Brand Loyalty (was Re: [MUD-Dev] Requirements for MM (was Complexities of MMOG Servers))

[Jessica Mulligan]

At 11:47 PM 12/27/2002 -0800, "Dave Rickey"
<daver at mythicentertainment.com> wrote:
>From: "Amanda Walker" <amanda at alfar.com>
>>> On 12/17/02 11:45 PM, Dubious Advocate
>>> <dubiousadvocate at hotmail.com> wrote:

>> I have to second this, if anything, players show a fanatical
>> degree of loyalty to their game of choice.  Sure, there's a
>> percentage that is waiting to bolt to the next alternative that
>> seems viable, but it's fairly small (no more than 15%, as near as
>> I can guess).

Indeed, what Dave and Amanda note has been my personal experience,
going back to Stellar Warrior on GEnie in 1986.  It is something of
a curve, however; players tend to become devoted to a particular
game but, over time, have a tendency to transfer a portion of that
loyalty to the immediate micro-community, i.e. the guild, squadron,
team, what have you.  I can't really describe the curve for you,
other than to say that it was, in general, based on length of
subscription period to the game, duration of time as a member of a
micro-community and the overall viability of the M-C, i.e. it
continually had members and leaders who kept it active over time,
even if those members and leaders changed.

This phenomenon can occasionally lead to a mass defection of an
entire guild to a different game, should the micro-community feel
they've been badly treated in some way. On occasion, I've also seen
M-Cs from games that have closed down transfer to new games.
Several from AD&D: NeverWinter Nights on AOL managed to stay
together for years in the game and then transfer to Meridian 59 and
UO after AOL closed the game in 1997, for example.

Where there may be some confusion: What *publishers* bemoan is the
lack of loyalty to a *company* brand.  For example, it took a long
while for executives from News Corp's printed book division assigned
to Kesmai to get the idea that players didn't come to play on the
branded GameStorm web site, they came to play Air Warrior,
BattleTech or Legends of Kesmai, with little cross-over between the
games.  When they did get that through their heads, they established
web addresses for each specific game, so subscribers didn't have to
wander through the GameStorm site just to get to the game.  We can
see some of the same behavior today at the larger publishers,
e.g. EA.com, Microsoft's Zone, Sony's Station.  They do seem to
understand that publisher branding isn't as important as the game
brand, however.

  Caveat: I have no idea if the above is true for the mass market.
  I suspect it is, to a certain degree; if someone plays cribbage
  with Aunt Mamie on pogo.com and Aunt Mamie switches to Gamesville,
  it seems likely the second player would make the switch, too.  It
  is certainly true for hard core and moderate gamers as classes, as
  I've observed the behavior for 16 years.

-Jessica

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