Comments on: Webkinz & kin: yet more mammals

By: Penguin Webkins - Dogpile Web Search

Penguin Webkins - Dogpile Web Search — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 03:00:05 +0000

[...] relating to penguin webkins Sponsored by: http://www.toseeka.org [Found on Ads by Ask.com] 26. Raph’s Website " Webkinz & kin: yet more mammals In fact, you can buy the server Club Penguin is built on for 3500 Euro. … webkins – Web – [...]

By: webkins - Web - WebCrawler

webkins - Web - WebCrawler — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 02:03:07 +0000

[...] • webkins.org null webkins.org • Raph’s Website " Webkinz & kin: yet more mammals Raph Koster’s personal website: MMOs, gaming, writing, art, music, books. … a lot more [...]

By: PlayNoEvil Game Security, Game Cheating, Gold Farming and RMT News & Analysis

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 14:29:03 +0000

[...] strategy is something that should have a lot more attention – and Raph’s article on the toy Webkins is a great example. There are massive, untapped business opportunities that are lying at our feet [...]

By: rcarca10

rcarca10 — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 04:14:05 +0000

yo im having a HUGE compatishon on webkinz 2 enter all u have 2 do is add me my user is rcarca10 and then send a gift ther will be a first second and third and even forth prize the first place winner will reseeve a rock star tv worth 1000 kinz cash +3 food items how cool is that any way second place will reseeve a rock star poster and a 10% w shop coupon and third place will reseeve a clothing item of any kind and forth place will get 2 food items u have till feb third 2 enter the prises
will be given on feb 4 thx enter now!!!

By: Bloggers | The Cesspit.

Bloggers | The Cesspit. — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 04:26:49 +0000

[...] changing hands, and the consistent [...] Source: BrokenToys – Lum Categories: Bloggers 03:55 Webkinz & kin: yet more mammals Continuing on the theme of massively multiplayer worlds that people don’t pay attention to, [...]

By: darniaq

darniaq — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 02:11:40 +0000

These are not girl games.

Miuchiz Monsterz is just one of three MMOs from MGA Entertainment, all built concurrently, all using a common graphics engine, one including a license (Bratz).

Club Penguin has topped Miniclip.com’s charts almost since launch. This is Miniclips, the casual and free online games service. Club Penguin itself carries a fee, and yet continuously is in the top 3 for the free place.

Webkinz is interesting because it’s not really a PSW in the traditional sense, but can be billed as one. The point of entry is the same as the MGA titles: buy hardware for a cost, get access to a world. MGA spent close to $20mil on their system, and their handheld lets you play that character in offline mode (it’s not that great, but it’s the first of it’s time).

As we’ve all been saying, times are a changin’. The folks only looking at WoW were the same only looking at EQ1. Same game, same target market. The world has up and changed all around them, but that golden 8mil subscription mark drowns out such things. The forward-looking groups are looking at the emerging players, the younger ones, the casual adult ones.

This is why I feel that WoW won’t be topped by another diku. It’ll be topped when the measure of success is changed. Heck, Maplestory and Habbo have RADICALLY more accounts than WoW, and much higher ARPU. And the games cost way less to make. And they offer functionally similar game play with more deep rewards. And of course are microtrans

WoW capped one way of delivering success. There’s a few others.

By: Matt Forbeck

Matt Forbeck — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 19:19:28 +0000

Have you seen Miuchiz? It's a handheld video game for kids (kind of a tamagotchi), with a USB port. You attach it to a Windows machine, fire it up, and it grants you permission to play in a virtual world that's essentially an MMORPG for kids. The packaging is obtuse, and I didn't recognize that the handheld has this function until after I got it up and running. They started out at around $50, but I understand the price has fallen to closer to $20 these days.

By: Allen Sligar

Allen Sligar — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 19:03:18 +0000

“But, from the legal point of view, it’s easier to develop a game for adults than navigate the minefield that is dealing with children customers online.”

Thats so true, we had to completly exclude those below 13 from GLM. The legal ramifacations and privacy concerns as well as the other features of the site preclude having 7-12 year olds.

By: JuJutsu

JuJutsu — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 15:13:34 +0000

Prokofy is probably right about the central tendency but there IS variance there. In SWG I spent much more time playing my Image Designer than my TKA and more time on hairdos and makeovers than fighting. Moreover, the majority of my customers were male avatars [who knows who was at the keyboard]. Granted it was a slim majority but I was tickled by the fact that many of the most combat oriented eventually decided it would be nice to actually have a chin on their avatar

As for houses and stuff to put in them…another arena for achievers to stay ahead of the Joneses. Especially if housing, guild halls etc are publicly visible.

Based on a n of 5 it’s true that the 3 males are generally more combat oriented than the 2 females. But it’s not as simple as “boyz fight, gurlz don’t”. Both my wife and my daughter are not at all averse to fighting. The difference seems to be that they are less likely to fight just to be fighting, they fight when something gets in the way of them obtaining an object that they want.

I think Raph put his finger on the most important factor for these games: age.

By: Michael Hardt

Michael Hardt — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 15:12:07 +0000

You’re right. I’m just old. I read some of the press stories on Club Penguin, and I see that I had missed this phenomenon completely.

As a parent, I’m kind of glad my eight-year-old is building Legos instead of doing this, but I wonder if he’s missing something. Apart from short-term amusement, are there benefits attached to a child’s interacting in an online virtual world?