Meet team ohai, Franky-fied in cartoon form!

ohai designer Franky went wacky on our whiteboard this wet Friday, and whipped up this cartoon portrait of team ohai! Which is a good thing, because it’s on the same whiteboard we usually shoot with suction cup Nerf(tm) bullets. Target practice!

Happy weekend from ohai!

Hamlet

Susan Wu at SXSW! Chief ohai speaks on how social games can level up

ohai all — if you’re in Austin for South by Southwest, chief ohai Susan Wu is giving a talk Monday, March 15 at 5:00 PM, and we’d love to see you there. Here’s the description:

Social Games Level Up!
What’s next for social games? What does it take to build an MMO that everyone will play? Can you teach Farmville fans how to play an MMO? Or get devoted World of Warcraft players passionate about a social network game? Susan Wu, CEO and co-founder of gaming industry pioneer, ohai!, shares 5 key lessons learned from launching the company’s first next-generation social MMO, City of Eternals.

For Twitter updates, follow @ohai or Susan @sw. The Austin Chronicle, by the way, includes Susan among its “People to follow on Twitter during SXSW Interactive“.

Going to GDC? Come talk social gaming and virtual goods with chief ohai Susan Wu!

If you’re going to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next week, chief ohai Susan Wu will be talking about virtual goods and social gaming for two events there. On March 10 at 3:30pm for GDC’s VCON, Susan will be on a panel called “How Monetizing Games-as-a-Service will Save you from Extinction“.

Then on March 11th at The Box from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm., she’ll be at the Cha-Ching! Workshop: Realizing Revenues Through Virtual Economies.

Speaking of GDC, we’re having an office party to celebrate the beta release of our first MMO, City of Eternals, and give folks a sneek peek of our next game, Project Unicorn Parade. Here’s info on requesting an invite!

Web-based MMOs on Facebook versus standalone websites: chief ohai Susan Wu analyzes the tradeoffs

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.”