Mary Jane Irwin

Mary Jane Irwin

8/07/2008 @ 6:00AM

Richard Garriott On Gaming's Future

Even Russians know Richard Garriott; the guards at his training facility outside Moscow salute the billionaire with the nickname “Lord British.” Garriott has made a name for himself over the years–first as an online videogame designer, best known for his 1980s creation “Ultima,” and now as a commercial space flight advocate.

This October, he’ll be launching into space for a 10-day stint aboard the International Space Station (ISS), which orbits the earth. Accompanying him on his journey will be the entire population of his massively multiplayer videogame, “Tabula Rasa,” and 40 digitized DNA sequences–all stored on a hard drive he calls the immortality drive.

Despite Garriott’s pending trip, which he hopes will prove laymen can play a useful role in space exploration, he’s still thinking about the world of online games.

Here are excerpts from a recent interview with Garriott. So, will you be joining up with “Tabula Rasa” players from the space station?

Richard Garriott: I can’t play from the space station; it’s logistically impossible. Even as we looked into the feasibility [of playing], we were scaring the ISS partners. They were worried about people hacking through the Internet and wreaking havoc.

What’ll be the next frontier you explore after conquering space? Are you still thinking about massively multiplayer games (MMOs)?

I’m a devout believer in and excited by the exploration of the real and virtual world. Space is just one of the massive facets I’m exploring. Currently, massively multiplayer online gaming is the most interesting and challenging space. There really are some problems with the current landscape.

Like what?

Online games are so big, long and expensive that we have not yet seen very many attempts to break out of the basic paradigm. They follow the very simplest model patterned after “EverQuest.” They’re based out of a very simple advancement and challenge cycle. When you face a bigger challenge, you level up, and then you move into another area. I’m still waiting for games to break out of that mold.

What is the unexplored territory for MMOs?

Creating an epic that’s dictated by the player. Instead of fighting monsters, leveling up, then fighting more monsters, it should do something quite different and targeted at social networking–a “metaverse” for creating all facets of reality and social interaction. The [current MMOs] that try to be very diverse do nothing very well and fail to create a strong persistent universe.

The more focused the game, the better it is at sustaining a core market like “EverQuest” or “World of Warcraft,” but those tend to be stuck in a rut–not to knock on those games. They are doing well because they are fantastic as an art medium, so to speak, but to expand the market into the console/core, we need to reshape that simple play mechanic.

Things like “Spore” are an attempt to reshape the interpretation of gameplay in an online environment, but it has yet to be seen–at least by me–if that will become a long-term interesting model. And we’ll see more experiments in bigger subscription MMOs vs. free-to-play games, digital purchases and episodic content. All interesting experiments, but I still think the fundamental play mechanic needs some growth.

What are some other big trends rocking the games industry?

One troublesome trend of this last year or two has been complexity and cost, therefore [an increase in] time spent creating any game. One of the interesting opportunities and challenges that [other media] no longer face is the evolution of the platform.

If I have an idea for a movie, I can find someone to bankroll it, buy film stock, have a set built and schedule out how long it will take to film and budget how much it will cost. If it was a good idea, it will be a good movie. We don’t have anywhere near that kind of stability [in games]. The capabilities of the machine are getting better, but it’s coming at the cost that it’s taking longer and longer [with] bigger expenses to present [a game] to the customer. The risk and cost is causing a narrowing of people’s risk aversion. That, I think, is the biggest challenge.

What do you see happening to the medium in the next few years?

Over the long haul, the main shuffle will be in the business model relationship with the customer. I’m using the cable TV model [to show] how gaming will evolve. I don’t believe it will be identical or a direct parallel, but there’s a lot to be learned from it.

The thing that won’t be sustained is expecting a gamer to subscribe to five different services and them feeling like they have a moral obligation to play in five different universes. The cost of cable TV is substantially in excess of online games, and most people who play any online games are spending a lot more time on much cheaper gaming experiences than that of the much more expensive cable TV. The money flow will shift from one side to the other.

Do you think that videogames will become the dominate form of entertainment?

That is undeniably true. Everyone knows TV is a passive activity. The real world is failing to bring us together with like-minded and like-focused individuals.

How is it that online games do a better job at bringing people together than real life? Aren’t games blamed for driving people apart?

If you run into someone who plays “Tabula Rasa,” they are guaranteed to have a direct interest in the same activity and social outlook as you do. There’s a high probability of them becoming a long-term friend.

Online games go far beyond a mere form of passive entertainment. Not only are they intellectually engaging, but they also help plug a hole in modern society where the reality of urban sprawl is separating people. In online games, the whole point is to be playing with tens of thousands of people around the globe.

See Also:

Billionaires In Space


How Free Games Make Money

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