Important tips -> to a sucessful game

[Redex]

Hello fellow community of Makewebgames. Today, whilst talking to Sniko on Messenger, i happened to get involved in a conversation to which i replied with what my opinions are on a successful game and they are as follows:

1. The game has to be pre-planned and completely thought out.

2. The features of the game, have to be implemented in a way, to keep a stable economy.

3. Future plans have to be to create a sensible,organized and respective community.

4. The storyline of the game has to be clear and informative.

5. If your website has different classes, the game has to show attraction &/ or competition between the two.

6. If you do have different classes, then there should be updates on a regular going in favor of either of the two.

7. The owner has to pay attention towards the members, trying to implement the needs of the demanding public, yet choosing the ones which will build up the success already produced.

8. Staff &/ or moderators have to be reliable,active,happy,helpful and caring towards the community.

9. There has to be unique features implemented in to the game, which will give visitors a reason to be active on the game.

10. Website has to have 99.99% up time.

11. The game has to provide addiction towards the members, whilst giving the members something to achieve.

12. Keep to one theme, example: If your game is about aliens suddenly don't start implementing features to to the game that are to do with toy cars.

These are my tips, please use them if you wish.

Best Regards: Redex.

[Sim]

nice TIPS

[Redex]

Thanks Sim. Motivating members, as usual.

[srachit]

the game got to be original also

[Redex]

Unique is included there, but will add that on when i get time ;)

[Zero-Affect]

I would say these are common knowledge but considering some of the games i've seen on the net i'd say this is very informative lol

[Redex]

I would say these are common knowledge but considering some of the games i've seen on the net i'd say this is very informative lol

 

Thanks Zero Affect, probably the first praise i've heard from you for any of my posts ;)

[Danny696]

What about keeping to one theme, like if your game is about warewolfs VS aliens, dont add a recing car mod etc

[Zero-Affect]

What about keeping to one theme, like if your game is about warewolfs VS aliens, dont add a recing car mod etc

Good point Danny i actually own a game and am not very proud of this but you can own a house called Pluto... Mainly this is due to people having bad creativity but i have seen it on many many games and it just makes no sense.

[Redex]

Thanks Danny. Keeping to one theme, has been added to the list as number 12 ;)

[Dave]

Great tips :)

and CrimeGame i've just noticed your signature is calling everyone including yourself a noob :P (Not sure if that's what you wanted but I only just realised)

[Redex]

Thanks Dave &/ or David ( whatever you prefer ):).

[Zero-Affect]

Great tips :)

and CrimeGame i've just noticed your signature is calling everyone including yourself a noob :P (Not sure if that's what you wanted but I only just realised)

I noticed it but it only says drop everyone else, Afew people have said that to me lately im surprised it's taken this long for people to notice. It isn't a mistake im just saying were all noobs but you lot will drop i won't

[lucky3809]

I like your tips redex...

Also may I add never "RESET" your game and the players achievements, you can lose hundreds of players doing so lol.

know of a game who resets twice a year, they use to have over 150 active daily players now its down to 5 every half hour, a big decrease lol.

Also be unique and dont copy other games, major plus to have your own originality!

[mdshare]

I will ad a document (word) to this post.

[Gwink]

Looks like a great book, have you read it? Worth the print or buy?

[Gwink]

hmm it's a book from 1999, I will read it if I can't find an updated version, never thought such book could exist :)

[mdshare]

yes it's from 1999 yet you will feel familiar with everything said in it, and people make still the same mistakes as in '99

psst and don't forget I'm pretty long in the game related biz ...

[Gwink]

haha ok printing it, can't find a paper version on amazon or other websites :)

[Ghostriders]

a very nice list redex .. should help alot of people! :D

also very interesting download post mdshare ...

[mdshare]

don't know if it's important but it fits to this article and is a must read (even as it's old) for every person that is serious in the browergame biz... nothing much changed actually

I'm awaiting a reply from gwink on the doc ...

[Ghostriders]

is there going to be some kind of update on the doc?

[Gwink]

ok I've read the book, I would summarize it that way :

1) History of online games since 1960 (starting with MUDs in 80 after a few lines on first games)

2) List of different paid structure we can find on the net (monthly subscription, retail plus free use, retail plus paid use, per item...)

3) Review of battle.net, gamespy, Everquest and Ultima Online...

4) Bandwidth issues and other points

Now it's not to be rude, it's well written and could be informative if you don't know all of that but as I'm coding on web since years and played MUDs and other games a lot I know most of the ideas and the marketing points aren't going deep enough to really give tips on how to build a game in a good way.

I don't agree on all ideas too, like the fact Magic the gathering won't work online... MTGO 4 is an awesome money machine, low number of players but certainly very profitable : The volume of players and the quality of the game seems to be the only valuable point for the author... Just check Bitefight which is a bad game making millions to see that web games can be simple effective ROI machines now.

I would add the conclusion is a must read anyway and I liked reading the book which isn't outdated as you said that's right (even if bandwidth paragraph talking about dialers connects we must still think about connection speed and lattency no matter the game) :)

[mdshare]

Thanks for summarizing it and giving your view point on it Gwink.

Bitefight and any other clone of that game by gameforge is easy to explain, spam their 50 million users base. GF gets aprox a 100-150k signup at every game they launch by sending their userbase a e-mail. If 5k of one of their games buy premium features they make serious money. If I recall correct last years gross revenue from GF was around a 120 million euro. Do consider they have a ton of games , each game released is localized and published in a different language. Some markets have been dumped over the years probably due to bad revenue... brazil I think...

now 20+ games x 20+ languages with multiple virtual servers (eg bitefight s1, s2, s3, ...) so we get easy to a total above 1000 published games, assuming a avg per game of 10k revenue per month and we get at the 120 mill amount/year.

[Gwink]

I agree about new Gameforge's games but if I'm right Bitefight was one of the first game they've launched (end of 2004 or early 2005) and part of their success... Sure now it's easy for them to feed any new stuff :)

Personnally I'm really impressed by Gameforge's results, seen too about 120-130 millions result for 2008 8|

(but they are now a team of 250 workers... I bet people making games here are alone most of the time or 3-4 max as we are)