GDC Austin, Now Named Game Developers Conference Online

GDC Online to continue serving as premiere event for exploring the future of online, connected game development.

http://feeds.ign.com/click.phdo?i=afa95cbb8514463f1df89bfa80a47e98

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World of Warcraft Originally To Be Ad Supported [Blizzard]

[from Gamasutra via Kotaku]

Blizzard's senior VP of game design Rob Pardo revealed at the Paris Game Developers Conference that World of Warcraft was originally intended to be a free-to-play, advertising supported MMO. Pardo said, reacting to the impact of free MMOs in Asia on WoW's success, that "market conditions" forced them to realize that a subscription based model was the way to go.

While we're certain that Blizzard is enjoying the 10 million or so World of Warcraft subscribers forking over $13 to $15 each month in fees, it would be interesting to peek into the alternate universe where WoW was funded by ads.

While we're on subscriptions, Pardo said that one of the reasons behind MMOs failing to take off on consoles is the bite that console makers want to take out. In addition to a "lack of hard drive space, and difficulty in certifying patches" taking a percentage off the top is, literally, laughable to Pardo. Many more Pardo-isms at the full report.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/kotaku/full/~3/319246767/world-of-warcraft-was-originally-going-to-be-ad-supported

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GT-Hey! Who took my money?

Yes - that's right. The GTA-like MMORPG called APB (All Points Bulletin) was presented at this year's Game Developer Conference. Besides imagining all of the interesting gameplay that will take place in this kind of open world, I'm especially interested in what's going to happen economically.

We all know that the in-game currency and important items will be sold for real cash (thank you internet!). So if probably way more than half of the players are going to be criminals as opposed to police, getting your loot jacked in the game *will* translate to real $ losses in the real world. I think the chats and boards are gonna get WAY heated up by angry victims and gloating perps. I can see the "hey I robbed your stuff and just sold it on ebay - take that loser" kinds of posts. This could breed frustration that boost sales of new keyboards and monitors. While the Softpedia article about this game didn't mention anything about a "lawyer" character class, real lawyers could get involved in disputes over player losses.

Tune in next time for a discussion of possible cash flow models for this game that's sure to attract a lot of attention and subscribers.