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While MMO games certainly seem to be going strong, there is some indications that they are also getting repetitive. Already, males in the 12-18 age group appear to be losing interest. This makes it increasingly difficult for gaming companies - particularly start-ups - to get funding for new projects.
Aleks Krotoski, writing in the UK Guardian Gamesblog, suggests that in the future, we may see corporate advertising in MMO games, by supermarket chains, department stores, sporting goods companies, and more. The massive amount of capital that such corporations could infuse into a struggling development company could allow for the development of more innovative titles and tremendous technological advances.
On the other hand, in a world already over-saturated with corporate media advertising, this could very well backfire - even if the advertising were embedded in a non-intrusive and/or amusing way (which is unlikely). Additionally, when there is outside corporate control, the issue of censorship raises its ugly head ("Sorry, but the female character's outfit is a little too skimpy for our conservative shareholders' tastes...") More on this as it develops.
Other development models include a "free agent" system for developers, similar to professional sports. Gaming companies would hire developers (or development teams) for a project once it has been funded and greenlighted, thus eliminating a great deal of risk and expense of maintaining a staff between projects. The developers would in turn have more freedom and have opportunities to work on a wide variety of projects. It does create a potentially dangerous imbalance of power in employers' favor, however - and if developers were to become unhappy and dissatisfied...well, you probably know what might happen then.
Finally, nothing succeeds like success - Ultima Online has been very profitable for eight years with its "episodic" model. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, this game has built on its original release with new downloadable content produced on an ongoing basis. Here, most of the investment is up-front; once the initial game is released, costs to the company are minimal. On the other hand, if it turns out to be a "dud," and a company has invested 80-90% of its development funds in the initial release, they've lost their market almost immediately.
We'll see how this model works for other MMO games soon enough: Half-Life: Episode 1 launches at the end of June.
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