Game talk

This is the catch-all category for stuff about games and game design. It easily makes up the vast majority of the site’s content. If you are looking for something specific, I highly recommend looking into the tags used on the site instead. They can narrow down the hunt immensely.

  • Numbers

    Hours Categories Game talk, Music, Reading, Watching
    Comments 18 Comments
    • Number of users in Habbo Hotel worldwide: 20,000,000
    • “Hottest” book in the US last year according to Time Magazine: 1,500,000+. (A Thousand Splendid Suns)
    • Best-selling graphic novel in the US last year: 80,000. (Naruto)
    • Digital sales of a hit song: 2,100,000 (Leona Lewis, “Bleeding Love”)
    • Average downloads of a downloadable Rock Band track: 100,000
    • Viewers of the #1 show on US TV (including DVR): 28,800,000 (American Idol)
    • Viewers of the #150 show on US TV: 2,400,000 (Gossip Girl)
    • Users of World of Warcraft in North America: 2,500,000
    • Monthly uniques for Gaia Online: 2,000,000+
    • Total number of movie tickets sold in the US in one year: 1,400,000,000
    • Estimated tickets sold to the new Indiana Jones movie in five weeks: 42,290,849 (using 2007 average US ticket price and grosses to date).

    Just some figures that caught my eye while browsing a few different publications…

  • Habbo hits 100m registered

    Hours Categories Game talk
    Comments 3 Comments

    Sulka Haro just forwarded along a press release stating that Habbo has reached 100m registered users worldwide. For those counting, that means 1.5% of the population of the planet.

    Some more stats gleaned from the release:

    • They get around 10m monthly uniques, apparently.
    • 20m registered in the last six months
    • 50/50 gender split
    • 70% 13-16 years old
    • 64% visit daily (which is higher than my usual rule of thumb of “half” — I usually use 2/3 for the week, not the day).

  • Maybe it’s not generational after all

    Hours Categories Game talk
    Comments 9 Comments

    Slashdot | Children Concerned By Parents’ Web Habits

    “Children are becoming increasingly worried about their parents’ Internet habits, according to a report just released in Sweden. Unsurprisingly, dads surfing for pornography is the most common problem, but chatroom addiction also featured in the report — as is a mother who has become obsessed with World of Warcraft. ‘This summer she has been sitting up all day and all night and she forgets what’s important to me,’ wrote the woman’s 13-year-old daughter. ‘And when she’s not at the computer she’s like a lost soul. She just looks straight ahead and says nothing.'”

  • Interesting IMVU stats

    Hours Categories Game talk
    Comments 12 Comments

    These all come from this interview. They sort of put paid to the notion that a mass market UGC business cannot thrive, I think!

    • They seeded the market with 2000 items
    • Have now registered 100,000 developers, with “tens of thousands” active
    • And 20,000,000 users registered (no word on active uniques)
    • There are 1,700,000 assets on their marketplace right now
    • 1,200,000 of them are full 3d
    • 3,000 new ones a day and 100,000 new ones a month
    • Resulting in revenues of $1,000,000 a month from digital currency sales for IMVU
    • And $1,000,000 a year in revenue for the top developer
    • 60% female, 40% male
    • 40% of users outside the U.S.

    For comparison, Zwinky reported 9.5m registered and 4.6m active back in September.

  • More on installing = making a copy

    Hours Categories Game talk
    Comments 9 Comments

    Just continuing to follow the story, and it felt interesting enough to merit its own post rather than just an addition to the comment thread.

    Blizzard Responds to Amicus Brief in MDY Bot Suit | Virtually Blind | Virtual Law | Benjamin Duranske

    Although it has not put the issue in quite such stark terms, Public Knowledge is essentially seeking a ruling that says that the sale of consumer software is, in most circumstances, a sale, pretty much regardless of what the agreement that comes with the software says. If the court agrees in spite of MAI and its progeny (and the ruling survives certain appeal) then U.S. copyright law would protect, among other things, making copies of purchased software in RAM in order to use the software — no matter what the “license agreement” says. Resolving this issue in favor of Public Knowledge would call into question provisions in EULAs governing nearly every virtual world and multiuser online game, as well as EULAs for other software.