First, the first few hours of Quake Live's open beta has seen a ton of traffic, so much so that there are queues to wait to play the game that have sometime taken an hour or more. Did you anticipate this much interest and what is id doing to get the wait time down to a minimum
Trying to anticipate how many people we'd have was very difficult. What we're releasing here is very unique in it's accessibility (free and via the web) and brand name (QUAKE), so we've always hoped that made it as much of an impulse try as anything. We knew that we'd have a lot of people try to join, but the numbers have definitely exceeded our expectations. The other part of this equation though is trying to figure out how much back-end server capacity we can afford to throw at the problem. You don't want to significantly over-purchase/lease the hardware (as it's extremely expensive - particularly for a free title), but you want "enough" and a solution that is scalable. All that said, being able to support every person that wants to play is our top priority and we are working on solving this on all fronts - hardware, software, and db - as well as scalability and optimizations.
More important than all of that though is that the feedback from people once they are in has been overwhelmingly positive. Everyone is really enjoying the game and seems to appreciate the changes and all of the work that's gone into the website. So, we have confidence that as we solve the challenges that almost every online game service faces when first opening to the public, we do have a product that people really like and will continue to share with their friends.
Can you give us an idea of how many Quake Live accounts have been created in the past 36 hours and if that number exceeded id's expectations?
We're not releasing any exact numbers right now, but in 36 hours we're closing in our our first month total projections for user accounts. (Editor's note: the official Quake Live Twitter site states that the game now has 290,000 registered accounts)
About how many games have been played on Quake Live in the past 36 hours?
I actually don't know right now. That's not one of the graphs we don't have immediately available (not a particularly important stat for keeping things running), and our database admin. is asleep (it's midnight and most of the team had worked the last 30 hours pretty well straight through). :) I can have him query in the morning and get you a number.
We haven't seen that much in terms of in-game ads in the matches we have played. Have the ads been turned off in this first phase of the open beta?
You'll start seeing ads appear very shortly - in fact, depending on what country you live in, you might already be seeing some. We're working closely with our ad partner, IGA Worldwide and QUAKE LIVE is one of their most anticipated and unique advertising opportunities. Advertisers like to see actual user counts, so now that we've opened and have that data, players will start seeing them very regularly.
The advertising aspect/business model is something that I'm very excited about because I think we offer something that no other premium game doing in-game ads does (and it's actually beneficial to both the gamers and advertisers). With other games that have in-game ads, it's more often than not the "impression" that's most important - i.e. a player's running through the level, sees an ad (impression), and hopefully remembers that later. No player is going to stop in the heat of battle to learn more or otherwise act on the ad - even if they are interested. However, in QUAKE LIVE - where the game is delivered, accessed, and played in this cool sports-style interface (for friends, leaders, communication, profiles, etc.) - we're now able to take that same advertising content that players see in-game and present it in a very familiar way on the website. This is where players have the opportunity to actually turn an impression into an actual interaction with the advertiser (i.e. a click to learn more). A big part of this is having advertisers that players are interested in, and I think that's where IGA has done a lot of work. We're already seeing great opportunities with movies, DVDs, computer hardware, etc. - things that I'm interested in and I think players will be to - and now they can actually check it out from the site, right after they've looked at their latest match results and tracked the leader boards.
Finally what else is id doing to add and/or improve Quake Live in the next week and when do you expect to remove the "beta" portion of the game for the full launch?
Our first and highest priorities are optimizations and scaling to handle our large and growing player base. Beyond stability and scalability, our highest development priorities are Mac and Linux, the "competitive features" set, the subscription/private match functionality and interface, some tutorial/training arenas, and working with some partners to help establish some online tournament/ladders with a more automated process. We have our hands full and don't have a specific timeframe for removing the "beta" tag from the site - it will be a while. Right now I don't envision us doing a "re-launch" of the site (for example, we don't plan to do any stats wipes), but rather working on everything mentioned above, rolling it out in pieces, and then just feeling comfortable enough with where we're at and simply removing that image from the site. The bottom line for us will be a commitment to keeping players entertained and active on the site and with the game, so everything will be geared towards that goal.
We're not releasing any exact numbers right now, but in 36 hours we're closing in our our first month total projections for user accounts. (Editor's note: the official Quake Live Twitter site states that the game now has 290,000 registered accounts)
About how many games have been played on Quake Live in the past 36 hours?
I actually don't know right now. That's not one of the graphs we don't have immediately available (not a particularly important stat for keeping things running), and our database admin. is asleep (it's midnight and most of the team had worked the last 30 hours pretty well straight through). :) I can have him query in the morning and get you a number.
We haven't seen that much in terms of in-game ads in the matches we have played. Have the ads been turned off in this first phase of the open beta?
You'll start seeing ads appear very shortly - in fact, depending on what country you live in, you might already be seeing some. We're working closely with our ad partner, IGA Worldwide and QUAKE LIVE is one of their most anticipated and unique advertising opportunities. Advertisers like to see actual user counts, so now that we've opened and have that data, players will start seeing them very regularly.
The advertising aspect/business model is something that I'm very excited about because I think we offer something that no other premium game doing in-game ads does (and it's actually beneficial to both the gamers and advertisers). With other games that have in-game ads, it's more often than not the "impression" that's most important - i.e. a player's running through the level, sees an ad (impression), and hopefully remembers that later. No player is going to stop in the heat of battle to learn more or otherwise act on the ad - even if they are interested. However, in QUAKE LIVE - where the game is delivered, accessed, and played in this cool sports-style interface (for friends, leaders, communication, profiles, etc.) - we're now able to take that same advertising content that players see in-game and present it in a very familiar way on the website. This is where players have the opportunity to actually turn an impression into an actual interaction with the advertiser (i.e. a click to learn more). A big part of this is having advertisers that players are interested in, and I think that's where IGA has done a lot of work. We're already seeing great opportunities with movies, DVDs, computer hardware, etc. - things that I'm interested in and I think players will be to - and now they can actually check it out from the site, right after they've looked at their latest match results and tracked the leader boards.
Finally what else is id doing to add and/or improve Quake Live in the next week and when do you expect to remove the "beta" portion of the game for the full launch?
Our first and highest priorities are optimizations and scaling to handle our large and growing player base. Beyond stability and scalability, our highest development priorities are Mac and Linux, the "competitive features" set, the subscription/private match functionality and interface, some tutorial/training arenas, and working with some partners to help establish some online tournament/ladders with a more automated process. We have our hands full and don't have a specific timeframe for removing the "beta" tag from the site - it will be a while. Right now I don't envision us doing a "re-launch" of the site (for example, we don't plan to do any stats wipes), but rather working on everything mentioned above, rolling it out in pieces, and then just feeling comfortable enough with where we're at and simply removing that image from the site. The bottom line for us will be a commitment to keeping players entertained and active on the site and with the game, so everything will be geared towards that goal.
City of Heroes Ultra Mode Screenshots_thumbnail.jpg "Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening")
Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Primal Carnage Screenshots_thumbnail.jpg "Theatre of War 2: Kursk 1943")
Theatre of War 2: Kursk 1943
Victoria 2
Dungeon Defense
Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited Screenshots
Boot Disk: Return to Castle Wolfenstein-(10)_thumbnail.jpg "LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 Screenshots")
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 Screenshots
I've been loving this so far.
When I'm meant to be working.
:)Posted at 4:39AM on Feb 27th 2009 by Ihavepants