Some Maplestory Numbers
October 31, 2006 on 10:04 am | In Uncategorized, MMO (Live), Reporting14 Comments
Awhile back, I had heard about Maplestory's 50 million registered accounts. While an impressive number unto itself, it's hard to know just how much money that actually means for Nexon. At least with Warcraft's numbers (and anyone else reported into MMOGcharts), we can make vague guesses.
So I took a look around and finally found some analagous numbers for Maplestory.
Numbers Game part 2: Comparisons
October 3, 2006 on 7:59 pm | In General Gaming, Technology, Reporting, Industry8 Comments
Many have long dragged out their calculators, multiplied a games number of subscribers by that games flat monthly fee, and arrived at an assumption of how much revenue that company is collecting each month. They've extended this practice across all games in the genre, attempting to use the number of subscribers as the basis by which all games are measured, thinking this was an apples-to-apples comparison.
In this conversation with Dellaster though, I feel like it's high time we ask the fundamental questions:
What is the apple?
And, is there one by which all games can be measured?
Where’s the next ‘big’ MMOG?
September 19, 2006 on 6:37 pm | In General Gaming, Reporting, IndustryLeave a comment
Today Speck asked, "is the "WoW Killer" that is on the horizon? Which game is getting the hype now?"
Unlike the old days, when AO, DAoC, SB, AC2 and so on were all going to dethrone the then-dominate Everquest, there's just too many games out now, splintering the playerbase into discrete sub-groups.
It's like other features of bygone days: the magic has been replaced by sheer quantity. And it's not just lots of people playing WoW.
Challenges Facing MMOGs: AGC 2006
September 8, 2006 on 10:05 am | In Playstyles, Innovation, Reporting, Industry6 Comments
At the Austin Game Conference this year, Jon Grande of Sigil Games and Rich Vogel of BioWare Austin hosted a session entitled "'New' Challenges Facing MMOG Development".
Overall, I felt they cast a blind eye to a number of emerging trends, but the stuff they covered about the "core" marketplace (basically as defined by diku-inspired games) was pretty good. And insightful.
Categorizing Players and Buyers (again)
September 1, 2006 on 8:38 pm | In General Gaming, Playstyles, Reporting, IndustryLeave a comment
In a new discussion at Grimwell Online, Tide posted a short overview of research he came across, from a company breaking down player types into a few new market targets.
This research is compelling not only because it's public but because it corrolates pretty closely to a bunch of other research as well.
Violence and Video Games (again)
August 28, 2006 on 8:05 am | In General Gaming, Playstyles, Reporting, Industry4 Comments
A guildmate of mine dug up last year's Game Revolution article about the corrolation, or lack thereof, between youth violence and video games. I'm reminded of the recent discussion over at Lum's place about the conventional wisdom of addiction and video games. And, of course, various states around the country pushing agendas that purportedly protect our youth from themselves.
The hysteria is reaching epidemic proportions, but I wonder if it can be stopped at all.
Leaks
August 26, 2006 on 9:34 am | In MMO (Live), WoW, Reporting2 Comments
This week seems to have been the official start of the Blizzard Alpha Test event, according to a few places. It took all of a few picoseconds before the entirety of the Alpha was leaked to the web.
Personally, this pisses me off enough for me to use the word "pisses" in a sentence. Doesn't anyone read and respect an NDA for an event to which they were a hand-picked invitee?
Temporal ignorance, elitism
August 19, 2006 on 2:49 pm | In Reporting, Industry2 Comments
Two recent posts got me thinking about temporal ignorance and elitism in video gaming. That there is a lot of this that goes on in the real world is auspicious, but I'm going to focus on this industry, and my favorite genre within it.
The changing ‘Journalist’
August 2, 2006 on 7:52 am | In General Gaming, ReportingLeave a comment
In discussing the sensationalist news of E3's doom (which has since become a more level-headed topic), Tullux prompts a different discussion, mostly about the nature of journalism.
I disagree with their assertion that the Internet has merely expanded traditional journalism.
New Eve Movie and factoids
June 29, 2006 on 8:00 am | In MMO (Live), Eve, ReportingLeave a comment
Eve Newsletter VIII arrived this past Monday.
I found some of the information pretty interesting.
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