I''m trying to compile some statistics on MMO games, specifically on the habits of the players, and the idea of using a professional market research firm seemed an obvious one. How do these firms tend to work? Fixed price per question in the survey or something? What sort of ballpark figures are being talked about - $1,500 or $150,000? The other alternative, I guess, is to write to the companies running some of the current major MMO games, and ask them. But I don''t know what sort of response I''d get; would they be at all likely to give me any figures, and would they do it for free? Would I need to establish my credibility before they''d even give me the time of day? Richard "Superpig" Fine
Smoother than a greased baby [TBRF|GP&T|Enginuity1|Enginuity2|Enginuity3|Enginuity4|Enginuity5]

I spoke to someone recently who has been researching market data companies and they were quoted in the region of $1,500 - $2,000 for sales data on 40 titles. However that is boxed software. I am not sure of there is any accurate data out there on paying customers for MMOs as those monthly fees don''t go through a retail till but direct to the company.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions (www.obscure.co.uk)
Game Development & Design consultant

quote: Original post by Obscure
I spoke to someone recently who has been researching market data companies and they were quoted in the region of $1,500 - $2,000 for sales data on 40 titles. However that is boxed software. I am not sure of there is any accurate data out there on paying customers for MMOs as those monthly fees don''t go through a retail till but direct to the company.

Hmm... so I guess that any market research company would have to either deal with the developers of the games, or poll people at random filtering out all people who aren''t MMO gamers. I can do either of those myself

So do you think the developers of the MMO games would be likely to give me any data on subscription fees / playing habits of users?

quote: Original post by superpig
...
The other alternative, I guess, is to write to the companies running some of the current major MMO games, and ask them. But I don't know what sort of response I'd get;

If you request any information beside standart marketing blurb or pricing you either will not get any response or will get negative response. Some MMORPG don't disclose even their number of players (AO for example), and they would never release any useful statistic information - that is a vital information which they guard with their life.


[edited by - serg3d on February 22, 2004 3:17:22 AM]

[edited by - serg3d on February 22, 2004 3:18:55 AM]

Drat. Then I guess it''s a question of visiting a load of MMO forums and doing a little survey... if I''d be denied access to those stats, I doubt a market research firm could get them either.

Thanks for your help, anyway.

You could buy research data. NPD TechWorld tracks software title sales at POS. Gartner Group / DataQuest track overall trends.

Careful what you sick a research firm after. It might suprise you. Whatever their results are, if the investor knows you sought advice from a professional firm, they will want to know what you did with that advice. As they say in Law school, "Don''t ask a question of a witness unless you already know the answer."

Consider today''s market landscape:

The Sims Online was a flop generating only 100K users on the largest single player game playerbase. It should have been the first 1 million subscriber game.

Shadowbane has been mired in problems since day one and likely will not recover.

Horizons went to market too early because of what ever reason and the game struggles to get real subscriber numbers.

Worlds of Warcraft has half the hype it used to have as players get more and more tired of combat-centric MMO games.

Middle Earth Online is being developed by Turbine who famously brought you AC and AC2, neither of which generated more than 100K subscriptions or so.

SWG is the only real success in the last 18 months.

UO, EQ, and DAoC are all aging games that still retain a stranglehold on the market.

EQ2 will be interesting to watch and could provide the industry a spark but the problem is not any specific game, its the lack of innovation from the EQ-Clone syndrome. EQ2 will be no different.

Dragon Realms is delayed and likely will continue to be delayed.

Mythica has been cancelled by Microsoft.


All of this does not bode well for the investment seeking startup. Each of the companies above had significant experience in the industry. Each of them, except the big four (UO, EQ, DAoC, SWG) are teetering on shutdown from day to day. Given the amount of investment, expected returns and the size of the initial investment needed to get an MMO to market, you must have an innovative better designed moustrap to gain investment. The market simply looks bleak for YAEQC. (yet-anotherEQ-clone) If you have this, then all the market research doesn''t really apply because you''ll be comparing the death of combat-centric MMO projects to your game which should be apples to oranges. (otherwise you''re nothing more than another EQ clone.)

Kressilac

something like this?

-www.penten.tk-
"The problem with America is stupidity. I''m not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don''t we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?" -xterm-

The success of SWG is largely based on the power of the Star Wars license. If you take that away from SWG, what you have left is a very uninspired game. At least it was when I tried it at launch.

On MMO that could duplicate SWG(at least in terms ''whoa'' factor) is the Matrix Online. Its due out sometime this year.

quote: Original post by Penten
something like this?

BRILLIANT! Thank you thank you thank you

kressilac: true, but I already have a contingency plan in the event that the figures aren''t what I expect. BTW, are you sure Mythica was cancelled? Last I heard Mythic Entertainment were still taking MS to court over it... maybe my news is outdated though because I heard that I while back.