Category: General

I have discovered the problem: you are not doing enough of what I like. Your game would be much better if it were made more for me. Also, because that would make your game better, other people would like it more, so you would make more money.

Developers, please fix that.

Thank you.

: Zubon

I’ve been thinking about ways I can generate a little income to share with the writers here so they can pay some subscription fees or whatever and there is only one way I can think of that doesn’t bother me too much. I am considering adding an Amazon.com store on a separate page, which would be linked on a tab at the top. You’d never see the store if you don’t want to see it, which I like.

This way, if you want to buy something from Amazon.com you can and we will get a tiny portion for the referral. If you don’t, no big deal. Don’t click on the Store tab and you’ll never see it at all. If you want to buy something and support us at the same time, you can if you choose to do so. I would frequently hand pick things I feel would be of interest to our readers, so it would not just be random items.

In fact, I will add the tab for a short time so you can preview it and see what it would look like. Check it out and let me know what you think.

At the risk of being called a hypocrite, how do you folks feel about that?

– Ethic

Another year has passed us by and it’s time to once again reflect on the goals of KillTenRats. What started as a way for me to vent about the frustrations of MMO gaming has turned into something different. Not my intention perhaps, but what happened to it is just the result of going with the flow.

I don’t write nearly as much as I used to and since Zubon writes so much (and so well), I have turned into a reader of my own site. I actually find I enjoy it that way. I would love to see a few more writers here but with the situation being as it is, I must leave the contributors to their own desires of when and what to write about. Therefore, we end up with a few people that write something once a month. This is all fine with me, but I thought I would turn to you folks that come here for some feedback.

What is the main reason you come here? What would make you come here more often? Do you feel the number of posts per day is enough or would you like more? What about the quality of the posts, are they meeting your standards? What subjects are you most interested in, game play or game design? Should we add more writers or should I start writing more?

What I would like to see in the next year? I would like to contribute more personally. I would also like to see one or two new regular enjoyable writers added during the year. The people we have here I very much enjoy reading but I’d love to see more posts from some of the quieter folks. I want to add even more banners for the top of the page, that is perhaps my greatest joy of this place.

Finally, we are here because of you – the readers. If there existed no readers here, there would be no writers (besides me that is). Tell me what you want from us!

Thanks for taking the time to stop by and also for coming back to visit so many times over the last (almost) five years. It has been a real pleasure and I hope we can continue to entertain you folks now and then over the next five years.

– Ethic

I play only at LAN parties, and then I remember what a great game it is. We just need to get teams balanced with roughly equal skill levels, somehow.

1. Taco Bell and Mountain Dew are sometimes foods.
2. Pokémon: The First Movie is awful, absolutely horrid. Yet another example of how you should never listen to me. “What I will enjoy” and “what will make you lots of money” form a Venn diagram with very limited overlap.

: Zubon

Your MMO is not a success based on how many players you have, whether they supply enough revenue to keep the servers running, or even if you turn a profit. If I can get a better rate of return investing in Blizzard and its parent company, I have no reason to invest in your game. I have no idea which MMO company has the best rate of return (Three Rings?), but that is your investors’ target. This is why games shut down even when they are still showing a profit: you can use those resources elsewhere and make more money. Or not, because there are a lot of short-sighted executives out there, but the cynics are consistently beating the gamers who keep hoping the next game will be the New New Thing. An investor may turn his nose up at what a gamer considers a win.

And that is limiting the view to the industry. Anyone care to guess what the return on investment is for a good casual game? How many non-WoW MMOs out-sold the latest Nancy Drew adventure this holiday season?

: Zubon

Update: will it help us avoid distractions if I rephrase as “ROI * risk” and/or “ROI over time”?

In an inspired bit of marketing, there is a free Peggle demo available on Steam: Peggle Extreme. It is not this extreme, but it mixes Peggle and Valve graphics. Unicorn with head crab? Check. Skateboarding beaver on fire? Check. GLaDOS telling you how well you are doing? Check.

And the full version is five bucks this week.

: Zubon