If you had all the customer databases from all the MMOs, what top 3 questions would you ask?

Fingz

MMOs often keep their customer databases secret. Say hackers got every customer database from every MMO and posted it online, this database contains names, date and time played, hours played, what they purchased from the cash shop, etc, pretty much everything an MMO could collect on customers.  Also many of these databases link to facebook, linkedin and twitter so that data is included to.

Another group made an easy to use interface so you could ask it most any question you could think of.

What would be your 3 top questions?

Example questions might be "how many people from Norway were playing Everquest during the World Cup?" or "What is the median age of people who buy from the cash store?"

Phry

i think the first question i would ask would be, do they enjoy prison food.

Antiquated

1) Is "shadow" really the most common and overused of all name roots? Or is it "stalker"?
2) How many players are really founders "I've been here since beta rawr," and how many just pose on the forums?
3) How much monthly income (from all sources) really comes into your game / how much is budgeted for future development / how much goes for new Executive Ferraris?

jalexbrown

1. What percentage of money spent in cash shops actually goes towards truly pay-to-win aspects versus cosmetics/boosts/convenience items?

2. What gender and age group is really spending the most on MMOs?

3. How much time does the average player spend on one MMO sitting, broken up by age groups and gender?

whilan

1. How did these people get ahold of this information?
2. Are you making progress on closing these loopholes?
3. With these new features in place what is the likiehood that these will get leaked again?

I don't care what other people do in a game as this information is almost useless to me, I do care that possibly personal information managed to get out somehow and is being posted.

jalexbrown

whilan said:

1. How did these people get ahold of this information?
2. Are you making progress on closing these loopholes?
3. With these new features in place what is the likiehood that these will get leaked again?

I don't care what other people do in a game as this information is almost useless to me, I do care that possibly personal information managed to get out somehow and is being posted.

That is incredibly pragmatic.  I have to say I like it.

sunandshadow

This data probably wouldn't actually be in there, but I'd want to know, for a specific type of MMO, what are the best venues for catching the attention of people who have invested in similar games.

5Luck

How many players are flagged for cheating?
Per genera?
How many players are banned that come back with same IP new accounts?

Elsabolts

I would go to RL and give captured ISIS folks to the Kurds and a video camera. It would be great recruitment material.

cameltosis

1. Retention Levels

I'd want to see retention levels of each MMO. So, what level did people reach before they quit? How many hours played before they quit? Elapsed time before they quit. Money spent before they quit. I'd need to be able to break this data down by age, gender, plus time period the player joined after initial release. 

2. PvP Participation

How many people have participated in PvP in each MMO. Broken up by age, gender, time spent in pvp, regularity etc. 

3. Raiding Participation

As with PvP, but I'd like to see success rates as well as everything else. 



I would hope that these three bits of information would help inform development of future MMOs. For example, when I still played LotRO, the devs said (around 3rd expansion) that only 10% of the playerbase raided or pvped at all, and only 5% regularly. However, if only 20% of the playerbase reach endgame, then that stat is actually really good.

I'm also really curious about retention rates, especially old mmo versus new mmo. There's obviously been tons of speculation on such things over the years, but I'd like hard data. Just how many subs did SWG have? How many subs did SWTOR drop after the first month? Are people quitting once they "complete" the game, or are people quitting because the game is bad. 

LynxJSA

What is the average session time for players, segmented by hours per week played?

What are the top 5 most common cancellation reasons given?

What dates showed the biggest spikes in PCU? (followed by per-game research of the significance of those dates)




To help those not familiar with what might be in a player database, click "Take a look at my data" on this EVE Online player's Year in Review site:

https://spreadsheetsin.space/year-in-review/

And that's just public data.

Gaming.Rocks2

- How many couples met in-game and married in real life. 
- Who are the people whom bash games in the forums and secretly play them. 
- Who are the people whom never played EQ. UO, Neverwinter Nights, Meridian 59, DAoC, etc. and constantly talk about the good old days. 

Amathe

I find myself strangely incurious and without questions. But I might want to look up some old friends. 

Superman0X

I would cross reference the data, to see how many customers they had in common, and the spending patterns of those customers.

VestigeGamer

1) What activities are they partaking in?
2) How long do they stay in the game?  (Continuous or sporadic?)
3) How social are they?  (Mainly solo or group?  Guild participation?)

Gardavsshade

1.) What makes them stay in that MMO.

answers everything I think really matters.

Fingz

1. How many real life women play in each MMO?

2. With anime, people consume the genre for 2 years and then leave, is it the same with MMOs?

3. Are a lot of young people joining MMOs? 13-15 years old?

Antiquated

Fingz said

3. Are a lot of young people joining MMOs? 13-15 years old?

"Paging pedobear, emergency, come right away."

Grunty

Are you interested in a class action suit against game publishers that sold your user information to us?

DrDread74

Antiquated said:

Fingz said

3. Are a lot of young people joining MMOs? 13-15 years old?

"Paging pedobear, emergency, come right away."

http://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l4s2252QIu1qankvno1_1280.jpg