I found this quite interesting...read on

Report: Despite Economy, Online Gaming is Growing

Though the economic conditions here and abroad continue to worsen, a new report from analyst firm NPD reveals an impressive increase in online gaming over the last year.

"Online gaming for video game consoles and portables enjoyed a statistically significant increase from 19 percent in 2008 to 25 percent in 2009," according to Online Gaming 2009, a market research report released this morning.

Additionally, the report claims that Microsoft's Xbox 360 dominates the online gaming charts, holding 50 perecent of the market, "despite the noteworthy changes among other major console  systems."

"Use of Nintendo's Wii increased from 18 percent in 2008 to 29 percent in 2009, while PS2 fell dramatically and PS3 moved up from fifth place to third place," the report states. "This is a  testament to the strength of Xbox 360, both overall, and particularly in the  online gaming sphere."

http://blog.wired.com/games/2009/03/report-despite.html

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Casual gaming sites: www.chinesegum.com, and marketing games

I came across this site, www.chinesegum.com  and this review on this site. This site is a pretty standard gaming site you'll find but what interested me the most was the review. Take a look. 

In this final part of my review on ChineseGum.com, I'd like to discuss my experience on the site.

First off, I am a huge fan of the Gamelist.  It wasn't just a collection of my favorite games, but it acted like a playlist on my iPod.  I could click on my Gamelist and a window would pop up with an area to play the game and below that were tabs for each category.  If I wanted to, I could easily jump from one game to the next without having to return to my profile page.  Also, being able to favorite not just games, but other gamers' Gamelists was a nice touch.

Beyond that I enjoyed the selection of games.  It was nice to have a selection that were more casual games.  A lot of Flash games have broken past the definition of casual and have become complicated and long.  Which is fine, I completely support Flash games furthering themselves in the game industry.  But, sometimes you want to play games reminiscent of Bejeweled.  And yes there are probably hundreds of variations of Bejeweled out there, but that doesn't mean I don't want to play them.  To me, these games are more along the lines of casual games than the gritty tower defenses you see a lot of on Flash sites nowadays.

That being said, I'm sure a lot of the games I ran into on this site I could find elsewhere.  But the fact is, they'd be buried away and I'd have to know exactly what I was looking for to find it.

In regards to appealing to the female gamer, I do believe the site's design is not as dark, harsh, and intimidating as some sites.  Also the selection of games, as I said before, are more casual.  According to the Casual Game Market Report in 2007, done by the Casual Games Association, women had a slight majority over men as casual players, making up 51%.  But they made up 74% of paying casual game players.  So based on those numbers, the decision to focus on simpler casual games is an effective choice.

In regards to connecting designers with players, I look forward to seeing some growth on the site.  Right now the framework is definitely there.  The site is set up with plenty of opportunities for designers to blog about their projects, to be represented in designer spotlights, and to communicate easily with players.  However, right now it appears not too many designers have taken advantage of this.  I find this disappointing.  As one of my goals as Examiner is to help shed light on ways to get into the industry, I would highly suggest taking advantage of any opportunity to connect with players.  If players get to know you and like you, you'll have a following, which leads to more hits, which leads to popularity, which leads to bigger and better things.  The framework is there at your disposal and the market is a thriving one, don't miss out on the opportunity.

Overall, I really enjoyed the site.  It is still fairly young and has a ways to go.  From what I can tell though, it is off to a good start.

http://www.examiner.com/x-4242-Baltimore-Gaming-Lifestyle-Examiner~y2009m3d13-ChineseGumcom-bringing-back-casual-Flash-games-for-women

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We've all learned in class that statistics show that the number of women casual gamers as slightly higher than men. But what i did find is that for some of us girls, some sites you go on, like the author of the article suggested, is quite intimidating and dark. And she also mentioned that the 'casual games' are much more complicated and long compared to the ones before. I feel that this doesn't only affect female gamers, it also affect non-regular casual gamers. 

So what's the best way to go about marketing the games/game sites? For me personally, i won't go search up a game and play it. I don't take the initiative to find new games to play. Most of the time, the only way i start to play a game is when a friend sends me a link and i get curious. That being said, with facebook, twitter etc, it's a smart way to marketing through those channels that targets peer to peer communication. For example, having people to test out games and then pass it on to their friends. Hey, if the game is good, word will start spreading and games will become more popular. So instead of having a vast variety of games on a game site that only regular site-goers will go to, try different channels. This may even help promote the game site itself! 

User Testing Experience

So as of now, our group SMK2 has gone through 2 full rounds of user testing. User testing is a process that tests the prototype on individuals who were not involved in creating a game. The objective is to find out the usability of the game and the different problems (such as navigational, instructional, or the flow of the game) the game may have. A lot of times, when the creator makes a game, they don't find these problems because they are already familiar with the game. We assume the audience knows what we know. This is where the user testing kicks in. 

It's quite interesting actually, i've gone through 3 different user testings for three different interface/games. Each time, before the testing begins, i felt quite confident on the actual interface/game. But once the testing begins, i often find out problems that are common to all the testers. As a result, the actual interface/game after user testing usually looks drastically different than it used to. 

This time, when we tested out the games, we found that there were a lot of instructional problems and that the game may be too wordy. As a result, players get frustrated and skip through and click until they get the answer right. After the initial testing, we had to build the game from scratch all over again. It was a pain because we had to figure out a new way to build the game, but it did work a lot better. So the new game went through the second round of testing. This time, although there are still a lot of changes, we don't need to rebuild the whole thing all over again. 

So it's no wonder that user testing is so crucial. I just wonder if all the applications, interfaces, games etc that i used went through a ton of user testing processes. 

How did all your user testing sessions go?