Sony Online Entertainment Keynote

Sony Online Entertainment’s president John Smedley took the stage to speak about SOE’s upcoming free-to-play (FTP) title Free Realms, and how SOE was evolving to match the pace of gamers in the online virtual space. John opened up with a bit of history about himself, how as a kid he would enjoy playing board games around the table with his family, and as he grew into his teens became immersed in Dungeons and Dragons with his friends. This was the experience he had always looked to craft with online games, to bring players and even families together.

Everquest was his showcase example. People play this game 20-30 hours a week, many times at the expense of other things, like their own friends and family. But they make up for it with a rich interaction in an online world, especially now that Sony has deployed Station Voice to a number of its online worlds, including Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies. Already over 70% of users are interacting via voice. He highlighted the numerous conventions for Everquest, most notably Fan Faire, and showed a video of a couple who had met online getting married at a Fan Faire, both in real life and in the game right afterwards.

In detailing Free Realms, John pointed out the fact that today, kids have no concept of a world without online interaction. Even when they’re younger they have sites like Webkins or Club Penguin to get them started in virtual worlds, from there they’re off and running. To capture the most out of young audiences, Free Realms is targeted both at girls and boys – one of the ways they’re doing this is to have combat enabled only by choice by placing them in well-defined locations for players to access if they wish. The majority of the gameplay is spent on mini-games or tasks that are associated with your player class, like making up new recipes if you’re a chef. The game also lets you change player classes at any time during the game, so you can be a ninja (no, really – they have ninjas!) for a while, and then become a farmer. You can also own pets, which are each uniquely crafted personality-wise – the dog that John showed us, for example, would express much love for penguins waddling around, but when John went cow-tipping (yea, it was hilarious) the poor pup stood off at a distance shaking with its tail between its legs in fear of the cows. You can also teach them how to do tricks. More expansive than mini-games are events like racing and soccer (the latter to be included about a month after launch in January, with more planned) that people can participate in online. You can join a racing team and keep a car at your house in a garage.

Like all FTP games, monetization comes in the form of subscriptions and an in-game store that lets players add credit through various means that parents can set up for their kids. A $4.99/mo membership will also net players some exclusive content and other goodies not accessible to players participating for free. In order to get people playing quickly, the Flash-based website streams the client to the player so they can access the game and start playing in under one minute.

In closing, John showed off trailers for other upcoming SOE titles The Agency and DC Universe.

Teen Gamers and Pro Gaming