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By Ike Suarez, Correspondent
User-generated content, an online community, and
a virtual economy are part of the features developers now
incorporate into the ecosystem of online games that repeatedly
attract tens and even hundreds of thousands of players worldwide.
Hampus Soderstrom, founder and CEO of the
Singapore-based game developer company Nabi Studios, gave this
advise as he spoke recently before participants in the 1st
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Youth Science Summit
at the Traders Hotel in Manila. Held July 8 to 10, it drew the
attendance of young delegates from each of the 10 member countries
of the Asean.
The three-day summit of the “best and
brightest” among the region’s scientifically-inclined
adolescents was hosted by the Department of Science and Technology through
its unit,the Science and Education Institute. It formed part of the
8th Asean Science and Technology Week celebrations that took place
in Manila where each of the 10-member countries’ science ministers
attended.
The Swedish game developer and CEO told his
audience that these features played a critical role in
attracting gamers worldwide to play a particular game. He said
creation of a virtual economy meant that developers could profitably
generate revenue streams from various online community members who
identified themselves with this game.
But he warned that a virtual economy could face
the same kinds of problems encountered in a real economy; thus,
measures would also have to be taken to counteract them.
Soderstrom noted that online gamers who
repeatedly flock to a particular online game have different
personality traits and motivations for doing so. These included
winners, socializers, achievers, creators, powers seekers, attention
seekers (trolls), traders, and hackers and exploiters.
He said enabling creation of user-generated
content would spur these different types of gamers to build a
community in a particular game. Some examples would be fight
replays, videos, textures and ability to modify content.
Online forums also enabled building of a robust
community, according to him. He said these would attract the various
gamers to flock and start threads where they could passionately
discuss their interests.
An online community would then enable creation
of a virtual community where goods and services could be bought and
sold. This would be done through creation of a virtual currency.
As reported previously by Tech Times, virtual
currencies are now promoted in the Philippines by franchise holders
of online games. Prepaid cards are sold enabling online purchase of
items by players when logged on to a particular game.
Soderstrom said developers could realize revenue
streams through micropayments from buyers who forming part of
different market segments. Such segmentation would be due to the
varied personality traits of community members.
He warned that virtual economies have the same
vulnerabilities as real economies, some of them being inflation,
hoarding, and scarcity. Steps would therefore have to be taken to
address them.
He added that eventually, the issue of taxation
would have to crop up in these virtual economies.
Soderstrom advised that mathematical proficiency
was the number one skill successful game developers had to
acquire.”All the math you learn in school you will need,” he
said.
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