April 3rd, 2008

Some wisdom for all Indie MMO Developers

At the Indie MMO Game Developers Conference this past weekend, BioWare Austin’s co-studio director, Gordon Walton preaches about how indie MMO developers are the ones pushing the boundaries of the genre, as they’re able to take more risks and are more eager to establish their brand in the booming industry.

Walton says indie MMO games shouldn’t worry about sizing up to big budget triple-A titles, but rather to target a niche audience. Fact is, highly successful MMOs cater mostly to casual audiences, since that’s where the money’s at, that’s the largest market. The mainstream market is the largest of any industry for that matter. Small companies should provide something that’s going to fill the void, whatever’s currently in demand.

EVE Online has one of the most daunting learning curves of any MMO out on the market right now and has an enormous cult following. Age of Conan will up the ante and re-raise the bar for future MMOs to come, because it will be recognized as an emerging force in the MMO arena thanks to its polished presentation, high production values, public exposure and just the right amount of deviation from the standard MMO gameplay formula.

However, EVE Online and Age of Conan aren’t relatively considered indie and not all indie MMO developers have as much resources as CCP and Funcom to develop such quality titles, but then you have games like Neocron and Jumpgate, which are a step down, production-wise, but can still thrive.

- Source