[casual_games] Casual games user groups (player side)

Wed Sep 28 18:12:23 EDT 2005

Hi Jeff

This is an interesting point and one we've thought a little about. It's a
hard balance to get too, we don't want to over sensor users views, but
you're right we don't want childish guff on the site either.

I'm hoping that with some strong editorial control in the early days, we
will set a standard as it were and hopefully start getting useful comments
and reviews. We'll also allow users to 'rate' comments in a quick and simple
way ('useful' or 'useless' links next to everyone) and then sort them by how
useful they are voted so the rubbish should drop to the bottom of the page.

This is also a problem we have with score tables generally and I'd really
like to find a definitive list for an offensive language filter. Anyone got
one out there?

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts and glad you like the site

Colin

Colin Cardwell - Director - 3RD sense Australia Pty Ltd
T. +61 (0) 2 9959 1008     M. +61 (0) 401 888 322   
E.  <mailto:colin at 3rdsense.com> colin at 3rdsense.com    W.
<http://www.3rdsense.com/> www.3rdsense.com

 <http://www.playaholics.com/> www.playaholics.com - play games and win
stuff
 <http://www.chickstop.com/> www.chickstop.com - for girls who like to play
 <http://www.millionsofgames.com/> www.millionsofgames.com - source, save
and share your favourite online games

  _____  

From: Jeff Murray [mailto:jmurray at fuelindustries.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, 28 September 2005 7:11 PM
To: colin at 3rdsense.com; IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: RE: [casual_games] Casual games user groups (player side)

Hi Colin,

The only thing remotely similar that I can think of (although now flooded
with popups and adverts, which for me grinds the speed of the site down to
virtually un-useable) would be ArcadePod.com. This used to be a very good
site for putting games onto, but slipped somewhere along the way into a
spam-fest both from the site itself in the form of popups and the users in
terms of insulting each other in reviews.

One of the biggest things that I notice about arcadepod was that the reviews
were mostly absolutely useless. It was almost as though most people just
went on there to swear and post childish comments about everything... not at
all useful for either the developer/client or potential player. Even the
larger sites like Shockwave.com are flooded with total guff in the reviews
... things like 'my browser broke' or 'dave is a ****' etc.

If you're going to include reviews, I know swear filters are mostly useless
but it may cut out one or two of the kiddies. What I'd suggest is that, if a
post contains offensive language (or even possibly offensive keywords like
those related to sexuality which seems to be a favourite talking point on
arcadepod!), it should re-direct the user to an 'offensive post' page and
NOT actually submit the post at all.

Just a thought. I got really tired of reading non-productive reviews of my
games on arcadepod and so ditched it ...

Any ideas on how you'll deal with this yet?

Great work so far - glad it is taking off so well and I hope it continues
for you. Anything that promotes online games is ok by me!!

Parrot. 

-----Original Message----- 
From: Colin Cardwell [mailto:colin at 3rdsense.com] 
Sent: Wed 28/09/2005 02:54 
To: 'IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List' 
Cc: 
Subject: RE: [casual_games] Casual games user groups (player side)

As some of you know, we've launched MOG (www.millionsofgames.com) in the
last couple of weeks. The very purpose of the site is to provide a community
for casual game fans. Although at the moment Moggers (our members) can store
their favourite games and rate them, they will soon be able to add
comments/reviews of games. We also track game plays and who has Mogged a
game. The data is time based so once we have sufficient volume of usage,
we'll be releasing daily, weekly, monthly charts overall and in each game
category, hoping to give everyone who is interested in casual games a very
valuable source of useful data.

The growth of the site I think is interesting. It has been picked up by
quite a lot of news sites, the home page of Slashdot helped a lot. What's
key for us though is that almost 900 games have been added in only 3 weeks
by our Moggers and if that rate continues, we'll pretty soon have the
largest list of online and casual games around, which is our goal. Add to
that reviews and the other data we're collecting and you can begin to see
the potential of the site. 

I'm not just trying to tell you how wonderful our site is by the way, I'm
just trying to explain some of its potential, it certainly still has a long
way to go. We very much want this to be a community site so we would be very
interested in views/ideas/feedback/requests from this group in particular.
If this site builds to the level we anticipate, it will be a great place to
promote any new games you have (and old ones for that matter), get ideas for
games, see who likes what, find out what doesn't work, etc etc. 

I hope this was useful.. 

Colin

Colin Cardwell - Director - 3RD sense Australia Pty Ltd
T. +61 (0) 2 9959 1008     M. +61 (0) 401 888 322   
E.  <mailto:colin at 3rdsense.com> colin at 3rdsense.com    W.
<http://www.3rdsense.com/> www.3rdsense.com

 <http://www.playaholics.com/> www.playaholics.com - play games and win
stuff
 <http://www.chickstop.com/> www.chickstop.com - for girls who like to play
 <http://www.millionsofgames.com/> www.millionsofgames.com - source, save
and share your favourite online games

  _____  

From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of Wade Tinney
Sent: Wednesday, 28 September 2005 12:30 AM
To: 'IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List'
Subject: RE: [casual_games] Casual games user groups (player side)

Just to clarify, James. You are asking about groups/sites where casual games
are discussed and/or reviewed by players, right (and NOT links to sites that
simply distribute said games)?

It's a very good question. I've had a tough time finding such sites in the
past. I'd love to hear what you uncover. 

There is a lot of player-to-player interaction on Pogo, of course, but it
happens in real-time during play. 

Also, if you've never checked out the contest winners pages on WildGames,
those are pretty interesting/entertaining as well. At the bottom of this
page, you'll find a whole set of "view winners" links: 
http://www.wildgames.com/ECS/htdocs/contests.aspx?dp=wildgames
<http://www.wildgames.com/ECS/htdocs/contests.aspx?dp=wildgames&bw=high>
&bw=high

I realize it's not exactly what you're talking about, but if you're looking
to better understand the casual audience, I think its pretty useful. 

-Wade

-----Original Message-----
From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of Jack Pearson
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005 4:16 PM
To: Andy Makely; IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: RE: [casual_games] Casual games user groups (player side)

www.tournamentgames.com  online pay to play tournaments. All DirectX casual
games online since since 1997.
236 million games played to date.  350,000 played each week

Jack Pearson, CEO
Tournament Games Inc,
www.TGPool.com
www.TournamentGames.com 
jack at tournamentgames.com

-----Original Message-----
From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]On
Behalf Of Andy Makely
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005 1:39 PM
To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [casual_games] Casual games user groups (player side)

www.jayisgames.com is a great games blog that covers primarily web games,
but also touches on downloadables sometimes.

-- 
andy

On 9/26/05, James Baker - WDDG/Inferno <james at wddg.com> wrote: 

I'm trying to put together a database of user-groups and/or websites on
the user/player side that are dedicated to casual games.  Anything from
forums dedicated to word games to yahoo groups to newsgroups to websites 
would help me out.

Thanks!

James Baker
Principal
WDDG/Inferno/Funtank
212-219-9222
james at wddg.com
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