Hot Gamer Redheads: Kate Welch!

We here at Save Point love redheads. And I'm not just saying that because I, Lisa, CREATOR OF SAVE POINT, am one, thanks to a box of dye and the ability to hold back my tears when changing hair colors despite the fact that I desperately fear change. And the dye stings my scalp.

My cool friend Alex also enjoys redheads, specifically talking to them interview-style and writing it down journalist-style. Here is the first in our new Hot Gamer Redheads series. This one is with Kate Welch! KATE IS AWESOME. WE HIGH-FIVE HER.

Alex McMillan: So, without further a-do, let's get to our predicting!

Kate Welch : I've been exercising my clairvoyancey muscles for just this moment.

Alex McMillan: So a little while back now, RIFT, a new MMORPG was released, and it got a lot of praise for doing things differently from the standard MMO. With games like RIFT and Guild Wars 2, coming out and supposedly doing new and original things, do you think any of them can catch up with the momentum that World of Warcraft has, or is WoW now completely unstoppable?

Kate Welch: So I should start this prediction with the disclaimer that I currently work for ArenaNet developing Guild Wars 2, and that I am in no way an official spokesperson for them, and all the opinions I express about the MMO world are my own. Just to be clear.

Alex McMillan: That's fine

Kate Welch: OKAY THEN! There's a big problem when one talks about "catching up to WoW", because as you say, the momentum of it is pretty well established. There's inertia there. Not only do they have a huge chunk of the population already ensnared, but they've also had six and a half years on the market to draw from. They've rebalanced, retuned, and added content countless times.

They've got a base. Coming out with a brand new game can be really tough in that sense, because every MMO needs a little adjustment when it's released. That's usually enough to totally kill a new MMO -- when players start it up and it's not as polished as good ol' WoW, a great majority tend to dismiss it out of hand, because it's easier and comfortable to go back to Azeroth.

And of course, if all you do is parrot WoW with different monsters and different environments, you just simply won't win, because you're asking players to recreate the experience they've spent so much time on in WoW starting from nothing. Some people might like that, but most people, given a choice between WoW with 40 days /played across their characters, will choose WoW again.

So the secret sauce, I'm convinced, is finding out what bugs WoW players -- what makes them quit even if there's no temptation to play another MMO for them at that time -- and fix that.

I think that's what Guild Wars 2 and RIFT have both offered, and it's exciting as hell to WoW veterans who are tired of that formula.

Alex McMillan: I think for anyone who is creating an MMO it's a very difficult balancing act. Especially as MMOs are a genre that completely relies on it's player-base, the number of people playing is intergral to the gaming experience. Like you say, you can't mimic WoW as then there's no incentive to switch, but at the same time you really can't be too different, otherwise there aren't enough people to play take the unfortunate case of All-Points Bulletin (APB) last year, which got completely shut down due to the lack of popularity. It was going for a very different angle and just didn't have the lasting power.

I definitely think there is a way to take a large portion of WoW players, but I don't think anyone's found it yet, like you say, a company needs to find the gripes WoW players have, and make a game without them. I'm really looking forward to Guild Wars 2 as a person who hasn't played MMOs properly before, and I think that is the other key market people making MMORPGs have to tap into, is that group of people who haven't felt the urge to play an MMORPG before, they need to figure out what can make that person want to play, while at the same time getting the audience of people who already play MMORPGs. It's an extremely complex problem with very little room for error.

Kate Welch : Yeah, you're telling me! It's basically what I'm holding my head and groaning about all day long at work. But there's a lot of people who are in your same position -- intrigued by Guild Wars 2 because it's doing something different. I haven't had a chance to play RIFT, but I do know it's seduced some hardcore WoW players away, so that alone makes me curious.

I'll give 'em some time to sort out their currently massive server load issues though.

Alex McMillan: I think nearly all MMOs suffer from growing pains in their initial release period, I don't think that's something they'll ever be able to get over, and that is one of those massive stumbling blocks games have, is that WoW is so tried and tested like you said. I'm hoping Guild Wars 2 will overcome.

Kate Welch: It is important to be as flawless as possible if you're coming at a behemoth like WoW, certainly, but no game is perfect -- including WoW! Cataclysm was and still is riddled with bugs. When you have a concrete release game that has no evolution to it, just a one-off $60 game you buy on a console, you have to much more focused on that. But the scope of an MMO is such that you simply can't be perfect at first pass. You're right, it's important. It's just tough to do it, and a lot of people swear it off easily when those problems start cropping up.

Alex McMillan: I think that when Blizzard shifts their focus onto that new MMO they're apparently working on, Titan I believe it's called, that's where they'll lose a big section of their player base to other games. In a way, it's almost not about what the other games do, it's about what Blizzard does.

Kate Welch: I definitely agree with that. I played EverQuest for many years before WoW came around, and I never heard people invoke SOE or Verant the way they casually invoke Blizzard's name all the time. It's very much about the studio.

Alex McMillan: So, it's been known for some time now that Gearbox, the studio behind Borderlands has taken over the role of producing Duke Nukem Forever, which has been vapourware for I believe about 14 years now. If Duke Nukem proves a success, do you think we'll be seeing more old franchises rise from the dead, or is this a rare thing to happen?

Kate Welch: Honestly, I don't think it's going to inspire a trend -- and the reason why is because it's been such an infamous hopeless case for so long! There's a famous picture out there on the web of a guy who preordered it so long ago that his receipt is brown from age. It became a joke in the community, you know? Duke Nukem Forever was a metaphor for hopelessness.

Now that it's actually coming out, and looks awesome, that's cause for celebration -- but I don't think we'll see a revival. The generation of young kids who are gaming these days probably have no idea who Duke Nukem even is (which is fine, because I'm sure it's getting an M rating), so it'd be hard to remarket a long-dead series like that.

My spidey sense says no on this prediction.

Alex McMillan: I mean, there are certainly some franchises I would like to see make a comeback (Not as blast-from the past as Duke, but I need me some Timesplitters 4) but I don't know if it's enough of a driving force to bring something back just for the nostalgia factor. I really think DNF is a special case, it's become sort of a cult thing in it's own way, but if it did really well,

I think we may see studios at least talking more about old franchises. Whether or not that leads to revivals, I don't know, but I do think a lot of companies follow the successful trends, which it is very possible Duke Nukem could inspire.

Kate Welch: Studios do tend to follow the money, haha. I just think that it would take just as much energy to develop a captivating new IP as it would to reinvent an old franchise and market it to the current generation -- but that's just me. And don't believe for a moment that I wouldn't be SPRINTING out the door to buy a new Ecco the Dolphin game.

Alex McMillan: I think if we do see revivals, they won't be well done. I think if a studio is gonna release an older franchise just for the money, they're not going to do it well. So, while a lot of us live in hope of that new Ecco the Dolphin game, I pray it doesn't fall into the wrong hands.

Kate Welch: Amen. Don't get me started on studios that make games just because of the name tied to 'em... that's a whole article of Kate Welch ranting her brain out right there.

(I'M LOOKING AT YOU TELLTALE GAMES)

Alex McMillan: If I set off the Kate Welch-rant trigger here, I doubt I'll be able to stop it :L

Kate Welch: I can nerd rage for days.

Alex McMillan: One thing that really made me hopeful of Duke Nukem Forever is that Randy Pitchford (Head of Gearbox) says that he "Needs this as a gamer". I honestly believe he's doing it from the angle of a gamer, rather than that of a businessman.

Kate Welch: Oh agreed. At this point, DNF is a labor of love. After all this time... hats off to Gearbox.

Alex McMillan: I will have a newfound respect for Gearbox if they can make a 14 year old game sell in today's market

Kate Welch: Well, as someone who had the good fortune to see it in action at PAX 2010, I definitely predict that DNF is going to do JUST fine.

Alex McMillan: And on that optimistic note, we'll move onto our next hot topic. Call of Duty, the unstoppable FPS train. Recently we've had the announcement of Modern Warfare 3, along with some teaser trailers. The time between CoD titles is getting smaller and smaller, do you think it's going to continue to shrink, and do you think this will affect the games in any way?

Kate Welch: I think this is a question with a complex answer. Activision is getting a lot of bad press lately. There was a big breakdown of how they managed to gut the Guitar Hero series, and they're the first to bump their PC games up to $60 to match console prices. So it's kind of hard to answer this question without thinking it's them being somewhat evil.

But I think it just comes down to dollars and cents, sadly. Call of Duty games are consistently #1 on the sales charts when they release. It's a matter of brand loyalty; people will always go buy a Call of Duty game because they are consistently impressive, but also because they know all their friends are going to be playing it too.

If the window shrinks any more than it currently stands right now, it'll be amazing -- I can't imagine developing a quality title for multiple platforms in less than a year, but that's exactly what they're doing. If they continue to whittle that window down, you'll definitely see a dip in quality and a spike in DLC offerings. It's all a balancing act -- you can't have it good, cheap, AND fast.

Alex McMillan: I think it's only now that the window between titles has become really noticable, I mean, with this latest announcement, that's about a five month gap between last release and latest announcement. I mean, as you say, you can't keep the quality up and continue to decrease the time they have to make it, so I think Activision have changed there strategy, I mean, obviously they've been having Infinity Ward and Treyarch rota throughout the past couple of years, but now they've also apparently got Raven working on a CoD title, and then they're apparently making a game about Ghost, and ontop of that you hear about them making a Call of Duty game for the NGP, they seem to be biting a lot off, and if they want to keep the quality standards up I think they need to pace themselves

Kate Welch: Totally agreed. They look at Call of Duty and see a cash cow and they're milking it ferociously. Which, I mean, if it works out, good for them. I feel a little disdainful because FPS games are never my favorites -- I suck at 'em. So I don't get the hype. But millions of other people do, clearly.

Alex McMillan: I've always liked FPS's but not more-so than other genres, and cetainly Call of Duty has never been a clear favourite, I usually prefer games that do things sort of differently. I reckon it just comes down to "My friend has CoD, so if I get CoD we can play CoD together!". And Activision can say it's because they produce the best shooters, but no matter how they spin it, it comes down to having a lot of people playing, and people wanting to play together.

Kate Welch: Yep -- and each person has to buy a copy in order to play! Cha-ching!

Alex McMillan: I mean, you can't really blame Activision for liking money, can you?

Kate Welch: No, I can't. We have that in common, Activision and I.

Alex McMillan: So, we move on swiftly like a greased leopard to a subject I'm sure you'll be able to discuss eternally, Batman (and other superheroes). Arkham City is coming soon and is looking fabulous, and we're seeing a lot of games about Superheroes being made, most recently we had Thor: God of Thunder released. Do you think we'll be seeing more characters leaping from the comic book to the console, and do you think they will fall victim to being cash-ins?

Kate Welch: Short answer: definitely.

Making movie spin-off games isn't a new phenomenon at all, so we'll definitely be getting the Thor and Captain America and Green Lantern video games coming out alongside their movie counterparts. Then, of course, you have games like Arkham Asylum and Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions that didn't have a direct movie correlation; it's my belief that, like the films, these games are a way for Marvel and DC to start making revenue again. It's no secret that the comic book industry has been down on its luck when it comes to people buying comics themselves, but people are voracious about consuming those characters as movies and video games. That's not going to change, I don't think.

There's an upswing in comics readership that's happened since the advent of the iPad and the comic reader/store apps that came along with it. Which is AWESOME, of course. But if anything, I think that introducing these comics to an audience that may never have though to purchase them as individual issues will only increase the interest in seeing those characters in other media forms.

Now, whether those games will be any good...

I mean, Arkham Asylum ruled. Shattered Dimensions seemed awesome in concept, but lacked in execution. There aren't many other superhero video games that you can point to and say "they did it right." It's a very tough thing to do. Games are mechanical and often lack the grace you want to impart to a character on-screen or in a comic book.

So I don't have the highest hopes in terms of quality -- but I'm always on board to see a character show up in its own video game. Will I buy Thor: God of Thunder? Most assuredly. And that's all they want from me anyway.

Alex McMillan: From the looks of things, Comic book characters have become more popular over the last few years, with more films based on Comic book characters, and I think it's just natural progression for companies to make games based on them. Like you said, quality may not be a factor, when all some companies are interested in is the name-brand, but I'm hopeful that more games will be well-made to do the characters justice

Alex McMillan: So, we move to our final future-telling of the day, and it is on the subject of sequels. This year we could see more game sequels than ever before, with some of the biggest releases of the year being Uncharted 3, Portal 2, Mass Effect 3, Killzone 3 and Gears of War 3. Do you think in the years to come we'll be seeing more sequels, or are we going to start seeing more original IPs?

Kate Welch: 2011 is definitely the year of the sequel. When I just did my episode about top five mainstream games, I was making a list of every game I was excited about this year and I think maybe two out of 10 of them were original IPs.

But I don't think that is anything to be concerned about. Every sequel that you just named, and a handful of others I can think of, are massively exciting -- because the properties they're continuing were and are totally awesome. Maybe you can call it uncreative to just continue the formula that made you successful and popular the first time around, but I don't think it's such a bad thing.

If people want to play another game -- if your community has been demanding a sequel, pounding down your door for one -- and you are excited to do it, I think that's a win/win situation.

I find it really interesting when an original IP comes along in a sea of sequels -- like LA Noire, for instance. It tends to stand out more. It's much easier and more comfortable to gamble on a sure thing.

Will we see more Years of the Sequels in the future? Probably so. There was an article I read recently about how game devs should appreciate their pirates and treat them as future paying customers -- let them pirate your first game, give them great support, and they're more likely to convert when you develop a sequel.

Not IF you develop a sequel -- but WHEN.

And game piracy is so rampant (buy your games, people!!) that it's just a fact that you have to figure out how you're going to deal with them, not worry whether you'll have to. So if you release Mass Effect 1, and half the people who play it pirate it and like it, you're more likely to have some of those pirates buy Mass Effect 2, and more who will buy Mass Effect 3.

So yeah, sequels are going to keep coming out. It sort of stinks if you don't like any of the current offerings, but most people are excited, I think. And if you hate 'em, there's always the luscious world of indie gaming that's calling to you.

Alex McMillan: I think a lot of people see sequels as lazy, and in some cases it's true, but now-a-days, it's just good business. People liked Dead Space, that's why we got Dead Space 2. People wanted another Portal, so we're getting Portal 2. It's serving to the general population of gamers, certainly, but if a game is good, people are going to want more, so more sequelse could be seen as a blessing and a curse as you say, there is no lack of creativity and innovation, especially in the indie game market

I mean, take breakthrough hit Minecraft for example.

Kate Welch: Yeah, that's a great example. Minecraft has been a phenomenon.

I don't think any of the sequels on track for this year are being developed "just because" or anything. I think there was huge demand, and the studios are trying to satisfy that demand.

Alex McMillan: I think it's an idea from the past that a lot of people still thinks happens today, where sequels get made because they can, rather than because people want it. In previous generations, studios haven't been able to get that direct feedback from the internet that we have now, and I think that is what causes sequels to be made, more than anything else, is people's opinions and feedback.

Kate Welch: Oh definitely. As a developer you get instantaneous feedback from the general populace, and not just a few dozen game journalists. It's all very real-time. A blessing and a curse sometimes.

Alex McMillan: Kate, I'd like to thank you for taking the time today to predict the future with me

Kate Welch: Of course! I also predict that this interview will be a huge hit.

Alex McMillan: That's very kind of you to say, it's been an absolute pleasure.

Kate Welch: The pleasure is all mine! Thanks Alex!