How to Successfully Revive Game Franchises

[Nalates]

I came across this in my reading.

How to Successfully Revive Game Franchises is an article about reviving several games. Several points about reviving games and examples of the right and wrong way are provided.

[Whilyam]

The basics of that article seem to be "keep your reboot true to what made the old game popular." I think this is great advice for Cyan to take. Compare Myst with Riven and you see Cyan largely stayed true to what made Myst popular: great storyline, lots of mystery, books take you to other worlds. Now compare the first bits of Prologue (pre-yeesha magic, which is long before I came in) with Gametap Uru and I think you can start to get an idea why a lot of people weren't really thrilled. Cyan didn't stay true to what made Prologue popular with those first testers: the engaging interactive ARG, the interesting characters (particularly Phil), etc. I think going forward shard owners are going to have to decide what they want to stay true to. What concepts do they like, etc. The person who can simultaneously attract new people while still staying true to what brought people here in the first place will have a successful shard.

[Nalates]

I hate to agree with you... but you are mostly right. Telling Cyan what to do or direction to take doesn't ever seem to work, but some have found how to entice Cyan into things. Whether that enticing effort is worthwhile is debatable.

For age creators and story tellers being true to the story is important. Our challenge is that so many fans see Uru differently fans adherence to their concept of TRUE is going to be chaotic. Also, the ARG part of Uru is probably done, at least as I understand the type of ARG Cyan was doing. That style was just too costly. I think our community is to small to get an ARG ball rolling. I am not aware of any 'open source' project that has successfully (most as in popular) pulled off an ARG. Still... it could be a big pull to the game.

[Stucuk]

Our challenge is that so many fans see Uru differently fans adherence to their concept of TRUE is going to be chaotic.

It won't be chaotic as long as there is a system in place to review ideas/etc. Either a group of people or Polls on a forum. You just need to make all new stuff be in line with what the majority of people think is "True to URU", you can never please everyone.

[Zardoz]

It won't be chaotic as long as there is a system in place to review ideas/etc.

What?!?!?! The Uru community without chaos? Sacrilege!!

Either a group of people....

The history of this approach in the Uru community suggests that it would be more chaotic and acrimonious than the alternative that Nalates envisions.

... or Polls on a forum.

Polls on a forum are not and never will be a true representation of the "majority of people" in the Uru "community."

More importantly, in an open source environment, there is no mechanism for implementing any sort of top down regulation of storylines. I suspect there will be some informal and formal protection of Cyan story elements - for example, anyone who purports to present a new Yeesha-based storyline would immediately be pummeled with inquiries about whether Cyan has blessed this, and if not (highly likely) attacked with a vigor that would make the HAXOR criticisms pale in comparison. But otherwise, stories will succeed or fail based on fans voting with their logins, and whether the entire New Uru makes sense may not be something that anyone can control.

As for the appeal to Prologue as a model, I would argue that too many (actually, too few) people have fond memories of that period and have ignored what I view as a fatal flaw: Scalability. Prologue was enjoyed immensely by a very few, relative to the number of people that should be in a Massive MO. Moreover, Cyan engaged in blatant favoritism toward a few people (myself included). Their strategy in Prologue and later in GameTap was to elevate a few customers to a Rock Star status, in the hopes that other customers would be entertained by those Cyan-blessed stars. Didn't work for me, and I don't see it as a good model for broader success, especially not in an open source environment.

[Stucuk]

Democracy is the worse form of government except for every other form that has been tried. Nothing is perfect. But its better to have some kind of group to review changes or to have polls so you at least you shouldn't get the situation where you have things becoming "Official" which then causes a large part of the community to boycott the game(Such as adding in currency which people have already strongly voiced there opinions on the MOULa forum).

[Nalates]

@Stucuk, your idea that some control would prevent the problems I foresee is common thought. We see that idea among those in the political environment that believe in strong central government. Freedom, growth, and innovation grows explosively when the constraints of a top down system are removed. Freedom at the bottom to think and create has always produced chaotic but amazingly efficient results.

Actually democracy is not the best form of government. In less PC terms it is mob rule. Communist, Socialistic, and Capitalistic systems all fail in a pure democracy. The Greeks did an excellent job of pointing out why. The Great American Experiment was a movement to try a representative form of government in which representatives were chosen in a democratic process. Initially race and gender were not criteria for voting, have a profession or owning land were. One must have a stake in the game, else, as the Greeks pointed out, the populous will vote for free cake and eventually bankrupt the system. The idea being smaller groups of invested people, that could know the representatives, would select them to study issues and make decisions in the best interest of the group.

An additional facet of democracies and republics is the ability to enforce law. An ability we do not have in the Uru community. Without that ability I see no purpose in polls or votes… beyond informational purposes and personal curiosity.

Zardoz is writing from experience with the community. The idea of voting and organizing the community has been tried, several times. To date all attempts and plans have failed.

Your proposal for a democratic solution without addressing the issues and implementation problems of such a solution remains unconvincing.

@Zardoz, Sacrilege!! Your points on control and chaos are well made.

You also well point out the differences in how people see Uru.

[Zardoz]

But its better to have some kind of group to review changes or to have polls so you at least you shouldn't get the situation where you have things becoming "Official" which then causes a large part of the community to boycott the game(Such as adding in currency which people have already strongly voiced there opinions on the MOULa forum).

Let me press you on this. Who would establish and empower this group? What would their charter be? Who would enforce their decisions? The Uru "community" now consists mostly of spam bots - would they be in charge?

Paraphrasing Winston Churchhill isn't really relevant in a game environment that is an open-border society. There is no such thing as "democracy" or "government" because there is no accounting or even a requirement for citizenship. It's fine to think about how Cyan might choose to regulate its own shard, but that's their decision, not ours.

Zardoz is writing from experience with the community. The idea of voting and organizing the community has been tried, several times. To date all attempts and plans have failed.

It is completely self-serving, but I would argue that the Liaison election was the one case of a successful organization and voting experience in Uru, precisely because we (the Cavern Election Agency, if you were around back then) did NOT represent the process or the results as being representative of the "community." The goal was to present the DRC with a group of people as candidates for liaisons, which is subtly but importantly different from a "democratic" process. There was never any pretense that the election would fairly represent the "will of the people," only that it fairly represented the will of the people who participated in the election. The goal was credibility, not democracy. The election succeeded in doing that, but then Cyan totally failed to follow up on its end of the bargain.

[Stucuk]

@Nalates:
You do realise the democracy line in my post was to show that no system is perfect rather than that is the system that should be used? Zardoz's post makes it sound like you need a Perfect System. When there is no perfect System.

If there was a "Council" it would be made up of the main people in the community who have a "Share" in URU's development. There would be no elections, elections for this type of thing would be stupid. Elections only give you popular people, they don't give you the people who you need. Open URU and/or GoW would be the best groups to pick a council if one were ever formed(Since they are both involved in URU's development).

If there was a "Council" then it would decide what would become "Official", including stories, ages, game features/changes, etc. It would proberly even make a list of goals to try and achieve, so there is some kind of order to the chaos. It wouldn't police shards. Shards will always do whatever they like. Granted Cyan could easily overrule a council, but thats going to happen no matter what.

[Nalates]

@Zardoz, I’ll concede that the election worked and the organization was organized. But, I would say the idea of liaisons did not work. I’m not at all sure the election provided credibility, at least not to the community. But, we may simply see the process and results differently. If you are right, would you think such an election is possible now? Would an election or some selection of a council serve a useful and effective purpose now?

@Stucuk, you have completely lost me on how you implied democracy was representative of an imperfect system evolving to the idea of GoW and OU picking a council. Nor have you shown me how a council will help regardless of how it comes to be. We have those that control what gets added to the main trunk now.

Zardoz’s questions of who will empower such a group and where empowerment will come from are key issues. Those doing the actual work will make the decisions as to what they work on and how they implement things. I see no useful purpose to be served by a council. However, if you would like to create one, go for it, and see how it works out for you.
[/@]

In game design I haven’t seen leading designers talking about the structure of the team contributing to revival of a game or better player retention.