Tales from the Lite side :)

While most of the MMO related buzz has been focused on the bright lights glimmering off of all of the gold being generated in the latest online behemoth and its slimed down rival a number of ultra-lite players are making off with phat lewt :)



Dave Taylor's blog points to the joy that is Kart Rider! DDT writes:

One of the secrets of Kart Rider is that it's also a short game, perfect for a 5-10 minute break at work or as a break from a more demanding task. Compare that to the weeks or months of a full Everquest campaign or any of the other massively multiplayer worlds. Certainly Nexon knows quite well that there are manyfold more casual gamers and people online seeking a quick entertainment that's fun, funny and not particularly demanding. And, with an income last year of $110 million and a projected 2005 revenue of $250 million, they're right.

Over at Lost Garden you can read about another silent success story called Gunbound and Danc's take on what we can learn from the two. Here's a snip:

What are the common elements in our two examples that are likely to be the defining factors of this new genre?

* High production values using a neo-retro art style
* Quick and friendly game play
* Multiplayer
* Highly polished ranking system
* The ability to buy avatars and powerups at a small cost.

This seems to be a rather reasonable project to begin production on. There is a bit of investment in the server-side back end, but much less than is necessary for a game like WoW. The art costs go down since you are dealing with stylized assets. The game design is amendable to rapid prototyping since you are tuning a 5 to 15 minute experience instead of worrying about a 300 hour mega quest.

I'll throw in a few more "sleepers" that are also raking in big revenues:

South Korea's Cyworld



Finland's Habbo Hotel



Last but far least is Neopets which was recently aquired by MTV's parent company for $160M smackers.



It's easy to write these ultra-lite virtual spaces off as non-games or as non-MMO games but to do so is to miss out the next wave in online entertainment.