browser based games (text based)

[Snowballer]

Hi,

I'm trying to research about browser based games (text based).

Do you guys know anyone I could talk to about them?

Specifically, I want to know how one goes about calculating things like:

1. say people are fighting in the game, who wins? (based on user level, strength, armor etc. etc.)

2. what kind of page views per user can one expect? (want an idea of server power required...cuz i'm playing this one game and it seems like i must do 100's if not 1000's of page views)

[AndyH]

I will reply to this instead of your PM. :)

1. Basically it is a while loop. While both players have health. Each loop calculates who attacks and how much damage is done. Depending on each players stats.

2. Average is about 170/visitor.

You asked about hosting in the PM. I started off with using shared hosting but if your site gets even the least bit popular you are going to have to upgrade to your own server.

[Mike]

I'd like to contribute to this, it sounds interesting :)

Andy, how did you promote your first site?

[AndyH]

Word of mouth mostly. That is definatly the hardest thing, getting players when you have no money :p.

If you have some money to spend it is definatly worth it.

MPOGD.com
ApexWebGaming.com
TopWebGames.com

News articles and offers are a good place to start with them (free) and advertising if you can afford it.

With that said, word of mouth is the best for three reasons.
1. free
2. friends help friends
3. friends compete / keep them interested

[Chris]

Viral marketing is also highly worthwhile. You give your visitors some sort of game currency highly valuable to them for each referral they send. Its like an affiliate program but doesn't cost you any actual money. With this you're practically gauranteed that each user will generate more users.

[Mike]

Word of mouth mostly. That is definatly the hardest thing, getting players when you have no money :p.

If you have some money to spend it is definatly worth it.

MPOGD.com
ApexWebGaming.com
TopWebGames.com

News articles and offers are a good place to start with them (free) and advertising if you can afford it.

With that said, word of mouth is the best for three reasons.
1. free
2. friends help friends
3. friends compete / keep them interested

Thanks for the links...

It's always been something I've wanted to do, and because I'm interested in sports, I would make one around that.

Of course, it'll be a while until I actually get round to start coding :)

[Snowballer]

To you guys have any 'general' statistics on the % of members that actually become 'paid' members?

I was told on this one game its like 75% i.e. the game has maybe 500-600 active members who play (this game sessions last for a month, and membership is like $5 per session).

There are also options to creditup between $10-25.

I messaged some people who are in the game, and some have said they spent $50 on credits, another guy said $150.

With around 50 online members at any give time, could a game like this be making some decent cash? It sounds as though it is making around $2K/month just on subscriptions...and credit ups I have no idea but it sounds like its prob. even more!?!?

[thebillionaire]

yes but most subscription games like that give out incentives that cost a fair amount of money, also there are always advertising expense for growth. I dont think an average game player will play a game for more then 6 months straight, usually players will drop the game, some will come back some will not. No matter how good the game, every game gets boring one time or another so you have to market to get a steady stream of visitors