PROPOSAL FOR SUBMISSION

Research topic

The topic we’ve selected is about online games business. The business in online games has broad definition and contains of wide-ranging services not just solely the services provided by the company to the customers, it also includes the business between players and between players with third-party business.

There are different kinds of online games categories as I mentioned in the first post, thus there have different pattern of business emerged. In our topic we are going to narrow down the scope to one category, which is about Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG).

Rationale of topic choice

Why we have selected this topic? It is because this kind of ‘off topic’ will not be taught in lectures/classes as a subject-matter, and yet the business in online games is not simply you can find in search engine (Google). Only if you’ve ever played MMORPG, then you would know what and how the business in MMORPG is about. As I’ve been a hardcore gamers since long time ago, I can share my experience of how the evolution and changes of business in online games (especially MMORPG) from past to present. So, it is pleased to provide me this opportunity to share the knowledge with others.

How we obtain information for the paper

As from my little survey in the blog there it shown that 50% voters ever play MMORPG and the other 50% are not. So, meaning to say, much of the students in this class are still not familiar with MMORPG/online games. Therefore, we try to simplify the illustration about the business of online games. How we plan to obtain information for the paper? I think mostly information in our research will based on our own experience in online games since we had been hardcore gamers before. And we would also try to find the related articles or journals regarding online games business to emphasize in our own understandings.

Research Objectives of Our Research Assignment

The scope of our research assignment would be narrow down into four parts:

1.       Identify various type of business in online games. The areas covered will be online game company and third-party company/business involves in the particular online game.

2.       Penetrate into strategies of how online games business (MMORPG) implemented. The areas covered will be online game company (MMORPG) and third-party company/business involves in the particular online game.

3.       Challenges of online gaming business (MMORPG) currently facing and how they overcome it. The areas covered will be the bot issue, scam issue, and hack issue.

4.       Factors affecting of why people play/spend times in online games (MMORPG). The areas covered will be studying the human factors and the attractiveness of online games.

Report Outline

1.0   Introduction

1.1   Rationale of topic choice

1.2   How we obtain information

2.0   Types of Business in Online Games

2.1   Brief introduction of different MMOs

2.1.1          MMORPG

2.1.2          MMOFPS

2.1.3          MMORTS

2.1.4          MMOSG

2.1.5          MMOR

2.2   Brief introduction of third-party companies/businesses involves in online game

2.2.1          SeaGamers

2.2.2          Garena

2.2.3          Gold-Farmer

2.2.4          Individual/Part-time players

3.0   Factors affecting people to play online games (MMORPG)

3.1   Achievement

3.1.1          Advancement

3.1.2          Mechanics

3.1.3          Competition

3.2   Social

3.2.1          Socializing

3.2.2          Relationship

3.2.3          Teamwork

3.3   Immersion

3.3.1          Discovery

3.3.2          Role-Play

3.3.3          Customization

3.3.4          Escapism

4.0   Strategies implemented in Online Games Business (MMORPG)

4.1   Online Game Company (MMORPG)

4.1.1          Competition

4.1.1.1    Genre

4.1.1.2    Content

4.1.1.3    Graphics

4.1.1.4    Familiarity

4.1.1.5    Updates

4.1.1.6    Game Length

4.1.1.7    Social Structure

4.1.1.8    Innovation

4.2   Third-party company/business involves in online game

4.2.1          How to approach in-game players

4.2.2          How they meet customers/players needs

5.0   Challenges and Ways to overcome (MMORPG)

5.1   Bot Issue

5.2   Scam Issue

5.3   Hack Issue

6.0   Conclusion

7.0   References

8.0   Appendix 

Literature Review

Online games can be differentiated into several types, such as MMORPG, MMOFPS, MMORTS, MMOSG and MMOR. In our research, we are trying to narrow downthe scope to MMORPG, and the businesses involving in it.

MMORPG stands for massively multiplayer online role playing game, a type of MMOG (massively multiplayer online game). An MMORPG is a computer-based RPG (role playing game) which takes place in an online virtual world with hundreds or thousands of other players. In an MMORPG, a player uses a client to connect to a server, usually run by the publisher of the game, which hosts the virtual world and memorizes information about the player. (Anissimov)

In an MMORPG, like any RPG, the user controls a character represented by an avatar, which he directs to fight monster for experience, interact with other characters, acquire items, and so on. MMORPGs have become extremely popular since the wider debut of broadband internet connections, now with millions of subscribers from hundreds of different countries. Some MMORPGs have as many as a million subscribers. (Anissimov)

Mainly, publishers of the MMORPG are generating incomes from players through monthly subscription or through in-game cash items. Other than the publisher itself, third parties also have the opportunities to generate income from the online games, such as ‘SeaGamers’, who generates income by selling in-game gold and provide power-leveling service in exchange of real money; ‘Gold farmer’, who farm in-game gold and sell to other players for real money; and individual players who sells their accounts or trade in-game items to other players for real money.

There are several factors affecting people to invest or play MMORPG. According to Nick Yee (2007), the motivation of plays in MMORPG can be divided into 3 components, which are (1) achievement (2) social and (3) immersion and each of the components have their subcomponents, such as advancement, mechanics, competition, socializing, relationship, teamwork, discovery, role-playing, customization, and escapism.

As the market of MMORPG is rapidly growing, publisher of the games has to promote themselves in order to stand out of crowd among other MMORPG companies. Strategies implemented such as the changes in way of making businesses, like, eliminating monthly subscription, so as to attract more customers to register. In other words, it transferred from ‘pay to play’ model to ‘free to play’ model, whereby to generate income from selling in-game cash item instead of monthly subscription.

Moreover, advertising play a big role nowadays, in the past, mostly online game companies promote their game through game magazine or banner in cybercafé, but, today we can see that some online game companies are advertising their game through TV ads, and social network such as facebook to promote, acquire, interact/maintain relationship with their customers.

Publishers of online games are currently facing threats from those so-called ‘third party companies’, as these third party companies will approach in-game players to sell unfair benefits such as in-game gold/currency, power-leveling, bot etc. which will seriously affect the balance, fairness and motivation of other players.

Lastly, this research paper will provide a brief but broad explanation of various types of businesses that can be done in online game industry (especially MMORPG). 

Major References:

De Paoli, S. & Kerr, A. 2009, ‘The Cheating Assemblage in MMORPGs: Toward a sociotechnical description of cheating’, Authors & Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA), viewed 21^thOct 2010.

http://www.digra.org/dl/db/09287.23190.pdf

This article provides an insight about the cheating assemblage in MMORPGs, and more towards conceptual explanation. The conceptual explanation is whereby the illustration of sociotechnical nature of cheating in MMORPGs showing how cheating is composed both of highly sophisticated technologies elements and complex social elements. We will use this article as a guideline when we writing about the challenges of MMORPGs currently facing, because in that section, what we’ve knew about the challenges is solely based on our own in-game experience, therefore we need this article to guide us in explaining the issues (bot, hack, scam) in a correct way.

‘Underworld MMORPG Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game 2005’, Neopangaia, viewed 21^th Oct 2010.

http://underworld.wecometoplay.com/bizplan.pdf

This article is a business plan of a MMORPG company. In this article it shows that how actually a MMORPG company plan before launching their game. The plan contents such as keys to success, competition and buying patterns and etc. So, we will use this article to help us in explaining the strategies of how a company should take in order to compete among other competitors.

Yee, N. 2006, ‘Motivations of Play in MMORPGs: Results from a factor Analytic Approach’, Nick Yee, viewed 21^th Oct 2010.

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/pdf/3-2.pdf

This article primarily analyse why peoples play MMORPG. In this research article the author classified the motivations into three major components, which are achievement, social, and immersion. We will use this article to help us in completing one of our research objectives that is to find out why people play/spend times in MMORPG.

Other References:

Anissimov, M. 2010, ‘What is a MMORPG’, wiseGEEK, conjecture corporation, viewed 22^thOct 2010.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-mmorpg.htm

‘Benefits and Drawbacks of Less or More Time Playing MMOs during an Economic Depression’, Online Massive Multiplayer.com, viewed 17^th September 2010.

http://www.onlinemassivelymultiplayer.com/rants/benefits-and-drawbacks-of-less-or-more-time-playing-mmos-during-an-economic-depression/

Buy MapleSEAMesos | Sea Gamer Mall, 2007-2010 SEAGM.com, viewed 11^thSeptember 2010.

http://www.seagm.com/gold/buy?game_id=8

‘China jails 11 over online games scam: state media 2009’, France 24, viewed 24^th September 2010.

http://www.france24.com/en/node/4950332

Drain, B. 2010, ‘EVE Online player steals $45,000 worth of ISK in massive investment scam’, Massively, viewed 24^th September 2010.

http://www.massively.com/2010/09/11/eve-online-player-steals-45-000-worth-of-isk-in-massive-investm/

Garena, Connecting World Gamers, Garena Online, viewed 10^thSeptember 2010.

www.garena.com

Laurence H. M. Holland and David M. Ewalt, 2006, ‘Making Real Money In Virtual Worlds’, Forbes.com, viewed 21^th Oct 2010.

http://www.forbes.com/2006/08/07/virtual-world-jobs_cx_de_0807virtualjobs.html

SEA Gamer Mall | Your One Stop Gaming Services Platform,2007-2010 SEAGM.com, viewed 11^thSeptember 2010.

http://www.seagm.com/

Young, K. 2006, ‘Addiction to MMORPGs: Symptoms and Treatment’, viewed 21^thOct 2010.

http://www.netaddiction.com/articles/addiction_to_mmorpgs.pdf

Bot + Botting + Botters

What is Bot? It is a software that operates as an agent for user or another programme or simulates a human activity. (TechTarget)

How Bot Works?

Botting in MMORPG is unethical and is a form of cheating, where players use the bot software to replace them from playing, such as auto-leveling (auto-training). Those who use bot software can even stay away from playing for more than 24hours or even weeks because the bot will do all the jobs! Unless there is a new patch (games update), there is no timeout for bot to do their jobs, they will keep leveling, kill mobs (a term in game similar to NPC enemy), do daily quest, if the players character had run out of potion (HP, MP), the bot will automatically go back to town and reload it; the bot will act as a real human being, for example, it will automatically sell the loots at town when the inventory is full, go back to the leveling places if PK-ed by other players, auto log off when detect GM nearby.

Silkroad's Bot

CabalSea's Bot

Why Bot?

Finishing a quest in a game play is fun, but repetitive doing so is boring. For example, a daily quest that require you to kill 100 mobs (a term in game similar to NPC enemy), if you have bunches of this kind of quest to do, will you get bored? Just imagine you sit in front of computers and killing the mobs, keep killing after another, and keep repeating doing so. Furthermore, bot is relative cheaper way to help earning (farming) in-game gold/currency than hire ‘gold farmers’ for doing so. (As I mentioned, the bot will automatically sell the loots when inventory full and go back hunt from mobs again in the mean time gaining XP too)

How Bot Company/Creator Earn Money?

They simply earn by selling the bot software. For example, (Cabal Rider) http://www.cabalrider.net/sg/sg.html is a bot company which aim at CabalSea players, at cost of $13.50 = 30 Days usage. Similarly, there are tons of online games throughout the world, which then provides opportunities for this so-called bot company too to earn money from those players.

Challenges for Online Game Business!

Bot brings serious negative effect to online game business:

(1)    Server traffic is overloaded: Like previously in Silkroad online international, approximately 90% gamers are ‘botters’. Even the game has several servers, all servers are full with ‘botters’. So for those honest players, they hardly logging in to the game, regardless day or night. They have higher chance to log in, only when the time right after the server maintanence, or right after new patch updated.

(2)    Inflation: Botters can perpetually farming gold, 24hours/7days/52weeks. It can easily cause inflation in the game, where the large amount of circulating gold made every in-game item prices goes up and those honest players can’t afford to trade with other players anymore.

(3)    Duplicate: A player who uses bot software to auto-leveling his/her characters in the same time also auto-leveling other characters. This is the process: Firstly, register many different accounts, and then log in to the game. Secondly, create different characters and different names. Thirdly, select one of the characters and start botting! Fourthly, command other characters to party up with the one which are botting, and following the botter to leech experience. In the end, all characters reach the maximum level in a same time, and for them this is their beginning of the game play, for e.g. to PK the honest players, low-level players, disrupting and dominating the server is their ultimate objective!

(4)    Hard to detect players from using bot: It is hardly to detect players from using bot, because a lot of bot software designed to obey the game’s rule. For example, one method use by online gaming company to check whether the player is botting is through the ‘quiz’, the quiz will pop up in random time to ask the players to answer a simple question, if the players didn’t respond or click the wrong answer, then the GM will consider this players is botting (after several time of failing to answer quiz) and start investigate this player, by starting a conversation with the player to see if the player is at the keyobard. However, this does not work, some bot software is able to detect this quiz and can answer it correctly, and even, it is impossible for GM to eliminate botters thoroughly, because normally an online game only have few GM (3 to 5).

(5)    Motivation of honest players to continue playing in MMORPG will be affected by botters and thus switching to other MMORPG which has lessor botters or even no botters.

How The MMORPG businesses overcome these challenges? We seek for your advices! Thanks!

References:

Mitterhofer, S., Platzer, C., Kruegel, C., Kirda, E., May/June 2009, "Server-Side Bot Detection in Massive Multiplayer Online Games", IEEE Computer And Reliability Societies, viewed 01 Oct 2010.

http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~chris/research/doc/spmagazine09_gamebots.pdf

Definition of Bot, TechTarget, viewed 01 Oct 2010.

http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid26_gci211699,00.html

CabalRider, viewed 01 Oct 2010.

http://www.cabalrider.net/sg/sg.html

Scam

Scam happens everywhere in our life, such as telephone scams, e-mail scams etc.
One of the common scam in our life would be the sms scam, a text message that inform you about millions of cash that you have won and you will be asked to call another number to claim those rewards but it often turn out to be fake rewards.

Scamming is unethical even in MMORPG. Players spend time and money in acquiring some particular items or weapons. In some online games such as Chibi Online or Mo Siang Online, some items are rare and even impossible to obtain unless one puts a lot of effort and hard work or throwing real cash into it. Such as,

A Rare Gold Enchanted Weapon in Chibi Online

An Un-Obtainable Weapon in Mo Siang Online

Despite all the hardworks and cash money that players invested, it is an accepted part of the game that players are strongly encouraged to protect themselves from being scammed. Even the game's developers and company have acknowledged that corporate infiltration, scamming and hackers are just another part of the harsh criminal underworld for MMORPG. In most MMOs, acts of theft could earn the perpetrator a permanent game ban, which means they cannot play the games anymore.

Types of Scam in MMORPG: (based on personal experiences and word of mouth)

- Item Scam -
also known as illegal gains where scammers gain items from other players without paying or giving anything in return, games' developer tends to overcome this problem by creating a system where items and weapons bind to the owner only. Players are unable to resell or buy any binding items or weapon.

- Gender Scam -
In some MMORPG such as MapleStory where there are wedding system in the game (where male players buy cash item and propose to female players and get married in the game), male players often invest real cash and find himself a wife in the game. However, all these can turn out to be a male players married another male player in disguise. These scammers create fake Fakebook account and give fake information and scam the other players' cash.

- Cash Scam -
There are players who use real cash to trade with in-game players, this is the most risky trade as it require both honest players participating in the trade. Some players might use Digi/Celcom/Maxis's Reload Card as an offer to buy anything in the game and if the offer is attractive, players will answer the deal. Once both players agree on the trade, cash player will reload for the in-game player and the in game player will hand over the stuff to the cash player. However, there are cases where in-game players log off directly after receiving the reloads.


Before I end this thread, there is something which I will like to ask,

" Is scamming in MMORPG a crime in the real world ? "

17th December 2009, China jails 11 over online games scam, 11 people are jailed for up to three years for their roles in online gaming scams that netted them around 140,000 Dollars. These people wrote or somehow created a Trojan Horse viruses and steal 5.3 million user names and passwords from online gamers, which were then used for "illegal gain".

http://www.france24.com/en/node/4950332

Readers are welcomed to ask anything about this post if it's too complicated or add in information for us if you have any personal experiences. Thank you.


References:
http://www.massively.com/2010/09/11/eve-online-player-steals-45-000-worth-of-isk-in-massive-investm/

http://www.france24.com/en/node/4950332

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090901183709AAvtZle

Our Research Objectives

1. Identify various type of business in online gaming.
2. Penetrate into the strategies of how online gaming business implemented.
3. Challenges of online gaming business currently facing and how they overcome it.
4. Factors affecting of why people spends time in online games.

For Fun =)

Short clips of South Park in WoW (World Of Warcraft)

Reasons why people spend time in mmorpg

If there is no market, there is no business; If there is no demand, there is no supply.
For mmorpg business it is the same, if there is no such huge amount of mmorpg enthusiast, then there will be no vast mmorpg business out there.
Back to the origin before talking about the strategies of how to operate a business in mmorpg, first we need to study about the mmorpg enthusiast. WHY THEY SPEND TIME IN MMORPG?

According to onlinemassivemultiplayer.com, one of the reasons why is because it could help people to escape from reality, which mean if one has no money in real life, but inside the virtual mmorpg he/she could be a well-known tycoon; or, if one who is an anonymous person in real life, but inside the virtual mmorpg he/she could be a prestigious character, which mean all gamers inside that particular game know him/her well!

So, it means if they put effort in the mmorpg, whether they want to be a hateful character or honourable character, they will have their desired outcome in the end - which is fun. (what i mean here is, in reality you might put a lot of effort in one thing, but in the end you receive nothing back). For example, in the virtual world, if you want to be a hateful character, like simply killing other newbies, or disturb others from completing their quest, you won't be arrested, unlike in real world, if you commit crime you would be arrested.

The second reasons is 'Connect with friends and family online in a fun and entertaining way that is relatively low cost.' For example, you can explore the virtual world together with friends, choose your favourite character (Like Silkroad online, you can select either a Hunter, Trader, or a Thief), form your own guild or clan with your friends and also recruiting other players, participate in-game events, or have clan wars and dispute with other clan and etc. So, it is relatively cheaper to entertain yourself. Even if one playing him/herself will not be alone because he/she can meet other players all around the world, which is real people.

In my opinion, it in fact bring benefit to me instead of wasting my time like what we always heard from others, but to be fair, it has its pros and cons of course. The benefits like learn and share experiences with each others which are not just game-related topic, for example, I remember last time before Skype or any team-speak software became popularize in local, I had already knew what is team-speak software all about from some Western gamers inside the mmorpg (Silkroad online, they are cool, they made the software themselves). Besides that, socializing and knowing others in mmorpg can widen one's vision because they can meet different peoples from other countries. Anyway, there are still a lot of hidden benefits in the experience of playing mmorpg.

We are pleased if you guys can contribute other hidden benefits of playing mmorpg! =DD

References:
Benefits and Drawbacks of Less or More Time Playing MMOs during an Economic Depression | Online Massive Multiplayer.com, 2010 Online Massive Multiplayer.com, viewed 17th September 2010.

http://www.onlinemassivelymultiplayer.com/rants/benefits-and-drawbacks-of-less-or-more-time-playing-mmos-during-an-economic-depression/

SEAgamers

For all the gamers out there, you might heard of this name before or you might not. Yes, it’s South East Asia Gamer Mall (also known as SEAgamers).

The South East Asia Gamer Mall was established in August 2007, as a professional website seeking to provide game players with gaming related and value-adding services. From the humble beginning of nil, this organization growth has been sky-rocketing in the past six months among the numerous South East Asia online gaming trading websites. They adopt B2C (Business to Customer) in dealing directly with gamer worldwide.

Since its official introduction in 2007, South East Asia Gamer Mall has been gathering precious experience and sufficient progress. Recent business includes a number of online games, ranging from Power Leveling, Games Currency, Game Points and various gaming products.

SEAgamers get involved in more than 40 famous online games, mostly MMORPG. Other than that, your Facebook Farmville and Texas Poker got their own employees in there to change your real cash into game cash.

Just like any other service providers, SEAgamers got their own live support customer service. Customers get to choose to contact them either in Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger , Skype, email or just phone call anytime from 8am to 1am.

Their customers mainly go for their currency exchange service whereby I’ve mentioned bout real cash trades for game cash. SEAgamers provide information about the games and the current currency for each server. I will use MapleSEA as example:

MapleSEA servers: (Mesos is their currency in the game)

Aquila’s

= RM 16.50/ 100m Mesos

= SGD 7.00/ 100m Mesos

= USD 5.80/ 100m Mesos

Bootes’

= RM 17.50/ 100m Mesos

= SGD 7.50/ 100m Mesos

= USD 6.10/ 100m Mesos

There are many other servers in MapleSEA online but if I list it out one by one followed with Philippine’s or China’s currency, this blog is going to be so lame. And the payment method can be found from their website www.seagm.com. (Basically, servers work like dimensions; in different server you will meet different players.)

How did SEAgamers advertise themselves for the gamers worldwide?

SEAgamer has their social media group such as facebook and twitter. However, it is useless if gamers do not realise about the fan group. Therefore, SEAgamers use one fantastic way of advertising. The strategy is called SPAMMING, and yes it is the most annoying strategy ever but it is effective in online gaming businesses.

The organization got a lot of power levelling players and they dominate and scatter all over the online gaming world. Usually they will stay in a place where many other online gamers hang around, or a place where we called market. Then, they will start spamming every few seconds introduce the seagamers website, or the currency offers.

This is effective because there are some newbie players who doesn’t know the tactic of levelling in online game, therefore they will go and visit the website and become SEAgamers’ customer if the offers are attractive or worth. However, the organization who owns the games really hate SEAgamers’ employee and often banned their accounts.

Effective strategies always attract scammers to gain benefits but how did they do it? We will try to demonstrate it in our next post. Stay tune.

References:

SEA Gamer Mall | Your One Stop Gaming Services Platform, 2007-2010 SEAGM.com, viewed 11th September 2010. - http://www.seagm.com/

Buy MapleSEA Mesos | Sea Gamer Mall, 2007-2010 SEAGM.com, viewed 11th September 2010. - http://www.seagm.com/gold/buy?game_id=8