(Tuesday) Mailbag: forum posters, churn, betas

 Posted by (Visited 16662 times)  Game talk, Mailbag  Tagged with:
May 272008
 

Mr Koster, I am wondering if you can help me with a bit of online Mythbusting? I have an interest in statistics with relation to gamers and beta testers. This quote: “Something like 90% of the people playing an MMO never post in the forums.” was recently made here and attributed to you and Rich Vogel here. (please read the thread to see why I am interested) So, I was wondering if you could confirm this? How did you collect this data? And if so, what other data can you share? Do you know of any other sources of this sort of data? And, yes. I would be very happy to see this email posted and commented on in your blog. Thank you for your time and effort.

Regards, Guy Russon

Well, as far as how that stat comes about (and it does vary game to game — don’t take 10% as gospel, becaus eyou are right it’s a “whisper stat” at this point), you simply measure your subscribers, measure your active forum posters, and derive a ratio. 🙂 In the case of forums where they require a game registration in order to register for the forum, this is pretty easy.

Continue reading »

An excerpt from The Craft of Musical Communication

 Posted by (Visited 6807 times)  Game talk, Music
May 262008
 

What makes this so interesting is that music like thought always intends to get someplace specific. That place happens to be the end of the thought or the cadence. What makes this even more interesting is that just as we walk, to get someplace specific, at 116, most people also speak with the normal accents in their speech occurring at a rate of 116 beats per minute. But we only do this when we have something specific to say. People who by temperament, by personality, by persuasion, or by habit speak either faster or slower than that speed are perceived to be intolerably dull or slow witted, if they speak much slower than 116, or untrustworthy, if they speak much faster than 116. The affect of being slower is of slothfulness or of painful self consciousness. The affect of being faster is that of a shyster who is always trying to fast talk people into doing things they don’t want to do.

I thought this was fascinating, and it made me wonder whether it was applicable to pacing in other areas of creativity as well. Games? Blogging? Web site interactivity?

The whole block, excerpted from The Craft of Musical Communication – Part One: Continue reading »

The Sunday Poem: Apples

 Posted by (Visited 5729 times)  The Sunday Poem  Tagged with: ,
May 262008
 

In Latin, the words for “apple” and for “evil” are similar in the singular (malus—apple, malum—evil) and identical in the plural (mala).

– Wikipedia

This apple from Tajikistan gave birth to all the fruit:
The red ones, gold ones, tart ones, green and russet hues.

Each branch was mated to a branch carried over miles
And honeybees deployed in ranks to stoke the woody fires.

The names themselves are everywheres: from Fuji to Orléans,
Grannies, Coxes, McIntoshes and countless other brands,

Which carry in each half-cut star and in their very style
The memory of Kazakh slopes where first they grew in wild.

The blossoms spread, pink and pale verging on the blue,
Until we had the legends: the gold ones Hera grew;

The one that Eris tossed to Paris, causing wars in Troy;
Immortal orchards grown in eddas, Idun’s deathless joy;

A snow white princess poisoned; Atalanta’s race;
Johnny and all those orchards over which he traipsed;

The tree of knowledge, good and evil, our original sin.
This is quite a burden for fruit to bear within.

We have made the apple ours, and on it grafted history,
And yet the breed runs on, profusions to a tree,

This fruit humanity resents, but loves and needs.
Every apple carries still inside those bitter seeds.

Wii Fit

 Posted by (Visited 6546 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: ,
May 232008
 

Ah, the irony of writing about Wii Fit while eating a ridiculously sugar-laden donut. Oh well.

Initial thoughts:

For a while there, I thought a balance-board-shaped Clippy was going to be my personal trainer. Someone at Microsoft must be kicking themselves, realizing that after all these years, the equivalent of Clippy is outselling their console.

It’s funny to have my Mii gain weight to match me. Then it’s not.

The balance board is significantly sturdier than any given piece of kit in Rock Band. On the one hand, the balance board is meant to be stood on by people of up to 330lbs. (Not jumped on, they insist, though the game then proceeds to ask you to jump on things.) On the other hand, you are supposed to hit drums repeatedly with great force. I suppose this is a testament to how sturdily the balance board is built…

The biggest problem with Wii Fit is that it’s a grab bag of (pretty good) activities, rather than a training regimen. You seem to have to build your own regimen, and if you don’t feel like aerobics that day, you can just blow them off. It would have been nicer if the game did a little more handholding and told you what to do.

 Older Entries  Newer Entries