The short and long tails of Massively Multiplayer Games
by Vladimir Cole 
{ Aug 26th 2005 at 9:30AM }
Lots has been written about the Long Tail of certain media assets, but here's a quick summary of the theory and an application of it to the massively multiplayer genre.
Long after certain consumer products are popular, they continue to sell and can, over the long run, ring up sales volumes that rival the biggest blockbuster products. Music, for instance, sells well for years after that music topped the Billboard pop charts. Some games also have a long tail: witness Atari's launch of retro gaming systems this summer and last summer.
But the MMOG genre has no Long Tail. MMOGs just die. They have no Long Tail because they cost bucketloads of money to run. Servers must be hosted in secure facilities and they must be connected to the Internet via costly bandwidth contracts. Staff must be trained to maintain those servers. Customer service people need to answer emails and resolve customer disputes. So instead of just sitting around forever and earning a trickle of revenue for a very long time, MMOGs are the only games products that are truly shut down.
Genre-defining games like Everquest will eventually be shut down in much the same way that Asheron's Call 2 will be shut down later this year. Even so, we predict that at some point Moore's Law will revive these shut-down games. As hardware becomes increasingly powerful and bandwidth becomes increasingly cheap, companies will be able to revive and run their most successful MMOGs at a fraction of today's costs.
Which of us wouldn't love get our nostalgic kicks on in World of Warcraft's re-release in 2030, long after its current popularity has faded?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Zaphod @ Dec 18th 2005 9:07PM
I think the author is right that there are large costs associated with running a *good* MMOGs, and having the proper numbers of quality staff is vital for a games success. Because of that, I don't think lowered hardware costs will change the viability of running most games.
I'd also comment that it seems like no one so far has put together a quality game and figured out how to keep it "new" for players over a period of years. Simply opening a new area is not enough to keep the interest of veteran players who have already burned out on the game. Until someone comes up with the right model, I think all MMOGS that run in persistent worlds will have this fate hanging over them.
Mark Wallace @ Dec 18th 2005 9:07PM
Um, yeah, MMOs get shut down, but unles they're total failures (AC2), they don't get shut down until they've after they've been producing income for years longer than most games. Ultima Online is approaching the decade mark, and continues to generate what, $15-20 million a year in revenue or more? Is there a console game out there that was released in 1997 and that's still selling the equivalent of 150,000 copies a month at $10-15 each? I have no idea, but I doubt it.
I don't really see what's short about the MMO tail here. MMOs that die are the exception rather than the rule. Which other shut-down games are you talking about that need to be revived?
vladimir cole @ Dec 18th 2005 9:07PM
Mike: the long tail is a phenomenon measured in terms of decades. An MMO does throw off cash for longer than a traditional game, but if you compare it to a TV series like "Friends" you'll see that it's still making this money during its primary launch window. There is no aftermarket for MMOs.
1997 to 2005: no big deal.
1997 to 2050: not gonna happen for MMOGs in the way that it is currently happening for Atari console games.
Mark Wallace @ Dec 18th 2005 9:07PM
Well, I'd submit that we don't have the data for the 2005-2050 period yet, so it's impossible to say. MMOs are very sticky places. Given the kinds of strong relationships that form there, I wouldn't be surprised if some worlds go on generating cash for decades. There are text-based MUDs that have been around for 25 years (though most of these are free). Graphical MMOs in general aren't even ten years old yet (Meridian 59 was released in 1996), and are just starting to become places that are tied more strongly to their residents' real lives. Television has been around for half a century. I wonder whether there are any shows from the first decade of television that are still generating revenue. (I wouldn't be surprised either way, but I wouldn't know what they are off the top of my head either.)
Let's just say I'm more optimistic.
--Mark
BatzRadio @ Dec 18th 2005 9:07PM
Actually - I think the solution to this may come from, of all places, the MMO hacker community. For some games there's a pretty healthy Private Server community. I think the MMO gamemakers (especially the ones with games that near an end-of-supported-life situation) may do well to embrace this idea of releasing their server software to the public for their waning titles. And hey, they may even still be able to make a buck off of their client software for a while longer.
Worked for the FPS's, ya know?
Gamerhound @ Dec 18th 2005 9:07PM
But 'the pile of bodies' in the diagram only occurs very rarely, hardly enough to be considered. Are there that many of them playing Madden 1999 or even Simcity classic? It's just a very small minor bleep for most games.
startled @ Dec 18th 2005 9:07PM
"Mike: the long tail is a phenomenon measured in terms of decades."
No, the long tail is simply what portion of the sales (or whatever you're measuring) fall under your amplitude threshold. The subscriber base for something like Puzzle Pirates falls below any reasonable popularity threshold, so any money derived from it would contribute to long tail.
Long tail is often used to refer to two different things: one, the sale of items below a certain threshold; two, the sale of a product after its initial high sales period. With conventional media, it's often okay to conflate the two meanings, but they're distinct.
The latter meaning-- money generated from a product after its initial high sales period-- seems artificial. It would mean that Puzzle Pirates could be considered long tail now if it used to be twice as popular, but if it's been steadily popular, it can't be. That data, though, has nothing to do with affordable server load and support.
The fact is, there is a point where an MMO can be profitable, but still dwarfed by blockbusters. This point is lower for a company that runs multiple MMOs, and can exploit economies of scale (SOE). Planetside is another that I'd consider long tail at this point.
Of course, in the current environment, short tail dwarfs long tail. That doesn't mean long tail doesn't exist, simply that it's small.
Jellodyne @ Dec 18th 2005 9:07PM
In the event an MMO is shut down, the maker should release the server binaries, if not the server source code, to the private server community. Of course I could see why they may not want to release the code.