Creating a Global MMOG

Massively multiplayer games are such large and expensive projects these days that it's always interesting to hear more about what it takes to get these titles off the ground. The Game Developers Conference took place this week in San Jose, and Gamasutra has extensive coverage of the proceedings, including this article on a presentation from Square Enix about making MMOGs. Final Fantasy XI is still the only online game of its kind to be truly cross-platform, allowing PC users, PS2 users, and most recently, Xbox 360 users to play in the same world. As well as discussing the effort to present their game to a global audience, producer Sage Sundi shares some regional subscriber and platform preference data which we don't often get to see.