AGDC08: Measuring & Metrics

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Sep 152008
 

Measuring & Metrics: the Online Gaming Audience, Edward Hunter, Comscore

(these are just rough notes, not a liveblog transcript).

Gamers used to be 18-24 males, now there are online gamers in every demographic. Exponential increase in spend for advertising to reach the gamer. 9 out of ten calls to ComScore are about ads.

Metrics asked for:
– reach and frequency
– genre prefs by demographic
– market size
– demographics: ideal targets for a game
– exposure targets — how many did you reach, what is the kind & level of engagement? What actions do they take? (Do they interact with the ad or just see it there but focus more on the game?)
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Is Call of Duty 4 an MMO?

 Posted by (Visited 6626 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: , ,
May 152008
 

Rob Fahey has an editorial up on Eurogamer called “Genetically Modified Gaming” which makes the case that Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is lifting the key elements of an MMO, and is in fact the most important MMO release of the year.

This definitely echoes things I have said in the past about the ways in which online gaming is taking over single-player gaming. After all, the CoD series has always been about strong single-player narrative despite its multiplayer component. With the latest installment, there’s lots of MMOish things like persistent character advancement snuck in there.

On the other hand, I think it is worth asking if this is really what we want:

Player retention and the science of addiction is being expanded upon in innovative, groundbreaking ways

Put that baldly, it’s rather disturbing. I don’t want my games to be about the science of addiction! There are a lot of other qualities brought to the table by virtual worlds, and to my mind, it’s these other qualities that are better.