ohai, we just got gratifying coverage of City of Eternals, our first MMO, on ABC News’ TechBytes! Video embedded below — the CoE love starts 60 seconds in:
ABC’s review is by Games.com Editor-in-Chief Libe Goad, once named among the “50 Most Influential Games journalists” — but we want to nominate her Best Game Journalist EVAR. Because more than just liking City of Eternals, Libe really gets our vision of how games can foster more fulfilling social interactions and relationships. As she puts it:
“You can actually chat with people in [City of Eternals]… You see their little Facebook icon pop up and you can actually message them and get to know them. It’s taking social networking that we know on Facebook and taking it to the next level.”
Simply put, we are building games that are truly social. We at ohai believe that we’re still in the first generation of social games. Through more engaging stories, richer world environments, and deeper game play mechanics, we’re heralding an entirely new generation of social games. And, we’re just getting started. Our next game is going to rock.
Our first MMO, City of Eternals, can be played within Facebook, and on its main site, CityofEternals. The game experience is significantly different, depending on the platform you play, but they both have advantages for the developer. On her personal blog, chief ohai Susan has very interesting player data on this point. For example:
When people play embedded through Facebook, their usage pattern looks something like this: 5-6 minute sessions about 8-10 times a day. So they are round tripping in and out of the game world many times a day. When people play directly at the City of Eternals site, they’ll play for 20+ minute sessions 2-3 times a day.
So people playing City of Eternals on Facebook play the game more often but in shorter periods, while players hitting the City of Eternals site play for longer periods, but in less total daily sessions. Notably, the average daily play length comes out roughly the same: 40-60 minutes on Facebook, or 40-60 minutes on CityofEternals.com. However, the time spread is significantly different, and that suggests very different tradeoffs to both platforms. For the standalone site, Susan notes, “you have more control over the user experience” — but because it’s not embedded within a social network users are accustomed to visited many times a day, “you have to deal with a conversion rate hit of the first ‘try’.”
Much more here, including thoughts on turning users from “tourists” into “citizens”. That is, “Someone who is invested in the health, stability and future of the service they’re using.”
Forbes has an article on virtual goods featuring chief ohai Susan, who explains why they’re a valuable commodity people are willing to pay for: They help us symbolically express how we feel about each other, and show off our own place in the world. Or as she puts it there: “It’s about relationship building, and things like rank and status.” Also, big ups to City of Eternals player and CoE Wikia fansite editor Greg, who tells Forbes about our community’s passion for buying items to pimp up their vampire cribs.
Ohai’s vampire-themed MMO—which is admittedly a great deal of fun—allows players to engage in a fast-paced action story involving a civil war amidst a number of undead houses. For those of us who see no appeal in strategy games like Farmville of Mafia Wars, it’s a welcome alternative that plays like a cross between Diablo and World of Warcraft.
Much more here, including insights from chief ohai Susan.
Today we’re excited to announce that our first MMO, City of Eternals, is coming out of private alpha! Now, anyone can go to CityofEternals.com, log in with their Facebook account, and get into our game world of vampire fun. (And if you just happen to be a hipster who’s over vampires, then what’s better than jumping into City of Eternals and inflicting your Smug Glance of Hipster Disdain on some vampires? Or if that doesn’t work, unleash your Self-Esteem Shield of Ironic Distance.)
Our first MMO should give you a taste of what ohai is all about: applying web development principles to game dev – rapid iteration, agile frameworks, and constant adaptation to the market. That also means City of Eternals is still evolving. Even though we’re “launching” this week, you’re going to see many changes, much more evolution. This isn’t your grandfather’s static MMO! You’ll see new content and features pretty much every week, if not every day. Because of the backend architecture and toolset that we’ve built, we’ve been able to get City of Eternals to public beta in 9 months with 3 engineers’ efforts. Game development in web style, baby!
As we launch, I want to share some player stats from our alpha test, which involved over 40,000 players. Unlike every other MMO out there, City of Eternals has a near-equal gender split: 60% male, 40% female, while 70% of our most active players are female — women like Nileena, who’s a dentist in the Bay Area, or Diana, who’s a professional violinist from Transylvania (it’s now known as Romania, but it’s most famous for being Dracula’s birthplace.) Then there are our experienced gamers like Greg, who does a great job with our player wiki, cataloging game missions, recipes, and much more.
We’re tremendously proud that our mission to make MMOs for everyone is so far paying off. We’re also honored to build products for customers who are so passionate about what we’re doing. Thank you, alpha testers!
Here’s some more data from our alpha test:
- Average time spent in game: 65 minutes
- Most active players spend 7+ hours per day in game
- 42% active users play multiple sessions daily
- Our most active player in the last 7 days, Tanya, has averaged 12.77 hours every single day in game. In the last 30 days, Heather has averaged 10.85 hours every single day in game! Wow, that’s even more than our Community Manager Matt!
We’ve also been testing monetization of virtual currency for about a month — here’s some interesting early data:
- Average transaction size of ohais (our in-game currency) is $16.50 – a number of people buy more than once.
- One of our passionate players has already spent $584 in the last 30 days in City of Eternals! (wow! thank you!)
- Female purchasers: 44%, Male purchasers: 56%
- Generally speaking, male players buy less items overall but spend more on expensive individual items, while female players will buy many more items at lower prices.
While City of Eternals is free-to-play, we’re especially grateful to our players who’ve put their trust (and their money) in what we’re doing.
But as I say, this is just the beginning. Launching is just the start. There’s much more to come and so much more hard work to do. We’ll be sharing stats and insights on our blog frequently, so be sure to subscribe to our feed.
Ohai, here’s a gratifying write-up of ohai from Dave Rosenberg of CNET, nicely titled, “Is Ohai the next big thing in social games?“. Very smart analysis of the existing social games/MMO market, and where our first game, City of Eternals, may fit in. Our favorite money quote:
Maybe I’m crazy, but by next year, I think there’s a good chance the most popular MMO on the market won’t be World of Warcraft, but City of Eternals, or another game that crosses the boundaries between MMO and socialized gaming.
Gratifying media coverage of City of Eternals and ohai: “So far it’s working,” reports TechCrunch Internet guru Michael Arrington. “I do believe that this is the beginning of a new wave of social gaming.” Over at the influential VentureBeat, Dean Takahashi observes, “Ohai has a real opportunity… City of Eternals can tap into the growing popular interest in the romance, action and dark humor of vampires.” Stay tuned for more!
ohai, we just got gratifying coverage of City of Eternals, our first MMO, on ABC News’ TechBytes! Video embedded below — the CoE love starts 60 seconds in:
So people playing City of Eternals on Facebook play the game more often but in shorter periods, while players hitting the City of Eternals site play for longer periods, but in less total daily sessions. Notably, the average daily play length comes out roughly the same: 40-60 minutes on Facebook, or 40-60 minutes on CityofEternals.com. However, the time spread is significantly different, and that suggests very different tradeoffs to both platforms. For the standalone site, Susan notes, “you have more control over the user experience” — but because it’s not embedded within a social network users are accustomed to visited many times a day, “you have to deal with a conversion rate hit of the first ‘try’.”
As we launch, I want to share some player stats from our alpha test, which involved over 40,000 players. Unlike every other MMO out there, City of Eternals has a near-equal gender split: 60% male, 40% female, while 70% of our most active players are female — 
Gratifying media coverage of