Sam "azerian" Maxted takes a look at the growth of mini-game mods in MMOs, as well as what they mean for the games that allow them.

We all love our MMOs, but sometimes we feel like taking a break from them. This can be for any number of reasons; from having trouble finding a group to becoming bored with the available content. However, these days it's possible to take a break from some MMOs without actually logging out, due to the number of mini-games being produced for them. I'm not talking about quests or sub-games linked to the in-game content here, but completely separate games that have nothing to do with the MMOs themselves, yet are playable through them. With the release of the much-loved Peggle for World of Warcraft last week, I thought it was time to take a look at this phenomenon.

These days, unrelated mini-games in MMOs are generally produced by third-parties. However, this wasn't always the case. One of the earliest mini-games to be made available in MMOs was Gems, produced by SOE for EverQuest. Like many of the other mini-games available today, Gems borrowed heavily from elsewhere, namely from Sega's game Columns. This may seem a bit of an odd addition for a developer to make to an MMO, but in EQ's case it made a lot of sense. Before Gems was released for EQ, players had little to occupy themselves while they waited for their health and mana to recharge (which, as any EQ veteran will tell you, took a hell of a long time). In order to stop people from getting bored, the devs had two options: increase regeneration rates or give players something to do while they waited. Since as increasing health / mana regen would cause players to level more quickly, it's no surprise that SOE went for the latter option.

Some mini-games include clever nods to the MMOs themselves, such as Peggle's talent tree.

Despite the appearance of Gems though, things didn't really get going until more recently, when it became possible to modify MMOs' user interfaces through official means. Most early mods took the form of new skins or new functionality in the UI (such as threat meters, buff timers and the like), but it wasn't long until mods started becoming more ambitious, with some creators taking a leaf out of SOE's book and producing their own mini-games. Some MMOs now have plenty of mini-games available for download (WoW in particular), giving players even more content to experience in-game. However, is the increase in these mini-games' popularity beneficial?

Sure, these games give players something to do during their characters' downtime, but that's not necessarily the only time they'll be used. With these games being available, the temptation exists for people to play them when they should be concentrating on something else. It can be difficult to play certain games and keep an eye on chat at the same time - I know I forgot all about it when playing Bejeweled the other day - and these mini-games could also contribute to wipes, should someone decide to have "one more go" during an instance. Many of these games are good in their own right (and some are downright addictive), so it's entirely possible that this could happen. With this said though, the benefits of these games probably outweigh the costs, at least from the publisher's point of view. If the games can help keep people from becoming bored while waiting for a group, then they can only be beneficial to publishers.

A variety of games are available, from poker to falling block games and even Minesweeper clones.

However, the following question is more important: are people playing these mini-games because elements of MMOs are boring? I think the answer here is a resounding "yes" - it can be boring waiting for an instance group to form and there are the built-in time sinks such as flight paths to consider, which are designed to ensure that characters don't level too quickly. Perhaps the popularity of these downloadable mini-games should be a wake up call to developers that their MMOs are lacking something. EQ had the right idea by producing their own game for people to play, so maybe modern MMOs should consider doing the same. Unlike the downloadable ones, games produced by the MMOs' developers could give small rewards to the characters used to play them. Similarly, not all MMOs allow or support third-party games right now, so their publishers could be missing a trick, and ignoring something that could help keep players' interest in their creations.

In some respects, the production of mini-games for use in MMOs is also beneficial for the creators. For example, the Peggle and Bejeweled add-ons for WoW are simply cut-down versions of full games. I can't imagine that PopCap would have created them out of the goodness of their own hearts, instead treating them as adverts for their games. If this trend continues and other third-party developers follow suit, it could end up being bad for the MMOs themselves. The last thing they need is to become giant adverts for their competitors' products. Of course, people are unlikely to defect entirely from MMOs to casual games such as this, and this is never going to kill off an MMO, but it could certainly affect how busy the servers are and therefore influence people's opinions of MMOs and how popular they are. What I'm trying to say here is that publishers need to ask themselves is whether the benefit of allowing these trial versions of commercial games outweighs the costs.

Free Realms embraces mini-games and turns them into part of the main gameplay experience.

Personally, I like that third-party games are available in WoW and other MMOs. With that said though, I can't help but wonder about one of my earlier points - that the reason I like them so much is because there's something missing from the games themselves. I'd like to see MMO developers taking the initiative a little more and producing their own mini-games. The most obvious way to implement one would be to scrap the lacklustre fishing systems most MMOs use and replace them with something enjoyable. Some developers make entire games based on fishing, so surely producing a mini-game in an MMO wouldn't be too difficult..? The developers of Free Realms don't seem to think so, with the end result being one of the most diverse MMOs ever released. Other MMOs should look to Free Realms' example and provide these sorts of mini-games for players to take part in, while they wait for their next instance group.