[MUD-Dev] Re: MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #282 - 18 msgs

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu 
> [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> Dr. Cat
> Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2001 7:39 PM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #282 - 18 msgs
 
>> From: Tess Snider <malkin at Radix.Net>
  
>> On Fri, 12 Jan 2001, Koster, Raph wrote:
  
>>> My understanding is that most of the women gamers are in fact
>>> playing casual games, card games and the like. And my other
>>> understanding is that the conversion rate from those games to
>>> subscription based games is abysmal (sub 5%).
  
>> Yeah, that's why I said "put down their cards."  Still, you're
>> absolutely right: that number IS pretty darn awful!
 
> Is this an issue about most *women* being unwilling to convert from
> free games to subscription games, though?  Or about most *people*
> being unwilling to convert?
 
> The wording isn't 100% clear there...

My apologies for the lack of clarity, I meant most *people* are
unwililng to convert from the casual games to the hardcore games and
subscription services. Despite the best efforts of the various game
portals and online services, casual games do not serve as "gateway
games" (borrowing a term from the drug war here... ;)

Based on the history of the marketplace since the "boxed game"
companies dived into it, the "gateway games" have not been casual
games, but rather hardcore games that successfully managed to broaden
the market. Meridian 59 cracked it open by actually having marketing
to the general gaming market (as opposed to the existing commercial
services, which advertised almost entirely to users of the commercial
online services). UO broke it open to a much larger degree by adding
in roleplaying gamers. I believe that a large part of EQ's success was
that it brought in 3d gamers and action agmers, and that broadened
knowledge of the genre among the larger gaming market. AC's marketing
failure was that it attracted only those who already knew about the
genre, and this is not enough to broaden the market--and since most
people are content with the game they are already playing, this also
caps your potential subscriebr base considerably.

The interesting thing here is that when UO launched, subscriptions
rose at least temporarily for the previous games out there. When EQ
launched, subscriptions kept rising for UO. And so on. There's
evidence to suggest that adding people to the market can benefit
everybody, not just the game that manages to do it. The problem is
that when we add people to the market, they come looking for different
things. If they looked for the same things, they would have been early
adopters, most likely.

What's next? Well, the more casual game market, and the major media
licenses. And the problem is that particularly with the licenses,
we'll get handed tons of new audience. And we don't necessarily know
how to keep them interested.

-Raph
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev