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INDEPENDENT'S DAY
Rapid Reality Co-Founder Adam Ghetti Declares War on Mainstream MMOs
Like many adolescents, 19 year-old Adam Ghetti’s a creature of contradiction. The one thing we can’t wrap our heads around, though: As co-founder and senior creative director of Atlanta-based MMO development start-up Rapid Reality, LLC, he’s got this whole industry thing a bit backwards.
After all, whereas contemporaries at larger outfits like Blizzard and NCSoft prefer to do it big, Ghetti and his cohorts – including head software architect Rick Wells and partner/father Marc Ghetti – think small… real small. In keeping with this philosophy, they formed a privately funded company of 37 people 2 ½ years ago with one single goal: Produce high-quality MMOs in ludicrously short (6 to 8-month) development cycles. And, for that matter, market and sell access to these titles for one flat – and shockingly reasonable – monthly fee via wholly-owned online portal MMOCenter.com.
Over the next several years, Rapid Reality intends to roll out half a dozen or more original games, i.e. fantasy RPG The Chronicle and sci-fi FPS Machines, via the service. All of which, shockingly, require minute user bases to stay profitable, evolve according to the will of the people, and are constructed in less time than it takes the average Eve Online player to gain any real measure of power. Never mind how far-fetched or implausible the scheme seems on paper, though… As a visit to the outfit’s HQ proves, there’s more going on here than meets the eye.
For one, titles all look virtually up to par with some of today’s biggest massively multiplayer online games. (They just won’t sport nearly as much content at launch.) On top of this, while subscribing to one costs $12.95/month, a complete package which offers unlimited access to any game on the network runs just $7 more.
Bottom line: It’s entirely probable the business will soon roll out a line of top-notch, cost-effective MMOs in niche genres that you, the end-user, can help shape. And, as an in-depth interview with Adam, Marc and Rick reveals, the firm may very well have stumbled upon the secret that takes massively multiplayer gaming to the next level.
LQGaming Services:: Fess up: What's the deal with MMOCenter? Why go independent? Why charge a fixed fee for multiple titles a month? Why not take the same approach as larger companies like Blizzard or NCSoft?
Adam Ghetti: One of the reasons that we chose to go it this way was we didn’t want to suffer under the constraints of any particular publisher. We also have all the right partnerships in place to be able to stay independent.
Plus, staying independent gives us a lot more freedom to experiment and explore within our own business model. Instead of spending $25-$30 million making one massive game, we’re spending $1 million, $2 million to make a single game, then selling these offerings on a single network where we can charge a single fee for access to all. The games that draw the most users we’ll spend more money on in terms of developing them out, adding additional content. That’s basically the reason.
We also think people would rather pay $19.95 a month and have a lot more access to a lot more content and different genres, a lot more playability, a lot more choices… For instance, you might say you don’t like The Chronicle, a fantasy game or Machines, a robot game. But you’re paying the same fee for access multiple games, so you can hop amongst titles as much as you want. You can have many characters in many games too…
But basically, the idea is to make smaller scale games in the beginning, and the games people like, we’ll expand…
LQGaming Services:: What do you think it is in terms of the massively multiplayer online market that so-called larger players like Sony Online and their peers are missing in terms of their thinking?
Adam: They're missing the whole concept of short development cycles. They're spending too much time and resources on one single idea. I mean, Tabula Rasa's been in development for what, four or five years? Sony Online spent five years developing Sovereign. FIVE YEARS! The game's never going to be released. They shelved it!
They're spending too much effort exploring a single idea. Spend less time and money. Get your idea out there in a practical and usable manner. See how the market likes it. If they like it, expand it. If they don't, leave it alone.
"Our titles feature emergent AI. NPCs will literally play [each] adventure as would a real human. We don't need you to play the game - our game plays itself."
LQGaming Services:: What are the advantages of the 6-8 month development cycle you enjoy that you couldn't if you were stuck working on a 3-year, multimillion-dollar project?
Adam: Allow me to provide an example. Some console game developers have teams that do nothing every 6 months but create new mini-games. What this allows them to do is test the concept, and the ones they like, they'll turn around and create a full-blown game based on it. We're kind of taking the same idea, but putting a little more stability and effort into it. We're letting users be the testers and finding out what they, the end customers, like. If it works, we'll use it. If not, we won't. A 6-8 month development cycle also allows us to be more creative and think quicker on our feet and explore new ideas as a whole.
LQGaming Services:: Do you really think there's a market for smaller MMOs such as the ones you're proposing?
Adam: Absolutely. Kart Rider – I’m going to take that example. It’s eight players, 24 different areas, no more than 2 minutes of content for each of those areas… That company made $150 million last year. It’s on track to make $180 million this year. They have 10 million active subscribers and over 1 million concurrent subscribers at any given time in Korea alone. It’s a small, small game, making big, big bucks…
LQGaming Services:: why is stuff like World of Warcraft and City of Villains making all the noise?
Adam: Because you have these multimillion-dollar marketing machines behind them. Sony Online, NCSoft… they’ve got the retailers in their pocket, big deals with all the magazines. They can push content through all the traditional outlets…
Marc Ghetti: And if you want to see what all that money gets them, check our Alexa ranking versus Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and see what those millions of dollars actually buy in terms of web traffic and interest in their games.
Adam: A lot of people may know about these games, but don’t spend time and interest playing them. We’re hundreds of thousands of sites above all these titles… We have more dedicated members, I should say.
LQGaming Services::
Speaking of, what is your marketing engine: e.g. how will you keep users coming back to MMOCenter for more?
Adam: We’re doing a lot of things that are different from standard MMOs. Ultima Online and EverQuest are great games, but we’re not taking that same cookie-cutter approach and just re-branding it. We’re actually developing new features.
We have features like our empire building system, which allows players to own land in a game, which isn’t that much more different than EverQuest II. But, not only can a player own land, but they can actually expand their holdings, hire on NPCs, make alliances with NPC factions, and become a playable faction in the game! If a player created guild is large enough, you can actually join the faction straight off. You’re not necessarily a part of the guild, but you are in the faction.
There’s also a nice siege system. You don’t just get to siege other players, you can actually take over control of property and land! It also allows NPCs to seize your holdings if they decide to wage war with you too.
Another key feature of our games is EAI – emergent artificial intelligence. That allows for NPCs to do anything a player can do. If a player can do it in our game, an NPC can too, which means the day we flip the switch, we don’t know exactly what will happen. We’ll make sure nothing too out of whack goes on, but NPCs will literally play the game. We don’t need you to play the game – our game plays itself.
LQGaming Services:: Interesting approach. How many subscribers do you guys need to have to score a success with this venture as compared with a large-scale MMO?
Adam: Given what we’re spending, we don’t need hundreds of thousands of users to make our money back. We’re completely confident we can provide great games for years to come: our break-even point is a lot lower than most other companies. We’ll be around.
Rick Wells: Mind you, success and profit are two different things. We’re a success if we have a happy user base. Profitable is something else entirely. For this venture to be successful, we need less than 20,000 subscribers.
LQGaming Services::
Wow - that's pretty amazing. Let's see if we can interest a few right now: Mind telling us what titles like The Chronicle and Machines have to offer, and what makes them unique as compared to what's currently on the market?
Adam: The Chronicle is a fantasy-based MMO built around a unique concept. There’s no clearly defined sense of good or evil in the game… there’s a morality system. You kind of start off neutral… Based on your relationship with other players and NPCs alike, your relationships form virally, and your relationships change throughout the game, obviously.
We have our EAI, our empire system, which are similar in structure across all our titles… We also have player-created magic. Not just the kind where you go out and collect components or items to make something that’s already in our database. We could have 1000 spells in the database, and you could actually go out and create spell number 1001. You can sell then the plans, train other people to use the spell, or keep it to yourself.
"Companies are missing the point. They're spending too much time and resources on one single idea. Sony Online spent five years developing Sovereign. FIVE YEARS! And the game's never going to be released. "
The fact that we also have a main character versus regular characters is huge. Sure, we have regular characters, as in other MMOs: You go out, you die, you take a little bit of a penalty, you come back, whatever. You're also capped at level 70.
Well, a main character's a little different. They gain skills a little faster. They're stronger. They get more powerful abilities. They can go up to level 100. So levels 71-100 are only for main characters. But there's one special stipulation: 90% of the time when you die, you're dead. you don't come back. 10% of the time there's a random chance that if you get killed in a fight, during a raid or something, you go to judgment. Nine times out of ten you die and don't come back. But if you go to judgment, you've got to talk your way out, barter, trade, whatever it takes to get out of the judgment zone and get back into the normal world.
Or, if you're in an area like the wilderness, other things can happen. Let's say there's a specific type of creature like a manticore that kills you. He then randomly selects whether you're going to go to judgment, or if he's just not going to kill you and instead knock you out, take you back to his cave, and turn you into a prisoner. If he does take you hostage, you have three real-life hours to be saved.
We think original scenarios and letting main characters exist and interact with regular characters in the same realm will be a big draw.
LQGaming Services:: And what about Machines?
Adam: Machines really shows off our AI. It’s also a lot more PVP based. Though there are entities and NPCs you can interact with, it’s very much a blow ‘em up, FPS-style MMO. At the same time, one of the most unique features on top of the EAI and empire system is that you can play a digital entity.
In this case, you don’t have a physical avatar. The world of Machines is completely mechanical, computerized… It’s not Earth. Completely inorganic. You can actually play a computer program that can roam around the world from a wholly separate view and you can actually take over NPCs or even other players at an extremely high level. You can interact with everything a computer can control. You can actually take over an enemy base and shut the doors and lock them in, so your guild/clan can go by and kill them. Meanwhile, someone playing a digital entity on their side would have to come fight and try and get you out of the system.
It’s like a whole different war going on while everyone else is running around in mechs trying to kill each other…
LQGaming Services::
These titles sound pretty impressive. How long have they been in development?
Adam: The Chronicle has been in development since about May. It’ll be about an 8-month development cycle. Machines is looking on track to be about the same.
LQGaming Services:: How is that possible?
Adam: We have great technology and a great group of people. We’re doing different things too. We’re using the best technology that we can get our hands-on… I don’t know why everyone else isn’t doing the same. And we’re taking the approach of letting each game’s creative elements be known and understood by every member of the team, so not every minor detail has to be checked off by 12 designers sitting in a room for 2 weeks saying we need 8 spiders in this specific part of the world.
Bureaucracy is also non-existent inside of our organization. The only red-tape is the designers/developers themselves. The people making the game are the people running the company as well.
LQGaming Services:: No offense, but some might say that's like letting the monkeys run the zoo. After all, many other high-profile creative-run ventures like Gathering of Developers were a failure. If proven performers like Terminal Reality (Nocturne), Ritual Entertainment (Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2) and Human Head (Prey) couldn't make such a system work, how will you?
Adam: Well, our company does have individuals who handle its business that aren’t on the development team side making sure everything runs soundly. Our investors are private individuals who trust in us developers to make the best game possible. But we also have people in our corner who are experienced with development cycles, equipment purchases, product sales and so forth to ensure that we’ll be offering subscribers games for years to come. These businesspeople have no input on the creative side, though; they trust that we’re doing that right. But as far as making sure we stay up and running, they’re there, and they have it covered…
LQGaming Services:: What's your inspiration for this particular venture?
Adam: For many of us, it’s the same as any other developer: To make fun games that people love. But my inspiration comes specifically from the fact that every company I’ve ever dealt with that I thought was going to be a great experience turned out not to be because of poor customer service and a lack of communication with users. Users aren’t crops to be farmed that’ll always be there that you can just keep rotating around.
You have to earn the user. Prove that you deserve to keep their business. The problem thus far is that there haven’t been enough decent titles out there for users to switch between and show their displeasure when there’s a problem. If you’ve put 3 years into one game already, there’s no point in switching to another title that’s almost virtually identical and starting over from scratch.
We intend to give users an option. We’re putting in features that are fun and competitive and spark a unique interest. We will honor our users, and hopefully lure away players from other, larger games that aren’t as respectful.
LQGaming Services:: that mean gamers will have a direct conduit to you as developers and be able to act as designers in a way themselves, personally affecting how a title evolves?
Adam: Oh yeah. We’ve done that all the way up until this point and will continue to do so as long as I’m part of this company. Every week, every day, we are in the chat rooms, on the forums, responding to and taking questions from the community. We do our best to communicate with our community; they’re the people who’ll eventually make us successful. If we don’t earn their respect and honor them, and don’t make a product that they like, then what are we doing this for?
LQGaming Services:: So people can actually get you to change a game or fix a bug on the fly?
Adam: If it’s justified, we’re happy to change anything in a timely fashion. Effectively, users will develop the game they want to play.
LQGaming Services:: How do you make sure everything runs smoothly in terms of player interaction? Or, in other words, without a huge support staff, how do you oversee the worlds which you create?
Adam: We’re going to run a traditional GM-style system that lets experienced users help others in need. It’s really based on much of the Dark Age of Camelot user system where if you’re more experienced and you want to help, turn on the help feature… If it’s an average question, it’ll get queued to you.
But if it’s a serious question – something to do with technical support, billing or errors – it’ll go to a real-live person, sitting at a desk, who understands the game. Not somebody sitting at a teleprompter somewhere else telling you these are the five questions they’re allowed to answer and nothing else. Every case is unique and individual, and we’ll answer on that basis.
The shocking statistics are this. At Blizzard, there’s one customer service rep for every 10,000 users. Sony Online, it’s one for every 6000. That ratio is way off in terms of reasonability. And these companies take months to fix things that are broken. We will do our best to fix them as fast as possible.
LQGaming Services:: Many companies are moving to developing games that are fun to play in 30-minute sessions versus the greater time-commitment more traditional MMOs demand. Where do your titles sit on this spectrum?
Adam: We have always thought the only way to get someone interested in a product is to let them have fun right when they jump in. Games shouldn’t be this monotonous, grinding experience. Then it’s no different than any other title. We’ll do our best to make sure you’ll be having fun in the first five minutes, and that the sort of play you’ll experience in that timeframe is representative of the game you’re playing as a whole.
We’ve also tossed around the idea of implementing something Planetside did in terms of instant action. You can jump into our games as a supporting character and just jump into ongoing PVP battles on one side or the other and immediately engage in combat. We’re also including instant fighting arenas. Players can join in and just do PVP all day long.
LQGaming Services:: How do intend to ensure that each player feels as if their actions are having a meaningful effect on the overall world as a whole?
Adam: One of the big things I want to point out in that regard is our relationship system. It actually keeps track of your relationship with every NPC in the game. (It’s a feature that’s going to be in The Chronicle and may or may not be in Machines.) It maintains your rating and your faction and your relationship with every character in the game. Every NPC knows what you’ve done, what you’re doing… You can leave a lasting mark.
You can actually go out and kill the dragon that was terrorizing a town, and the next time you pay the village a visit, everyone’s like “Oh my God – it’s him, the guy who saved us from the dragon!” They might give you jewels, a free night at the inn… You can actually become a part of The Chronicle. Main characters can go on quests, complete journeys and take actions within the game that will affect the rest of the game.
Like I said earlier, player-run guilds can actually get big enough to become factions in our game as well. NPCs will recognize these factions. Based on this, they may or may not like you. If they don’t like you, they might try and make alliances with other players or NPC guilds to come try and take you down. So joining in on our empire system can be a great way to leave a lasting impression too.
LQGaming Services:: How do you feel about trading in-game goods for real-world money?
Adam: I think that a lot of people playing these games don’t have the time that they want to invest into them. It’s a big design flaw with many MMOs that you can’t just jump in and out and have fun. So I understand why the market exists, and while we haven’t finalized decisions on what our thoughts on this are, I won’t say we’re ruling out thoughts of a player-supported economy yet. But if there is one, it will be 100% supported, developed and maintained by us, to make sure the game stays stable and balanced.
LQGaming Services:: In terms of a subscription fee for access to MMOCenter’s titles, we know it costs $12.95/monthly for access to one and $19.95/month for access to all at this point. But what if you start hosting 25 different games – will the same one-price-fits-all cost structure still apply?
Adam: Absolutely. It’s not just applicable to the games that are here when you join. It’s good for every game that’s ever on our network. When we finish off more titles over the next two to two and a half years and we’re starting to run 10 or 12 concurrently, you’re still going to get to play them all for the same price…
The justification is that it’s equivalent to running one large MMO. Say there’s a million users on MMOCenter in a year. They can all only play one game at a time. They’re not taking up any more bandwidth than a million users playing a single title. This way, you just have access to a larger variety of more enticing titles. We’re also going to offer Web-based services too.
LQGaming Services:: While we’re on the subject, mind giving us some insight into the other four titles beyond The Chronicle and Machines you have planned for the near future?
Adam: Survival Instincts is the next title slated to go into development after Machines. We’re hoping to release it in Spring 2007. It’s a post-apocalyptic MMO. But it’s a little untraditional in the sense that there was no nuclear war; the world didn’t blow up.
Basically, it’s not set far in the future, around 2040. Not too far off. But basically, in the 2030 timeframe, several small third-world governments decide to sell out, and entire countries privatize. And they start doing pretty well. More countries start going private. It’s big business… You have like Guam, Inc. Well, eventually, the entire world becomes privatized. About 15 years into that, big business says man, this just isn’t profitable anymore. So all the privatized nations decide to all join in together, take equal shares, and buy Australia. They move all their assets, people there. And then they shut everything else down.
Power’s down. Water’s down. Cooling systems, cleaning systems… everything’s down. That’s where you come in. You’re one of the people outside when everything gets shut down. You choose a character based on industry. Let’s say you worked at the Ford plant and it just got shut down. What are you going to do? You may have access to high-end machinery that you can scrap, salvage or sell off from the beginning. But it also may mean you don’t know anyone else. You worked at a Ford plant – how will you get food, water? A taxicab driver, conversely, would start out with a car. Former military types would have access to weapons, people… You’re going to use that to your advantage.
It’s very much a real-time first-person shooter.
On the other hand, Creatures of the Night is an 18 th century horror MMO. It’s set in London. All the creatures you’ve ever heard of that are terrifying are there. A lot of interesting stuff happened in 18 th/19 th century Europe that’ll be incorporated into the storyline. Lots of good lighting and music will be used to make it suspenseful and scary. It’s like a fantasy MMO, but with horror – instead of playing a dragon-killing hero, you might play a werewolf. The idea is just to make a different genre entirely.
Banner of War is a World War III-style MMO. Take Risk, modernize it, add in present-day weaponry and make it a 3D RTS set in a persistent world… that’s the game in a nutshell. There are two versions of the game. In version one, you pick a country, start off there, and have to earn your way to the top. There are different sectors of each military organization in each country you can choose to join too.
At the same time, there is also version two, the hardcore version…You play for the country in which you reside. So, if you live in America, you can only play for the US. And if you live in China, only China… It’s about territory control. It’s a constant battle, kind of like playing Battlefield 2… you’re always involved in some sort of action.
Life vs. Death is the last of the six titles we’ve announced. It’s a very unique concept. It hasn’t even been thought out enough by our own team to make sure that we can entail that everything is ready for a large-scale user market. That’s why we’re keeping most details quiet for now and spending time working on it and designing it.
It’s strictly an instanced MMO. There is no persistence to it except accrual points. The title says it all. Life, you play a human. Death, you play a zombie. As a human, your whole goal is to convert zombies to humans. Zombies’ goal is to convert humans to zombies. But every hour on the hour, where you get to play and what part of the world you’re playing in is changed. The character or creature you’ve chosen determines where you start out at this point. And the accrual points allow you to take more actions every hour… Buy better equipment, etc.
Every hour the game constantly changes. So it essentially comes down to, what can you do in an hour? It’s a whole new concept. It’ll be part of the MMOCenter network, but it may have its own separate business model.
LQGaming Services:: Last, but not least, what makes you guys utterly convinced this project’s going to succeed, given how much it flies in the face of convention?
Adam: We designed and started this company by gamers, for gamers. We come from the actual game base. Not just on the inside, but actually from the user side as well. I personally have played almost every MMO, been part of guilds large and small, and I’ve heard what players have to say, what they’re upset about.
The time, effort and research we’ve put into this is key too. We’ve created a good model, not just from a business perspective, but also from a gameplay perspective. Hopefully, we’ll prove a lot of people wrong who don’t believe an independent company can do something this fast, or at all. Happily, the feedback we’ve gotten thus far is almost entirely positive…
- Scott Steinberg
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