The year 2009 is slowly coming to an end. While many will post the best games of 2009, I’d just like to point out a nice fact – the number of female gamers grew this year.

According to an official report by the NPD, there was a growth of 5% versus last year. From 23% growth in 2008 to 28% in 2009. Said growth attributed to console gaming “Since the rise in console usage among Console Gamers can be mainly attributed to the Wii, which increased in usage by 19 percentage points from last year.”

Here are some more excerpts from the report:

“Last year was one of the most transformative in history in terms of defining the audience for gaming, said Anita Frazier, industry analyst, The NPD Group. “Even with the increased competition from mobile and social network gaming, the console gamer segment added the most new participants to its ranks in the last year.”

Extreme Gamers are in a league of their own when it comes to hours played and titles purchased. Extreme Gamers play an average of 39 hours a week, which is 10 hours more than the next highest segment in terms of hours played, Avid PC Gamers. Purchasing 24 titles throughout Q4 2008, Extreme Gamers purchased more than six times the number of games compared to any other segment.

While Extreme Gamers have become somewhat less extreme in their game play in terms of hours per week spent on gaming (down by close to seven hours relative to 2008), they still spend the most time on gaming compared to all other segments. Even with the lowest household income, Extreme Gamers buy more than four times the number of titles compared to other segments.

Even though Extreme Gamers play and buy much more, their impact on that market is minimal due to their very small size, only 4 percent of total gamers. In fact, they under-indexed (using the market size opportunity index) on frequency, console and portable ownership.

In terms of online game play, on average, 38 percent of gamers’ time was spent playing a game online, with the rest being played offline. This is flat when compared to the previous year, so despite focus of industry on more online game play opportunities, there is not that much of an increase in the number of gamers taking advantage of it.

On average, 16 percent of games purchased in Q4 2008 were downloaded digitally, but the average number of gamers willing to pay for all types of micro-transactions decreased over last year.

“This could be caused by the increased availability of free gaming, putting a downward price pressure on the industry,” said Frazier.

Source

Image from this site

Here’s what happens to MMO games in the future. In this movie (thanks to Kiven’s blog where I first saw it), players get to control other REAL HUMANS in an uber-violent FPS called Slayers. Who else better to star here than King Leonidas himself, Gerard Butler.

Check out the trailer. Gamer will be released September this year. Ahoo-Ahoo!…. oops, wrong movie.

Whatchathink?!?

Ahh…

Nothing like a nice lazy Saturday to start your weekend right. No work. No deadlines. No bosses.

Last night, we had a blast playing Tekken and some poker at the birthday of PittyDPat. Happy birthday, my friend! May you have 100 more!

At any rate, I just had this crazy idea of posting about gamer interviews. I’ve interviewed a lot of our GMs and Gamer Babes in the past. But it seems that I’m having difficulty sourcing out for more.

Interviews are always a welcome respite from all the stress and issues of the gaming world.

I’m opening the floodgates to anyone who wants to get interviewed. I’d prefer a Gamer Babe, of course. But I’m still open to any gamer willing to share his thoughts and his experiences for my readers.

Oh before I forget, here’s a shot of me with Gamer Babe Pam while working during a presscon.

The mechanics and rules are simple. It’s just one more click to find out, kids…

All you really have to do is send me a notice if you want to be interviewed. My only requirement is that you play a LEVEL UP GAME, of course.

I’ll then send you a few simple questions that you get to answer via email. You can promote your blog, your guild, your guild forum and even the game and/or server that you play.

My last request is for you to attach a real picture of yourself and possibly an in-game shot of your character.

Cool?

Let’s do it then!

Keep ‘em comin’

Have a nice weekend!

GM T 

Here’s an interesting point of view from grrlgamer.com

Meggan Parker writes about how a girl sees what the typical dude gamer doesn’t want. She writes; “For years gaming sites have been trying to unlock the mystery of the female mind and decide just what it is that would attract girls and women into gaming. As surprising as it may seem, there are very few lists describing what boys and men want in games. We here at GrrlGamer recognize this deficiency in the world of gaming, and we have decided to correct such an oversight.”

More after the jump

WHAT GUYS DON’T WANT IN VIDEO GAMES

1. A Map – according to Meggan “Ironically, the first one is what guys don’t want in a video game, and that is a map. Everyone knows real men don’t use maps, so including them in games that are aimed at the male demographic is an insult. In fact, not only should maps be kept out of guy games, but points or other awards should be given to the player for refusing to ask for directions when he inevitably gets lost. The more he wanders aimlessly, trying to find his way, the more points he gets.”
2. Directions – this is true inside a game and in real life. What’s with guys and asking for directions? And sadly, guys would rather try things first than find out where or why “even if it means dying repeatedly in the process.”
3. Emotions or Romance – “Emotions are such silly things for men. Guys don’t want love or romance in their games, or to actually open up to the other characters. Points or other awards should be given for intentionally avoiding talking about his feelings. An emotional combination would add to the challenge of the male gamer by not only avoiding talking about his feelings, but blowing crap up at the same time.” again, according to the article
4. Storylines – “Just give the boys a quick general idea of what they’re supposed to do in the particular mission without breaking rule number nine. “Blowing crap up” is usually the best way to go, but sometimes you can go with “blow crap up and save the princess”. It’s just enough information for them to realize that they should not blow the princess up.”

That’s about it. Do you agree or disagree?

Sound off below.

Photo Credits: wagnerur.hu

When you’re running an MMORPG, it’s VERY IMPORTANT for the publishers to get player feedback. Whenever, we get feedback we make sure that the developers know about this ASAP.

This is so we can flag serious issues, bugs or errors in the game. In games with item malls or are free-to-play, the most critical aspect of this would be pricing. Pricing of the items, especially those that are consumables and are often bought is crucial to the prolonged satisfaction of the customer.

Few players know this, but as publishers, we CANNOT do anything to the game. The developers, the ones who design the game, have the right and the power to do this. We defer to their wisdom when it comes to game balance and game integrity issues, but we also maintain a close relationship to remind that WE know pinoy gaming preferences and spending habits better.

Some developers see this and act accordingly, while some take their sweet time to do this. Hence the delays.

It’s bad when we ANNOUNCE something and fail to keep our promises because some developers will change their minds at the last minute. This happened, for example, with the customized items we were supposed to give the RPC 2006 winners.

But I am digressing from the subject, let’s go back to player feedback.

We get player feedback from several methods and avenues:

• The boards or forums
• Customer Care tickets
• EBs and Community Assemblies
• Focus Group Discussions
• Online and offline surveys
• And comments from blogs (such as mine)

I always ask the Community Manager and the Brand Manager to keep careful track of the feedback and identify critical issues that we either need to address or send to the developers ASAP. It’s good that some players have direct line to my YM or cellphone too coz they often report a critical bug, dupe or exploit in real time. I remember this one incident in Ragnarok where users can have a no-fail updgrade in Alberta. Do you remember that?

At any rate, here are the reasons why feedback is important:

1. Critical Issues – you find out about dupes, exploits or bugs right away. Even though we have GMs and playtesters who test the game even before we release it to the commercial worlds, we can’t patrol every nook and cranny. Sometimes, the best line of defense would be the players themselves.
2. Pricing – Players, especially the leaders, have passion and dedication for the game and they want improvements for the better.
3. Cheats – it is often the kind souls (players too) who report these cheats and abuses. I found out about a LOT of cheats in online games this way. And thanks to the players who alerted me, we were able to fix them.
4. Policies and Rules – When we write the rules, often, people will find a way to make it better. GMs are only humans, of course, and we welcome anything to make the rules and policies better.
5. Lag and disconnections – if it were not for our feedback mechanisms, we wouldn’t be able to address server capacity and connectivity issues. Sometimes external factors such as major telcos (or even natural calamaties) are to blame.
6. Card availability and CDs – I recently wrote about possible solutions to CD distribution. This came as a result of good player feedback. And additional feedback from that article meant that work is now ongoing for this.

So there you have it, how we get and use gamer feedback to improve our games and our service(s).

Remember, there is no such thing as a dumb comment!

Keep those comments and feedback comin’

Start with the one below!

In the meantime, can I request to look at my Group Writing Project and join to get a chance to win a 1GB USB flash drive? Thanks.

‘Nite,

GM T

If you’re one of the top MMO players in the world, beware. Some greedy bastards might just abduct you for your password.

This happened recently in Sao Paolo, Brazil when an armed gang of four kidnapped one the world’s best gamers.

To quote that report; “An armed gang of four kidnapped one of the world’s top RPG gamers after one criminal’s girlfriend lured him into a fake date using Orkut, Google‘s social network. After sequestering him in Sao Paulo, they held a gun against the victim’s head for five hours to get his password, which they wanted to sell for $8,000.”

The story gets better… read on…

Apparently, after taking the dude to a safehouse and holding him at gunpoint, the player still did NOT give the password. They let him go. Moments later, the police were storming the hoodlums and caught all of them – suspects aged 19 to 27 with access to guns and some brain cells for planning this out.

Their plan was simple enough: lure the player using Orkut while using the victim’s girlfriend to set him up for apparent “date”. There, the 4 jackals pounced on the unsuspecting victim.

What game was he playing, you ask?

Gunbound.

Moral of the story. You’re better off with another game. Hehehe.