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GamerDNA's Left 4 Dead stats reveal power of Steam sales, promotions
Left 4 Dead on PC appears to receive a shot of zombie reanimation every time Valve's Steam service does a promotion, according to proprietary Xbox Live and PC GamerDNA statistics. The chart above, which is calculated based on "equal percentages of Xbox and PC users," shows that engagement on both platforms was almost equal for three months after release. The PC receives its first major bump during Steam's 50 percent off sale in February. Both platforms received a boost with the release of the free Survival Pack, but then engagement spiked dramatically during Steam's "Freaky Free Friday" promotion and stayed strong.Sam Houston, community manager at GamerDNA, tells us that typically the engagement graphs for games "start high and just drop off." He notes that Steam sales and promotions can obviously give a shot of adrenaline to a game's engagement. He questions, "Could Microsoft do something like that? Then it would appeal to both platforms pretty highly. But, you know, Valve owns Steam and the game, so they have more flexibility."
A nearly complete list of MMO companies on Twitter
Not surprisingly, when a complete list of videogame companies and developers on Twitter is compiled, MMO devs and companies take up a large chunk of the list. We would expect nothing less from such online socially-orientated companies.The list -- created by Sam "QforQ" Houston, community manager GamerDNA -- is a great resource for anyone looking to keep up to date with companies like SOE, BioWare, NCsoft, 38 Studios, ArenaNet, Blizzard, Carbine Studios, FunCom, CCP Games, Flying Lab Software, Mythic Entertainment and many more. It's an impressive list, although being Massively meant we had to double-check it for missing links. As such, we found that there was no Cryptic Studios love in there. So, for the sake of completion, we've gone ahead and provided the link for any fans of Champions Online or Star Trek Online.
Bolster your Twitter followers with the video game industry directory
Sam Houston knows more about social networking in gaming communities than the rest of us combined. After all, he is the community manager for GamerDNA, a sort of ludological Facebook (only without the near-constant application invitations). So when Houston called out the gaming industry last summer for failing to use common social networking tools to keep in touch with their customers, they took it to heart, and joined the Twitter ranks en masse.Earlier today, Houston compiled a directory of gaming industry moguls who tweet with alarming frequency. If you've ever wondered about the daily exploits of folks like @djaffe and @fourzerotwo, but never been interested to read more than 140 characters about said exploits, you might want to check it out. Then again, you may just use this new information to further stalk @majornelson. We can't really condone that type of behavior.
