[MUD-Dev] MMORPGs & MUDs

[Koster]

Michael Tresca:
> Koster, Raph Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 6:58 PM
 
>>> For my own curiosity, what's the average lifespan of a single
>>> character (not player) on a MMORPG?  That is, how long does one
>>> player play one character consistently before permanently
>>> retiring them?
 
>> For players... A year, roughly. This is the average player. It's
>> longer for some games and shorter for others, and has changed
>> over time for some games and not for others. I can't go into
>> further details than that.
 
> From http://www.gamespy.com/devdiary/january02/uo2/ regarding Ultima
> Online's new player "lifespan."

>   "In order to gain insight into the new player's challenges, we
>   focused our exit survey research on why players
>   left. Specifically, we focused on those players leaving early
>   within the first month of play. We quickly realized that we were
>   losing most of our new players within the first three play
>   sessions due to a lack of clearly defined goals upon entry. "

I did say "average." As I said above, I cannot go into much more
detail, as I said in my last quoted paragraph above.

I will say that the problem described has always been an issue with
the MMORPGs, just as it has been with muds. If you can get players
past the first hump, they will stay a very long amount of time. But
many, most, do not get past that first hump (this is what was wrong
with those stats you posted on player longevity in RetroMUD--the
stats left out everyone who was gone, who almost certainly outnumber
everyone who has stayed by an order of magnitude or more. The figure
for MMORPGs COUNTS those people. When we say "average of one year"
we are including all those players who played for five minutes and
gave up).

Another factor of interest on the commercial side has been the the
"casualizing factor," for want of a better term. Basically, people
by and large tend not to be recidivist in trying a game. Once they
decide they don't like it, most of them never try it again. So as
the game grows, you're hitting new people with your new
acquisitions. But a game that has been fairly popular, such as UO,
long ago exhausted all the hardcore CRPGers, all the mudders who
were interested, all the core gamer geeks, and so on. Sure, some new
entities of that type enter the market every year, and they may give
it a try. But the bulk of new accounts comes from people who are not
in those types. Especially as the client software price drops, they
tend to be less of a core gamer, more casual, and--the key
part--MUCH less tolerant of problems or difficulty in getting
started.

In other words, all the MMORPGs have found that as the game grows,
the percentage of new players who give up early rises.

-Raph
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