Andrew Busey: My Musings

Windows / MSN / Live (Whatever the branding is today) Messenger is something I use a lot.  Right now I can’t login.  I upgraded to a new version because it implied that might be the issue.  It wasn’t.  The message I am currently getting:

Signing in to Windows Live Messenger failed because the service is temporarily unavailable.   Please try again later.

Error code: 81000314

I got a similar message on the Windows Messenger I had before I upgraded to the Live one.  Anyway, so there is a “Service status” option which takes me to http://status.messenger.msn.com/Status.aspx and it says:

All systems are stable and running.

It even has a nice little check box.

So my quesiton is:  What is the point of having a stauts page if it lies?  Clearly the service is down, how could the status page not now?

BTW, Microsoft isn’t the only one that is at fault for this.  Blizzard’s World of Warcraft Realm Status pages routinely say things are up when they are down.

My plea:

If you are going to have a status page for your service:  TELL THE TRUTH - I mean, we are already using your service and we care enough about it to check the status page.  At least tell us the truth about what is going on.  K THX.

/rant

I’m a pretty heavy MMORPG fan, although somehow I’ve never played Everquest (or EQ2).  I started in MUDs, moved to Ultima Online, then Asheron’s Call, then a break, then to World of Warcraft.

Any objective observer in the MMORPG space can see that World of Warcraft has been a genre shattering success with around eight million subscribers.  Clearly this game has broken beyond the initial MMORPG and fantasy game playing crowd.  Since the biggest (non-Korean) MMORPGs were only at a few hundred thousand users this is a big deal.

World of Warcraft has been out for over two years.  On January 16th it’s first expansion, the Burning Crusade, will be released.  No doubt this will get everyone excited and re-energized about the game for some period of time.  

So, in pseudo-case study form, I ask:

You are the Publisher / GM / CEO / Studio Manager / Executive Producer of a MMORPG.  Your MMORPG has a little buzz in the hardcore fan community, but no one outside the most 10-20k most rabid game fans have ever heard of it.  You have two choices:

• Release on January 30, less then two weeks after the biggest MMORPG in history (by a lot) releases its first expansion.
• Defer your release by sixty to ninty days which results in you losing some revenue, but allows you to make the game better and more polished.

Ok, let’s take what we know about MMORPGs for supporting information:

• MMORPGs consume a lot of time.  They are typically monogamous games, meaning people play only one MMORPG actively at one time.
• MMORPGs have high switching costs.  If you have played World of Warcraft any length of time and are level 60 (or close), you don’t want to walk away from that.  Especially since now you can go to level 70.
• MMORPGs are expensive - often $50 for the game and $10-$20/month for a subscription.

Now, taking that all into account.  Let’s take a look at Vanguard (official site).  This game has been in development quite a while by some of the original team from Everquest.  Original it was going to be published by Microsoft, but subsequently changed publishers to Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) which publishes Everquest I and II and Star Wars Galaxies.

So I follow this market.  I remember reading about Vanguard a few times.  While writing this post I went back and read some other articles.  It looks like World of Warcraft with a little more capabilities for character crafted items and one big “selling point” which is player housing.  Fun.  So I looked at the screenshots.  They don’t look as good as World of Warcraft.  Oh and I watched the movies… which focus almost exclusively on flying mounts, which probably seemed innovative and exciting at the time.  But, woops, they are in the World of Warcraft expansion too.

This is a big problem for MMORPGs:  If you are making a persistent world MMORPG like World of Warcraft, you are going to have to get WoW players to play your game.  The first thing they are going to do is go look at your reviews, screenshots, movies, etc.  And if they aren’t at least at parity with WoW, what would make you think they would even consider shelling out $50 and a lot of time to try it? 

ESPECIALLY WHEN THE WOW EXPANSION JUST SHIPPED.

So since Vanguard doesn’t look as cool as WoW (at least from the screenshots and movies I saw, I’m probably not going to try it.  If the WoW expansion sucks (unlikely) I may be motivated to give it a try.  It’s possible I buy it and try it so I can blog about it - either as a review of a pseudo-major MMORPG release or as a follow-up to this post.  But thinking purely as a player, I would wait.  If it got really popular and people were raving about it, I might try it.  Otherwise my monogamous persistent world MMORPG relationship will continue with World of Warcraft.

Anyway, this seems like a dumb move.  Lecture 2 will be in a month - two weeks after this is out to see how it goes for them. 

Oh, one other thing…  A lot of user comments out there keep saying this game looks good but it isn’t finished.  Blizzard (the maker’s of World of Warcraft) are known for pushing game release dates (a lot) to make sure the game is finished and good.  This has made them a lot of fans and is at least part of the reason almost all of their games are spectacular sellers.  Shipping a game that competes against them and isn’t ready yet:  even dumber idea.

Some user quotes from Gamespot:

apanizo
Heh, they spent 4.5 years and the largest development budget for an MMO to make a bad WoW clone with Eq2 graphics. Everyone point and laugh at SOE, again.

Khimarhi
I am very disappointed in the beta so far. . was thinking about jumping ship from wow to Vanguard. . but not now. . this game is boring in everyway. . good graphics are nice but animations are poor . . and if they are still planning on releasing it at the end of the month then they are making a big mistake. . way too many problems. .

There were, to be honest, a few (not many) positive comments.  Mostly from the few people who don’t like WoW or have an overwhelming love for player housing.

Stay tuned for the next round.

I’m a gadget guy.  I like to have all the shiny new stuff.  I’ll admit to being skeptical about an Apple phone though.  I’m really not interested in a phone that plays music….  I mean I have an iPod (that I use on planes and in my car) and I listen to iTunes on my computer, but I’m not into it on my phone.  Partially because of battery life issues.  Anyway, personal bias aside, I think the Apple iPhone (or whatever it ends up being called after the being sued by Cisco) looks really cool.  I like the interface and that it does all the things a smart phone does and seems to make browsing better. 

I have a Motorola Q now, for which I was forced to switch to Verizon.  I guess in June I will be forced to switch to Cingular to get the iPhone.  That sucks, because after some of the issues I’ve had in the past with Southwestern Bell (subsequently SBC, then AT&T, and now subsuming Cingular too) I swore never to give them another dime.  I’m going to rationalize it by pretending Apple gets all the money.

Also of note, was the Apple TV (originally called iTV).  I ordered one.  I’ll post a review when I get it.  It looks like it could be cool.  And I’d be glad to see DVDs (and this whole stupid debate between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray) disappear just like CDs did.

Kudos to Apple for again releasing really cool products!

Another tidbit from CNN/Fortune/Business 2.0:  Jeff Bezos is NOT Crazy Eddie  - This article is buried inside CNN/Money as part of “The Browser” (which is pretty cool).

Anyway, it’s pretty funny because this article: Amazon.com has ‘best ever’ sales is on the CNN.com home page.  It’s ironic because this article appears to be the exact regurgitation of the press release that the Browser entry makes fun of.

Congrats to Amazon though, I love them.  I find it interesting that J.C. Penny and Sears are taking online market share from them, but I expect that is just a side effect of the mainstreaming of e-commerce.

This is the apology thread from Fortune / Business 2.0:  Seagate CEO apologizes for porn remark

It’s unfortunate that his PR flacks got a hold of this.  If you can’t make a joking reference to porn (which has been a clear driver of most new technologies including VCRs, DVDs, the Web, etc.) as a business driver for storage then what  the hell?  I liked the interview a lot because it was pretty candid and open.  After reading it I had a lot of respect for Bill Watkins.  That respect isn’t diminished by this apology, but it just further illustrates that the PR (and I’ll point the finger at the other evil R - HR) has to package and many everything.

People should be real.  Passion is good.  Political correctness is the death of creativity.

This CNN|Money article:  How an iPhone could rock wireless is pretty interesting because it discuss how the Apple iPhone could represent a very disruptive force in the mobile market.  I think this is fascinating on two levels:

• As a consumer:  I’m a gadget fan and am well known among my friends for rabidly acquiring the latest mobile phones.  Right now I have a Motorola Q, but I could easily see switching to an Apple iPhone if it was really cool.  This might be the thing, or even more compelling if combined with an iTV, that gets me to switch to the Mac OS.  Regardless, I’m always excited to see new, really cool gadgets, and I have no doubt the iPhone will fall in that category.
• As a business guy:  I like to see distrupting new business models.  Apple could really shake up the mobile phone space - either as an MVNO (basically a private label mobile carrier - they buy their time from the big networks at wholesale and resell it) or by forcing new relationships with the carriers.  Or even better by forcing the existing carriers to accept a new business model by either ignoring them and using the unlimited data plans that seem common or structuring deals that are more favorable to Apple.  I have no doubt they can negotiate such deals because the right phones (like the Q) do drive people to change networks, which is a big deal.

I’m looking forward to seeing the new iPhone and the new i Business Model - should be interesting.

I love it when people tell it like it is.  And this article from Fortune titled Seagate CEO: I help people “watch porn” is great.  Some interesting perspectives and definitely worth the read.  You know it’s going to be an interesting article when it starts:

Sitting at the arm of a tech CEO during a corporate dinner is rarely as interesting as you might imagine. Usually, the CEO stays on message throughout the meal as a PR flak hovers, smiles, nods and prods the conversation along. Just keep the drinks coming, guys.

We read so much canned “on message” stuff these days in articles I just thought it was worth mentioning this article because it’s different.

Xbox 360, Wii, and PS3.  (BTW, XBox wins for best and easiest to find website.  Googling PS3 doesn’t even get you the official site as the top result and ps3.com and playstation3.com don’t go there either…. and it takes 2 clicks from playstation.com.)  They are all finally here and the battle is engaged.  It’s funny, when I set this blog up I went back and grabbed my favorite posts from my old blog and posted them on here with their original dates.  When I did that, I noticed a post from November 28th, 2005 - exactly one year ago - discussing the Xbox 360 launch.  That was the only one of the consoles that I made a half-assed attempt to buy on launch day, but I wasn’t there early enough so I missed out.  I later bought an Xbox 360.  At first I wasn’t blown away by the few games I tried.  Perfect Dark sucked, for example.  Halo 2 was fun to play in higher res, but not a big change.

Then my friend, Adam, introduced me to Call of Duty 2 (buy) and it was the first Xbox 360 game that I thought was really cool.  That was fun to play for a while, but I never really became a junky.  Probably because I was too busy playing World of Warcraft (which still, in my opinion, beats any console game).  But I did keep paying attention to the coming next gen console wars and followed that story with interest.

The outcome is one I never really expected.  First off, Microsoft really did a good job of throwing a monkey wrench into the PS3.  Gears of War (buy) is a great game (it has already sold one million copies) and it launched just before the PS3, accomplishing two things:

• Keeping all the Xbox 360 owners interested and excited about the Xbox 360.  It’s much easier to run out and buy Gears of War than it is to wait in line to get a PS3.  And a lot cheaper than paying a premium.    So I think it was a powerful mechanism for keeping the existing base excited about the X360 platform.
• It is a powerful, and cheaper, consolation prize for the people that wanted a PS3.  Microsoft got a bit of a boost since the PS3 got some bad reviews early on.  Everyone already knew it would be hard to get, but a few bad reviews, a lack of good games, and the general plethora of negative Sony news (exploding batteries anyone), wasn’t good.  The only really interesting PS3 game (IMO) that isn’t on another platform is Resistance:  Fall of Man (Gamespot: 8.6).  But it looks pretty similar to Gears of War (Gamespot 9.6).   And you can get an X360 and Gears of War, and still have almost $800 left over (given eBay’s PS3 resale price averages of $1,186).  So what would you choose?  I have chosen to think about buying a PS3 in the spring when they are plentiful, not marked up, and maybe have some games I am interested in.  Although if Microsoft feeds enough Halo 3 info before then, I might never buy one.

 

  This is a reprint from my old blog with the original timestamp.  

Ok, so I’m going to deviate a little from the norm. I’ve typically posted here about Shadows. So instead, I’m going to talk about the Xbox 360 and marketing. I waited in line at CompUSA and Best Buy to try and buy one last Tuesday. I’m not a big fan of waiting in lines, but I figured what the heck I’ll give it a try. CompUSA shut down the line about 15 people in front of me. At Best Buy it was three people in front of me. Let me tell you, that sucks. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised given my general unwillingness to spend the night in front of a retailer so I can get a new game machine.

What I am most fascinated by is Microsoft’s approach to this on a marketing level. Frankly, I’m kind of pissed about the whole thing. I am pretty sure the shortage was fabricated (or at the very least could have easily been avoided with some better planning) and, therefore, people like me that didn’t get there early enough wasted a lot of time for no really good reason. (I’ll take a little bit of the sucker label for this one too.) But I’m betting that before the end of the year there will be tons of Xbox 360s in stores. If I’m wrong on this I might actually have a very tiny degree of belief that the launch shortage wasn’t faked. But I think I’ll be vindicated in this - so much so that I’m writing it down.

Now scarcity is a great marketing tool. There was a news truck outside of Best Buy while I was waiting in line. (Of course there is such a high degree of news bandwidth now that they’ll cover almost anything - and nothing is more entertaining than a bunch of geeks standing around in the cold waiting in line for somthing shiny or weird.) But I think it can backfire. I think if more people could have gotten Xbox 360s out of the gate there would have been that many more evangelists out there - especially outside the hard core guys. With this “scarcity”, only the diehard fans got Xbox 360s - which is great for Microsoft if the console is spectacular and they love it. But if only the hardcore fans get it, only the hardcore fans will talk about it. And they are the most likely to be the harshest critics. If a broader group of people had gotten them (including slightly more casual gamers [read: unwilling to wait in line for hours]) the reivews and coverage might be more broad and balanced. I think in the current blog coverage on the Xbox 360, some of this is starting to bit Microsoft.

If I see enough lukewarm reviews, I might decide to wait for the Playstation 3. Or I might just stick with PC games (which are better IMO anyway). I’ll probably just end up waiting until I show up at some store and they happen to be in stock. I’m certainly not excited enough any more that I’m going to actively look for one. I am curious to see what, if any, impact this play has on the long-term success of the Xbox 360.

Well there is my wandering, random markething thoughts for the day.

  This is a reprint from my old blog with the original timestamp.   

So I’m getting ready to go to the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco and it got me thinking. And looking at the schedule. At the top they have interesting quotes from people that are generally relevant to Web 2.0. They are all pretty insightful - I think I saw them all hitting refresh to try to get back to the one I wanted to talk about. It is:

“Web 1.0 was making the Internet for people, Web 2.0 is making the Interent better for computers.”

-Jeff Bezos

Then it hit me. Have we already moved past Web 2.0? Because last year Web 2.0 was all about XML and web services and all the fun things you could do with them. Things like RSS, metadata, and other neat things. Things that are still really important and cool. But not the things I think most people are talking about when they say web 2.0 now.

People are talking more about user-created content when they say web 2.0 now. Things like social bookmarking, wikis, community search, social networking, etc. This is great (especially for (obligatory plug) Shadows(end plug), but is it signalling a redefinition of Web 2.0?

Or are we really in Web 3.0?

1. (1.0) The web is, well, web pages. People can consume them.
2. (2.0) There are now web services. Value-added and affiliate sites, RSS, meta-sites, etc.
3. (3.0) User generated content. Social bookmarking, wikis, community search, etc.

These make for nice integer versions, but I’m sure there was 1.5 (Google) and maybe something else. And obviously there were at least some blogs before 2.0 and that is clearly user generated content.

Really though, I’m not going to give you an answer. I merely raise the question.