Matthew
BloodStar Technologies
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Posted - 2008.06.18 22:58:00 -
[1]
 Originally by: trading hub
because for sure there are people out there who are hungry for space sci-fi adventure, which has very complex game mechanics (including myself), but there are not that many
Define "not that many". In the context of the internet-connected population of the world, 300k is "not that many", yet is more than enough for a viable business.
Originally by: trading hub
My understanding is such that (generally speaking) when a company occupies a niche that implies, that there is a unique type of demand on the market, which the company satisfies. That in turn implies high barriers to entry into that particular niche, because only that company is able to satisfy this particular type of demand due to specific expertise (i.e. ferrari)
Ferrari didn't pop out of the ether a fully-capable sports car manufacturer. And they are not the only company capable of fulfilling the demand. However, because of their experience, prior development etc, they have a significant advantage over any new company trying to enter that market.
The same is true of CCP. They are pretty much the only company with years of experience running a game such as Eve. It is important to remember that while Eve and WOW are both MMO's, they are very different games. Sure, they share some similarities. But then so do cars. They all have wheels, an engine etc, but knowing how to make a reliant robin is very different from knowing how to make a ferarri.
This experience is particularly valuable, given how far the Eve niche is from the historical experience base of the wider gaming industry. There was a reason the first generation MMOs were pretty much a persistent-world version of the old D&D single-player games, with various amounts of instancing, no-PVP areas etc to hold the essentially single-player or single-party model together in an MMO environment. These origins make sense, as it was a natural extension of existing skillsets within the industry. This evolved into the raid system WOW implemented so successful. Similarly, the WOW battlegrounds could be seen as a derivation of standard first-person shooter game forms, with instancing and lack of significant death penalty shoe-horning it into an MMO environment.
Eve took a leap of faith over to the other side of the MMO concept, making a sandbox world from the ground up, rather than trying to tack MMO elements into the old RPG concepts. It's a niche because relatively few players are willing to make that leap. But having made that leap successfully puts CCP in a very strong position within the section of players who are willing to depart from the old formula.
Originally by: trading hub
SO  Here is the question for you (no judgment implied, just raising the topic) - do you want to be a group of enthusiasts, who occupy a niche within a niche, or do you want to try to beat Blizzard in their own game and CHOP into WOW profits and market share?
Thoughts ?
That really depends on what it would take to chop into WOW's profits and market share. If the eve-style MMO model could be capable of that, then great, lets go for it. But I suspect it is not.
If that is the case, then you would have to change the game-style of Eve to be less like Eve, and more like WOW. Aside from my personal feelings that this is a bad idea, because I like Eve how it is, this is also a risky business strategy. You risk alienating your existing playerbase, with no guarantee of securing a new playerbase with your changes (which is likely to be harder anyway if you have a horde of former players filling the internet with how you screwed them over).
While it might be a desperation move if the company is in trouble, for a viable and growing company such as CCP, that risk makes very little business sense.
The real question is, does Eve need to be as big as WOW to be a successful business? On current evidence, the answer is a resounding no.
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