As games gravitate online, integrate the use of new peripherals, and are programmed for a wider array of platforms, the skill sets required to build and market those games will, in many respects, differ greatly from past and present skill set expectations. Whether you are currently working in the industry and want to try your hand at online games, or you’re brand new and looking to get into the business, you need to know the skills required to build the next generation of games. This series of articles will address what you need to know, how you go about acquiring that knowledge, and how best to apply it to your career.

The industry has come a long way in a short period of time, and advances and changes continue to happen at an ever-increasing pace, but with a little effort and direction you can definitely keep up. This second part in the series will overview online, massively multiplayer or persistent world games, collectively referred to as MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game) or MMP (Massively Multiplayer) for the purposes of this article, another "hot" area of game development today. With tips on what skills you need to know and go-to resources, the following information should help you get your own skill set up to par.

Why is this a "hot area"?

And what makes online MMOG development different from console or PC – "box" – development?

With millions of players worldwide online playing MMOGs such as Everquest or Ultima Online at almost any given moment on any given day, their popularity with consumers is undeniable. And so goes their popularity with developers. In September 2003, the inaugural Austin Game Conference devoted the bulk of its conference tracks to MMOG issues: Online Tech, Online Design, Online Services, and Online Production. Further, this area of game development has become a Game Developers Conference (GDC) staple.

On virtually the opposite end of the game development spectrum from mobile game development, as discussed in Part 1 of this series which holds the appeal of a smaller team size, budget, and development cycle, MMOG development requires a very large infrastructure.

While there are smaller developers creating and maintaining relatively successful MMOGs such as Palestar’s Dark Space and Yohoho Puzzle Pirates created by Daniel James, in an interview with Jeff Anderson, President and CEO of Turbine Software, developers of the Asheron’s Call online games, as well as Middle Earth Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online, Anderson explained the challenge:

"It is awfully difficult these days to compete on the MMP front. The funding necessary to make a market-relevant online world is pretty large – probably in the eight figures. That makes it very hard for small developers to enter the MMP category. However, I think there is hope. I would encourage them to stay away from the big world games and focus instead on a different online experience. For example, I like the work that Daniel James is doing on Puzzle Pirates. In my mind, the challenge is whether these lighter online games can build and sustain a profitable subscription base. Only time will tell, but I wish them a lot of luck."

Indeed, in David Michael’s, The Indie Game Development Survival Guide, the author suggests that "MMPs are, for the short term at least, well outside the scope that most indies should tackle."

So, what does this mean for you? In short, MMOGs, for the most part, require big teams and those jobs are typically going to be with big developers who, in theory at least, should have nicely-sized hiring budgets.

As indicated in the GDC lecture "Creating the Right Mix of Static Versus Dynamic Content in a Massively Multiplayer Game" by Rich Vogel, Executive Producer, Sony Online Entertainment, "the challenges for developing MMOG content are huge. Unlike single player games where you have on average 40-60 hours of game play for one person, MMOGs need on the order of 3 to 6 months of content to support several thousand players. The average MMOG takes three years to develop with teams up to 65 plus people. Every year the bar gets set higher and higher."

Are MMOGs games or a new kind of broadcast entertainment?
Audiences tuning into Sunday night’s episode of "The Sopranos" would be shocked if, instead of the opening sequence of a new epsiode, all they had to look at was a blank TV screen with the following text: "We apologize but tonight’s Sopranos patch won’t be delivered. At 2am today, we encountered a serious bug with our script that Q/A hadn’t caught previously and we’re all sitting in the sound stage re-recording the dialogue as you watch this message. Hopefully, we’ll be delivering this patch tomorrow night, but certainly you’ll see it sometime before the end of the week. We hope. Thanks for your patience." Absurd, right? A disaster, right? But MMOGs do this kind of thing on a regular basis. It is an insult to the subscribers. Patrons of HBO wouldn’t stand for it.

A "live" product such as an online game requires continuous uninterrupted service. Therefore, the architecture of the game itself and the development process for the game must be treated differently from the traditional wild "willy nilly" world of normal game development. With a boxed game, if the product does not ship on time, or the code is not precisely commented, or at the last minute some functionality of the game must be cut, any of these events could elicit an industry-relative shrug of the shoulders, followed by a collective yawn. For an MMOG, however, it could mean a very rocky launch, intermittent updates, delays with expansion packs, and uncounted lost subscribers and revenue.

EA’s experience with The Sims Online demonstrates that anything in the technical environment that is not carefully architected may cause problems later for the user and the company. Here, EA took a traditional box game, which was not designed for a MMOG environment, and tried to leverage the original game code for MMOG play by adding many new features on top of the existing product.

This wasn’t so much of a problem in the continuing series of The Sims add-ons, because the type of stresses put on the game architecture were pretty much the same in a single-user environment regardless of which add-on they might be playing. But in an online environment, with a large engineering team and live deadlines to meet, any deep-seated problem encountered by the user base needed to be fixed ASAP. And because the legacy code base had not been engineered for online play, when problems arose, EA could not easily bug fix or solve issues quickly since the retrofitting of the box code made it difficult to trace the problems within the game and fix them. What appeared to save money initially by re-using old code caused problems down the road.

In addition to budgetary and technical issue differences, there are also certain "mindset" differences between MMOG and box development. With a traditional box game if the product does not release on time, a new date is set. But for a MMOG, where people are paying a monthly service fee, the "just set a new date" option is not acceptable and will lead to loss of consumers and revenue.

People who pay a service fee expect service. Other industries such as banking or broadcasting are all about delivering product on time to the consumer. Millions of ATMs work 24/7. This 24/7 service environment differentiates MMOG development considerably from the traditional box development environment, as does the purpose of a "patch". For a box game, a patch is a fix, but for a MMOG, a "patch" is really an opportunity for a value-add. An opportunity to deliver additional content, gameplay, and make tangible improvements to the game. Marketing departments understand this very well, but the technical teams are grappling with the changes this mindset demands. Perhaps the skills learned in your first job out of school working for a bank might be more applicable in the game industry than you imagined at the time.

MMOGs typically allow for hundreds, if not thousands, to occupy the same play area. These persistent world games have the play area affected by the players and preserved over time, such that changes made today will be visible in future play sessions. Development of these games is characterized by large, multi-disciplinary teams, and the vast majority run with a client/server architecture.

Since MMOGs are a live and 24/7 service oriented product, they require different kinds of talent, outside the "normal" scope of traditional game development which has no need for major client/server architecture. MMOG developers need skilled people who can work on databases such as Oracle, Sybase, SQL, Informix, Versant, Gemstone. They need people who can perform database administration functions such as security, stored procedures, trigger function, preventive maintenance, sizing, and planning. They require Network Administrators responsible for implementing the network, Systems Analysts, and Network Engineers who can deal with communication protocols involved in those networks. Skills in DOS, UNIX, and Windows NT are important here, as well as people who can work with Multiplayer Network Servers, Clients, Networking Protocol, Client/Server Integration, API Design, Synchronization, Collisions, Player Validation, Protocols, Latency, Integration, and Gaming Lobbies.

Got all that?

In short, much MMOG development falls outside the realm of "normal" game development as potentially more money and support will be needed after the title launch versus before the title launch. This means the operations teams, or "administrators", must be top-notch and play key rolls in game development and production. This also means that "normal" IT folks will not make the cut.