How Gamers View Their MMOs

GamerDNA is trying out what they call their Discovery Engine, a system that uses metadata from users to classify games and identify which have similar traits. Massively describes it thus: "Once the gamerDNA community continues to contribute to something like this, it builds up an enormous database of terminology based on actual player knowledge, not just shiny PR words thrown together to promote a game. These search terms can end up being unique to a specific genre, and ultimately lead gamers to exactly the types of games they're looking for." GamerDNA tested the system out on some of the popular MMOs, and they've posted the results. They look at how MMO players identify themselves within the game, how they describe the setting, and what basic descriptive phrases they use in reference to the games.

Re:eve online

[TOGSolid]

As a fellow Eve player, I do have to admit that on the surface the game seems to be grinding to an extreme. Mission grinding, Mining grinding, Pirate hunting grinding, etc. etc. If you never get out of the basic levels of gameplay in Eve, it will be an incredibly dull game and that is something I freely admit to anyone who is interested in getting into the game. However, I also make a point of stressing that Eve is also a game that you get out of it what you put into it. If you do choose to step out of that initial box, you'll find a game packed with political maneuvering, tense pvp combat, business simulation, and more. You have to go after it for yourself though, it won't be handed to you on a silver platter. This is definitely not a game for the anti-social.

Re:eve online

[TheLink]

So what do you think of stuff like this?

http://digg.com/pc_games/EVE_Creators_CCP_Under_Fire_Again_for_Alleged_Corruption_Open_Letter_Made [digg.com]

Re:eve online

[Taevin]

How can someone not afford to pay for one, with or without current employment/income? I don't exactly make a lot of money and still a one-month subscription at $15 is less than a fraction of a percent of my monthly income.

MMOs are one of the most cost effective forms of entertainment available, so playing one without current employment might actually be a better choice than other, more expensive pastimes. There are plenty of valid reasons not to play MMOs (ranging from concerns about time commitment to simply not liking them), but cost is really not one of them.

Re:Failed at statistics?

[MSojka]

> Yeah evidently not displaying the fringe 0,0001% of the world's MMO population is a grievuous crime of bias.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RuneScape [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MapleStory [wikipedia.org]

Both bigger than WoW.

Who's in the 0.0001% now? :)

Runescape?

[netsavior]

I love how everything like this ignores the #2 (sometimes #3) MMO, Runescape, because it isn't as easily classified.
No character classes, skill based leveling, etc. Of course there is a giant base of 12-16 year olds that play it, but there are some "real people" too... not to mention it is one of the oldest surviving MMOs.

Forgetting About the Content: Their Analysis Sucks

[TyroneShoe]

They put up some pretty useless graphs with very little information about how they arrived at those numbers and how they interpret them. It's worthless to make any inferences about all gamers without explaining their data.

First of all, they provide no checks for problems such as autocorrelation or multicollinearity between their various survey categories. That aside, it doesn't look like they even did any regression analysis at all. They, in effect, said "duhh, this is 10% of all the answers so it must mean something!". Bull. Just because the response rate for a particular category is 10% doesn't mean it is statistically significant in the academic sense.

Sorry, but as a professional data analyst, I get really pissed when people collect some (possibly non-random) data, do some half-assed analysis, post some pretty colors on a graph and say "Eureka! I haz solved wurld peez!"

Re:Failed at statistics?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention I have never seen Final Fantasy 11 brought up in studies on MMOs. Considering it has almost 80% of the pay-to-play MMO market in Japan and over 1.5 Million subscribers that puts it in the top 5 for pay-to-play.

Re:Asheron's Call, Ever Quest, Dark Age of Camelot

[oneils]

Well, shit. If you have kids, then playing an MMO is pretty ridiculous. But, if you are a single, pathetic loser like myself, then MMO's make a lot of sense.

Re:GamerDNA

[jefu]

colours that make it hard for some of us to read.

A while back someone put online the following which helps in firefox. Make this a bookmark and when you click it the page goes to black on white (losing background and text color, or background images) and resets link colors. Take out all the newlines and spaces and such.

Now to see if it survives being posted here.

javascript:(function()%7Bvar%20newSS,%20styles%3D%27*%20%7B%20background%3A%20white%20!%20important;%20color%3A%20black%20!important%20%7D%20%3Alink,%20%3Alink%20*%20%7B%20color%3A%20#0000EE%20!important%20}%20:visited,%20:visited%20*%20{%20color:%20#551A8B%20!important%20}';%20if(document.createStyleSheet)%20{%20document.createStyleSheet(%22javascript:'%22+styles+%22'%22);%20}%20else%20{%20newSS=document.createElement('link');%20newSS.rel='stylesheet';%20newSS.href='data:text/css,'+escape(styles);%20document.documentElement.childNodes[0].appendChild(newSS);%20}%20})();