A fuzzy-AHP-based technique for the decision of design feature selection in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game development

The Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) industry is growing rapidly. It is very important to understand how to design a successful MMORPG that can satisfy its customers. A MMORPG is composed of many design components; therefore, the game developers cannot perfect all of the design factors due to the constraint of development resources and the time-to-market pressure of the product. The purpose of this study is to help game developers to make the trade-off decision of where to invest their limited resources to implement critical design factors. We proposed a fuzzy-AHP-based technique and constructed a hierarchical system structure for MMORPG design, which includes two systems, nine design components and 36 design features for the design factor trade-off problem. A questionnaire with a pair-wise comparison data input format was employed to gather users' assessments of the relative importance of the design criteria. Two hundred and twenty-one Taiwanese MMORPG players participated in this online survey. Our results identified five critical design components that contributed to 66% of users' sense of important MMORPG design features. The study also recommended the top 10 important design features, which can fulfill about 40% of users' expectations in implementing the critical components. Specific design guidelines were also suggested for MMORPG implementation. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.