Infinite Crisis – MMO Fallout

[Rant] Double Standards And The Scrubbed Starting Line

I dove into this topic in my piece about Infinite Crisis last week, but the line between beta and launch has become so blurred in the MMO industry that the whole concept has lost its meaning and many of us in gaming journalism are thoroughly sick of it. Go to virtually any website that reviews MMOs and you’ll likely see the same policy: We start judging when they start charging. I’m paraphrasing, but the point is the same regardless.

In earlier years, I defended the practice of selling beta access as a perk for pre-ordering because it was the best a customer could do to get a “demo” on an MMO. Granted, these were the days when 90% of western titles had subscriptions and wouldn’t see free trials until at least six months post launch, if at all. Furthermore, it was relatively low risk for the consumer. All you normally had to do was throw down the $5 minimum at Gamestop (or your local equivalent), a refundable/transferable five bucks I should add, and you’d get a beta key on your receipt. Apart from some know-how of the game and maybe a participation item, people in the beta didn’t get any advantage because characters were reset before launch.

But then free to play became dominant and the goal posts got moved time and time again. Developers stopped wiping beta characters, began opening up the cash shop in beta and in some cases even alpha. It’s important to read into the motives because the general consensus is that once you start charging for the use of a product, you agree that it is worth selling and therefore worth critiquing.

The launchification of beta, or early access as the industry has started calling it, has presented a remarkable double standard in game developers who want the freedom to treat the game as effectively launched in the sense that the servers won’t be wiped, the cash shop is open, and anyone can create an account and start playing, but keep up their shield against criticism whenever someone like myself posts a preview saying “this isn’t worth buying right now.” I have several times been the recipient of an email conveying disappointment or offering corrections, calling my criticism unfair because the product wasn’t considered launched yet.

What we’ve learned from the industry these past few years is that certain devs have no problem blurring the lines between beta and launch so long as it conveniences them and, when pushed on it, rubbing it out and flat out denying that it exists. When pushed on refunds, Turbine turned around and said no to founders because they’ve been playing for two years and, by Turbine’s opinion, they got their money’s worth regardless of if the game launched. When players struck back and pointed out that at least a decent portion of the time was spent dealing with outages, extended maintenance, game breaking bugs, and missing or incomplete features, Turbine’s CM simply denied the concept of launch altogether.

Because, in their logic, what does launch really mean when the game will continue to receive updates, bug fixes, and new heroes in the coming years? It makes sense, yes, but going by this line of thought, when are reviewers allowed to critique your product? Because if it’s unfair to criticize a game before it is finished, and a game like Infinite Crisis is in your explanation never finished, are you trying to say that it is never fair to criticize the game?

Or does the whole narrative eventually collapse and we go back to where we started?

With games increasingly shutting down mid-beta or very shortly after and then refusing to compensate customers, the need for tough scrutiny is higher than ever. The days of beta being a low risk, fun thing we did to get some game time in, help squash some bugs while stress testing, and ease the pain of waiting for launch are long over, and in its place is the high risk, predatory game of early access that carries no customer protection, no guarantee of ever receiving a final product, and no out once you’re in.

Otherwise I have no opinion on the matter.

Top 5: Lessons We Should Learn From Infinite Crisis

This week Turbine Entertainment announced that Infinite Crisis is shutting down, news that shouldn’t have really been a big surprise given the game’s extended development period, stretched out beta, lack of promotion, and how Turbine was throwing $50 cash packs in with Nvidia graphics cards.

Infinite Crisis isn’t the only game I’m going to talk about here, so just imagine the title was “Lessons We Should Learn From The MOBA Industry”

1. Developers Face A Steep Uphill Climb

If earning a seat at the MMO table is about as hard as getting a reservation at Rao’s in New York City, then the MOBA industry is right up there with a gig at Carnegie Hall. There are a few dozen MOBAs on the market right now, only a small handful of which will dominate the rest while the industry graveyard continues to branch out and buy up more land for the recently deceased. We talk a lot here about how World of Warcraft clones fail because, for the most part, players aren’t willing to forego the time and money spent leveling their characters to go do the same thing over again.

The MOBA genre, with its hyper-competitive nature, has a lot of shortcomings that can kill it early. You’re going up against companies with established communities, years of work balancing each individual hero, and thriving eSports scene. In order to break into the industry, it seems that companies either need to bring something different to the table (ala Smite), be backed by a company with a massive community (ala Dota 2) or to have gotten into the industry at an early age (League of Legends/Heroes of Newerth).

2. Big IPs Still Mean Squat In Gaming

Isn’t it fitting that, out of all of the MOBAs, the ones that crashed and shut down happen to be based on very popular properties? Warhammer is a franchise that spans tabletop games, pen and paper role playing, video games, novels, and more, and yet none of that mattered when the MMO toppled and the MOBA couldn’t sustain itself through beta. The same goes for Transformers Universe, a popular IP with the backing of an established developer with a massive customer base.

Even Guardians of Middle Earth, with all the power of the Lord of the Rings, couldn’t avoid being critically panned (22% approval on Steam) with presently deserted servers on PC. The game came and went on PS3 so quietly that even Warner Bros. didn’t notice to update its website to stop directing people to buy the PS3 version on Amazon, or even acknowledge the game’s existence on PC. According to Steam Charts, Guardians of Middle Earth has a 30 day peak of 19 players on Steam.

3. The Perpetual Beta Is Tired And Pointless

The idea that a game should receive more lenient coverage when in beta became a thing of the past when developers started fully charging for products that were still in beta, and it would be irresponsible to not acknowledge this when MMOs/MOBAs are shutting down without ever launching, and many don’t even offer some form of refund to the customers that went out on a limb and spent their hard earned money to fund an unfinished project.

And while the unfinished state of the game is a great excuse to deflect criticism when reviewers tell you not to spend money, Turbine apparently has no problem using beta time played to justify denying a refund to their founders, which is the exact sentiment given by Turbine’s Community Manager.

That’s mostly it. Because Founders got to play for 2+ years, you guys were well outside our refund window. We really do thank you for supporting the game, as it was your support that kept us going. Make no mistake about that. But, they guys who just bought their elite pack or starter pack from Steam, they didn’t get to play for as long as you guys.

4. The MOBA Genre Is In The Middle Of A Soft Crash

Right now the genre is in a position where developers are looking at the success of the likes of League and Dota and saying to themselves “I can do that too.” What we’ve wound up with is three major players (League, Dota, and SMITE in that order) and a whole lot of stragglers. This isn’t the case of the MMO industry where we have one game to rule them all and a ton of other companies making much smaller, but still livable incomes. The MOBAs that are down on the bottom of the list are struggling to remain relevant, in a genre that is heavily favoring those few at the top.

Compare the 30 day peak of Infinite Crisis to Dota2 on Steam: 1,557 to 967,674. Or Super Monday Night Combat (152), or Demigod (27), or Guardians of Middle Earth (13).

5. Fully Funded Betas Are Still A Bad Place For Your Money

Paid betas have taken on one of the worst attitudes and practices by developers, as repeated by Turbine’s community manager. Developers like Turbine have no problem selling a beta as though it is a finished product, ending character wipes, opening up a fully functional cash shop, and pulling hundreds of dollars out of players, yet when push comes to shove and people start giving the game negative reviews because of bugs or unfinished features, they turn around and claim that it’s unfair because the game is not released and not a finished product.

And when games like Infinite Crisis shut down after a prolonged beta and short launch? Well then it’s considered a full experience, and when pushed on a refund? Deny the entire concept of a finished game.

I know some of you feel as though you only had a small amount of time to play a “finished” game, but Infinite Crisis is a game that was built to consistently change. Even after launch we were still going to produce new champions, add new features, and continue iterating the game as we went forward. As we posted during our launch announcement, launch was never going to be a stopping point in the eyes of our development cycle. We’re an online game, and we’ve changed a lot (and changed for the better) over the last two years.

Turbine’s CM knows as well as you or I do what the players mean by “finished,” that being when the game sheds its beta tags, but you have to hand it to Turbine. Infinite Crisis was finished enough to open up the cash shop, not finished enough to review as a final product, and when it shut down right after launch? Well what exactly does “finished” mean, really? Hold two sides of the same coin, and then deny that the coin exists.

We understand when indie developers can’t finish a game because it’s a couple of guys working out of a motel/office funding the game partially out of pocket and partially through donations/pledges. A company like Turbine, on the IP of DC Comics and the backing of a corporate hulk like Warner Bros. shouldn’t be dropping development of a game because it wasn’t making enough money during beta.

It’s PR spin, and people aren’t going to fall for it. Infinite Crisis shutting down right after launch is bad enough as it is, bridges will be burned and customers will be lost, it’s an unfortunate part of business. But burning founders can damage a brand, in the case Turbine’s future ability to put a game out in beta and ask people to join in early to fund you, as people will look back to when Infinite Crisis shut down and see that while those who jumped in late were refunded, the people who were there from the beginning were told “oh well, too bad.”

I feel that this is a bad sign for Turbine overall.

Turbine Shutting Down Infinite Crisis

Turbine Entertainment has announced the impending sunset of Inifinite Crisis this August. Infinite Crisis exited beta on March 26 of this year, giving the game a shelf life of about 141 days from launch to shut down.

After much deliberation, we regret to announce the official shutdown of Infinite Crisis. We will end development efforts today and will close the service on August 14, 2015.

As the MOBA market continues to expand and saturate itself, it has become much more difficult to find an audience. Infinite Crisis is the second high profile MOBA to shut down this year, after Jagex’s Transformers in January and EA’s Dawngate in February.

(Source: Infinite Crisis)