pitt of RealArcade.com,
“are easy to get into, but difficult to master.”
conceived to pose progressively difficult
challenges even as players improve, says
Julie Pitt, the general manager of Real
Arcade, one of a handful of prominent casual-game portals on the Internet (www.
realarcade.com). “They’re easy to get into,
but difficult to master,” says Pitt. For another thing, she says casual games tend to
deliver a satisfying sense of order that appeals
to many women.
At Real Arcade, visitors can sample
popular titles like Cakemania, Mah Jong
Medley and Supercollapse on Shockwave
by clicking on a few icons and, depending on their computer software, fetching a
simple-to-install plug-in that takes only a
minute or so to download.
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PAUSE | DECEMBER 2006
Full-f ledged versions of many games
can be purchased with a credit card right
on the spot – they’ll download to your PC
and remain there, allowing you to play
anytime. Other games are totally free at
Real Arcade and many other game portals. The Mediacom Internet portal at
www.mediacomtoday.com, for example,
offers lots of casual games with no subscription or payment requirement at all.
Industry watchers now believe more
than 100 million people worldwide are
regular players of casual games. One reason: casual games are far less demanding,
time-wise, than the highly immersive
MMOGs that tend to keep players glued
to the screen for hours (or sometimes days)
per session. Enthusiasts often play in short,
bursty sessions of as few as 5 or 10 minutes.
“It’s sort of like recess for adults,” Pitt says.
Dedicated gamer, casual or somewhere
in between, there’s clearly a revolution under way in the converging world of video
games and the Internet. Three years ago,
the TV research firm Nielsen Media Research noticed for the first time a puzzling
shortfall in a particular audience demographic: 18-to-34 year old males. Turns
out that a good chunk of the young male
audience was no longer watching TV, but
instead was consumed with online gaming
during prime time.
Of course, personally I can’t imagine
any such nonsense ever occupying my
leisure time. But that’s just me. Now if
you’ll excuse me, and I have some Wallbeasts to slay, and there’s still a good eight
hours before sunlight.
Stewart Schley writes about technology
and media from Englewood, Colo.
Learn more about Mediacom Online on page 40.