[MUD-Dev] Blog about GDC implies changes to MMORPG population

[cro at alienpants.com]

> Mike Rozak wrote:
>
>> I was just reading Grimwell online,
>
>>  http://www.grimwell.com/index.php?action=fullnews&id=248
>
>> and noticed an interesting factoid from the GDC... "Vogel reported
>> significant changes in gamers' habits. Previously, game retention was
>> on average 10 months. This is now down to six months, Average time per
>> week played was 20 hours; this is now down to 12."
>
>> This implies the following: 10 months x 20 hours = 200 hours of
>> content. 6 months x 12 hours = 72 hours of content. Thus, the
>> number of hours of content a virtual world should support is 1/3 of
>> what it used to be.
>
> I'd be careful of accepting that as gospel outside of Vogel's
> projects. Admittedly our game is much smaller but we haven't seen a
> shift of that magnitude. My first question would be "is this
> specific to a particular game?"

I wonder if the implication about content listed is valild at all. Another
implication could be that players are less accepting of poorly implemented
content or systems, and are moving to new games, or only consuming the
'complete' content within the game, rather than it implying there is ana
ctual need for less content.

If game retention is falling - what does that say about the game? That you
should produce less content because your players won't hang around as long?
Or that you should produce *more* content, at a higher quality, to increase
retention? (Or how about looking at other factors that are not specifically
content related, such as server downtimes, customer support problems,
frequency and severity of bugs etc).

I really think this implication is a poorly thought out one, and really
doesn't address falling retention.

Tom G




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