Virtual Worlds News has good liveblogging coverage of the talks at the Austin Game Developers Conference, including the panel I was on, Startup Lessons from Recent Online Games (audio is available here, for a fee). There's also stuff at Gamasutra and Raph's site.
AGDC didn't have many overall themes, other than it feeling a bit like a bunch of MMO folks trying to ignore the social web crowd in their midst. So instead of a summary I'll do the same thing I did for GDC and give some snapshots of the last couple days.
On how teenagers live their lives online, and take that for granted.
"Fourteen year-olds playing our game were born in 1994, they've never not known the Internet. Pictures of them as a fetus could have been posted online before they were even born." - Sulka Haro (Habbo Hotel)
On user generated content, player control, and the feeling a player can effect the world.
"It turns out that a sense of autonomy is the single strongest relationship to sustained subscriptions [in an MMOG]." - Scott Rigby (Immersyve, Inc.)
On the dangers of not paying attention to the small percentage of hackers.
"Hacking is like a drug. If your whole guild is using it, you'll be pressured to use it too. Then, once our users try a hack tool they actually find it hard to get back into the game." - Minho Kim (Nexon America)
On customers look for something different from their MMOs than their games.
"Games are a one-night stand, you want a playboy bunny. MMOs are marriage, you want the girl next door. Still a little sizzle, and a lot of potential for the future." - Damion Shubert (Bioware)
On the virtual goods bandwagon.
"We really really really have to make a distinction between the concept of microtransactions -- which means spending a tiny amount of money -- and the ownership of digital assets. They are not the same thing. We cannot equate them." - Eric Bethke (GoPets)
On the fallacy of building a game only for a hardcore audience with Shadowbane.
"Everyone thought they were hardcore. It turned out only 15% got to be, and the rest were there to die." - Damion Shubert (Bioware)
On hacking and the creativity of users.
"I have a 1 in a million rule. With 80m registered accounts, at least 80 people are doing anything you can think of." - Sulka Haro (Habbo Hotel)
and some Nexon stats for the US market.
"$1.6m virtual item sales in February, over 600,000 items. And over 1m in item sales in June." Which would be $2.6m in sales if the pricing averages hold, a 61% increase.
Just one correction - I'm not at NCSOft, but rather at Bioware =)
Posted by: Damion Schubert | September 08, 2007 at 11:30 PM
Man, if you ever friggin announced the title you were working on then it could stick in my head better. :)
Posted by: Nabeel Hyatt | September 09, 2007 at 02:56 PM