Archive for June, 2008
Talking about our members!
The truth is… we love this place… and we enjoy looking at all if the great stories, games, characters, images, etc that people are adding every day. Every so often, those of us in start-up land have to give presentations for people… and to showcase the vibe of this place, I like to include profiles about some of our members… their stories… their GamerDNA! Here are a few people I recently featured in a presentation.
Mirrorshade
A huge fan of Sword of the New World and pirates!Nerthing
Loves Guild Wars and Diablo and has beta tested many titles.plutonick
Probably the most hard-core WoW player on the site… who is a recent AoC convert.Isaacquotien
…knows how to spin a yarn about WoW adventures…Arrek
Can tell a tale about Star Wars Galaxies that makes you feel like you were there!
From time to time, we hope to feature more of our members on a regular basis. In the meantime, if you think you have something to say or something to show, head over to the GamerDNA Life forum… it is meant for you to show people the awesome stuff you are adding to your profile!
Forum Reorganization
Remember those forum changes we were talking about the other day? I went ahead and took a phase-1 pass. I added in all the new forums, and I moves a few around… however we left the names and some of the older forums up while we figure out what to do with all that great content. We are also interested in feedback. So you know where to drop it.
If you are wondering to yourself, “Where are these forums of which he speaks” try here:
This Weekend – Nor’Easter 2008!
Who doesn’t love a LAN party!? http://noreaster.lpane.net/
Not only does this look like the most fun you can have outside a vat of maple syrup, but the people at GamerDNA are going to record it for posterity. DNA Minions Sam and Imran are taking off their company slave hats (there are bells on the ends) and putting on their reporter fedoras. They’re going to be wandering around with video cameras, and asking “What’s in your GamerDNA?”
Please do go to the party. Besides, the proceeds go to Shriner hospitals for kids. If you’re part of a generation of gamers, it’s good for your karma to help out the next generation of gamers, you know? Also, there will be swag. Go forth and rock, and hey, let me know how it went!
Does This Mean Anything?
Okay, to close out the week o’ “time played” factoids, let me bring it down to the personal level.
I went in search of the GamerDNA members who had played the cr….ud out of FFXI. I wanted to interview them for this space, hear about their passions and plans for the future.
But it looks like my old friend “burnout” is still a big part of the MMO world. The top players in terms of raw hours have all moved on. Now, this is anecdotal (a handful of players does not constitute a statistically significant sample, screeching morons on message boards to the contrary), but I still found it interesting. The top FFXI players didn’t go to any one new game. One is playing AOC. Another is playing WOW. And another is enjoying “Smackdown vs RAW” to a degree I personally find disturbing, but hey, whatever rings your bell, man.
We are working on ways to compare and contrast the stickiness of console MMO players against the stickiness of PC MMO players. My hypothesis is that it’s easier to walk away from a console. What do you think?
Average Days Played
Again, as with yesterday’s fun fact, these numbers do not reflect the most played games on the Xbox, as measured by the raw number of people playing them. These are the games that have been played for the most TIME. The MMO takes the top spot, but who is next?
Fun With Data
I’ve always been a data junkie – online, it’s easy to mistake “loud” for “correct,” and the only antidote is information in the form of hard numbers. Working here gives me a window into all kinds of numbers, and although we’re using the numbers to build cool tools and features, sometimes it’s fun to just look at the numbers for their own sake. Trapper and Jon and I thought it would be fun to share these tidbits with all of you on a regular basis, on the assumption that lurking somewhere in our community is a nerd streak as wide as my own.
/cheer @ Zel!!!
Hey, if anyone reading this has a Sony Station ID, and plays SWG, go vote for our very own Zel’s entry in the painting contest: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/posts/list.m?topic_id=688338
Zel is the artist and designer behind many of our site themes, and we are incredibly lucky to have someone like her in the family!
