Ideas, we represent a Princely family

Real world prizes will put you in the cross-hairs of every gambling regulation and law there is, in the US at least. I'm not sure about Apple's stance on this, but I know that in the arcade world you can't charge for anything that can't be proven to be skill based if it carries a real-world reward.

 

... so the Prince wants to invite random people to his galas just for the heck of it?

 

Only random people that have iPhones

 

If you have to pay for the app to win prizes then it would most likely be seen as a lottery and would be illegal/heavily regulated in many countries. Just like a "gambling for real money" app you would need a team of expensive lawyers with experience of international gaming laws.

You could do a single player or online multi-player casino game (app is paid for but no real gambling). People do buy such games but the sales would depend on how good the game was and how much you were willing to splash out on marketing.

 

Just make a great game to start with!

Brian, the solution to your search is very simple. Just start with a great game. You won't need any bells or whistles. If you start with an "invented concept" rather than a pasted on gimmick you are on your way to success. It is that simple!

 

Unless the MMO is something else than text based, i doubt it'll pick up more of a following than most of the other MMOs in the app store.

Look at what companies like Blizzard did: They made an incredibly popular, addictive, and entertaining world that attracted everyone, from people who had never touched a game to the most hardened mmo addicts. Mostly because you could meet other players online and the world had a large number of things to do. It was also simple and easy to play and access, something that gathered the interest of a lot of players. It also had very basic system requirements, so an Alienware wasn't needed to run it, but that doesn't really count here.


Now look at what SGN did: SGN created Agency Wars, a game that looked appealing and sucked players in. It is easy to access, not too hard to level up, missions seem different (at first) and weapons slowly became available as the player leveled up. Early on it wasn't to hard to maintain a healthy amount of cash and weapons, and most of the reviews praised it. However, as you leveled up, attacks upon you became more frequent, you started losing cash quickly, and aside from passports which didn't work well, you were always open to attack, especially when you aren't logged in and have your phone turned off.

They also created a mafia game, just like a bunch of other developers:

I'm going to save a wall of text here, and say that all of these involved doing the same mission until your energy ran out, sending as many friend requests as you could, and buying as many weapons and advantages, with and without real money, to gain an edge above other players.


All it really comes down to if you want to make a successful MMO, look at what other successful devs have done, and do what they did, only add new features and fix the old ones that were broken.


I'm gonna turn in now, too much typing for now, but i hope this gave you a little insight on MMOs. I have a fair amount of experience with them, waiting for updates and not playing at the moment, and i hope this will help you a little, sincerely,

Theta-Omega