MMORPGs and Virtual Lives

What are those? A non-gamer friend of mine asked while I was incorporating ideas about it in a marketing paper. I thought everyone knew about this acronym. It has been making the news every so often that I forget it is still a gaming term. it is also still a very limited market. It targets A, B, and Upper C classes, but also offers game credits as low as Php10. Wikipedia says it all. MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) is a genre of online computer role-playing games (RPGs) in which a large number of players interact with one another in a virtual world. As in all RPGs, players assume the role of a fictional character (most commonly in a fantasy setting) and take control over many of that character’s actions. MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player RPGs by the number of players, and by the game’s persistent world, usually hosted by the game’s publisher, which continues to exist and evolve while the player is away from the game.

I tried to play these online games a few times, when there were still a lot of free (beta testing) games around. Currently, a lot of games are free to play, but you need to pay to obtain (better) items. Think of it as economics in a virtual market. Some management graduates might better relate to virtual stock trading. Contrary to popular belief, these virtual worlds extend into the real world. Many players go for an EB and then pay in cash for in-game items. In-game items can be clothes, weapons, armor, potions, gems, charms, transportation means, and sometimes even houses.

• Some of the games / communities I’ve tried were:

• Cybertown: I think this is dying. As of writing this entry, there were only about 60+ citizens online. I tried this around 1998. At that time there were about 100k+ residents online everytime I logged on. I’m not so sure if they just upped the stats so that people would be interested. During those days they also ran on Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML). This technology has already been overtaken by 3D worlds such as the one used in MMORPGs.
  
• Sryth: Text-based fantasy game with Flash elements. Free to play, but always encourages you to pay by blocking access at peak hours.
• GrooveNet.ph: This is the localization of There.com. By some labeling mistake, I ended up spending Php 300 on this ‘game.’ I’m trying to get the most out of it by using my ThereBucks to play paintball.

The most promising ones so far, by personal testing and by online reviews would be Second Life and Project Entropia. Their econmies can easily translate into US$, a hurdle that most games and virtual worlds have yet to conquer.