The first M3RPG - back in 2003...

I thought it would take me some time to get to the subject of M3RPG (=Mobile MMORPG), but I just bumped into what I think is a great example of how these should look and behave.

The game is called TibiaME and it was developed by a German company called CipSoft. It was launched in Q1 of 2003 and it is based on their online MMORPG Tibia (Though there is no convergence between online and mobile users - each have their own worlds and can't interact with their counterparts).

The relatively early release date surprised me, even though I really can't know what it looked like and how it behaved like when it was first released , the current version is quite impressive and it seems like they have gotten the basics right:

The graphics looks good and fits the "atmosphere" of MMORPGs - but it is also quite simple, which makes it very playable on current mobile phones. In fact the graphics' view is top-view (and not 3D, isomorphic etc.) which is not uncommon to find both in mobile games and also in the older PC strategy/RPG games.

In addition, the gameplay seems to match the mobile medium, even though I didn't play too much, the interface is easy to use on mobile devices, and it can be seen that these guys made some efforts to scale down the never-ending features sets of regular MMORPGs.

Another thing that surprised me is the relatively small effect the network latency has on the game. One of the known problems of M3RPGs is the latency of data transmissions over mobile networks (especially non-3G ones). These can be a few seconds, and obviously cannot be tolerated in real time games - for example you wouldn't want to shoot at an enemy, only to find our later that he already moved away, and instead you shot your best online friend that happened to move to the killzone while your mobile network was having its siesta...

To see how things are latency-wise at TibiaME, I downloaded the game to two different devices connected to a regular non-3G GSM network, entered the same world, and started playing simultaneously on both devices, walking around with both players on the same area, so each one could see the other. Now, of course it wasn't as smooth as online multiplayer games, but on average the latency wasn't bad at all: There were even some times in which it almost look like real time (But on the other side there were times where it took the player a few second to appear in its place). But more importantly, the effect on the gameplay is somewhat reduced because of the fact that players cannot fight with each other, but only with the computer players, and while this may disappoint some users, it is probably a must in order to "mask" the latency's effects (For example, a non-RPG but rather a shoot 'em up game would probably not pass the latency test, since the speed of the game and everyone there is critical, unlike RPGs which are more slow-paced).

In terms of business model, they have an entirely free edition that anyone can download, and there's no cost for connecting to their server (besides the operator's charges). But, if you want to make your character stronger you can buy a premium subscription for 10Euros/4months. In addition you can also download the gold edition of the client in $5 (The gold edition is reported to have 13K downloads via Handango).

In addition, the deal they signed with T-Mobile Germany was revenue share for the data charges (A deal that is quite rare these days). Players of TibiaME are using 400KB/hour and at the time that the deal was made it was estimated at 0.72-3.6Euros/Hour at the time of the deal, so you can easily do the math on the potential of this if it becomes popular and addictive.

Anyway, the "theory" here seems to be right on the money, but the question is, how does it all go in practice? I tried to search for recent articles on TibiaME that would share some data as to the usage, subscriptions etc. but unfortunately I couldn't find any. I just found older articles (dated 2003-2004) following the launch.

However, in addition to the fact that the service is still running (since 2003!), there are signs that TibiaME did gain some user base. Their support forums have about 5,500 registered users, and there are dozens of recent posts (How recent? Does "today" counts?...) and when I entered the TibiaME world myself - I wasn't alone - there were at least a dozens of users at the same time in the specific world I chose. And of course if the download numbers of the gold edition at Handango is true - that's also great (Because for each paying user, there are free subscribers that are paying for data services, and while CipSoft doens't collect those - it shows the potential an M3RPG can have).

There's also a case study written by Forum Nokia about TibiaME, but it was written in June 2003 so it doesn't have the required perspective. By the way, this is the same Nokia that promotes Sega's Pocket Kingdom as the first M3RPG, but if you read their claims carefully you can see that they actually know they are not the first: "The first worldwide massively multiplayer online mobile game" (as opposed to TibiaME which is more European-based) or the following quote taken from this site: "The 1st MMO for the N-Gage game deck" (As opposed to TibiaME which is available on Symbian series 60 and recently on Java as well).

Anyway, I hope to write on Pocket Kingdom as well sometime, but this post is long enough as it is... And if anyone has some real data as to the success of TibiaME, post a comment.