They’re spending time where??
Jason Miller has an article which is mostly about whether 2007 will be the year of the online game — apparently he’s the initial source of the idea that Nabeel Hyatt was talking about.
What fascinates me, though, is the difference between the list of top games based on market share, versus the top games based on time spent. Time spent, of course, speaks to monetizing via ads. So, the first list is already heavy on titles that the mainstream online game industry tends to ignore or minimize the importance of. Check out the second list and tell me how many of them you even know?
Hitwise’s Top US Game Sites, In Terms of Market Share
1. Pogo.com
2. Yahoo! Games
3. RuneScape
4. Yahoo! Games Downloads
5. MSN Games
6. Neopets.com
7. Gamefaqs.com
8. Miniclip Games
9. Addicting Games
10. Yahoo! Fantasy SportsTop US Game Sites, In Terms of Average Session Time
1. IamGame.com
2. BrainKing.com
3. Hogwarts Live
4. Eternal Kingdoms
5. Hogwarts Extreme
6. Cyber Arcade World
7. Gothador
8. Gang-Wars
9. Game Bonus
10. The Pokemon Crater
So, fascinating things about this latter list:
- Many of them let users win cash prizes.
- Several of them are sites that make use of major IP without authorization.
- None of them are what we consider “the top online game portals.”
- Several of them are web-based MMOs which probably cost a pittance to develop
- Several are aggregators of multiple games, but not all, and #2 is for chess!
yeah. i followed that same blog link back a few days ago. looked those sites up on alexa. all i said was wtf? for example: “Traffic Rank for eternalkingdoms.com: 233,089”
uh. okay.
i have no idea where he got those numbers. not entirely sure they’re accurate. if 10 players are spending 10 hours a day on a site, does that mean it’s noteworthy?
and, the cash prizes thing is crazy. it’s all the rage in the minor league web mmo passive game scene. browse and see: http://www.topwebgames.com/
m3mnoch.
exactly m3mnoch. The “stickiest site on the web” is not really that relevant a statistic. It could be a site that 10 employees of a company are required to use 8 hours a day while at work but happens to be on the Internet.
That’s why I was advocating for something more akin to the Avg Time Spent * Number of Unique Visitors. That approaches a basic metric for the “Attention” that a particular game/site/product is receiving. And that should be the thing that most advertisers and media types would be interested in.
can i get an amen? average man-hours ftw!
m3mnoch.
The previous comments are right, but that’s not the whole picture either. If you are making an assumption that these sites make their money off ads, then it’s a question of #UU’s, time per user, ads viewed per user (because how you serve them up will vary based on game/content/etc), and the price you can get for the ad sale. The latter of these is dependant to some degree on all the above , but also on how well your audience maps to teh advertiser’s desired customer, how effective the ads are, etc.
In short, it’s complicated 🙂
Does this not imply that what you (Raph) refer to as the mainstream really isn’t?
How do they check time spent on web based MMOs?
Does it include or exclude the six hours a day it stays hidden behind the Outlook window when at work?
If the advertisers pay by click through, how many people click through to an ad while they’re trying to concentrate on a game of chess? If they don’t why not? Are brand awareness ads the only ones that will work while the player is actively doing something else?
Interesting results, but previous posts seem to be on target. if the average number of users is low vs time spent then its misleading.
or rather:
Is it better to have a small loyal user base (low volume/high stickiness) or a large user base that churns frequently? (high volume/low stickiness).
I dont think these are mutually exclusive.
From a cash inflow/outflow perspective, it’s obviously ideal to have a huge user base that logs in infrequently and pays a subscription. The qualifying statement is important – otherwise i might have to feel something other than a savage loathing for Second Life.
Well… for having spent a small amount of time (around 5 months) in the active “minor league web mmo passive game scene”, I can tell that the number of subscriptions AND active players was quite above expectations for a really small web game.
So seeing those numbers aren’t quite a surprise to me. As said before, how those statistics were compiled is questionable but still, it seems that there’s quite a huge market to get in touch with in this league.
My feeling is that the “modern” MUD trend went to “get in quick get out fast” games. Anyone heard of Hattrick? Quite a successful web game that I’m sure some of the big heads are able to make a living of… And no, I’m not involved with it.