[chipsy]

I'm pretty sure MVP works for the kind of game that is most likely to become a viral hit. There is a considerably sharp line between these types of games(stuff like Farmville, Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress, Fantastic Contraption, Civilization, Sims, Rollercoaster Tycoon) where the mechanics are an aid towards making the player perform some inherently fun creative and strategic acts, and big-spend blockbusters driven largely by their built-in content(Modern Warfare, Final Fantasy, Zelda, World of Warcraft), where nearly everything is hand-crafted and scripted to give players a controlled experience.

The latter type of game looks better for marketing purposes and can command a certain kind of audience that wants couch-potato entertainment - but the first kind is ultimately more efficient and profitable, because it can exploit the user's imagination to a far greater extent.

[Psyonic]

What evidence do you have that the first kind is ultimately more profitable? The second group of games you listed are some of the most successful games of all time... even Civ can't compare to WoW in profits.

[jcl]

I'm not sure World of Warcraft is a fair comparison, given that it is a massively multiplayer subscription game with social ties, where the economics are totally different.

But if someone has the numbers, I'd love to see how its profit stacks up against, say, the number one best-selling PC game -- The Sims (and number two: The Sims 2). On the one hand, WoW benefits from consumer psychology; it's like buying a new AAA title every three months, and it takes effort to cancel. On the other hand, WoW must have huge ongoing administrative, overhead, and content generation costs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestselling_games