WoW-junior or MMO sensation? We ask Sony about its new MMO for kids, Free Realms

Name: Laralyn McWilliams
Position: Free Realms Creative Director
Company: Sony Online Entertainment

Fable II had a dog, Free Realms has a cat.

How did development on Free Realms start? What was the driving idea behind the project?
Our goals for Free Realms have been pretty consistent since the start of the project: to create a low-pressure, whimsical virtual world that welcomes tweens, teens and families. We wanted Free Realms to be quick to start, easy to understand, and rewarding to play, and we also wanted to make sure players had interesting and fun choices in terms of the activities and mini games they played.

What were the main MMOs that you looked at to draw inspiration for Free Realms, and what kind of elements did you take from them?
We were inspired by a bunch of great games, including many games that are not MMOs. You can see a little bit of Cooking Mama, Magic Match, Diablo, Animal Crossing, The Sims, and our own EverQuest games in Free Realms.

One of the reasons why MMOs such as WoW are so popular is because of their addictive and incredibly deep gameplay, which keeps players subscribing every month. Are you worried that by stripping away this depth you will rob Free Realms of the addictiveness inherent in other MMORPGs?
The depth in Free Realms is different from the depth in games like EverQuest and WoW. In those games, your progression is always vertical and (unless you start a new character) always linear. In Free Realms, your linear progression in a single job is shorter but you have a ton of jobs to play. The ability to changes jobs—and essentially change the game you’re playing, in terms of the difference between combat, racing and mining, for example—while maintaining a single character is a game-changing feature that adds depth rather than reducing it.

Have you been looking much at the Asian MMO market and its success with free-to-play MMOs? Do you think a similar level of success can be replicated in the west?
We’ve looked at both Asian and western MMOs and virtual worlds. There are a lot of great games out there, and we had a lot of fun trying them out and seeing how they solved some of the same problems we’ve tried to solve in Free Realms. I think free-to-play MMOs are the next big thing in the western MMO market, as long as we can keep the quality level as high as traditional, subscription MMOs.

Why do you think it has taken so long for a casual, free-to-play, MMO like FreeRealms to arrive on consoles?
Creating an MMO on the console has a lot of hurdles in terms of handling updates, chat, controls, etc. I think the time is right and we’ll start seeing more virtual worlds and MMOs available on the PS3 because the technology is so robust, and the market is ready for them now.

Their are many characters and jobs to choose from.

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