Comments on: An intervention

By: A Customer Development Strategy for Building Online Games « MMO Tidbits

A Customer Development Strategy for Building Online Games « MMO Tidbits — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:31:12 +0000

[...] Curiously, systems lockdown is not specifically identified in the traditional “waterfall” game development process. While it should occur by the end of pre-production, failure to lockdown is a common source of failure (see “An Intervention”). [...]

By: Early stages of MMO development | Adult Blog

Early stages of MMO development | Adult Blog — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 02:27:40 +0000

[...] know what to do, the first step is often to understand what not to do. This great post over at Elder Game talks about all the lovely things that can go wrong in many stages of development. Eric is right, [...]

By: Top Ten Classes In MMOs « Broken Toys

Top Ten Classes In MMOs « Broken Toys — Thu, 29 May 2008 08:30:36 +0000

[...] don’t know who most of these people are, anyway. Unless you work on an MMO. Then you probably already have your own list and think I’m full of [...]

By: Babs

Babs — Sat, 24 May 2008 02:50:02 +0000

The really sad thing is that a lot of this list can apply to games that are live, too.

By: Would you like to make a game? » Grimwell’s Blog

Would you like to *make* a game? » Grimwell’s Blog — Sat, 24 May 2008 02:29:40 +0000

[...] An Intervention, by Eric at the Elder Game blog. [...]

By: moo

moo — Fri, 23 May 2008 22:37:35 +0000

Great post. Any of these things are definite “warning signs”. If several of them apply to your project, it is doomed to failure.

MMOs are really really hard, *and* nowadays they need to be amazingly good in order to take large enough marketshare to be successful. If several of these warning signs are occurring on your project, it has zero chance of being good enough to be successful. Going down with a sinking ship is not recommended.

By: Psychochild’s Blog » Early stages of MMO development

Psychochild’s Blog » Early stages of MMO development — Fri, 23 May 2008 05:26:07 +0000

[...] Prepare to be educated! To know what to do, the first step is often to understand what not to do. This great post over at Elder Game talks about all the lovely things that can go wrong in many stages of development. Eric is right, [...]

By: J.

J. — Tue, 20 May 2008 23:24:24 +0000

The fact that there exist people who will just stick to what is presented as “their job” despite warnings this obvious that their project is doomed, isn’t admirable. It’s sick. But it’s increasingly apparent that the attitudes described above are perceived at least by industry lip-service as admirable persistence.

If projects aren’t well managed, planned and executed throughout, they aren’t worth doing. This is especially true of MMOs, where it’s always speculative if more niches exist for the market, but no one with real understanding of the issue should doubt that only the best efforts will make any difference.

We’ve had enough of bad worlds. No more bad worlds.

By: Makaze

Makaze — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:39:43 +0000

It’s sad that I read those lists and barely even recognize a list of things that are wrong so much as just a list of the way things are.