Software spots key players in online communities

Software spots key players in online communities - tech - 20 July 2007 - New Scientist Tech

Software that identifies the most informative people in an online community, based on their posting patterns, has been developed by researchers at Cornell University, New York, and Microsoft Research in Washington State, both in the US.

The researchers worked out how to spot key players within discussions by analysing the connections between thousands of messages on several topics.

The work could help website designers automatically reward, or highlight, the most valuable members of a community, or improve methods for searching through a conversation for the most relevant information.

Previous research has shown that certain people underpin the usefulness of a group or discussion by providing brief but straightforward and useful answers.

"You have a socially recognised role of some people as experts in some way in a community," says Howard Welser, a sociologist at Cornell University, who led the work. "That role was what we were trying to measure. The indicators we found had to do with the structure of their interaction with others."

more information in the original article

Top 10 Ways to Remove Barriers to Entry in MMOs

Top 10 Ways to Remove Barriers to Entry in MMOs and Virtual Worlds « Free To Play

Top 10 Ways to Remove Barriers to Entry in MMOs and Virtual Worlds
Posted by Adrian Crook under casual , top 10 , mmo , design


Whether you’re making a casual MMO like Maple Story or a virtual world like Habbo Hotel, here are 10 ways to remove game-killing barriers to entry and create the largest possible addressable market.

1. Free to Play
The Free to Play business model is here to stay - and growing every day. In an entertainment world filled with endless choices, asking someone to pony up $50 before they can play a game is rapidly becoming a non-starter. The focus now is on getting players through the front door, keeping them happy, then monetizing 5-15% of them. Non-paying customers become “content” for the paying minority, so don’t think you can ignore them.

2. Integrated graphics support

“If our games required a video card, we’d lose 80% of our audience”
- Min Kim, Director of Game Operations, Nexon North America

“Graphics are not important - the mind models the situation”
- Daniel James, CEO, Three Rings

Enthusiasts who purchase the latest, greatest video card make up just 4% of the market. Integrated graphics (i.e. no dedicated video card and therefore lower graphics performance) accounts for over 60% of all new computer sales. It would be foolish to develop a Free to Play product requires a video card when success in the F2P sector is partially reliant on addressing a large market and monetizing just a small fraction of your player base.

3. Multiple, regionalized payment systems
Finding the right payment method is a key success factor for Free to Play products. When a user finds a payment method they’re comfortable with, they are fiercely loyal to it. But there are nearly as many payment methods as their are markets. Erik Bethke of GoPets says his company utilizes 90 different payment systems worldwide in order to address the local preferences of each region and make it as easy as possible for users to pay.

Many factors influence payment method selection. Credit card penetration in China is low, so billing customers via their land-line telephone provider has become a widely used payment system that provides excellent security in exchange for high surcharges. In Europe, SMS payments are hugely successful and carriers take anywhere from 10-30% surcharges versus the 40-50% fees of North American carriers. PayPal, checks, points cards and more are also used.

We have three people on staff whose full-time job is to open envelopes with single dollar bills and quarters in them. The users can’t figure out how to get the cash to us. One user sent in a $5 bill in a $14.95 FedEx package so it would get to us on time.
- Craig Sherman, CEO, Gaia Online

4. Little or no download
Get users into a game as fast as possible. If your game requires the user to download client software, make it as small as possible and give the user something to do while they wait for the game to download and install (i.e. setting up their character).

But better yet, make your game in Java, Flash, Shockwave or Silverlight so it’s playable within a browser. A game delivered via Java applet (i.e. Puzzle Pirates, Bang! Howdy, Runescape) can be downloaded and installed in under a minute. A signed Java applet will even avoid tripping a user’s installed spyware detectors.

Only ~30% of players actually tolerate downloads at all, the other 70% preferring to play online. I believe this percentage of download-intolerant players is increasing.
- Daniel James, CEO, Three Rings

5. Deferred sign up
How many times have you been faced with filling out a mandatory sign up form before you can starting playing a new game? The barrier of filling out one more form and becoming a member of yet another online site/network/game/etc that might eventually spam you - before you even try the product - is a huge barrier to entry.

Why not let a new player name and create their character, enter and start experiencing the product, then ask for sign up information along the way? A game that gets this right is Maid Marian’s Shockwave MMO Sherwood Dungeon, which allows you to start playing immediately after you enter your desired character’s name. Despite its simplistic graphics and lack of server-side character saves, Sherwood has attracted over 1M users to its Free to Play ad-supported game.

6. Easy to understand world/lore
Pets, penguins, pirates, party goers - these are some of the most successful Free to Play virtual worlds and games. If you want to keep your game’s potential market big, utilize commonly understood worlds, characters and rules as often as possible. There are exceptions of course, but generally the more jargon and fiction you graft onto your property, the greater the barrier to entry for new players.

7. Quick to play core
Build your game or virtual world around a quick-to-play core mechanic that loops into a larger meta-game. A game that can be played in small 5 minute chunks that feed into a higher purpose.

The casual MMO Puzzle Pirates was designed with short play sessions and a solid meta-game in mind. However, the average Puzzle Pirates user spends 2.5 hours per day in the game - 30 days a month. And while some players do drop in and leave, others spend up to 9 hours a day in-game. Ultimately, the game’s short compulsion loops keep players online longer than traditional, longer compulsion loops that take 30-60 minutes to complete.

8. Warp, don’t walk
Spending precious minutes walking to destinations is, for many, a significant barrier to entry and a big waste of time. Many games and virtual worlds allow “warping” between areas to avoid long marches or simply a point-and-click interface with the world.

9. Spending limits
It seems counterintuitive, but enforcing spending caps on some or all of your player base (depending on your product’s demographics) may actually increase your user base. Habbo Hotel puts spending caps on all payment methods to control the influx of cash into their economy but also to allay parents’ fears. Users can spend money only on 2-3 predefined days of the week.

Limiting how much a player can spend spend in a short period of time benefits the game by reducing parental concern and decreasing incidents of buyer’s remorse in new players.

10. Secondary markets
The presence of a secondary market can drive the primary market. Wizards of the Coast had this observation, as told by Daniel James at this year’s Virtual Goods Summit:

Wizards of the Coast had some interesting things to say, that secondary markets, for example of Magic Online, have been incredibly valuable in driving the primary market. People will buy way more cards in the primary market because they know they can flip them. Mostly they don’t, though, they just hold onto them. Which is a great tip for people thinking about this.

So embrace secondary markets as more users will choose to participate in your primary market if they believe they can sell their goods to others when they’re done the game.

Sources:

* Integrated graphics stats
* Sherwood Dungeon stats
* Quotes & Puzzle Pirates Stats via Virtual Goods Summit

Notes:

* Thanks to Raph Koster for analyzing my previous post.

Nickelodeon To Invest $100M In Online Casual Games

Gamasutra - MTV's Nickelodeon To Invest $100M In Online Casual Games

MTV's Nickelodeon To Invest $100M In Online Casual Games

MTV's Nickelodeon To Invest $100M In Online Casual Games MTV Networks' Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group has announced its commitment to invest $100 million over the next two years in development, distribution and creation of casual gaming titles, sites and platforms.

According to the company, the investment is a part of MTV's strategy to secure a leading role in the gaming space -- including casual, console and handheld games, as well as related media.

The Group's president, Cyma Zarghami, made the announcement at the Casual Connect gaming conference in Seattle, WA, in a keynote address delivered by Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group's Executive Vice President of Digital Media, Steve Youngwood.

According to the Nickelodeon Kids and Family group, the investment will produce several initiatives in the next two years, including the myNOGGIN edugaming subscription service for preschoolers (available in the fall), new multiplayer games and tournaments in the Nicktropolis online world, the kid-friendly subscription-based Nick Gaming Club (launching in 2008) and The-NGames.com, which through a recently-announced partnership with AddictingGames, will create a massive online casual gaming site focused solely on teen girls.

Additionally, the investment will support the expansion of AddictingGames to include casual MMOGs with the introduction of AddictingWorlds. AddictingGames recently partnered with Habbo, adding another virtual world to its existing partnership with sister site Neopets. The company says increased emphasis will be placed on user-submitted games on the site, including more prominent upload capabilities and game-making engines.

The company also says that increased Shockwave focus will be placed on the creation of games that will also provide opportunities for prominent integrated advertising. Jigsaw Video will be the first app to launch, while Shockwave plans to link itself more closely with family-targeted brands within Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group, like Nick-at-Nite television, to give advertisers the ability to promote their messaging across multiple platforms. Shockwave will also increase its publishing of downloadable games with Carrie the Caregiver Episode 2: Preschool, scheduled to come out later this year.

Neopets will also be transformed into Neostudios, the company says, which will focus on developing new virtual world gaming experiences online while continuing to grow and evolve the existing ones. The first of these will launch at the end of 2008 with the goal of launching a new game every other year.

"Particularly in the kids' space, with more than 86% of kids 8 to 14 gaming online, we see great momentum for online casual gaming," said Zarghami. "This investment will not only benefit our audiences, but also our marketing and distribution partners."

ASIAN POP / MMO Better Blues

ASIAN POP / MMO Better Blues

ASIAN POP
MMO Better Blues

By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

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Korea is the online gaming capital of Asia. But will its wares play in the U.S.?

Before our phone interview begins, K2 Network chief executive Joshua Hong has one small warning. "I want to apologize in advance if I have to put you on hold every so often," he says. "I've been dealing with a really awful cold, and I don't want to be having a coughing fit directly into your ear."

Microsoft Casual Games Partners with GoPets

Worlds In Motion - Microsoft Casual Games Partners with GoPets

Microsoft Casual Games Partners with GoPets

-GoPets, an online world established in South Korea in 2004, lets users explore, play casual games, and create and customize virtual pets. Now, Microsoft Casual Games has announced it will partner with GoPets to launch the game on Windows Live Messenger, integrating the virtual world with its instant messaging service.

The service is now available via IM to Messenger users in the U.S., Australia, Japan and Korea-- but Microsoft says it'll expand it to more than 30 countries by the end of 2007.

“GoPets is an online community where anyone can adopt a pet, customize it to their liking and interact with other pet owners anywhere in the GoPets virtual world at any time of day,” said Erik Bethke, CEO and founder of GoPets Ltd. “With direct access through Windows Live Messenger, it will be even easier for pet fans to make friends all over the world through common interests and shared experiences, such as chatting and playing games on the Windows Live Messenger and GoPets platforms.”

GoPets' basic membership is free, with special access for premium membership, and goods and currency-- "gold shells"-- for sale. Currently in an open beta phase in fifteen languages and eight territories around the world, GoPets recently surpassed 640,000 registered users, but that number is likely to grow, since Windows Live Messenger's userbase is pegged at nearly 260 million active accounts worldwide.

Erik Bethke, CEO of GoPets, recently spoke at the Casual Connect gaming conference in Seattle, on his online worlds philosophy. He'd rather use the word "citizen" than "user," for one.

"I believe that when we sell something with virtual currency, people believe it's theirs," Bethke said. "They should be able to buy, sell, trade and everything."

fastest-growing virtual world ever

Guess who just launched the fastest-growing virtual world ever?: Sciam Observations

Guess who just launched the fastest-growing virtual world ever?

A. Blizzard (World of Warcraft)

B. Linden Labs (Second Life)

C. Mattel (Hot Wheels, Barbie, etc.)

All right, so it's obviously C, otherwise why is this blogger jabbering at you, right?

Last night at the Digital Life preview a Mattel rep--who, just to make the conversation extra surreal, actually looked sort of like Barbie--told me that in the first 60 days of its existence, the new online virtual world Barbie Girls has signed up three million members, and they're adding new ones at the rate of 50,000 a day.

Just for reference, it took Second Life 3 years to reach 1 million members.

Access to the world is free, the dolls that get you in-game pets and other goodies are not, and the whole shebang is still in beta.

Between this and the runaway success of WebKinz and Club Penguin (which, all by itself, already has a valuation of $500 million - nearly what Rupert Murdoch paid for Myspace) I can only imagine what a future populated by people who literally grew up living in virtual worlds would look like.

In other words, all the stuff that is now newsworthy in Second Life might become routine: Shareholder meetings in protected virtual spaces? Speed dating in virtual restaurants? What if the 20-years-hence successor to World of Warcraft really does become "the new golf"?

>> More on kids and their virtual worlds from a recent NYTimes piece.

UPDATE:
I had a chance to subsequently verify these figures with the PR rep whom I spoke to in the first place. Lauren Dougherty of Mattel says:

"I had referenced that we were rapidly *nearing* 3 million with 2.75 million registered users to-date and a growth averaging between 40,OOO - 50,000 new registered users per day."

2007 Persistent Worlds whitepaper (IGDA)

Online Games SIG/2007WPSB/index - IGDAwiki

Online Games SIG/2007WPSB/index
International Game Developers Association
< Online Games SIG | 2007WPSB
Jump to: navigation, search
Image:I alert-dev.gif The contents of Online Games SIG/2007WPSB/index are in-development. Please be patient while changes are formulated. Thank you!

Welcome to the 2007 Persistent World White Paper Project. The 2007WPSB section of the Wiki is the development sandbox for this ongoing project. We welcome new volunteers and contributors. To find our more about taking part in the project, please contact James Hursthouse (james at onlinegameservices dot com). We would ask that you do NOT make any direct changes to these pages before volunteering as a member of the team. Thanks!!

If you have any comments or suggestions pertaining to a particular section, please use the 'Discussion' tab at the top of the main page for that section. Section Coordinators are monitoring those pages for ideas relating to their section.!!

Practical Scheduling For Games

Gamasutra - Q&A: Producers Of The Roundtable - Practical Scheduling For Games

Q&A: Producers Of The Roundtable - Practical Scheduling For Games
(Page 1/7)
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[Gamasutra is partnering with GameProducer.net, a game production resource, for a series of Q&As named 'Producers of the Round Table'. The Round Table is a place for producers who work in game industry to present their opinions in response to questions.

In this installment, which deals with scheduling issues in game development, participants include Robbie Edwards, Senior Producer at Red Storm Entertainment/Ubisoft, Peter O'Brien, Producer at Bizarre Creations, Harvard Bonin, Senior Producer last at Electronic Arts, Adrian Crook, Producer at Relic Entertainment, and Frank Rogan, Producer at Gas Powered Games.]

More information in the original article.

Practical Scheduling For Games

Gamasutra - Q&A: Producers Of The Roundtable - Practical Scheduling For Games

Q&A: Producers Of The Roundtable - Practical Scheduling For Games
(Page 1/7)
Next arrow

[Gamasutra is partnering with GameProducer.net, a game production resource, for a series of Q&As named 'Producers of the Round Table'. The Round Table is a place for producers who work in game industry to present their opinions in response to questions.

In this installment, which deals with scheduling issues in game development, participants include Robbie Edwards, Senior Producer at Red Storm Entertainment/Ubisoft, Peter O'Brien, Producer at Bizarre Creations, Harvard Bonin, Senior Producer last at Electronic Arts, Adrian Crook, Producer at Relic Entertainment, and Frank Rogan, Producer at Gas Powered Games.]

Business Success May Depend on Gaming Skills

Study: Business Success May Depend on
Gaming Skills

The
leaders of tomorrow may be the hardcore gamers of today, especially players of
MMORPGs. IBM has teamed with Seriosity on a new study, which found that many of
the skills developed from playing online are similar to those needed for
corporate leadership roles.

So you've leveled up your elf
warrior, organized multiple clans, and become a true hero in a virtual world.
Now it's time to take those skills to the real world. According to a new study
by IBM and Palo Alto, CA-based Seriosity, gaming skills and online role playing
skills in particular are actually becoming more and more important to the next
generation of corporate leaders.

Download the whitepaper.