Electric Farm Entertainment and MMO's like upcoming 'Star Wars - The Old Republic'. A Good Fit?

One of the things I most value in a video game is story. Unfortunately, in my opinion, not a lot of games have a great story/storyline that invest the player in the characters, the world, and into seeing that story unfold. I think this is particularly true when it comes to MMORPG's.

Bioware sees this need and is looking to make story to be a foundational element in their upcoming MMORPG, "Star Wars: The Old Republic".

Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk of Bioware describe traditional MMO’s as focusing on three primary pillars:

1) Exploration.
2) Combat.
3) Customization/progression.

Bioware looks to up the ante by making story and character and meaningful choice with consequences a fourth pillar of the genre. They believe that this fourth pillar is the context for the other three and that the story should drive the experience, leading to deeper immersion by the player. Sounds cool, particularly so because Bioware’s games usually have a great immersive storyline!



This seems to parallel what Brent Friedman said on a recent podcast we had the opportunity to participate in.

By the way, thanks go out to Co-hosts Jackie Kerr (ARGNet, Unfiction forums), Sean C. Stacey (Unfiction, Despoiler) and Jonathan Waite (ARGNet, Unfiction forums). Thanks for including us in your interview of Gemini Division executive producer and series creator Brent Friedman. For those interested, check it out at ARG Netcast. Definitely worth checking out!

Brent talked about involving and engaging viewers in the story. He talked about doing this in such a way that the story itself is influenced by the actions of the players. He also mentioned the possibility that viewers would potentially have the opportunity to be a part of content creation in an upcoming series.

The podcast at ARG Netcast and the interview from Bioware triggered the thought that Friedman's philosophy is particularly well-suited for video games, particularly MMO's. From there I developed the following proposal/possibility.

Idea Summary
EFE could produce a story set in a quality game universe like Star Wars: The Old Republic, Guild Wars, or World of Warcraft. The primary story would be standalone and released in a daily rollout in traditional EFE style (Afterworld, Gemini Division, upcoming Woke Up Dead).

As the story progressed, unique quests in the Massive Multiplayer Online game could be unlocked. These quests could reveal more about a character, or provide additional background to the story. Players would have the opportunity to interact with non player characters (NPC's), other players in player versus player combat (PVP), or even with "actors" who are officially playing the role of a character in the story (think ARG/puppetmaster and a new type of acting/ARG interaction). That could be pretty cool!

As players completed these quests and as events unfolded in the MMO, this could then in turn unlock extended video content.

Three General Viewer Categories
Consumers of this type of EFE content could be broken down into three general categories:

1)Casual viewers of the EFE story.

2)Players who want to dig deeper and really immerse themselves into the story by joining in on the parallel extended experience in the MMORPG game.

3)Gamers of the MMO who want to dig deeper into that game world, immerse themselves, customize their character, and extend their gaming experience.

Return on Investment
People could buy this at the local video game store as a unique “Extended Game experience”. These players would be able to add the “Extended Game Experience” to their in game accounts. They would have the opportunity to acquire additional quests, items, cool looking customizable gear, etc, but most importantly they would get story!

This is a value add for the game developer and for the players. It would be nice in that it would be a way to generate ROI apart from advertising. Players who purchased this extended game experience could watch the story free of ads. However, they would need to log in with their game account to do so. Multiple simultaneous logins would not be permitted and an active game account would be required to watch the content without ads.

People who wanted to just watch the story could do so with ads and without any type of login. (Though, ideally the ads would not be overloaded! :). For these people the story actually becomes advertising for the MMO.

Central Portal Site
The portal site would have a lot of quality themed graphics, sound, and music to work with already in place. This would be an ambitious project requiring the MMORPG game company and Electric Farm Entertainment to work together. However, both would have a vested interest in making it work and making it cool!

Conclusion

Oh, and by the way, Mr. Friedman. This just can’t be done! :P (For context listen to ARG Netcast's podcast with Brent Friedman).

As far as upcoming MMO’s go, “Guild Wars 2” (no monthly fee required) and “Star Wars: The Old Republic” could be nice settings to tell some cool stories. The stories wouldn’t necessarily need to be limited to the MMO present, but could tell stories of the past and of the future. Some very cool and interesting possibilities!

P.S. As an aside I found Gordon Mattey's latest entry an interesting supplement to this article. Particularly the "1000 true fans" article that he linked to.