1 vs. 100 Requiem

If you hadn’t heard, weeks ago Microsoft canned the massively multiplayer trivia game, 1 vs. 100.  For those of you that never played the game, 1 vs. 100 was an online trivia game that hosted upwards of 40,000 players at one time attempting to answer trivia questions as fast as possible.  Gamers played in groups of four (with friends or strangers) and hoped to answer enough questions correctly, and with enough speed, to win real prizes.  Even if players didn’t do well, they could still earn achievements for their efforts.  Best of all, 1 vs. 100 was free to Xbox Gold subscribers.  Even your one friend who bought the system to play Modern Warfare 2 could participate.

Unfortunately, in mid-July Microsoft dropped the hammer on the game and announced it was moving on.  Kotaku ran an insider scoop story suggesting that the game failed due to possible mismanagement and failure to sell ads (for more detail on that story follow this link: http://bit.ly/ddJmbv).  Speculation indicates that Microsoft will be using the lessons they learned here to create similar games and integrate these lessons into programs like the upcoming ESPN channel.

That’s all great and wonderful, but I’ve got to wonder, how the hell can a gaming company the size of Microsoft screw up an easy winner like 1 vs. 100.  Kotaku’s source suggests that management of the game jumped from one unit to the next with very little attention paid to whether the game had enough resources.  Did no one at this company throw together some math to calculate what the expenses and the revenue were on this?  If ad sales were poor, did they consider modifying some of the limitations on the game?  If hosting 40,000 players at one time costs 30x what you have budgeted, cut back on how many players can participate.  It looks to me like this game could’ve used an executive with some computation skills to clean it up.

The suggestion that ad sales were poor sounds insane to me.  My guess is that whoever was responsible for selling ads either sucks at the job or had never done it before.  A majority of the ads during this game were for Sprint.  Hell, a majority of all the ads on the Xbox Marketplace are for Sprint.  It appears that somebody knows where Sprint buried the old Nextel walkie-talkies and that’s about it.  Microsoft had an amazing opportunity to sell ads that players cannot block out. Unlike when watching TV (fast forward past commercials) or on the internet (ad-blocker), 1 vs. 100 forced players to see the ads being shown.  The best that they could do would be to leave the room to get popcorn.  Plus, the game is practically free (XBL Gold charges are it).  If gamers complain about the advertisements, they need to grow up a bit and realize that shit like this isn’t free.

I’m glad to hear that Microsoft has stated that they plan on using this experience in future titles.  However, until there is something to show for it, I still call it as bullshit.  They simply cut their losses on something that no one was willing to take control or claim over.  It’s quite a shame for those of us that really enjoyed 1 vs. 100 and I hope it doesn’t scare other companies away from giving similar ideas a shot.  This would be an amazing opportunity for an up-and-coming game developer, especially one that can leverage such platforms as Facebook, mobile phone apps and maybe even the teletype.

Here’s to 1 vs. 100 - a game that a ton of people played and enjoyed.  The success it could have achieved was likely squandered by stupid mismanagement and poor salesmanship.  If only this kind of shittiness could befall Pokemon.