Posted on May 31, 2010 - by Denis

Publishing My Best Ideas: MMOG Project Support

In order to keep my head from getting filled with good, yet old ideas, and to get some feedback on their value, I am currently in a 30 day experiment of fearlessly publishing every single idea I think is great and worth acting upon. Read the initial post about this if you want to know more: 30 Day Trial: Publishing My Best Ideas

Still day 1 of my “Publishing My Best Ideas” 30 day trial, here we go with idea #2.

Project: Publishing Company for Browser-Based Online Games
So this is something I’ve had in my mind for way too long, probably like 3 years now. The idea is to take the current model of how games development projects are funded and supported in the world of console and computer games and apply it to the market of browser-based online games, with some adaptations.

The company offering those funding and supporting services would provide these aspects:

- VCs and Angel Investors would be an active part of the company, consulting new games development projects, making decisions about funding them or not and then working with the entrepreneurs to provide them with resources like networks of people to improve the likelihood of success
- people doing accounting and other administrative work (“paperwork”) for the entrepreneurial games development team (EGDT)
- additional training for the EGDT on effective creative / development processes
- technical infrastructure for the creative / development work (like project management systems and training on how to use them properly)
- technical infrastructure for running test / beta / staging / production environments of the online game
- technical infrastructure solving the most common challenges in the development and operation of a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG; specifically browser-based ones) like cost-effective scalability, deployment monitoring services, …
- training, coaching, consulting in the areas that are most central to the success of such teams / projects: technical challenges of writing high performance, scalable, easily maintainable, … code on both client (HTML, JS, Flash & Co) and server side; business models for financially successful, user-/service-focused online games; team organization and issues; creative & development process; creating and running an ethical, sustainable business; personal growth for individuals; marketing
- (mid- to long-term) games engine for license that already contains solutions for the most common and hardest (technical and somewhat business) challenges
- cost-effective payment collection services with an easy to use API
- staff for providing customer support, community management, content creation for published games
- staff for running the day to day online marketing operations

This one is definitely a huuuge project to implement, but it can be done step by step, starting probably with consulting services in business / business model / strategic marketing, some help to get funding by angel investors and then providing support for the routine work of setting up and maintaining the tech infrastructure for the phase of development. Those are probably the biggest challenges in making a browser-based online game (or maybe any online game, I don’t know) successful.