2007 is the year of online games for the Philippines because a lot of new titles will be brought in by various publishers in the next few months. It’s amazing to see how much the gaming community has grown through the years. Ragnarok Online started it all, and it is still the number 1 game today, despite aggressive efforts by our competitors. For today, I’d like to take a step back and analyze the battlefield. Who’s winning the MMORPG wars? Who’s on the defensive and who’s on the offensive? Oh yeah, please take note that this is just MY TAKE and this does not represent the thoughts of the company that I work for (Level-up Games, ePLDT).
FIRST BLOOD – RAGNAROK ONLINE, LU Games
Ragnarok Online exploded into the scene sometime June-July 2003. According to an interview with Ben Colayco in the recent issue of Transit Magazine, they release more than 600,000 free CD installers through magazine bundling and school events. In a few months, pRO became a social and cultural phenomenon. Teens and kids fell in love with the game because it was so easy to play and the cute anime-styled character avatars. RO drove the growth of broadband, dial-up, and the internet cafe industry. Ragnarok still has the highest brand equity to MMORPGs. If you were to ask someone about online games, there’s a high possibility that the top-of-mind answer is RO. Right now, RO is still king-of-the-hill, but there are a lot of challengers that have come up in the past few years.
HARDCORE – MU, TANTRA, and KHAN
Mobius, ABS-CBN, and netGames realized the potential of online games. The three companies brought in online games that were more hardcore – something that RO didn’t offer. MU, Tantra, and Khan showcased very real character animations and sprites. These games didn’t dwell in the anime world, they catered more to the older crowd. This was a good thing for the industry. Though these games were able to get some RO players, they ended up growing the gaming community by attracting potential gamers who were not happy with the anime-style of RO. Because of these 3 games, the community continued to grow even bigger and faster!
CASUAL GAME WARS – GUNBOUND and PANGYA
Gunbound came up with the first free-to-play model with the item mall as the source of revenue. Gunbound enjoyed the position of the first F2P casual game, and they were easily picking players from existing MMORPGs across various games. In Gunbound, RO players faced off with MU players – and it was really fun to play because of the very simple mechanics. The first serious challenger to Gunbound was the release of Pangya by netGames. Pangya was supported by a multi-million campaign, which helped drove the growth and success of the franchise – especially in the school and internet cafe segment.
CUTENESS TO THE NEXT LEVEL – ROSE
To further strengthen the position of LU, they released a 3D online game developed by Gravity called ROSE Online. ROSE was an instant success, but it primarily ate into the RO population because they had the same strengths. The good thing was that ROSE was able to act as a shield for LU gamers who wanted a cute game other than RO. Coincidentally, ROSE also has the highest number of female gamers compared to other games within the LU portfolio. The Iya Villyana campaign definitely helped out a lot. This game showed that girl gamers can also kick ass, and the guys follow where the pretty girls go.
That’s it for now. Part 2 will cover RF, FlyFF, and RAN. Part 3 will showcase the 2007 landscape.
Cheers!
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Wacky on June 2, 2007
kua OT lng totoo ba un nasa site na to pow
http://forums.probaldur.com/index.php?showtopic=989
Joseph-Killuaz on June 2, 2007
:swt: ipRO battle po yan zeny wife out not in Ragnarok sa boards lang po yan :heh:
Wauks on June 2, 2007
@Wacky
Wag OT, hehe. Yung zenny wipe na sinasabi ni Salleh para sa boards niya yun. Meron sila forum events ata.
Wacky on June 2, 2007
ay ganun ba napapost pa ako sorry sana mawala ung post ko
:^^:
-Bastista- on June 2, 2007
Wauks.. paOT: pano siege namin mamaya.. cra po un LUINA AGIT sa TYR… :sob: :sob: :sob:
Wauks on June 2, 2007
@Batista
Medyo alarming yung Luina map zones. Sige, I’ll have it monitored closely across all servers. Wag po tayo OT~
-Bastista- on June 2, 2007
cge po salamat.. concerned lng po kac ako.. baka kac maging magulo siege mamaya and maraming mga No0B n magwawarp sa luina agit map.. maraming mapupurwisho nito pag nagkataon.. mga dirty tactics.. :pif:
weeee on June 2, 2007
wauks level up should advertise ro1 more
since a lot of ro1 players arent planning to join ro2
this way ro1 will be kept alive im sure there are a lot of people who are interested in ro
Choji on June 2, 2007
umm comment ko lang po dun sa casual game wars!
bakit naman wlang O2jam Freestyle DBA and others? :^^:
just wondering :hmm:
since we need to grow up sometime
i already give up (almost) on mmorpg (hirap magkipagsabayan) that’s why i only play casual games instead!
Ashura` on June 2, 2007
Hmm…OT po i dunno where to post dis pero we are not having fun while playing ragnarok especially when comes to WOE… Super Lag sa Siege sa RO to think we hav 1MBPS Speed ng Bayan tel DSL pero bat po sobra lag
ngrereklamo po ng Lag Spikes especially Bayan Tel Dsl users baka pwd nmn po pa fix
me on June 2, 2007
sir wauks update naman po sa agit scoring. :^^:
Salleh on June 2, 2007
OT na rin po. SkyDSL is experiencing huge lag from 9am until 8pm. 1 week na itong lag experience.
Kure on June 2, 2007
pa OT nren:
yep minsan sobra lag sa baldur. di makalaro nang maayus.
wildarms akatsuki on June 3, 2007
yeahhh ragnarok still rulez /gg
errr kukulit sabi n nga sir wauks wag OT eh :^^:
pinksoda&bluesoda on June 3, 2007
Daming OT ah :heh:
Back2Topic: Never liked MU!, masyadong hardcore at may nahalata ako, parang ginaya ang play design ng Diablo 2, pati ung lagyanan ng potions :^^:
Walang originality :^^:
Hector on June 3, 2007
@Wauks
What happened to Word of Warcraft? Hindi na ba malolocalize yan? Sobrang mahal nga ba ng franchising? :sux:
Ayrsayle on June 3, 2007
How about also doing an article on those MMO’s that failed?
1. Fairyland (played this and enjoyed it, too bad they folded. Loved the pet system and the community.)
2. Ultima Online (They sent me a CD (1994) but never got around to playing it. Ragnarok kasi inuna ko.)
Salleh on June 3, 2007
may press release din before na ilalabas dito sa pilipinas ang World of Qin pero hanggang press release na lang.
nasubukan ko rin yung Ultima Online dito sa pinas pero kulang sa pondo kaya hindi rin nagtagal yata.
GM Tristan on June 3, 2007
I’m sure we’ll win the war… but we have to concentrate on the battles. Anyways, if you guys want to JOIN MY BLOG CONTEST, feel free. Am giving away 2 authographed copies of the RO Job Sourcebook (collector’s item)
Thanks,
GM TRISTAN
http://gmtristan.com