everquest plat:Q&A: SOE's Beliaeff On EverQuest, Marriage, Beyond Hardcore

In this Q&A, Gamasutra talks to Sony Online San Diego studio head Nicholas Beliaeff about SOE's plans to broaden beyond hardcore MMOs, the history of marriage in MMOs, and keeping the EverQuest franchise alive and kicking.

Beliaeff currently heads up the Southern Californian studio for the EverQuest and Star Wars Galaxies creator, and Gamasutra covered a range of subjects when quizzing him at the recent Hollywood & Games Summit.

What's going on at Sony Online right now? NB: I think one of the two biggest things that we've announced in recent times is The Agency, which is being done out of our Seattle office. That's the spy-based MMO. We're really excited about that, because it's bringing a lot more action than we've done since PlanetSide. We think it's a really fresh take, it's got a great stylized look, and we're really looking forward to that to come out.

Then, out of the San Diego studio where I work, there's FreeRealms. We've sort of teased about that, and haven't given it its moment in the sun yet, but we like that one a lot because it's a big departure for us, in that it's focused a lot more towards the teenage demographic.

One of the guys in the panel [at H&G] was talking about Club Penguin. If you look at some of the free to play games like Club Penguin and RuneScape, it's a huge market. If you look at the actual numbers of people playing RuneScape, there may actually be more people playing RuneScape than there are playing World of Warcraft.

We're really excited about the social mechanism of it for that particular audience, because we're making a lot lighter and happier game than we're used to, we get to play with a lot of business models because it's free and not subscription-based, and we're doing some neat things with the technology going on as well.

We've got a lot of streaming going on, and we've reduced the barrier to entry for players. There's no big download, and no credit card required. We're really excited about that.

You guys have a history of keeping the older games alive for a really long time, and that's very admirable. How are you doing that? It seems like in that kind of situation, you really have to play to the fans a lot, because you've got a really dedicated fanbase at that point.

NB: Yeah. But at that point -- like with EverQuest, which has been going on for over eight years -- we do have all these ways of reaching out to them. We find out the things they like the most and the things they like the least, then we do more of the stuff that they like.

We talk to them, and that's the key. You've got this audience that's hooked, and they love what you do, and we love our consumers. You have to listen to what they want, but you have to filter it. Or they might say, "Hey, we've been together for a bunch of years. Thank you guys!"

NB: I've had stuff where people have said, "We've named our kid after one of the legendary characters in the game," and things like that, so you do hear that. You hear the good stuff. buy eq plat