[MUD-Dev] Metrics for assessing game design

[Jeremy Gaffney]

From: Ron Gabbard [mailto:rgabbard at swbell.net]

> If you're looking for a good metric for evaluating anticipated
> acceptance of a product by a specific market (very important as
> Matt pointed out above), do some reading on factor analysis and
> conjoint analysis.  While this is about the best tool used by
> marketing people in planning product development, it's still going
> to have some shortfalls in dealing with MMOGs as it doesn't handle
> subjective/qualitative (artsy) features well, e.g.., is the
> gameworld dark and gloomy or oompa-loompa-land?  (Focus groups are
> typically used for these types of features.)  However, if you're
> looking for a tool to help determine the acceptance of a game
> based on PK+ vs. PK- , number of playable races, skill-based
> vs. class-based character progression, etc. in your target market,
> these tools could be extremely helpful if used properly.

The metric I've used to separate marketing effects from product
quality is:

  Number of users at game launch: marketing & product quality
  (primarily as how it impacts PR/beta)

  Retention rate after launch: entirely product quality (except the
  factor of how it matched users' expectations grown through
  marketing) Growth rate after launch: Product quality and
  marketing.

YMMV.

-jg
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