Hi folks, I'm interested in hearing your opinions on the following... Given EAs recently publicised desire to expand its Asian market share and the realisation that (at least within this region) LAN gaming rooms are a huge business sector for game companies, will we see a return to the older days of network game design... (cf the older UDP broadcast LAN games rather than wide network P2P protocols like TCP). Now, this is not a question about the merits of one over the other or the technolgies around it... but rather, do you folks, as business oriented game developers, see a re-emerging market for network multiplayer games that are NOT internet based (i.e., only LAN based). While it's certainly the case that many multiplayer online games still ship with this capacity, one would expect that it requires less effort to develop a game solely for LAN play than for internet play (and LAN play). Do you think there is a viable market there - targetting LAN rooms - (at least for the Asia region where LAN rooms are getting game players out of the house), or do you think that people will always want to lock themselves away at home and play into the wee small hours of the night by themselves? Cheers, Timkin [Edited by - Timkin on July 27, 2004 11:50:47 PM]

There is definitely a market for this type of game, but the market isn't necessarily where you expect it to be. PCs are hard to move around. Xboxes and PS2s are not. You do the math.

Do you mean physically? PCs are trivial to move around... particularly if you don't go in for buying huge bulky cases! Furthermore, I have not YET seen a LAN room running a network of XBoxes or PS/2s (not that this won't happen in the future, I just haven't seen one to date)... yet there are thousands of PC-based LAN rooms around the world (probably more like tens of thousands). Hence, my consideration that this might be a viable market sector for game development.

Cheers,

Timkin

Quote: Original post by Timkin
While it's certainly the case that many multiplayer online games still ship with this capacity, one would expect that it requires less effort to develop a game solely for LAN play than for internet play (and LAN play).

I don't think it's requires a lot more effort to allow for internet play.

I can't remember any (tcp/)IP based game that was LAN only. In the good old days of IPX (DOOM 1 and so), playing over the internet was impossible (I think), but I don't know of any games tha uses IPX now.
IP is IP wether or not you have to go through a router to get there. The main difference between LAN and Internet is the bandwidth and latency (ping time). The ability to register servers on the net is another thing you wouldn't need with LAN only, but that's just a matter of accessing an internet site and uploadin the info (Server IP, game type, etc).

I'm not sure about the original Quake 1 (IPX I think), but Quakeworld and Quake 2's net code was both designed for LAN play using IP, but it was/is possible to play over the net if you tell your friends the IP of the server.

Quote: Original post by liquiddark
There is definitely a market for this type of game, but the market isn't necessarily where you expect it to be. PCs are hard to move around. Xboxes and PS2s are not. You do the math.

my xpc is small and easy to move around, together with cordless keyboard and mouse integrated. the tft is simple to move as well. thats all easily doable by one man at once actually..


then again, my gamecube is even smaller, and even more easy to move around :D

but the xbox loses against my xpc actually in size, noise, and weight (and with a radeon9700pro, and 2.7ghz, in raw performance:D)

You could market your game as ideal for 'extended lunch-breaks' and ensure every game has a quick minimise key for when the boss appears. Small footprint, low-spec requirements and simple gameplay. Then you've got yourself an office favourite, and you now how much gossip idle workers can generate. Before long you'd have a small army of devoted fans that should know better than to play games.

My point is that PCs don't have a mind-share as a "portable" object. Xboxes et al do. And I would be willing to bet that LAN parties which are, at least in my neck of the woods, played more on consoles instead of PCs, are going to be a much larger market than LAN rooms.

liquiddark, perhaps you didn't read my original post closely enough... I was talking about the Asian region in particular, where (especially in Korea and China) LAN rooms are found on almost ever street corner...well, that's a *slight* exaggeration, but they are VERY common, much more so than in the US or Europe.

I think LAN parties are more likely to be played using software that is for both internet and LAN. Sure, this market would also benefit from games targeted at LAN only play... but that wasn't my first thought when raising this discussion... and I think it's a smaller market than LAN rooms, since the budgets are somewhat different.

Cheers,

Timkin

Here in Austin, all of the PC LAN rooms that I have seen have Xboxes, too. I know of at least 1 that also has GameCubess and PS2s. Some even had N64s (not networked, of course) for a Mario Kart tourney.

EDIT: I don't know if you have to bring your own, though, but the point is that consoles are popular at LANs, at least in Austin.

Quote: Original post by Timkin
While it's certainly the case that many multiplayer online games still ship with this capacity, one would expect that it requires less effort to develop a game solely for LAN play than for internet play (and LAN play).

From a networking and synchronization perspective, LAN only is far easier. However, if one were to make LAN only games you could then take advantage of the low latencies and higher bandwidth to do things in simulation that you could never do with a game that was designed to work with the Internet. You can also arguably choose to trust the clients in settings like this(or at least notify players when someone appears to be cheating). This simplifies network design even more.

Going after a more featureful simulation will however potentially create a more complex development cycle that removes the time saving benefits of having a less complex networking architecture.

Quote:
Do you think there is a viable market there - targetting LAN rooms - (at least for the Asia region where LAN rooms are getting game players out of the house), or do you think that people will always want to lock themselves away at home and play into the wee small hours of the night by themselves?

I can't speak for Asia as I don't have the kind of cultural experience there necessary to talk intelligently about it. However, as long as a region has the facilities (LAN rooms) and a large enough group of potential customers using it, then you can certainly target them. However, I think the way to succeed and more importantly really grow this kind of market, is to make games that are uniquely tailored to the local LAN environment (bandwidth, latency, and locality of players) and do things that couldn't otherwise be done in standard internet based multiplayer games.

Is the market large enough, is it ready? I really don't have a enough of a feel for it to say.

Cheers!

Jeff