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New Daedalus Project Data

January 4th, 2006 (Visited 11612 times) Tags:

As is my habit, I’ve pulled out the statistical results that were most interesting to me. You can read the whole issue here.

for every single woman in an MMO, there are 10 single men.

the romantic partners of female players are about three times more likely to play the MMO they play than the romantic partners of male players.
28% of female players and 20% of male players have at least one child.
Male players are more likely to have been avid gamers prior to their current MMO, while female players are more likely to have had less prior experience with video games in general.
Current MMO gamers in both genders tend to have a CRPG playing background.
Half of them have tried MUDs/MUSHes/MOOs.
Most of them didn’t stick with text-based gaming, but women were a lot more likely to stick with it than men.
3/4 of players have played tabletop RPGs, but men were more likely to stick with it.
Female players reported having more fun overall than male players.
The more a player chats and socializes in an MMO, the more likely they report having fun.
Female players reported a lower likelihood of quitting in the next month.
Older players are also slightly less likely to quit.
The more players chat and socialize, the lower their likelihood of quitting.
Male players are more willing to sell their accounts.
So are younger players.
The more competitive a player is, the more likely they will sell their account. On the other hand, the more a player enjoys forming relationships in an MMO, the less likely they will sell their account.

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Sex & Games wrote on January 6th, 2006 at 2:49 am:

gaming, but women were a lot more likely to stick with it than men. The more a player chats and socializes in an MMO, the more likely they report having fun. The more players chat and socialize, the lower their likelihood of quitting. via Raph Koster’s Blog

Default Aggregator (r-gamegeek) wrote on January 5th, 2006 at 6:59 am:

[...] Link · Comment? (3) · Add to Memories New Daedalus Project DataThursday, 05 January 2006 @ 03:06 amposted by raphkoster_rsshttp://www.raphkoster.com/?p=243As is my habit, I’ve pulled out the statistical results that were most interesting to me. You can read the whole issue here. [...]

foldedspace.org: Exodus wrote on January 5th, 2006 at 2:01 pm:

[...] This statistical analysis of MMORPGs features some intersting data regarding male/female differences in gaming. (Does it surprise anyone that males outnumber females 10:1 in the online gaming world?) [...]

Mandrel said on January 4th, 2006 at 9:03 pm:

Thanks for pointing this site out. In my years of involvement with MMORPGs, I hadn’t come across it before. I would think it would be of benefit to the industry to promote a site like this, both for academic and market research but I haven’t seen it linked anywhere.

Grouchy Gnome said on January 4th, 2006 at 9:37 pm:

Two points I wouldn’t have guessed:

Half of them have tried MUDs/MUSHes/MOOs.

This one is just a surprise based on my observations in games. I don’t generally get a “yes” from players when I ask them if they’ve ever played this type of game (this could be flawed data, because players may see playing them as “cool” or “old school,” and even though the survey is completely anonymous, it makes them feel better to check it).

The more competitive a player is, the more likely they will sell their account. On the other hand, the more a player enjoys forming relationships in an MMO, the less likely they will sell their account.

Is there actually a correlation here? This one deserves being investigated further, I think. At first thought, it would make sense that competitive players burn out faster because they play harder, thus becoming more likely to simply stop playing the game (and even sell their account). If a competitive player is more likely to quit the game, they would naturally be more likely to sell their account, which is why I don’t think there is necessarily a correlation. They are probably just more likely to stop playing a game, and the percentage of people who are competitive and sell their account when they quit vs. the percentage of non-competitive players who sell their account when they quit may be similar. Of course, this could actually be true because socialites are more likely to want to come back to the game just to visit friends rather than outright quit (which anyone who sells an account is doing, for all intents and purposes).

Does “competitive” mean “PvP?” If it does, perhaps the fact that a competitive player is more likely to quit a game and/or sell their account isn’t based on burnout or even a lack of relationships, but a lack of offering on the part of development studios. There still isn’t a great PvP game out there. Would a great PvP game make competitive players stick around for longer and be less likely to sell their accounts? There are people, like me, who get sucked back into Counter-Strike fairly regularly years after initially playing, and it’s primarily because of the player competition offered by the game. Perhaps players with a competitive spirit simply stop playing these games because none of them offer what they want; PvP.

I could get into a long dissertation about why I think we should create a PvP MMORPG from the ground up in order to attract this kind of player and break new ground in the genre, but I’ll save that for a later date.

xaldin said on January 5th, 2006 at 9:00 am:

“I could get into a long dissertation about why I think we should create a PvP MMORPG from the ground up in order to attract this kind of player and break new ground in the genre, but I’ll save that for a later ”

Every time I see something like that I think back to Shadowbane’s ambition and how it didn’t pan out to be quite the success everyone thought it’d be. Sure folks will blame technical etc but even if it’d been rock stable I don’t think it’d have done any better and probably just dropped slower.

I’d argue that the persistance itself is the hinderance of a PVP MMO and why Counterstrike style pvp systems will dominate for years to come.

Evan said on January 5th, 2006 at 11:48 pm:

Perhaps the competitive/eBayer correlation runs the other direction. Perhaps people who intend to sell their accounts are more competitive.

I certainly became more competitive when I discovered I could sell a specific MMOG account unmolested. I never did end up selling the account, but that was certainly my goal at the time, and a motive behind my competitiveness.

Demonicon said on January 9th, 2006 at 10:42 pm:

I may have an explanation for pve types of competition:

For competitive players keeping your character wouldn´t make sense- as they draw their fun out of competition in terms of leveling speed and item aqusisition. Pve competition looses sense when you have a maxed out character. If you ever come back to the game you will want to start a knew one (although a competitive player will then make sure that he starts on a new server).

Players who build many relationships and made friends will not want their reputation possibly destroyed by someone using ‘their’ character. They may also be more linked to their name and will continue playing this character if they ever come back to the game.

Flux said on January 11th, 2006 at 8:40 am:

I’ve got a very simple explanation for this one. Competitive players create high level characters and accumulate l3wt sufficient to make an account worth selling. People who party to talk and have fun and do it socially don’t build up enough goods to get any decent price on ebay anyway.

When you factor in the “likelihood of selling” issue, which is obviously going to favor competitive players (who play hard, get sick of the game, and move on once the challenge is exhausted), this quotation seems nothing more than common sense.

splok said on January 11th, 2006 at 4:41 pm:

From my experience, more competative players will focus more on accomplishments and less on a meaningful connection to their avatars. Many people in competative guilds see thier avatars as little more than tools (often re-rolling to play a needed class, or playing someone else’s avatar) to get a job done, so it makes sence that they would be more likely to sell them than people who’s experiences are more character based.

New Daedalus Project Data

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