Gaming for the Broadband Era

Applying principles taken from primetime TV development, Trion World Network is looking to revolutionize online gaming

by Kris Graft

In late September, Dr. Lars Buttler, EA’s former VP of global online and Jon Van Caneghem, creator of the Might and Magic series, founded Trion, a game company “for the broadband era.” Even though new partner Emergent has become known for its Gamebryo game engine (used for The Elder Scolls IV: Oblivion and Civilization IV), the company also has areas of expertise related to online game development.

Trion will use the Gamebryo engine and toolset for “a major game franchise currently in development.” Buttler and Emergent CEO Geoff Selzer weren’t quite ready to entirely lift the veil on all their ambitious plans, but they did offer up a fascinating and shared vision of the future of online gaming.

Scheduled Programming

Trion CEO and co-founder Buttler says he’s looking to ditch the idea that gaming is a product, rather he looks at it as a service. In other words, it’s not over after product launch and Trion will work behind the scenes, changing games on a daily basis.

ldquo;We are going to publish and develop games that are built from the ground up for profit,” explained Buttler. “So, they are online games, of course, but they are much more than the current generation of online games.  Think about it as large-scale, triple-A production quality games that not only allow you to do what current online games allow you to do, but they also … add on a large number of capabilities [like] user generated dynamic content, large community, variances in the game and other capabilities that only broadband can allow you—for example, truly dynamic content; content that you can change literally on the fly.”

He continued, “In a broadband world, if you built the technology in the right way there’s no reason why the game shouldn’t improve on a daily basis.  And I’m not talking about, you know, some pictures that take downloading time or some expansion packs. … We really talk about dynamic changes to the world every day, and they have so many dimensions. … Instead of building one huge game up front, you build enough content to launch and then you keep on adding to the world on a daily, weekly, monthly, basis.”

But does this mean that games will launch as unfinished products? Buttler said, “No, no not at all.  It’s a deep game.  It has all the game mechanics built in already.  So there are lots and lots of things to do but then from day one when you launch the game, there will be immediately time based experiences in the game.

“In the TV world, if you look at, the way a TV show is produced, it’s very different [than game development].  You develop the first pilot, you know a few episodes and then you never stop developing, right?  Think Sopranos, Sex in the City, Friends or Survivor or whatever it is. It’s an ongoing development and it goes over several seasons.”

Don’t call it episodic gaming

He clarified the possibilities of Trion’s plan with an example. “Now, with dynamic content there is also the ability to really introduce time as a component to the game experience.  Think about primetime [on TV].  You can introduce events that only happen tonight, at 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. One of our key taglines is ‘What’s on tonight?’  … [Let’s take a game like Halo for example.] There could be a raid tonight, there could be an alien space ship landing tonight and only if you come tonight you will see it, and only then you can talk about it with your friends the next day.”

It’s that programming-oriented setup that Buttler said is the biggest distinguisher between Trion and other online gaming companies. While programming or planned events in the online world aren’t anything new, he said that Trion will take the idea and implement it on a “large-scale” basis, day-in and day-out.

"[It’s] programming in a TV network sense. In a sense it’s truly interactive television, right?" he said.