INTERVIEW: Omerta

Here we talk to three of the brains behind the game – Omerta Game Ltd CEO Steve Biddick (a Manchester City fan with a self-professed love for warm, flat beer), Omerta’s communications director Craig Albeck (chilled cider) and full-time tester Otto Adang (who doesn’t specify his preferred beverage, but does support PSV Eindhoven and owns all of the Babylon 5 DVDs).



CG.biz: Omerta clearly has a very adult theme. Why would you class it as a casual game?

Biddick: Omerta is no more adult than most casual games – less violent than most as the 'real death' of an Omerta character means that you tend to get quite cautious about how often you actually attack another player. The true gameplay is all about strategy and diplomacy and the backdrop to this is one of the richest and most vibrant online communities now in its seventh year.

The gameplay may be themed with petty crime in a 1930s Italo-American universe and structured around Mafia families, but the true experience is a burgeoning online community where true friendships flourish. We have countless episodes of lasting, real-life friendships beginning in Omerta. Omerta players have met in real life and married, moving countries to do so.



It would be churlish to dismiss something with such depth as 'adult' when it is bound together with so much humour and human warmth. It is educational too as there are countless examples of people coming into Omerta with basic English language skills and learning fluent English in the course of normal everyday play. We may be gangsters, but we're the good guys!



We are anti-exploitation, anti-racist and have a clear platform against all forms of hate-crime. 'Adult' makes it sound like 'smut' and smut we are not. We are also proud to boast a much higher than average participation of girls and women. Despite most of our players being male and aged 14-22, there is a high incidence of Omerta family bosses being women in their 30s.



Adang: Omerta can be different things to different people. The game provides a sort of framework, but the players themselves make it come to life by creating families, developing rivalries and interacting with each other. The same is true for the casual/addict aspect of the game. Some players will spend many hours online per day, but it is also possible to play more casually and enjoy it.

One of the changes in Omerta 3 tones down the effectiveness of addicted play and gives a boost to casual play. This brings the different players closer together so the game isn't so much about who can be online the most.

Omerta could be said to be a casual game even if you are an addict. The gameplay means you need to wait between actions, and because you don't need anything else to play it then a browser, Omerta is ideal to play next to whatever else you are doing on your computer. Indeed, many of our players play that way.

CG.biz: One of Omerta’s distinctive USP’s is the fact that when players die, they have to start again with a new character. Was it tough to go with that design decision and what has the reaction from players been like?



Adang: I wasn't part of the team when Omerta was originally created (as a hobby project by a group of students in Groningen, the Netherlands) so I can't tell you how hard it was. However, we stuck with it and have never even considered changing it as it is such a core feature of the game. Any game without that aspect would no longer be Omerta.


Permanent death (of you current character) is not for the faint of heart, and some players might quit when they have experienced repeated deaths, but it does give a lot more meaning to the concept of killing and a true Omerta player thrives in this environment.

CG.biz: How has Omerta Game Ltd changed in the line with he growth of the game?

Albeck: Omerta started out as a two-person hobby project by some students. Over the various iterations of Omerta, we have endeavoured to push the game, and the mafia game genre forward. As a result, our head count has grown to the point where we now have 18 full-time people and four offices around the world.



Of course, we are also appreciative of the continued contributions being made by our network of volunteers that is coordinated by Bianca Evers. Bianca will tell you we have a highly trained volunteer staff of over 200, mostly ex-players. They look after the newer players, moderate chat for unwanted content and generally help out (when it comes to making Omerta playable in a new particular language for example).


The expertise we have built up through our experiences with Omerta has enabled the company to offer focused services to other online games companies. We operate six dedicated single-language versions of Omerta, as well as giving players the option of playing in 29 different languages. As a result, we have become very effective at managing communities and cultivating these networks to provide localisation services.

For instance, we translate and manage specific language versions of other popular web games. This is a service we are actively looking to grow.
 
We have other projects in development, which we will dedicate resources too, once the new version of Omerta is live.

CG.biz: Have you considered bringing Omerta to other platforms?

Biddick: Yeah we have looked at Facebook in particular but no movement yet while we have been working on this massive version 3.0 relaunch. Watch this space. We may also dig deeper into the mobile gaming market as that seems quite suited to Omerta.



CG.biz: You’ve had over 3.5m people play Omerta – how many are normally playing at any one time?

Albeck: Typically there are 7,000 players live across all language versions of Omerta at any one time, whilst the IRC server (internet relay chat) has a constant presence of over 4,000 doing their mafia business.



CG.biz: Why do you believe the game is so popular?

Adang: Because of the loyal and dedicated community, backed up by fun and rewarding gameplay in a persistent game world that is constantly changing because of power struggles between the player families.


CG.biz: What’s new in Omerta 3?

Adang: More changes than you could point a Tommy gun at. Seriously though, we have made a combination of changes and tweaks as well as introducing fresh new features such as:

* Bodyguards – each with unique personalities and specialities that can be trained in a manner the player chooses. They help attack and defend but some also have specialities that will help you during normal gameplay. Players will have to make tough decisions because training in one area will leave you weaker in another.
* New items – including a selection of houses, weapons and special weapons like grenades. These items help you attack and defend. Some while you are online yourself and some specifically when you are offline.


* Networks – players can organize themselves into networks that work like pyramids. The players at the very top of the networks unlock a special bodyguard and special items for extra protection.

* A city map – populated by several business. Players can gain control of these for their family and as long as they can hold on to them and protect them they will provide benefits to the entire family.


* Raids – the businesses can be raided by players from other families to prevent the family owning them from gaining the benefits or even to take them over completely.

All the above changes have a huge impact on killing and the whole kill algorithm has been changed to take them into account. The aim of the changes is to make killing, and especially family wars, last a lot longer so it is more enjoyable for both sides and gives the defending side a better chance to fight back.

CG.biz: Omerta 3 has been in development for two years – what’s taken so long?

Biddick: Ha! If only you knew! We were slow to get organised to begin with – but then when we evaluated the existing version of Omerta we found that we were working with a somewhat rickety old bag of procedural PHP, cobbled together by several people of varying skill levels. It was a bit like one of those old automobiles you see which have bits from a whole scrapheap.



The first thing we did is compose our own fully-fledged object oriented class for the full replacement of the old-automobile style code. Then we moved to a new server setup as well – very experimental, FreeBSD based and much more secure and lots faster than anything currently available in the world of managed hosting.

While all of that was going on we also consulted the Omerta player base via an innovative feature called USMS (User Suggestion Management System) so that we could be sure that we were delivering what the player community wanted. Finally we had to really design all of that and work out some fairly challenging mathematics to make it all work. We weren't slacking anyway!



CG.biz: What are the biggest challenges in the MMO sector at the moment?

Biddick: The biggest single challenge is staying on top of our game and this requires a careful balance of innovation and conservatism – we have a great online universe, which we should preserve, yet players always want something new as well. Cutting the deck in such a way as to keep most people happy is an acquired skill.

Additionally it might be added that the sector is booming. I would certainly be more worried if I was running a TV studio or station. Running an MMO is a lot more flexible and a great deal more fun in my humble opinion.