ZAM Discusses Wizard101 Updates with KingsIsle
This article originally appeared on ZAM on Sept. 21, 2010.
Vice President of Marketing Fred Howard talked with Editor-in-Chief Darryl Gangloff about the new in-game quest featuring actress and singer Selena Gomez, the upcoming Celestia update and the game's two-year anniversary.
There is a lot happening in the kid-friendly world of Wizard101. The game celebrated its two-year anniversary earlier this month, and a new in-game quest featuring singer and actress Selena Gomez just launched today to promote her new album and pave the way for the release of the game's upcoming Celestia world. We decided to reach out to KingsIsle Entertainment for an update on all of these milestones, and Vice President of Marketing Fred Howard answered the call.
Howard talked with us about all sorts of things, from what it was like working with the star of Disney's "Wizards of Waverly Place" (see why her cameo in the game is a good fit?) to all of the new content that's coming with the launch of the new Celestia world. The update will include an increased level cap, introduce a brand new story arc, and allow players to swim for the first time.
Howard also tells us what additions we can expect to see in the future for Wizard101. Keep reading for all the details!
ZAM: Congratulations on reaching the two-year mark! How does it feel to hit two years with Wizard101?
Fred Howard: First of all, thank you! It's actually incredible. It's kind of funny because it's been two years since launch and on some levels it feels like it's gone by in the blink of an eye, and on others it feels like it's been much much longer because of all that's happened and all that we've accomplished. It has that dual feeling, but all of it has been pretty incredible.
ZAM: Let's talk a little about Wizard101 two years ago and now. What are some of your fondest memories from the time surrounding launch day?
Fred: When you look at a launch day, there's obviously excitement, as well as some anxiety and a frantic push to get everything you want to get done in a short amount of time. We always felt very strongly, I'd even say knew internally, that Wizard101 was going to be an amazing product, but before you really hit launch, you just don't have that validation from the marketplace. So there's a little bit of excitement and anxiety coming from that. That feeling is very different two years later where we have had a tremendous amount of success and we've seen a great uptick from our core audience of 8 to 14.
We also saw something that we very much intentionally went after, but is not easy to achieve, which is hitting a cross-generational success and creating a property that is really classified as family entertainment. The game has such mass appeal to a younger audience, a middle-aged audience, and an older audience, and to see that come to fruition is really an amazing thing.
ZAM: When you're creating content for the game, are you thinking about children first and other generations second? Or are you always trying to think how you can target it toward a wide age group?
Fred: We thought safety first while designing Wizard101 because I think it's a critical aspect in any online property. But once we really had that one under the belt, we think fun first. We very much have fun internally, and it's one of the core focuses for everything that we do, whether it's in the game design, the execution in the game, or the marketing efforts. The next level to that is knowing that fun does have different components and different executions across different age barriers. That is very much a conscious thought in how we do things. A younger audience will find some aspects of the game hysterical and completely miss certain aspects that the older generation is chuckling at.
Eric Bloom, the lead singer of Blue Oyster Cult, stumbled on our game about a year ago and loved it. He wrote an article that we were at the time unaware of that got published on Massive Online Gamer and the whole premise of his article was that you think Wizard101 is for a younger audience, and it is, but it's also for an older audience. He ended up loving the game so much that he took a studio tour and helped co-design a quest in the game titled "Does a Bear Sit in the Woods?" Again, kids will say "sure, a bear sits in the woods" and adults will chuckle at it. He did the voice-over for a viking bear in the quest.
ZAM: He's a big MMO fan, too.
Fred: Yeah, he's a huge MMO player. One of the interesting things that we've seen is a convergence of different segments that have all really enjoyed Wizard101. We've had a tremendous success with our core audience, which is the younger demographic, but we've also seen huge success with what I call the adult casual gamer, or the traditional non-gamer. We see a large number of parents who will log into the game to check it out and make sure it's safe for their child. They hop in for 15 minutes to see what Wizard101 is, and the next thing you know you have parents playing family game night with their kids and relatives in Wizard101.
We've also had a surprising success from adult hardcore gamers who are willing to give us a try. That's our biggest hurdle. A lot of them will say, "that's a kid's game, I'm not playing that. I play World of Warcraft, I play Age of Conan, I play Lord of the Rings Online," and not check us out. But those that do find an in-depth MMO experience that's just a little more casual and light-hearted. You don't have to go on a four-hour raid every Wednesday night. You can hop in Wizard101 and play for half an hour and enjoy it.
ZAM: Wizard101 is a free-to-play game, but you do offer some subscription packages. One of them is actually a family package, so it seems that you're attempting to give family members a reason to play together.
Fred: We are. That actually came from our community. Marketing was in charge of pricing when we first launched, and my theory at first was misguided. I thought that since each account comes with six wizard slots and not many families have more than six people that are going to want to play the game, that meant not many families would want to have premium access for more than one account. When we went live, we had a massive uproar of families saying it's not that we have six wizards, it's that we want to play together. They said it doesn't make sense for them to have four full-price subscriptions for our premium content and they needed a discount for family game night.
One of the other aspects is technology. Josef Hall, our vice president of development, pushed early on for really low-end specs for a system. When you think about it, it was based on the premise that a lot of our players aren't going to be playing on a super high-end computer. They're going to be playing on dad's 10-year-old machine that got handed down to the oldest kid and is now sitting in the youngest kid's room. Wizard101 is playable on very old machines. It plays on most netbooks. That has helped expand the audience and the number of people that can play at a time in a family.
ZAM: Approximately how many players do you have?
Fred: We were up to 10 million registered players back in June. I'll tell you that July was bigger than June, and basically every month that we've had has been record-setting for us.
ZAM: You explained what sets Wizard101 apart from games like World of Warcraft and Age of Conan, but what sets it apart from the other kid-friendly free-to-play games out there?
Fred: There are a lot of things. KingsIsle is a heavily story-driven company. When you come into Wizard101, it's not so much the traditional sandbox MMO where you get quests and run around and do your thing. It's very story-driven. There's a lot to do within Wizard101, but you're also going down the path of a very well told story. We have full voice acting for all the dialogue in the game done by professional actors and actresses, which is pretty impressive. It really brings the story in the game to life. I think that's a big factor.
Another major factor is the ease and simplicity of the interface in Wizard101. It has the depth of a lot of MMOs but it doesn't have the complexity that a lot of them have. You're not mashing keys and you don't have an inventory interface on your screen that you need to be an industry expert to understand.
Probably one of the primary factors is that it's just really fun. The design, the dialogue, the quests, everything you do in the game is fun. A combination of a lot of things has led to our success.
ZAM: On that note, why don't we jump into some content-related questions? What can players expect to find in the world of Celestia?
Fred: We're excited to get it out. It's actually the largest world that we've launched to date. It's a huge world. It brings a lot of new functionality to the game. It has swimming for the first time, although not all of Celestia is underwater. For the first time we're launching three new schools of magic. They are secondary schools that players can use to augment their characters.
We're launching our first ever level cap increase from 50 to 60, and with that we're launching new high-level spells for the grand masters that are in the game now. So in addition to the new schools of magic, there will be new spells in the existing schools of magic for high-level players.
ZAM: So there's definitely a lot of new content coming with the launch of this new world.
Fred: That's exactly right. It's actually starting an entirely new story arc. We talked about the depth of the storytelling in Wizard101, but when players finish Dragonspyre and defeat Malistaire, they will have completed the story arc that we launched the game with. With the launch of Celestia we're introducing a whole new story arc and new bad gal, Morganth the Spider Queen. So not only is it launching swimming, spells and new schools of magic, it's also launching a new story arc with a new enemy to go after.
ZAM: Do you have a tentative release date set?
Fred: Pretty soon!
ZAM: You also have the Selena Gomez quest, which launched on the live servers today. How did that whole storyline come about?
Fred: It was really fun for us to do a cross-promotion with Selena Gomez and Hollywood Records. They've been great to work with. It's been fun for us to work with Selena and have her do a voice-over for a questline in our game that we use to introduce the first underwater component in Wizard101. So it was something that helped us launch Celestia and our new content, and it helped her reach a significant audience to alert them of the launch of her new album on September 21.
ZAM: Can you tell us a little bit more about the quest?
Fred: The overall premise of the story is Selena is in her recording studio finishing up her new album when she falls asleep and wakes up behind bars in this world she doesn't recognize. As a player, you have to help her get out and get her back to launch her album. It's pretty typical for Wizard101. It's funny, it's tongue-in-cheek. She's been captured by the Crab King who wants to make her his queen. He think she's a powerful wizard when she's really a singer and actress. It has a funny ending that most players will chuckle at and enjoy.
ZAM: Will the quest be permanent or temporary?
Fred: It's temporary. We looked at this like we do some of our other special content, like our holiday events. It's specific content to launch for a short period of time to expose players to the underwater world and have fun with the Selena quest to promote her album and the launch of Celestia.
ZAM: Will the quest last until at least the launch of Celestia?
Fred: Yes.
ZAM: As you mentioned, the lead singer of Blue Oyster Cult has been in Wizard101. Now you have Selena Gomez making an appearance. Can we expect any other celebrities to show up in the game?
Fred: You never know. We certainly had fun with both of them. Eric wasn't in the game as himself, and Selena's actually the first person who has played herself in the game. Just as a point of note, that doesn't break the fantasy of our world. Earth is a world in Wizard101 and all the players are playing themselves as people from our world who have been pulled into Wizard City to start their journey. The fact that Selena falls asleep and wakes up in Wizard101 is not breaking fantasy. We try to hold true to the reality of our fantasy, if that makes sense.
ZAM: It does. So Wizard101 just celebrated its two-year anniversary. Congratulations! What's next for the game after Celestia?
Fred: A lot! I think if we look at the success we've had and the wonderful community that's been built around the game, there's a tremendous future for Wizard101. Celestia starts a whole new story arc, so you can certainly be on the lookout for a number of new worlds to come online over the next few years to continue to drive that storyline and bring new content to players.
We saw a lot of success with our new pet system that was launched in our last build. It's a very in-depth system that has both a casual feel as well as a very deep aspect for the more hardcore players. With the success of that I think you'll see other new systems in place that we'll bring online. So players can expect a combination of new worlds, a new story arc, and new functions and features.
ZAM: Sounds like players will have a lot of content to keep them busy. Thanks for sitting down with us to discuss Wizard101!
Fred: Thank you!
Vice President of Marketing Fred Howard talked with Editor-in-Chief Darryl Gangloff about the new in-game quest featuring actress and singer Selena Gomez, the upcoming Celestia update and the game's two-year anniversary.
There is a lot happening in the kid-friendly world of Wizard101. The game celebrated its two-year anniversary earlier this month, and a new in-game quest featuring singer and actress Selena Gomez just launched today to promote her new album and pave the way for the release of the game's upcoming Celestia world. We decided to reach out to KingsIsle Entertainment for an update on all of these milestones, and Vice President of Marketing Fred Howard answered the call.
Howard talked with us about all sorts of things, from what it was like working with the star of Disney's "Wizards of Waverly Place" (see why her cameo in the game is a good fit?) to all of the new content that's coming with the launch of the new Celestia world. The update will include an increased level cap, introduce a brand new story arc, and allow players to swim for the first time.
Howard also tells us what additions we can expect to see in the future for Wizard101. Keep reading for all the details!
ZAM: Congratulations on reaching the two-year mark! How does it feel to hit two years with Wizard101?
Fred Howard: First of all, thank you! It's actually incredible. It's kind of funny because it's been two years since launch and on some levels it feels like it's gone by in the blink of an eye, and on others it feels like it's been much much longer because of all that's happened and all that we've accomplished. It has that dual feeling, but all of it has been pretty incredible.
ZAM: Let's talk a little about Wizard101 two years ago and now. What are some of your fondest memories from the time surrounding launch day?
Fred: When you look at a launch day, there's obviously excitement, as well as some anxiety and a frantic push to get everything you want to get done in a short amount of time. We always felt very strongly, I'd even say knew internally, that Wizard101 was going to be an amazing product, but before you really hit launch, you just don't have that validation from the marketplace. So there's a little bit of excitement and anxiety coming from that. That feeling is very different two years later where we have had a tremendous amount of success and we've seen a great uptick from our core audience of 8 to 14.
We also saw something that we very much intentionally went after, but is not easy to achieve, which is hitting a cross-generational success and creating a property that is really classified as family entertainment. The game has such mass appeal to a younger audience, a middle-aged audience, and an older audience, and to see that come to fruition is really an amazing thing.
ZAM: When you're creating content for the game, are you thinking about children first and other generations second? Or are you always trying to think how you can target it toward a wide age group?
Fred: We thought safety first while designing Wizard101 because I think it's a critical aspect in any online property. But once we really had that one under the belt, we think fun first. We very much have fun internally, and it's one of the core focuses for everything that we do, whether it's in the game design, the execution in the game, or the marketing efforts. The next level to that is knowing that fun does have different components and different executions across different age barriers. That is very much a conscious thought in how we do things. A younger audience will find some aspects of the game hysterical and completely miss certain aspects that the older generation is chuckling at.
Eric Bloom, the lead singer of Blue Oyster Cult, stumbled on our game about a year ago and loved it. He wrote an article that we were at the time unaware of that got published on Massive Online Gamer and the whole premise of his article was that you think Wizard101 is for a younger audience, and it is, but it's also for an older audience. He ended up loving the game so much that he took a studio tour and helped co-design a quest in the game titled "Does a Bear Sit in the Woods?" Again, kids will say "sure, a bear sits in the woods" and adults will chuckle at it. He did the voice-over for a viking bear in the quest.
ZAM: He's a big MMO fan, too.
Fred: Yeah, he's a huge MMO player. One of the interesting things that we've seen is a convergence of different segments that have all really enjoyed Wizard101. We've had a tremendous success with our core audience, which is the younger demographic, but we've also seen huge success with what I call the adult casual gamer, or the traditional non-gamer. We see a large number of parents who will log into the game to check it out and make sure it's safe for their child. They hop in for 15 minutes to see what Wizard101 is, and the next thing you know you have parents playing family game night with their kids and relatives in Wizard101.
We've also had a surprising success from adult hardcore gamers who are willing to give us a try. That's our biggest hurdle. A lot of them will say, "that's a kid's game, I'm not playing that. I play World of Warcraft, I play Age of Conan, I play Lord of the Rings Online," and not check us out. But those that do find an in-depth MMO experience that's just a little more casual and light-hearted. You don't have to go on a four-hour raid every Wednesday night. You can hop in Wizard101 and play for half an hour and enjoy it.
ZAM: Wizard101 is a free-to-play game, but you do offer some subscription packages. One of them is actually a family package, so it seems that you're attempting to give family members a reason to play together.
Fred: We are. That actually came from our community. Marketing was in charge of pricing when we first launched, and my theory at first was misguided. I thought that since each account comes with six wizard slots and not many families have more than six people that are going to want to play the game, that meant not many families would want to have premium access for more than one account. When we went live, we had a massive uproar of families saying it's not that we have six wizards, it's that we want to play together. They said it doesn't make sense for them to have four full-price subscriptions for our premium content and they needed a discount for family game night.
One of the other aspects is technology. Josef Hall, our vice president of development, pushed early on for really low-end specs for a system. When you think about it, it was based on the premise that a lot of our players aren't going to be playing on a super high-end computer. They're going to be playing on dad's 10-year-old machine that got handed down to the oldest kid and is now sitting in the youngest kid's room. Wizard101 is playable on very old machines. It plays on most netbooks. That has helped expand the audience and the number of people that can play at a time in a family.
ZAM: Approximately how many players do you have?
Fred: We were up to 10 million registered players back in June. I'll tell you that July was bigger than June, and basically every month that we've had has been record-setting for us.
ZAM: You explained what sets Wizard101 apart from games like World of Warcraft and Age of Conan, but what sets it apart from the other kid-friendly free-to-play games out there?
Fred: There are a lot of things. KingsIsle is a heavily story-driven company. When you come into Wizard101, it's not so much the traditional sandbox MMO where you get quests and run around and do your thing. It's very story-driven. There's a lot to do within Wizard101, but you're also going down the path of a very well told story. We have full voice acting for all the dialogue in the game done by professional actors and actresses, which is pretty impressive. It really brings the story in the game to life. I think that's a big factor.
Another major factor is the ease and simplicity of the interface in Wizard101. It has the depth of a lot of MMOs but it doesn't have the complexity that a lot of them have. You're not mashing keys and you don't have an inventory interface on your screen that you need to be an industry expert to understand.
Probably one of the primary factors is that it's just really fun. The design, the dialogue, the quests, everything you do in the game is fun. A combination of a lot of things has led to our success.
ZAM: On that note, why don't we jump into some content-related questions? What can players expect to find in the world of Celestia?
Fred: We're excited to get it out. It's actually the largest world that we've launched to date. It's a huge world. It brings a lot of new functionality to the game. It has swimming for the first time, although not all of Celestia is underwater. For the first time we're launching three new schools of magic. They are secondary schools that players can use to augment their characters.
We're launching our first ever level cap increase from 50 to 60, and with that we're launching new high-level spells for the grand masters that are in the game now. So in addition to the new schools of magic, there will be new spells in the existing schools of magic for high-level players.
ZAM: So there's definitely a lot of new content coming with the launch of this new world.
Fred: That's exactly right. It's actually starting an entirely new story arc. We talked about the depth of the storytelling in Wizard101, but when players finish Dragonspyre and defeat Malistaire, they will have completed the story arc that we launched the game with. With the launch of Celestia we're introducing a whole new story arc and new bad gal, Morganth the Spider Queen. So not only is it launching swimming, spells and new schools of magic, it's also launching a new story arc with a new enemy to go after.
ZAM: Do you have a tentative release date set?
Fred: Pretty soon!
ZAM: You also have the Selena Gomez quest, which launched on the live servers today. How did that whole storyline come about?
Fred: It was really fun for us to do a cross-promotion with Selena Gomez and Hollywood Records. They've been great to work with. It's been fun for us to work with Selena and have her do a voice-over for a questline in our game that we use to introduce the first underwater component in Wizard101. So it was something that helped us launch Celestia and our new content, and it helped her reach a significant audience to alert them of the launch of her new album on September 21.
ZAM: Can you tell us a little bit more about the quest?
Fred: The overall premise of the story is Selena is in her recording studio finishing up her new album when she falls asleep and wakes up behind bars in this world she doesn't recognize. As a player, you have to help her get out and get her back to launch her album. It's pretty typical for Wizard101. It's funny, it's tongue-in-cheek. She's been captured by the Crab King who wants to make her his queen. He think she's a powerful wizard when she's really a singer and actress. It has a funny ending that most players will chuckle at and enjoy.
ZAM: Will the quest be permanent or temporary?
Fred: It's temporary. We looked at this like we do some of our other special content, like our holiday events. It's specific content to launch for a short period of time to expose players to the underwater world and have fun with the Selena quest to promote her album and the launch of Celestia.
ZAM: Will the quest last until at least the launch of Celestia?
Fred: Yes.
ZAM: As you mentioned, the lead singer of Blue Oyster Cult has been in Wizard101. Now you have Selena Gomez making an appearance. Can we expect any other celebrities to show up in the game?
Fred: You never know. We certainly had fun with both of them. Eric wasn't in the game as himself, and Selena's actually the first person who has played herself in the game. Just as a point of note, that doesn't break the fantasy of our world. Earth is a world in Wizard101 and all the players are playing themselves as people from our world who have been pulled into Wizard City to start their journey. The fact that Selena falls asleep and wakes up in Wizard101 is not breaking fantasy. We try to hold true to the reality of our fantasy, if that makes sense.
ZAM: It does. So Wizard101 just celebrated its two-year anniversary. Congratulations! What's next for the game after Celestia?
Fred: A lot! I think if we look at the success we've had and the wonderful community that's been built around the game, there's a tremendous future for Wizard101. Celestia starts a whole new story arc, so you can certainly be on the lookout for a number of new worlds to come online over the next few years to continue to drive that storyline and bring new content to players.
We saw a lot of success with our new pet system that was launched in our last build. It's a very in-depth system that has both a casual feel as well as a very deep aspect for the more hardcore players. With the success of that I think you'll see other new systems in place that we'll bring online. So players can expect a combination of new worlds, a new story arc, and new functions and features.
ZAM: Sounds like players will have a lot of content to keep them busy. Thanks for sitting down with us to discuss Wizard101!
Fred: Thank you!