*gasp*
He gave me some literature and as I was about to walk away I saw the words "gamers", "new MMO", "1M subscribers the first year" and more stand out at me. So I turned back around, intrigued and most certainly skeptical. This gentleman then tells me that for a $250 start-up cost and for $50 a month I can be part of the first group of people for a new business opportunity. In return you get access to a new popular MMO game and 36 other games. Including a racing game, and a popular football game. (Their words, not mine). He tells me it's by a big name development company. I press him... which one? He doesn't know. He admits to me he's not a gamer and that he just saw this great business opportunity and surely I would like to be in on it too!
So I leave with no really good information to go off of but a website. I come home to do some research, turns out the new MMO is Stargate Worlds. A verified MMO that is indeed coming out in 2009 by Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment based out of Arizona. My first thought is, a development company doing a pyramid scheme??!! There's conflicting information on the web about whether Cheyenne is indeed behind this or not. They have a statement saying they are not affiliated and that they have no contractual relationship. Their official Stargate Worlds forum also has blocked/banned the url of the MLM (multi-level marketing) company. But then there's this blurb:
"The chairman and primary fund raiser of Cheyenne, Gary Whiting has decided to share the spoils of this phenomenon, and create an unrivalled opportunity, the scale never been seen before, where the games will go live, globally, after the first 200,000 Platinum members register in the network.
A Platinum member is $250 with $50 monthly subscription that gives you full access to STARGATE WORLDS and 6 other 3D online games from a Motor Racing Game (where you get to choose the car of your choice, and if you win the twice monthly tournaments, you also win the real version of the car.) To American Football Game [sic] (like Madden NFL) and other new 3D Fantasy Worlds, 15 Future Games & a 3D Social Networking site with Shopping Mall.
After the 200,000 Platinum members have been filled in the BINARY tree the Game will go on sale (est. May '09), and everyone who purchase [sic] the software for the game will be allocated pro-rata, so therefore evenly distributed among the 1st 200,000 platinum members downline."
Now it should be noted that this was presented to me slightly different. I was told about getting people to sign up underneath me, as a "downline". Then their money filters up to me. This is clearly the business model that is happening as by doing a quick search I am seeing members of this MLM give links with their names attached at the end for you to SIGN UP under them. So whether they saw the above model not working, or it's been slightly modified, or there's more to it then that is unclear.
Tentonhammer.com had this to say of it:
"So basically, once MMOguls raises $50 million, they'll take an attractive stable of games live and everyone will share in the box sales and subscription profits. Sounds fishy? For sure. But let's give this the benefit of the doubt and say 1) this is legit, and 2) it goes live as intended. I'm guessing that $50 is at or around the average gamer's online entertainment budget each month - would you fork it over for SGW and a bunch of no-name clones? Either someone didn't do much market research or they simply have bad intentions.Of particular note is that Star Gate Worlds doesn't have a Producer for their game either. Neither do they have a pricing point set yet for what the game or the monthly subscription will go for.
As to the truth behind of CME's affiliation with MMOguls, my sole amateur Internet sleuthing tool WhoIs shows that the domain is registered to an address in the same building (though not the same suite) as the address we have on-file for CME. It's worth noting that the MMOguls site doesn't mention SGW but does cast itself as owned by Cheyenne Mountain Affiliates, LLC.
The literature they give you is also a bit misleading. Take a look below:
* The one-day record holder for a movie premiere was Spiderman 3, which brought in $59 million in ticket sales on its opening day. MGM’s James Bond movie just surpassed it last week with $79 million.
* Spring's opening blockbuster brought in $500 million in sales. It was the biggest entertainment opening ever. But it wasn't a movie...
* Grand Theft Auto IV, a video game, recorded sales of $310 million... on its first day.
* For the first time last year, the video game industry surpassed the movie industry in gross sales.
* 68% of households in the United States play computer or video games. Game software sales were $2.6 billion in 1996, and by 2006 they had reached $7.4 billion.
* In 2007, the industry sold 267.8 million games. That's 540 games sold every minute.
* Forty-seven percent of video game players are between the ages of 18 and 49. The fastest growing demographic is the 50-plus crowd.
The last recession the United States had was after Sept. 11, when technology demand crashed. Despite that, sales of video games during that period increased 43%. 2002 became a record year in video games, posting $7 billion in sales. And it's happening again...
So put the two phenomenon together, add Rewards and Incentives to the mix, and you have a Social Network “at Play” that will have a huge upside and the stickiness to last!!
Notice how vague any of the numbers are. First off MMO's are only 11% of the video game market, 2/3's of these players come from Asia and not the US (which is the audience this company is marketing too). (source) So it's a much smaller audience then they would have you believe. Not only that, but every person I could find online who had signed up for this MLM (multi-level marketing) is not a gamer!
Is this what desperate MMO development companies are turning to? Can you imagine Guild Wars 2 following a business model such as this?
I did purposely leave out the links to this company, though anyone with enough google skills won't have a problem finding out about this, it is an MLM though. I know there are different opinions out there on these type of programs from Amway/Quikstar to others, most people are very skeptical of them.
Is this what we want MMO's becoming? To log into your game and no longer are you discussing the latest class or profession. No longer are you trying to find a group to complete the latest quest or to try to sell the latest drop you got from a monster. Instead, your chat screen is flooded with people asking how they can convince more people to be in their downline. Business strategies such as buying email addresses, posting signs on streets, buying a booth at the latest home show will be discussed in detail. Is this the future of gaming?
