Is it Fun? Colin Johanson on How ArenaNet Measures Success [ArenaNet]

To begin this blog post, let me pose a question: How do you measure the success of an MMO?

Historically, it’s been easy to point to success with traditional MMOs: subscription numbers were the ultimate means a company used to measure how well a game was doing, and customers typically looked at those same numbers as well to gauge the success of the game. The number of concurrent users—how many players are online at a given time—was also important, but that number was usually hidden from users, since it typically painted a less rosy picture of a game’s health when compared to the number of active subscriptions.

Now let me pose a second question: If the success of a subscription-based MMO is measured by the number of people paying a monthly fee, how does that impact game design decisions?

http://www.arena.net/blog/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measu...