[MUD-Dev] Casual Crowd vs.Time Rich Crowd [was: Time Debt]

[Steven King]

Douglas Goodall wrote:
> Koster, Raph wrote:
>> HRose wrote:

>>> Players don't pay for a game they don't play.

>> A disturbingly large number of them do, actually. Not all,
>> obviously, but still a significant percentage. If you look at
>> "unique player logins in a month" it just about never reaches
>> 100%, nor does it match the churn rate (in other words, the
>> people who do not log in also don't all quit). I don't have
>> monthly figures handy, but you can have a game that shows 70% of
>> the userbase logging in every week, and not have anywhere near
>> 30% of them quitting--in fact, not even a tenth of them will
>> quit.

> In fact, at least some MMOs have subscriptions from people who
> signed up on day 1 and have not logged in or created a character
> in 2-3 years. I wish I had something to sell these people.

> But there are many reasons a player might not log in for shorter
> periods of time. For instance, I'm currently subscribed to CoH and
> AO. I haven't logged into AO for over a month and only played CoH
> maybe 4-5 times in the last month. Why? Beta testing and general
> busy-ness. Even though I haven't played much, I don't see any
> reason to cancel my accounts yet. And they're paid a few months in
> advance anyway, so even if I did cancel, it might not show up
> immediately.

I've noticed that most MMOs keep old accounts around for a good
period of time after you suspend or cancel them.  This is a good
system.  It allows players to come back and play the game where they
left off rather than having to start anew.  I played SWG for about 8
months or so, tapering off to playing once every couple of weeks
because my buddies quit playing, then cancelling.  I started back up
a few months later to play with a few who had started playing again.
I cancelled again after a month or two because my buddies weren't
playing anymore.  Keeping my account and characters around allows me
to pick up when I want to play again.  That's a great system.  Even
my old UO account is still around, although I bet my characters have
been wiped.  A great marketing tactic is to offer incentives for
coming back.  UO does it once in a while.  Bribes are good.

Steve
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