Health=Total hours played?

[999000]

Ok Dale, I know your not going to share any secrets......But Would total hours played by the community per month or week ? be a satifactory indication of success of new changes?
999000
BTW I'm still looking into the Turkey farm thing

[Yeager]

Deleted

[hubsonfire]

Posted by Pyro in the New Arena Setup, Part Duh

Quantum physics sounds like meaningless drivel to me but that doesn't invalidate it. Now I can't share proprietary data but I did think that how we monitor our business would be self-evident - if not in detail at least in general. I'll elaborate but before I go on, I'm curious; how do you think we measure what we're doing? Just by the BBS?

Our business is very measurable in many different ways. Our customers move through our system and one way we can measure is to see how many people make it to the various points along that journey to give us an indication of how we're doing in any particular area. It's self evident but I'll spell it out. Person comes to website --> Downloads game --> Creates trial account --> Plays trial --> Subscribes --> Deletes --> Possibly returns. Do you see anything unmeasurable there? That's our life cycle and it goes on every day.

So how do we tell if things are healthy? Some indications the game is healthy is when we are converting a good percentage of trial accounts to subscriptions and our subscriber deletes is held to a good percentage. If gameplay and/or social conditions degrade, a smaller percentage of trials subscribe and a bigger percentage of subscribers delete. I didn't think that would be a real shocker but maybe it is. It's not rocket science or quantum physics and its not black magic. It's just fundamentals. Our bottom line is driven by delivering the most fun to the most people. That's what drives our decisions.

[Bruno]

Health of the game?

What determines that is how many paid subscribers there are, not on how many hours a player is in game. I would guess that as long as you subscribe, and the less you play, the wider the profit margin for HTC.

Protesting by 'playing less'  is silly. Either quit or play a whole more and make sure you get your whole $.50 a day worth.

The bbs whining is free...

[FiLtH]

It must be an odd business to be in. My business I provide my customer with a service. They pay me. If they are'nt happy the way I plumbed their house, they call another plumber next time.

    With flight sims, there really are'nt alot of other "plumbers" to call. The owners can be more of a dictator, on how they operate, more independent and free from thinking "man, I hope I don't lose this account".

    That said, the customer can feel somewhat worthless. He is paying for a service, and feels as though even though he is one in thousands, his money should be appreciated. When he feels slighted, his only recourse is to threaten to quit, and when he gets the "See ya!" reply, he gets angry.
Now he starts to dislike the owner, simply because it seems the owner, is'nt as passionate about the customer's patronage, as the customer is about the owner's product.

    Its an odd relationship. The only thing that would normalize it, is better competition in the flight sim dept, and we all know there is'nt much else of value out there.

    We also know we are invisible customers, numbers, and there is no way to have a personal relationship with all of us. As long as the game is fun...more fun than watching Jeopardy and eating Twinkies every night, I will continue to play.

[Bruno]

A plumber is hired / contracted to do a job for a customer. HTC aren't hired by each player to build them whatever game they want. Certainly not at $.50 a day. AH 'customers' pay to use what HTC has created. Each one of the 1000s of players HTC has had over the years all have their idea of 'how the game should be'. The players don't create the game HTC does. We pay to play the game HTC created. If HTC changes the game they owe us nothing. We either like or we don't. If we don't they we either suffer under our own dislike or we quit.

[The Fugitive]

Look at it this way.....

you got 3 plummers in town, they all charge the same, but one uses substandard material, the second works sometimes, but quits without warning at others, and then there is the third. The third one use good equipment, things are well maintained, it allways works, but he does things his way. To him its the "right" way because after all its his bussiness. You may not agree with him with how he does stuff, but hey thats the way it is.

You still have a choice of which to use. To me, as long as it works, Im getting my moneys worth I'm ok, I can put up with his eccentricity's  

[Oldman731]

Originally posted by FiLtH
As long as the game is fun...more fun than watching Jeopardy and eating Twinkies every night, I will continue to play.

Glad to hear that, Filth.

You know, the AvA could use another mission or two, spawned by your febrile brain.

- oldman

[FiLtH]

Well Im home recovering from minor surgery Oldman..we'll see

     As for above comments...again  I just saying the relationship is odd is all. More like Coca-cola. If they change the flavor, its their choice to do so.

[Sloehand]

Originally posted by FiLtH
It must be an odd business to be in. My business I provide my customer with a service. They pay me. If they are'nt happy the way I plumbed their house, they call another plumber next time.

    With flight sims, there really are'nt alot of other "plumbers" to call. The owners can be more of a dictator, on how they operate, more independent and free from thinking "man, I hope I don't lose this account".

    That said, the customer can feel somewhat worthless. He is paying for a service, and feels as though even though he is one in thousands, his money should be appreciated. When he feels slighted, his only recourse is to threaten to quit, and when he gets the "See ya!" reply, he gets angry.
Now he starts to dislike the owner, simply because it seems the owner, is'nt as passionate about the customer's patronage, as the customer is about the owner's product.

    Its an odd relationship. The only thing that would normalize it, is better competition in the flight sim dept, and we all know there is'nt much else of value out there.

    We also know we are invisible customers, numbers, and there is no way to have a personal relationship with all of us. As long as the game is fun...more fun than watching Jeopardy and eating Twinkies every night, I will continue to play.

FiLtH-

Salute!  That was a clear and excellent summation of what is really at issue here.  I've tried to say the same thing often, but not nearly as well.  There are things I like and things I don't like in this game.  I only comment on those that really seem to be a pain for me and others, meaning make me not want to play.  Doesn't mean we are 'right' or 'wrong' about them either, just concerned and/or upset about the prospect of not enjoying the game.  
However, the real issue that makes me mad is what you indicated, and that is the 'perceived' way HiTech addresses (or does not address) general dissatisfaction that is voiced in here, and the lack of any real business relationship.  It's less the original objection that I'm upset about, than it is the overall attitude that is being conveyed.
Can't say it's all HiTech's fault either as this is a difficult relationship to maintain, and an often unsatisfactory means to communicate it.  I do think they could do much better with it, and maybe that's one of the more important 'changes' HiTech should be working on.  
What I've experienced over a year and a half, 'seems' like a real lack of interest in communicating what is happening and why, or showing any genuine feeling of concern by HiTech when a large group of customers feel they have a significant problem.

[FiLtH]

One thing I can say is I dont have 12 year olds calling me telling me Im stupid. That has to get old after awhile, and is probably a huge factor.

[hitech]

Filth: I do not agree on your assesment.

Online games have a totaly different aspect than a normal customer busness relationship.

Simple example Customer A whats to have a P51H put in the game with no perks.
I say sorry it would unbalance the game.
Customer A then tells me Im a moron and that I do not listen to customers.

He starts screaming throwing a tantrom calling HTC bad things in front of other customers, for the other customers satisfaction I remove customer A.
Because do those other customers realy wish to listen to that type of behaveor ?

If I change anything or do not change anything, some people will like the discision, some will not.

2nd almost all my customers comunicate with each other on a dailly basis.

So when someone says I do not listen, respect, or try make happy. What is realy happening I'm just trying to make some other customer happy.

So it realy becomes simple, ANY attempt I ever make to please a customer will cause some other customers to be un happy.

Do not take this as me complaining, it is what it is, but also understand it requires a different mind set on how to handle issues.

Now lets talk track record a little, When I started AH there were 3 other sims to compete with, 2 others are still around. Strange thing was I had to compete with myself for a good long time.

AH now has gained the  bigest market share of  in the online FS world, this dosn't meen I get to stop doing the things to increase the customer base. Or that I get to stop doing the things that made it successfull. But in such a social enviorment, do you realy believe I do not respect, listen to ,try please, and comunicate with customers? In reallity pleaseing customers is my only goal. How to accomplish that goal is a continual learning proccess.

Do you realy belive the market share that AH took just happened or could it actualy be that we have always tried to do our very best to please customers. And that is what took back over the market?

And a final note. In the gameing world, you need to give the customer what he wants, not what he ask for. Because the 2 are vary rairly the same thing.


Sloehand:

While I agree with your wish. Consider a few things.

1 Since the last change I have spent at least 75% of my time comunicating with customers.

2. There are 7 total people at HTC, one of those persons primary job is to communicate with customers every day.

3. Anytime a customer wish to talk to me personaly I answer the phone talk to them.


HiTech

[FiLtH]

I said it must be an odd business to be in.  I was'nt trying to compare our businesses, rather contrast them. No offese was intended, I was trying to put into words how it feels to be an online customer. Its just my opinion, you are free to disagree with it.

[hitech]

No offese was intended

Absolutly none was taken, in fact I thought is was a very good post.

HiTech

[Nightshift82]

I love you guys