Where players found us: Month of April

[Nyr]

I believe when you pointed out the "first three numbers," you were pointing out the following (correct me if I am wrong):

Out of that 452, 139 did not create a character and bailed at that point (meaning they answered the Where Survey question and never actually did anything after that--I can't even look up an account because that did not save, for whatever reason...?) That's a good 30% that didn't even hit the application queue.  Given the rejections we've doled out this month, I am not sure whether these potential players would be serious potential players.

So they aren't players, they are potential players.  The reason they have no account info has been explained by Morgenes. We occasionally do maintenance to clear out completely empty accounts that do not create a character (in this case, we have their records but no account anymore).

Of the remaining 313, 109 also did not create a character, but managed to get far enough to actually have their account listed in the system.  I'm not sure at which point this occurs. They did enough somehow to have their account data searchable, but there is no character listed.  They have not created a character, they have not been rejected, they have not been accepted--they just haven't tried to create a character yet.

These also aren't players, they are potential players.  They have not attempted to create a character.

Of the remaining 204, 63 were rejected and never reapplied.  For the most part, these are not marginal rejections.  Applications for hairy dwarves, superheroes, demons, etc.  Applications that have demonstrated no real desire to understand the game.  Applications that consist of descriptions that mention no physical attributes whatsoever and instead are a list of emotive responses, clothing, armor (including metal), and mystery.  This is the kind of stuff that gets rejected for the most part.

These also aren't players, but at least they have attempted to create a character.

The first two categories are 54% of the new accounts we had last month.  I was saying that technically, player retention would be targeting the people that actually got into the game but didn't stick (rather than people that never got into the game for any number of reasons).  It may be tempting to try and go after that whopping big number (and again, not saying we shouldn't, we should just go after it very carefully), but focusing on what we can improve for the players that DO get into the game might offer more rewards and also a higher caliber of player.

Identifying where/when/why these other players stopped playing is a good start.  That goes back to my original post:

Once we get a few of our tools fixed with regards to Where Survey Data, we can more accurately depict playtimes for the month for the rest of the new players that actually got into the game and played this month.

Right now, we'll have to do grunt work:  manually reviewing the 105+ people that got into the game to see who actually stuck around long enough to be an "active" player.  That isn't a measure of true retention (mentioned in first post), but it's a start for some data.  We can figure out what sets these players apart in the first place and what they did that got them to play (and play multiple characters, even).  Then we'll separate these players from the rest, the ones that just gave up after being in-game.  We can look over runlogs to see what they did, how far they got, etc.

[Barsook]

I see.  And yeah, data is just data now until you do something with it that gives meaning.