THE CORE DEMOGRAPHIC ENCONTER PART II: WHO IS SOE TRYING TO PLEASE?

The complaints of casual players have been brushed off in the past by SOE by the claim that there is not guarantee that everyone can experience everything in the game, nor that, just because you pay the same as everyone else, this “entitles” you to any of the content. Representatives of Everquest also have tried to deviously undermine the points presented by casual players by redefining them as “time-starved powergamers”, claiming they wanted everything the professional player gets but just wants to do it with less time and effort.

None of that is the real issue.

The real issue doesn’t have to do with trying to sort out motivations, or issues of entitlement, or what any particular segment of the customer base wishes to get out of the game, and whether or not those expectations are realistic. It doesn’t matter what I want, or how fast I want to get it, or how much effort I’m personally willing to invest in the game. What matters is this: what playstyle model is being used to design new content around, as well as to make modifications and alterations to the current game? Who does SOE want to experience the “best” content of the game? What are the criteria for experiencing the best content of the game, and how are those criteria set? Are they in the best interest of the long-term health of the game, and arrived at by the desire to satisfy the greatest number of players possible?

Or is the “best content” criteria simply arrived at by the default view that, the people who play the most like the developers and designers will have the best chance of experiencing that content? Over and over it has been shown that Everquest is a game that relies upon really one central factor: the more time you can invest continuously in each session, the more fruitful your Everquest experience will be. In the higher end game, the more of these players you can organize at a time also becomes a central issue. If you can only invest 30 minutes at a time, you will not be able to experience much of the game at all. If you can experience 2 hours at a sitting, you’ll be able to experience more.

However, to truly experience the best content that Everquest has to offer, you must be willing to continuously invest six or more hours in multiple group, highly organized sessions. My estimate is that 10% or less of the actual gaming population can meet this criteria, and it is obvious that this criteria is severely more demanding than the parameters of the Core Demographic Encounter (4-6 people with 2-2½ hours to invest, up to about 25 hours a week). Obviously, the best content of Everquest simply cannot be experienced by the average gamer ... up to 80-90% of the population of the game. Not because of lack of interest, or intelligence, but simply because the average gamer isn’t willing to invest the time and organizational effort necessary, on a continuing basis, into their entertainment.

Most of this is obvious to anyone who has played Everquest for any length of time. The question, though, is this: while it is understandable that the “best” must have a value attached to it in terms of some kind of invested effort, risk, and time (or else you might as well come into the world equipped with the “best”), is Verant ignoring other possible means of attaching this value? Are they focusing on the “multi-group, consecutive lengthy session” means of attaching this value simply because ... that is their own preferred style of play? Or because they already “know” how to do this, they are simply too lazy, creatively, to come up with alternate pathways for their customers?

Over and over again, SOE changes the game to make it “harder” ... meaning it takes longer sessions, and more assembled players during those sessions, in order to gain content of increasing value. The incontrovertible result of this is that, as the average player moves farther towards the high end game, they are increasingly incapable of participating ... because the high end content is designed around the SOE idea of increased difficulty, which means the CDE, or 4-6 players with 2-2½ hours to play, at some point becomes utterly incapable of playing. They need far too much time, support, and information to accomplish anything at this point, not to mention that 4-6 players is completely insufficient to accomplish anything of value. The CDE is left out of the high-end content of the game .. and this means that at least 75% of the Everquest customer base is left out. Is there any way out of this? Is there a better, or alternate means, of assigning increased value to high end content that doesn’t alienate anyone or prevent the CDE from being an effective vehicle for acquiring top-level content?

Agree with me here. If you disagree, go to hell.

NEXT: INVESTMENT VS REWARD