[the_logos]

Based on what? Do you have some experience showing that simply, say, increasing client size by 10x increases conversion rates?

I mean, if you believe what you're saying you'd be busy packing garbage data into your client right now since you're asserting that bigger download is somehow going to get you a better overall conversion rate from people who view your site to people who stick in your game.

This misses the point. You're talking about the conversion rate of people who have already downloaded the client. I'd agree that the rate of people who stick who have bothered to sit through a fat download is likely to be higher than the rate of people who stick who didn't have to go through it.

That's just not particularly relevant. The rate you need to be concerned with is the rate of conversion between initial contact and sticking in the game and I don't believe you're going to be able to present a single piece of convincing evidence that demonstrates that pumping up the size of a client increases that ratio.

Again though, if you believe that a bigger client will increase your conversion rate, why not just fill your client full of useless data and pump it up to 100 gigs in size?


Yes, which again misses the point. You are talking about people who have already jumped the barrier to entry in the case of someone who has already downloaded the client or already spent money on the client (in the case of WoW, for instance). The point is that the higher the barrier to entry the fewer people will jump it. You might convert those few people more efficiently but again, what matters is how many people end up playing your game, not how efficiently the people who did download the big client stick with the game.

But again, I encourage you to test out your theory by pumping your client way up in size and comparing how many players X dollars in ad spending to people previously unfamiliar with text MUDs nets you compared to the same amount of ad spending when pushing people towards a thin client. If having a bigger client is, all other things equal, an advantage then you should find that the same ad spend gets you more players with the big client.

--matt