players
Latest
Early iOS free-to-play title Eliminate shutting down this month
Here's a weird signpost for iOS gaming. Eliminate was one of the first big free-to-play titles on iOS: It was a core title for Ngmoco when first announced a few weeks after in-app purchases were allowed and helped pave the way to the current freemium-as-standard situation on Apple's App Store. But that part of history is coming to an end, as Ngmoco has announced that Eliminate's servers are being turned off for good. The app is already gone from the App Store, and an in-game message says that the game's servers are going offline on May 25. That means after that, not only will players no longer be able to play the game, but any money or time put into the title will be gone for good. That's a shame for Eliminate fans, though it's unclear just how many of those there still are. And it means you can go ahead and put another mark on the timeline for iOS gaming: A freemium app that helped kick off the platform to begin with has reached the end of its lifetime.
When players cross the line to harassment
Sometimes, despite our best efforts at being pleasant and respectful, we run into "that guy." You may or may not know who they are. They may be male. They may be female. They may be young or old. But the one thing they are, no matter who they are, is rude, inconsiderate, and possibly a little scary. It seems odd that someone could be considered frightening in the context of a video game full of fanciful creatures made up of millions of pixels, but harassment exists, and it's not a laughing matter. I hate using my ignore button. I'm one of those people who lives in a fantasy land where I assume and am forever hopeful that people can talk things out like two reasonable adults and come to a mutual, satisfactory conclusion about things. I hate stopping the flow of conversation, because I believe that everything can be worked out in due time as long as people are being reasonable. Unfortunately, I've had to use that ignore button on more than one occasion, and I've had to deal with people who were anything but reasonable over the course of the seven years I've played this game. When someone crosses the line from reasonable to threatening, there is a distinct course of action a player should take.
EA allowing banned Origin players access to offline content
EA has quietly made things a little easier for those banned from its digital Origin service, allowing even those scorned by the company to access single player content in purchased and downloaded games. Previously, gamers who behaved badly on official EA forums or otherwise caused their accounts to be revoked were locked out completely, but now EA is saying that by switching the Origin client over to offline mode, players can at least play bought games by themselves.To get back online, players will need to appeal the ban, for which instructions can be found here. EA does say that most bans are only temporary, but just in case you want to speed up the process we'll say this: Offering crop sacrifices to an idol of John Riccitiello certainly can't hurt.
Star Wars: The Old Republic hits a million players, 28 million hours played
EA has announced that Star Wars: The Old Republic has assembled more than a million registered players in its first week officially live, earning it the self-granted title of "fastest growing subscription MMO in history." A million players is a solid milestone, but EA and BioWare still have some parsecs to travel to make SW:TOR a resounding success: The beta test, don't forget, was able to pick up twice as many players than are currently registered. EA's management expects at least two million players to call the game successful at all, according to previous reports. EA says that players have logged in more than 28 million game hours (no word on how many hours spent waiting in login queues, of course), and in that time have created 3.8 million characters, split about evenly across Jedi and Sith. More than 2 billion NPCs have been killed in the eight days since launch as well, which is quite the virtual genocide. You can check out the official stats and announcement below.
SOE's John Smedley expresses regrets over SWG mishaps
Star Wars Galaxies may be no more, but its legacy lives on in memories, discussion, and hindsight analysis. Sony Online Entertainment's John Smedley had a frank talk with Industry Gamers in which he owns up to the mistakes of how the studio handled the title, particularly surrounding the much-maligned Combat Upgrade and New Game Enhancements. What would Smedley do if he could go back and give it another try? His first regret is launching the game before the space combat system was done, and his second is that SOE didn't talk and listen to its players more. "We would have encouraged more in-depth discussion with the community surrounding the idea of any game modifications," he said. Smedley is highly optimistic for the studio's future, particularly in its fervent belief in the free-to-play business model: "We think that 'Free to Play, Your Way' is our future. Giving players choices is the theme of how we're moving forward as a company, which means greater flexibility for our player base."
Star Wars: The Old Republic beta test attracts 2 million players
It's no secret that Star Wars: The Old Republic is one of the most highly anticipated MMORPGs in recent memory, and the game's recently concluded public testing phase confirms the hype. The game's publisher, EA, announced that the SWTOR test phase drew in over 2 million players, and of those 2 million, 750,000 unique players jumped into the game over the Thanksgiving weekend alone. EA also shared some interesting statistics about the game's test players. Over the holiday weekend, players averaged about 12 hours of game time each for a grand total of over 9 million hours of playtime across the playerbase. If you didn't get a chance to try the beta, or if you simply couldn't get enough, you don't have much longer to wait. The game launches in about two weeks on December 20th, with pre-order head start beginning on the 15th.
DC Universe Online boasts 1000% playerbase growth
DC Universe Online has been free-to-play for just under a week now, but SOE is already reporting huge spikes in player population. SOE president John Smedley has been tweeting constantly since the transition, with the most recent tweet announcing that population is up 1000% from its pre-F2P numbers. It's not all sunshine and butterflies over in DCUO-land, however. Players have been experiencing a number of issues with the F2P transition, such as astoundingly long server queues, endless loading screens, and other gameplay-inhibiting problems. Smedley says that the team is "on it," though. If you want to be part of the game's booming playerbase, just head on over to the game's official site (or download the game on Steam) and jump on in.
Riot CEO Brandon Beck on forging success with League of Legends
Riot Games has announced player numbers for its extremely popular League of Legends title, and they're pretty phenomenal. With over 15 million registered players, the Defense of the Ancients-style online multiplayer RTS can now brush shoulders with games like Blizzard's World of Warcraft (12 million players), Call of Duty (13 million players on Xbox Live), and The Sims (16 million copies sold), as one of the biggest PC games in history. Granted, as a free-to-play title that relies on microtransactions for revenue, League of Legends has more access to a wider audience than games driven by retail sales or subscriptions. But there's no question at all that this is a huge and exceptionally popular game. Joystiq got to talk with CEO and co-founder of Riot Brandon Beck about today's announcement, and he says that even the company was surprised by how big LoL (as it's called in shorthand) has gotten. "The growth of the League of Legends community far exceeded our expectations," he tells us. "We are proud of the numbers we are hitting on our platform and are confident our fantastic team can continue to grow and evolve our PvP.net technology to handle even greater numbers."
Yslandia hits player milestone, goes free-to-play
As mobile MMOs are taking off in popularity, Yslandia is proving that a smaller platform doesn't necessarily mean a smaller playerbase. The pocket-sized MMO just announced its 100,000th player, and to celebrate the milestone, Moving Player is making the game free-to-play with in-game store purchases. Since its release last fall, Yslandia has grown to include four island zones, 300 quests, and 18 classes. Players on iOS devices can log in and play solo or with friends across this cute world. The game has a customizable UI and features spirited PvP battles as players wage war for territory. Previously, Yslandia was a $0.99 purchase from the Apple App Store. Check out what our own Beau Hindman had to say about this title in a recent edition of Free for All!
The Daily Grind: When does friendly turn frustrating?
We all know, from years of experience, that there's a certain community duty to help newer players get acclimated to the game. Or younger players, or... really, anyone. It's in the community's best interests to be friendly and open. But there's always the threat of the player who seems friendly and enjoyable... until you log on again and he whispers you almost instantly. And then the next time. And again. He's always there, latched onto you as if you're the only beacon of kindness in the world, and while you want him to keep playing, you want to play City of Heroes, not City of Helping the Socially Maladjusted. The worst part of these situations, naturally, is that it spoils you on helping former players. It makes the community as a whole more hostile, and even though you still know helping new players is a good thing, it's hard not to be colder. So when have you run into a player whom you wished you hadn't helped out? When has being friendly and open wound up frustrating you to no end? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
EVE Evolved: Power players and player retention
As I mentioned in our coverage of the EVE Online Fanfest, the best part of the experience for me was discussing EVE with players who are as involved in and enthusiastic about the game as I am. On my first night there, I got into a fascinating discussion with a few players on a topic I hadn't really considered before -- power players. Every MMO has players who get heavily involved in their chosen game. EVE's Fanfest really highlighted this, as around a thousand of EVE's power players flew to Iceland just to talk about the game, contribute ideas in roundtable discussions and find out what the future holds for the game. Ultimately, the fate of EVE lies in its community. EVE's main strength as an MMO is the fact that with so many players in one game universe, people form very real ties with each other. Corporations and alliances are more than just collections of people; they're sub-communities with their own aspirations, internal politics, playstyles, personalities and even senses of humour. These organisations give people support and a place to call home in an unforgiving universe, and it's the power players of EVE who make all of that possible. In this week's EVE Evolved, I explore the importance of power players in MMOs and what the concept means for EVE's development.
Frogster gives us piles of Runes of Magic stats
While not everyone is a math or statistics geek, there's a certain intriguing quality to MMO stats. Whenever we post statistics for games, there are inevitably discussions on concurrent users, paid subscribers, and overall registered accounts. Unfortunately, free-to-play games like Frogster's Runes of Magic don't really lend themselves to discussions of subscriptions vs. registered accounts since it has no monthly fee. Nevertheless, the game still provides some interesting statistics. According to a release sent earlier today, Frogster has posted a handful of curious stats that are sure to pique the interest of those who love to dissect MMO minutiae. Over the last two years, 6,657,370 characters have stepped into Runes of Magic. Mages are an incredibly popular class, with 2.2 million characters, and there's a tie at 650,000 characters created for both Rogues and Warriors. Apparently, the Priest/Mage dual class is a highly popular combo for players; and Priest takes secondary class of choice at 350,000, followed by Warriors with 150,000. Over three million characters serve as Herbalists, with 1.1 million players dabbling in Alchemy. English-speaking servers have seen 3,505,269 quests turned in and 4,622 guilds created. Groups in the game have taken the Demon Lord down 4,521 times and have wiped the floor with Erekat III almost three times more. Raksha is still the one to beat, according to Frogster's metrics, which suggest that boss has only been downed 182 times on the highest difficulty. Finally, no raid would be complete without silly pets along for a screenshot -- we're told that there are over 100,000 rune pets tagging along with players. In all, it's certainly an interesting set of statistics, if a bit random. After all, Frogster was very careful not to say which class was the overall most popular one!
Xbox Live leaderboard data shows how House Party promotion fared
GamerBytes did a little number-crunching on the Xbox Live Arcade leaderboards for last month, and while we don't have exact numbers on Xbox Live titles (other than Major Nelson's usual list of most-played and purchased games), these are usually a rough indication of what business was like on Microsoft's network last month. Bionic Commando: Re-armed 2 was the biggest disappointment, picking up fewer than 10,000 players on the leaderboards, compared to over 130K first-week sales for the first title. Hard Corps: Uprising, the first game to come out under Microsoft's "House Party" banner, brought in a few more players, at around 27K, and Bejeweled Blitz Live did pretty well (for a game that's on nearly every platform known to man in its basic form) with over 14K new players in the single week of February it was out. Sales were big drivers -- Hydrophobia picked up over 10,000 new players thanks to a sale, and Geometry Wars 2 saw a huge bump as well. Outside of the new titles, Pinball FX 2 and Trials HD continue to grow their leaderboards.
15 Minutes of Fame: In search of fascinating players
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame. We're looking for fascinating people! 15 Minutes of Fame is on the lookout for people who've managed to work WoW into or around their lives or play the game in new and interesting ways. Know someone who fits the bill? Is there a type of player you'd like to hear more about? Tell us! I know this guy ... Know someone exceptional? It could be someone who plays the game in an interesting way or has achieved remarkable goals in game, or it could be someone who does something interesting outside of the game and manages to bring those ideas and perspectives to the game. Maybe you don't know this player personally, but you know about their accomplishments in game or out and are curious to learn more about their approach to World of Warcraft. Tip us off -- maybe we'll feature your nominee! Tell us in one paragraph what makes your nominee a remarkable WoW player. (We've met a lot of inspirational guild leaders in our time; if you're going to nominate a GM, give us specific examples of what makes this leader stand out from so many others.) Send us your tips, including a way or at least an idea of how to reach your nominee, to lisa@wowinsider.com. Looking for members Is your guild planning to hit Cataclysm content completely blind -- no spoilers, no strats, no foreknowledge of what's to come? We want to hear from you! But wait -- blind raiders are far from the only players we're searching for. We're looking for a whole host of different types of players for a possible turn in the 15 Minutes of Fame spotlight. Hit the jump to find out if you might know (or be!) any of the players we're currently seeking.
Roku cuts price of media players in possible anticipation of new Apple TV
Maybe it's coincidence, but probably not. On the eve of a rumored announcement of an updated US $99.00 Apple TV, Roku has cut the price of its media players. The standard definition model has been slashed $20 to $59.99, and the high definition model has been trimmed by $30 to $99.99. The Roku hardware supports 50 different channels, including Netflix and Vimeo, with no PC or Mac connection needed. Apple is expected to announce a revamped Apple TV, rumored to be called the iTV. It may be built on iOS 4, which would allow many of the iPad and iPhone apps to be run on it. Of course no one knows for sure what Apple will announce tomorrow, but it's not uncommon to see price cuts from competitors just before Apple makes its plans public. If you're set on buying an iTV, you'll obviously want to wait until Wednesday's show, but if you've had your eye on a Roku, saving a few extra bucks is never a bad thing.
APB has 130K registered players, high average playtime and revenue per user
Realtime Worlds as a company has been suffering from all kinds of problems lately, but how's the game doing? With a very short press release, the company (currently "in administration," which is the British version of bankruptcy) has announced that APB is hosting 130,000 registered players. That's actually not too bad for a brand new MMO -- while real population numbers are often hard to come by, the most recent estimates would have the game beating Star Trek Online's current active base. And STO has actually done pretty well, considering how tough it is to start up a new MMO. Realtime Worlds still isn't home and dry, though. At 130K players, APB is just barely doing better than Tabula Rasa at its peak, and we all know how well that turned out. And APB's model means player registrations isn't necessarily a sign of good health. While the press release claims that the average player is playing four hours a day and the average paying player is spending $28 a month, APB's unlimited free social hours and the ability to "spend" in-game points rather than real money could be twisting those figures upwards a bit. Our colleagues at Massively also point out that while Star Trek Online was created relatively cheaply, APB's creation was reportedly much messier and more costly. Still, with a dark cloud over the rest of Realtime Worlds' affairs, they might as well grab a silver lining where they can. If the company survives this launch, APB could have enough of a player base to make itself profitable.
'Avatar Days' short examines WoW characters and their players
"Avatar Days" is a new short by digital artist Cormac Kelly that examines the fascinating relationship between a World of Warcraft player and their in-game avatar. Not only is the animation great (and you can see how he's upscaled the five-year-old player character graphics of the popular MMO), but the premise is perfect, placing video game avatars of real-life players in everyday situations, and asking us the viewers to examine how they're connected together. Excellent stuff. Not the first time we've seen these characters invade the real world, but definitely the most poignant. Watch the whole four minute short embedded after the break. Update: Kelly emails to say that he only played a small part in the production -- the short was directed by Gavin Kelly and produced in just four days for Ireland's Darklight Film Festival. [via Citizen Game]
Kaleidescape outs M300 and M500 Blu-ray players, copiers
Kaleidescape's just announced another line of high end home entertainment products -- this time it's the M300 and M500 Blu-ray players. The M500 also boasts Blu-ray copying abilities, too -- allowing you to import Blu-rays, DVDs and CDs onto your server at home. In an interesting decision, Kaleidescape will require that the physical Blu-ray disc be present for playback from the server -- which, you may be thinking, rather defeats the purpose, doesn't it? Pretty much. Thankfully, Kaleidescape's got a disc loader in the works which will allow you to keep a "large number" of discs ready in the system for faster loading. The loader itself isn't expected to be ready for retail until the first half of next year, but you can grab the M300 and the M500 beginning May 18th, with the M300 running $2,495 and the M500 at $3,995. The full press release follows.
MyTown updates to version 3.1, adds collectibles and social features
MyTown is one of the hottest things going on the App Store right now in terms of social apps. As we mentioned in the interview with CEO Keith Lee a while back, they've actually got more users than Foursquare. The company has just released version 3.1 of the app, which introduces more collectible rewards earned by checking-in to certain local, real life locations (which you can then use to customize the properties you "own"), as well as more social features. You can now browse through the top trending properties, see your most frequent check-ins, and browse through where your friends are going out to and checking-in from. Additionally, Booyah tells us that the app is growing by over 100,000 players each week. They're suggesting that the average player of the game spends "more than an hour a day within the app." That's kind of incredible, but if it's true, that's one heck of an attachment rate. In fact, those are exactly the kind of usage stats that Ngmoco's Neil Young would drool over. Considering that MyTown just made an appearance in Ngmoco's We Rule splash screen, odds are that the two companies are at least sharing notes and, at most, possibly primed for a partnership. We'll have to wait and see what happens.
Current game network developers comment on Apple's Game Center
Way back in February at Macworld, one of my questions to Eros Remini of OpenFeint was pretty blunt: "Why," I asked a representative from the biggest third-party social gaming network on the iPhone, "haven't we seen an official platform-wide network?" Remini didn't have a good answer for Apple, but he did say that OpenFeint was happy to step up and fill the void. Apple answered for themselves this morning: They announced Game Center, which will be an official social gaming network for the iPhone and iPad, complete with friend lists, leaderboards, achievements, and everything else that third-party providers like OpenFeint have set up already. So what does OpenFeint think of Game Center? We contacted it for a statement and we are told that OpenFeint is welcoming Apple's Game Center. The company has recently released a virtual goods marketplace called OpenFeint X, and their statement about Game Center says that there's still a place for OpenFeint on top of Apple's official service. "OpenFeint X is currently built on top of OpenFeint and in the future it will also sit on Apple's Game Center social graph, achievements and leaderboards so developers and gamers don't miss a step," Jason Citron, CEO of Aurora Feint says. Current OpenFeint players (of which there are 19 million at last count) will automatically become OpenFeint X members, and it sounds like OpenFeint plans to move on to the virtual goods market, leaving their old social gaming realm behind for Apple. There were a few other reactions from various developers and publishers about the Game Center news -- read more information from PopCap and Ngmoco after the link below.
