When Online Game Portals Collide: Interview with Atlus Online's Kevin CrawfordKevin Crawford, Project Manager for Atlus Online, covers the Wild, Wild West world of online game portals. What is their potential? What are their pitfalls? That and more is addressed in this interview which previews his role on the “Online Gaming Portals: Positive Explosion or Impending Doom?” panel at the 2009 LOGIN Conference.
My title here at Atlus Online is Online Project Manager. I am responsible for overseeing all aspects of developing the Atlus Online portal, as well as managing key development relationships and coordinating proper integration between Atlus USA's online and console divisions. I also work closely with our game operations team to make sure that we are providing top-notch customer service to our members. Considering the large numbers of free-to-play online game portals in active service, what motivated the creation of Atlus Online, which is also a portal? The creation of Atlus Online has been an aspiration of our CEO, Shinichi Suzuki, for awhile now. With the economy the way it is, people are looking for low-risk entertainment. Free-to-play games and unique digital content is just what the doctor ordered. While someone may be reluctant to drop $59 on a console title, a free, digitally distributed title with a promise of no commitment necessary is a beacon of light. We put the purchasing power back in the consumer’s hands. Our portal will also host many social networking features that will make Atlus Online a daily destination for fun on the Internet for our members. In general, what are the upsides and downsides in launching an MMOG portal, from the business perspective?
Two of the downsides are production time and the initial cost. If you are creating a portal in-house from scratch, get ready to drop some big bucks on hardware, development and quality assurance. Portals can be unwieldy beasts, and there are many pitfalls that companies can experience that take completion time from a few months to sometimes more than a year… ouch. Arguably, one of the downsides might be considered a lot of content overlap – an MMOG portal might contain game “X”, a game which happens to be available on another portal as well. With the blurring of such lines, how can one portal be differentiated from another? Most free-to-play game developers are pretty good about licensing games for certain regions. Many implement ranged IP address blocks so that publishers of the same title do not steal each other’s members. That being said, it is important for each portal to monitor trends and its competitors to stay one step ahead. Once a member plants their feet and finds his home, it’s difficult to pry them away with promises of similar content somewhere else. I just have one word to say… retention. Learn it, love it, and say it in your sleep. Are we seeing a homogenization or a splintering effect take place with content offered through MMO game portals? If one or the other, why? There are a few portals breaking away from the pack, and hopefully, Atlus Online is geared to be one of them. Some are starting to see the rewards of a social/community focus. Others are sticking to their guns by focusing the spotlight on their individual titles. Until one method proves to be the resounding winner, I think we will still see a splintering effect among gaming portals. In the LOGIN panel title you’ll be participating in, “Online Gaming Portals: Positive Explosion or Impending Doom?”, a downside is clearly considered. What would impending doom for MMOG portals look like, and how can it be prevented?
What style and substance would the ideal MMOG portal offer, from both a business and end-user perspective? How far away are we from that idea with the current offerings out in the wild? The ideal MMOG portal would merge social networking and gaming seamlessly. This is a daunting task indeed. The team developing the portal would have to be completely flexible to the changes in current technology, as well as new introductions into the space. Many portals have tried, but it is like trying to figure out grandma’s perfect recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies without actually having it in front of you. You have all the ingredients, but for some reason, it just doesn’t taste the same. Lastly, on a lighter note, at LOGIN this year what other sessions do you hope to check out, and why do they interest you? I guess I would have to say that I am pretty drawn to two in particular. Although, there are quite a few I would like to attend. The first is the panel on “Online Gaming Communities: The only Thriving Industry in America.” The second is “As Virtual Worlds, MMOs, and Social Networks Merge as Social Gaming.” These topics hit home as they are a big part of what I do with Atlus Online. It is interesting how well some gaming communities and online games in general, are doing despite the economic crisis we are in. With Twitter, Facebook and all the other social networking platforms available today, it is exciting to think about all the possible integrations and new applications that can spawn from these technologies. How will online portals take advantage of these social tools? Only time will tell. |
PAUL PHILLEO: Thank you, Kevin, for taking some time out of your schedule to answer a few questions about yourself, your work and, of course, your LOGIN Conference panel you’ll be participating on. Start off by telling us about Atlus Online and your role with this company.
The most obvious upside is that you will be showcasing all of your content in one centralized area, which means the visibility that you crave is there. Also, if you utilize a single sign-on portal, database maintenance can be easier (depending on how you set it up) as you will only be maintaining one login for each member for all of your content. If you are also tying in a single purchasable currency that can be utilized across all of your titles, you’re golden.
The first thing I thought after hearing about the panel was, there is a downside? I guess in my mind, impending doom for MMOG portals would be if everyone decided to publish games on their portal just for the reason of having additional content. Because of this, each licensed title would not be given the love it deserves. We would start to see the quality decline in commercial launches of licensed games. The larger companies with more funding would buy up the licenses just to shoot a title out of the gate early to start generating revenue quicker. Competition for games would get fierce, thereby driving license fees through the roof. This, in turn, would eliminate startups entirely as they just wouldn’t have the funding to stay in the game. It all can be prevented by companies focusing on releasing titles when they are ready, which includes quality localization. Nothing sucks more than to get immersed in an experience only to be figuratively “punted out” by typos and poorly translated text.