Gaming blogs: bows for developers, the world for users.
I read the discussion about game blogs on habrahabr.ru/blog/game_blogger/39735.html#comments , and thought ...
To deny the fact that in Runet game blogs are not developed as a class is silly. It is difficult to argue with this statement. Of course, if you really try, you can dig a couple of portals dedicated to creating games. That's just ... if 99% of gaming studios have their own websites, how many of them support their blogs?
But if this, albeit with a big stretch, can be forgiven for game developers, then in the market for browser-based online games, such behavior can be considered as enormous stupidity and shortsightedness.
Developers are limited at best to the official forum and chat, being in the holy conviction that this is more than enough. Here and there, clones with almost no different clones with standard game mechanics and no less standard set of related functionality appear almost no different from each other.
On the one hand, developers and game designers can be understood. It is much more interesting, and more useful (from the point of view of the developers) to write a new formula for calculating the damage when hitting a sword from around a half-turn angle and folded in half. Well, or fix it suddenly and it is not clear where the bug got out of. Moreover, I admit honestly, I myself sometimes sin like this: periodically applying paws to the development of the official forum of the project, and quite clearly realizing its necessity, sometimes I can not get rid of the subconscious feeling of suffering with bows. But on the other hand, the importance of information services for the user cannot be underestimated.
In the end, there are three reasons why users come into the game.
1. Self-actualize.
2. Measure with a belly.
3. Communicate.
We’ll talk about 1 and 2 some other time. And today about communication.
If an information component is thrown out of any, even the most successful, online toy, the probability that the project will survive will tend to zero. Because, no matter how much we, the developers, boasted of excellent game mechanics, graphics and other lotions, the players had and will be important one thing - COMMUNICATION. And, if for us it’s just an information service, project, game, or even a blue hedgehog, for users it’s the WORLD in which they live. And users are interested in talking about this world. And, preferably, with the same passion-players.
In fact, any multiplayer online game is already a social network. With its own features and chips and ... truncated functionality. The result is such a mutant, and quite funny: due to the gaming moment, interest is maintained, but the basic functionality inherent in most social networks is cut.
So why not spend a week or two and create this very basic functionality? Why not let users create content themselves? According to experts, the popularity of social networks will last until 2012. Then - a decline in popularity, but ... far from complete disappearance. And who will refuse, from a favorite drug - a circle of like-minded people. According to statistics, 80% of users who are disappointed in the game can continue to play because of the established circle of friends. Holds not a toy, people hold. And the creation of blogs will further form a circle of communication. And a small advertising nuance - everyone knows about search queries;) And people, even in thematic services, tend to write about different things that have nothing to do with the topic. Therefore, a variety of search queries can lead to the toy itself;)
Perhaps, after a couple of years, the existence of multiplayer online games in itself will be impossible without related information services, in particular, thematic blogs, normal mail and forums. And the game, which first will provide normal information services, will enter the top and get some advantage. In fact, most users do not care what to play, and the developers are prevented by so many genres in one game that they cover several target audiences at once. As always, the whole thing is in the service. In the meantime ... we have what we have.
To deny the fact that in Runet game blogs are not developed as a class is silly. It is difficult to argue with this statement. Of course, if you really try, you can dig a couple of portals dedicated to creating games. That's just ... if 99% of gaming studios have their own websites, how many of them support their blogs?
But if this, albeit with a big stretch, can be forgiven for game developers, then in the market for browser-based online games, such behavior can be considered as enormous stupidity and shortsightedness.
Developers are limited at best to the official forum and chat, being in the holy conviction that this is more than enough. Here and there, clones with almost no different clones with standard game mechanics and no less standard set of related functionality appear almost no different from each other.
On the one hand, developers and game designers can be understood. It is much more interesting, and more useful (from the point of view of the developers) to write a new formula for calculating the damage when hitting a sword from around a half-turn angle and folded in half. Well, or fix it suddenly and it is not clear where the bug got out of. Moreover, I admit honestly, I myself sometimes sin like this: periodically applying paws to the development of the official forum of the project, and quite clearly realizing its necessity, sometimes I can not get rid of the subconscious feeling of suffering with bows. But on the other hand, the importance of information services for the user cannot be underestimated.
In the end, there are three reasons why users come into the game.
1. Self-actualize.
2. Measure with a belly.
3. Communicate.
We’ll talk about 1 and 2 some other time. And today about communication.
If an information component is thrown out of any, even the most successful, online toy, the probability that the project will survive will tend to zero. Because, no matter how much we, the developers, boasted of excellent game mechanics, graphics and other lotions, the players had and will be important one thing - COMMUNICATION. And, if for us it’s just an information service, project, game, or even a blue hedgehog, for users it’s the WORLD in which they live. And users are interested in talking about this world. And, preferably, with the same passion-players.
In fact, any multiplayer online game is already a social network. With its own features and chips and ... truncated functionality. The result is such a mutant, and quite funny: due to the gaming moment, interest is maintained, but the basic functionality inherent in most social networks is cut.
So why not spend a week or two and create this very basic functionality? Why not let users create content themselves? According to experts, the popularity of social networks will last until 2012. Then - a decline in popularity, but ... far from complete disappearance. And who will refuse, from a favorite drug - a circle of like-minded people. According to statistics, 80% of users who are disappointed in the game can continue to play because of the established circle of friends. Holds not a toy, people hold. And the creation of blogs will further form a circle of communication. And a small advertising nuance - everyone knows about search queries;) And people, even in thematic services, tend to write about different things that have nothing to do with the topic. Therefore, a variety of search queries can lead to the toy itself;)
Perhaps, after a couple of years, the existence of multiplayer online games in itself will be impossible without related information services, in particular, thematic blogs, normal mail and forums. And the game, which first will provide normal information services, will enter the top and get some advantage. In fact, most users do not care what to play, and the developers are prevented by so many genres in one game that they cover several target audiences at once. As always, the whole thing is in the service. In the meantime ... we have what we have.