Interesting stuff from the save vmk site

[PrincessNoelle]

I thought this was interesting and wanted to share. I couldn't link the second one so go to the savevmk dot com site and check it out.


"A long blog post about VMK closing from Joe Pishgar, who was the Community Manager for Sulake working with Disney on Virtual Magic Kingdom. He talks all about the closing of VMK, about how/why staff felt powerless, and how he got to have a special time with Madison Reed, our hero."

http://www.greypawn.com/?p=33


"Many have written about pressuring Disney to re-start VMK. Here is a web site dedicated to just that -- "Operation BBM : Bring Back The Magic!" Many have written to say their boycotting Disney continues and is expanding."

 

[aengus]

I wish they hadn't posted that. I think he will choose to not write anymore now.

Oh well not your fault

 

[Gsterg]

wow all i can say is wow to this amazing person....

 

[Disneychick74]

I wish they hadn't posted that. I think he will choose to not write anymore now.

Oh well not your fault

I think that he is getting some amazing feedback so I think he will, all I can say is the dancing part brought me to tears and for the first time in a couple of weeks I realize how very much I miss VMK.

We can all sign up for all the Betas and MMO's in the world and we will always compare. I signed up for a few but none give me that sense of URGANCY that VMK did. "OMG VMK opens in 5 minutes I NEED to get on"
Opposed to "Oh, VFK just opened, I'll log in later."

I miss it

 

[GoofyWaterCoaster]

Tweens, mostly female, occupied the bulk of the demographic.

I knew it. All of those annoying kids...

IDK if it's right though. Many adults made up the demograhics also.

At some point after the announcement, it became my role to gently guide a quarter-million kids into the virtual netherworld quietly, calmly and cooly. Pfft, Grey, you exaggerate, you dramatic bastage! Yeah, I do, a little, but the tears were freaking real. Here these kids, my kids were, with the rug pulled out from under them. The Destruction of a Virtual World. It hasn’t happened in recent memory. Not on this scale.

That would be fun. But again, what about adults?

 

[TikiIslander]

Hmm, don't really like the way this guy's blog was posted, but what can you do now, huh?

This guy was in charge of the mods/community relations so he would definitely have access to game stats, including demographics like he mentioned in his post. Sure, there were a lot of grownups that played VMK, but they were NOT the majority- just part of the vocal minority. Most kids that played the game did not have any forum affiliations- they just went on vmk to have fun, then went on with their lives.

Kids are considered regular players if they log into one of these games at least once a month. You have to keep in mind that as a member of these forums, you really are part of a small (elite?) group of players. You probably weren't friends with most of these kids that played casually. There was a certain percent of players in one group that played daily, then the rest of the players sort of rotated in and out of the game around them. What's good is that VMK was able to keep these kids coming back, even as the choices for these games exploded.

So, it's good to hear the numbers confirmed. Guess who was doing all that taken and baby business? Tween girls- as they enjoyed the game that was created for them.

 

[Jasonbobdude]

This guy was in charge of the mods/community relations so he would definitely have access to game stats, including demographics like he mentioned in his post. Sure, there were a lot of grownups that played VMK, but they were NOT the majority- just part of the vocal minority. Most kids that played the game did not have any forum affiliations- they just went on vmk to have fun, then went on with their lives.

Kids are considered regular players if they log into one of these games at least once a month. You have to keep in mind that as a member of these forums, you really are part of a small (elite?) group of players. You probably weren't friends with most of these kids that played casually. There was a certain percent of players in one group that played daily, then the rest of the players sort of rotated in and out of the game around them. What's good is that VMK was able to keep these kids coming back, even as the choices for these games exploded.

You say that a lot of kids didn't have forum affiliations, and it is true that the DisBoards VMK group is somewhat small. Have you ever been to VMK Magic though? That is a very big group of players. I found a lot of people that I knew on there, and before that I had no idea they were a member of any forums.

Also, kind of strange to hear from someone like that about how there was no logical reason for the game to shut down. I agree that it was actually improving, and the popularity hadn't really gone down at all. I heard that VFK actually has the largest beta testing group in the history of online games - and just about all of those testers are VMK refugees.

Around 50,000 people wanting to go to a site almost exactly like VMK... and Disney thought we didn't care if it closed?

 

[anya.sparrow]

I wish they hadn't posted that. I think he will choose to not write anymore now.

Oh well not your fault

Yup. I found his blog back in early April (he blogged in November about getting the job with VMK, so it came up on a search I did), and his comments about closing were very interesting and a good read. I just had been waiting to see if he would add more info before I posted the link here and "scared him away".

Oh well, maybe he will continue to share. I hope so.

 

[Dashzap]

Some of this guy's blog is quite interesting. Did you read his February 19th post about rare items?

"Firstly, the rares market in any MMO is complete and utter ********. Rares, and the uncommon nature of items, gear, furniture and objects of interest that have absolutely no effect on the balance or outcome of the game’s linear (or non-linear) progression exist as illusory economic components in a false market. Please take a moment to grasp that. A “rare” that comes into existence is arbitrarily assigned a value based on the artificial demand placed on the desire for that given “rare”. This is a communal value, not expressed in terms of net gain (such as an epic weapon), nor consumability, nor any other value aside from simple banal aesthetic."

He finalizes with "Quick summation, a targeted saturation of a rares market can increase the health of the virtual economy and lower the marginalization of player segments."

 

[Disneychick74]

Some of this guy's blog is quite interesting. Did you read his February 19th post about rare items?

"Firstly, the rares market in any MMO is complete and utter ********. Rares, and the uncommon nature of items, gear, furniture and objects of interest that have absolutely no effect on the balance or outcome of the game’s linear (or non-linear) progression exist as illusory economic components in a false market. Please take a moment to grasp that. A “rare” that comes into existence is arbitrarily assigned a value based on the artificial demand placed on the desire for that given “rare”. This is a communal value, not expressed in terms of net gain (such as an epic weapon), nor consumability, nor any other value aside from simple banal aesthetic."

He finalizes with "Quick summation, a targeted saturation of a rares market can increase the health of the virtual economy and lower the marginalization of player segments."

Tell that to my credit card bill that has my blue stitch hat purchase from Eaby on it

 

[tinkryansmom]

Tell that to my credit card bill that has my blue stitch hat purchase from Eaby on it

Thanks for posting this. Interesting reading.

Sigh - Bring Back the Magic eh? Might have to check that out.

 

[Belle1997]

Thanks for posting this it too brought tears to my eyes. I wonder if Disney every takes a trip over here. Since it is quite obvious many of us have no interest in their online games. The Disney on line Forum looks kinda small.

I for one will not even look at another Disney game. I still love Disney but WDIG I do not.

 

[aengus]

I think you all are underestimating him, I think the majority of players did indeed have a forum affiliation. VMK magic and VMK forums are massive in membership.

I think they are spot on with the majority of the players, and I also think he has the numbers behind him to prove it.

I also dont think you will see him post again on the topic, but I have been wrong before

 

[TikiIslander]

I'm not so sure. Both of those fansites have membership around 25K over the entire lifetime of the site. That's counting players who haven't logged in since 2005, and there's bound to be a sizable overlap between forums and even within each site. From what I can tell, most members of smaller forums were also members of at least one of the huge forums- and I'd guess that many players registered on each fansite they came across. VMKMagic does have a large teen/tween population, and that's great, but they don't represent all of the kids that played the game.

250,000 was the estimated number of active players. I'm not sure if that's accounting for mules, but just for kicks, we'll take 100,000 accounts out of that as a mule allowance. That leaves 150,000 unique players. I'll estimate 50K of these players have forum accounts- this is the combined total of 2 large fansites, considering lapsed membership, overlap between sites, and including all of the smaller forums. We still would end up with about 100K people who don't use fansites. I'd agree that daily or weekly players- ones that were there to gather teh rare and such- nearly all had forum accounts. If these players didn't, they were certainly lurking!

There are a lot more players that just came to VMK occasionally and played a much different game. A level of players was completely unaffected by the Blackheart quest- something that completely took over the forums for weeks. These players either they didn't log on to know it was going on, or they didnt care to complete it- it wasn't for everyone to complete anyway. These kids enjoyed the game just as much as everyone here did, but because it was such a creative, open playground, they could enjoy it the way they wanted.

They had a hard job managing VMK. Everyone's a critic and thinks they could do a better job, but making the game fun for everyone who enters is a tough task no matter how you look at it.

Well, I got off-off topic there, but feel free to tear apart my fuzzy math. I'm interested to see what everyone thinks about the game's membership.