October Update: New Players

[Nyr]

New Players

2012 survey results
September post
August post
July post
June post
May post
April post
March post


Raw data

Total new accounts created:  369
Duplicates (created multiple accounts out of confusion/staff accounts/etc):  4
New accounts minus the above: 365



Where people came from
(noteworthy results mentioned, some might be concurrent)

Topmudsites:  27
Themudconnector:  102
Both:  0
Google:  44 (note that these can probably be attributed to either TMS or TMC)
Search/web:  11 (these also can probably be attributed to either TMS or TMC)
Friends/other players/family/co-workers/homies:  35
Reddit:  8
Random forums:  14
TVtropes:  2

Miscellaneous funnier or "odd" or even interesting ones:
Your Mom
Through Cat Rambo's other work
from my adorable boyfriend
DayZ games


Voting overall this month was pretty low.  I haven't had time to push voting (school) and I haven't had much time to crunch the numbers.  For the sake of experimenting, it's interesting to see how our new player numbers can be lower but our actual new player playtime numbers can go up...more below on that.


Summary

A little copypasta below from previous posts:

An interesting metric to point out is our new accounts numbers for the year.  This post details how we did in 2012 (and this one goes over account stats for the past 4 years).  To recap that below:

2009 -- 1481
2010 -- 1865
2011 -- 1325
2012 -- 1631

2013 data for new accounts (compiled from various sources):
January (83), February (123), March (235), April (457), May (491), June (464), July (406), August (421), September (434), October (365)
2013 total (so far) -- 3479

We've broken the record for most new accounts for any given year, and the year's not over!  Of course, at this point, that's like a broken record broken record--you've heard it enough that it's old hat (even if it broke all previous records).



What matters, however, is how many people actually log in even once to play the game.  This has been a major improvement.  When I first looked at this data in January and February with Calavera, we found that over the course of about 100 accounts created, only 21 actually made it into the game.  This month, we had 365 new accounts, and out of those, 93 actually made it into the game. 

Wait, that's weird, isn't it?  We had fewer new accounts than last month, right?
Last month:  434 total new accounts
This month:  365 total new accounts
Difference:  69 fewer new accounts

Last month:  78 players actually logged in
This month:  93 players actually logged in
Difference:  15 more players logged in

Analysis so far:  Duplicate accounts account for 4 of those.  An additional 6 players registered in October, but played for the first time this month (November).  Since I'm running numbers now, we're getting some overlap.  It's still true that they are October players, though.  This probably happens more often than we think, but we can't account for this every time.  Even so, it's interesting to see that we have more people trying the game even with fewer overall people creating accounts...

We are (in general) seeing around a 3x to 4x increase in the amount of people that play the game for the first time.



Player Retention

More copypasta.

I mentioned that the best way to determine real player retention would be to see who did the following:

started playing in x month
is still playing THIS month

To recap, our stats from 2010, 2011, and 2012:

Excluding new staff accounts

2010

January:  1
February:  1
March:  2
April:  3
May:  7
June:  5
July:  3
August:  1
September:  1
October:  2
November:  4
December:  4

2010 Total:  34

2011

January:  2
February:  2
March:  0
April:  5
May:  1
June:  5
July:  2
August:  2
September:  1
October:  3
November:  3
December:  1

2011 Total:  27

2012

January:  4
February:  3
March:  5
April:  7
May:  2
June:  2
July:  1
August:  3
September:  2
October:  1
November:  6
December:  4

2012 Total:  40

I also mentioned that this year would be skewed due to the database issue we had which would've wiped records from 1/23 to 3/28.  Even with that, here's what we have for 2013.

2013

January: 2 (missing 8 days of that month's data)
February:  0 (missing all of that month's data)
March:  1 (missing 27 days of that month's data)
April:  9
May:  6
June:  8
July:  7
August: 9
September:  7

2013 Total so far:  49

I trimmed some off of the September list as they stopped playing in early October.  Even so...we're still on a path to increase retention and total playerbase size by a sizable percentage over last year.  If we assume even just 6 players stick per month from now on, we'll end up with retention of over 60 players this year (approximately 66 actually), more than 50% higher than 2012.  I am going to redo all of these retention numbers at the end of the year and run new ones so that we know who has sticked not only for the following month (like we are doing above) but how these numbers have changed over time (started in 2011, still playing today, etc).



This Month's Players

More copypasta.  The numbers are new though.

5-6 hours of playtime or less:  62
--Ok, good.  We can find out what is turning off the players that have spent that much time in the game.  A few minutes?  They probably didn't intend to do more than look around.  A few hours?  Something must have occurred, or something didn't occur.  We will be delving into this over time but probably not immediately.  This is not the most high priority target for our efforts, considering the people that put in more time than this.

6+ hours of playtime:  31
--Ok, good.  From this, we can find out who got turned off AFTER putting in a significant time investment, but before being hooked.  This is probably a better area to look at for the purposes of retention.  They've spent time playing the game but (for whatever reason) they have stopped playing.  This will take time to affect and review efforts.

So who's hooked this month--at least, so far?

Of the remaining 31 players, I narrowed down who was still logging in as recently as, well...let's say 11/5/2013.  That gives us 13 players.

If you're a new player from this month and you're in the categories mentioned above, feel free to chime in here or elsewhere on the forums if you haven't already!  We'd love to hear from you.  What almost turned you off to the game?  What has hooked you?

[QuillDipper]

Yoyo, brand spankin' new-ish.

I was hooked the second I heard about this game. I love perma-death, I love roleplay, and I love MUDs. This was like heaven.

The little detail that really got me though was the fact that there are no names stated, unless by players. In most games I've played it just says the name. It's much more interesting and realistic to see "the tall, musclebound man" than "Beefcakes is here, wearing XXX". It also has a much more dive-in roleplay environment than most games, since there is almost no OOC so people don't get on your ass for being a newb.

10/10, have recommended to several friends who have started sending apps.

[Ktavialt]

Just posting to say I appreciate these updates.  Its nice to know how the game is going.  Can't wait for the day of 200+ people, filling the ranks at all low/mid levels, i.e. having red robes and senior noble PCs.

[Voular]

Yeah. This stuff is great. We really need to have huge discussion about player retention. Of both new and old ones. I could rant about this topic for ages.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Yoyo, brand spankin' new-ish.

I was hooked the second I heard about this game. I love perma-death, I love roleplay, and I love MUDs. This was like heaven.

The little detail that really got me though was the fact that there are no names stated, unless by players. In most games I've played it just says the name. It's much more interesting and realistic to see "the tall, musclebound man" than "Beefcakes is here, wearing XXX". It also has a much more dive-in roleplay environment than most games, since there is almost no OOC so people don't get on your ass for being a newb.

10/10, have recommended to several friends who have started sending apps.

You're a wynner. Glad to have you.

[Harmless]

I would like to thank Nyr for making these. The recent increase in imm involvement on the GDB is very likely contributing to retention as well. Players love to hear from the staff on MMOs. It's really helping that you've been working so consistently and so hard to do this.

I could never do what staff does. I see those apps go by, and I know for sure, "Nah, not me." For several reasons, not just the time commitment.

Kudos. (I'll get around to filing them on the website eventually. )