This is the second post (which links to the first) in a two-part article examining the relative success of MUDs and browser games vs that of the "big", commercial games like WoW.

In the second and final part of an article on the success of MMOs vs MUDs/PBBGs, we discuss game design as it relates to the MMO and independent gaming worlds.

Where the first part focused on both production value and dedicated development teams in the industry, here we'll look at how and why game developers make certain game design decisions and how it is important to the success of the game.

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Excerpt:

For large-scale, multi-million dollar products (and they are products, to be sure), it's probably more important for the fiscal success of the game (not necessarily the artistic merit) to stick to the norm and tweak a few things. It's the safer bet and the millions of gamers you're targetting know, basically, what to expect. To some extent, even, this can free the development team up to do more with the story elements (many stories suffer from the same kind of copy-cat syndrome, but not all).

For independent game developers, I personally find it much more important to do something unique to your game to achieve any kind of success. I'm not talking radical reimagining of the MUD or browser game platform at large, but something that makes it stand out is of vital importance.

This is because there are many many times more MUDs/PBBGs/independents to compete with than there are "WoW-alikes" for new MMOs to deal with.