City of Eternals, an MMO That Actual Women Actually Play

Other World Notes: City of Eternals, the MMO I'm helping develop, just went into open beta, and while I'm obviously biased, I think the user data we're reporting from our 40,000 alpha players includes some pretty striking demographic numbers: the gender split is 60% male, 40% female, and 70% of the most active players are female.

That's fairly unprecedented. (With World of Warcraft, for example, only 16% of the player base is female.) Second Life also has a 60/40 gender split, of course, but then that's a user-generated social world, whereas City of Eternals is in many ways a traditional MMO with leveling stats, skill trees, and combat (the gameplay mechanics were largely developed by folks who created MMOs like Everquest 2, PlanetSide, Lord of the Rings Online, and Free Realms.) Despite that, most of the high level players are women, like Nileena (above right), and Diana (above left). Also interesting that most of them don't seem to be seasoned gamers; Diana, for example, is a concert violinist who plays our vampire MMO from Transylvania (now called Romania)!

Why the gender balance?

From my observation, the vampire theme strongly appeals to female players, and helps get many of them past an internal resistance barrier against traditional swords n' sorcery iconography. Integration with Facebook is also a factor (you log in with your Facebook account, and your profile is linked to and viewable in your CoE character profile.) Being on the web is probably another draw. Whatever the combination of variables are, the early results suggest we're starting to crack the code on making MMOs appealing to women. That's personally exciting to me, and one big reason I wanted to help my friend Susan realize her vision of MMOs for everyone.

Anyway, just a quick note from my day job. If you haven't already, I hope you try it out. Feel free to make me a Minion in your vampire entourage -- boot licking sycophant, maybe?

Comments

[Nexii Malthus]

Oh wow.

THAT is quite a significant feat.

[Hitomi Tiponi]

Just a factual point - Transylvania is only part of modern-day Romania (depending on how you define the old boundaries, no more than half). It is not clear from the article where Diana comes from in Romania.

Best of luck with City of Eternals - sounds interesting even though I have no interest in vampire roleplay.

[Isadora Fiddlesticks]

I'm in good company! Pretty ladies they are too! Started playing using my RL email address as it was the address I used in FB.

[Hamlet Au]

Rocking, Isadora! I'll Minion ya. :)

[Mycroft]

Wagner, I enjoy reading your informative news blog regularly. Might be time for a blog slogan change. Is “Reporting first-hand from SL” still exact. Would it be more precise to just change that heading to “Reporting on businesses placing money in Wagner’s hands”. Seriously man, haven’t you already got your book featured, and a bunch of right-side advertisements going on here.

The higher female demographics are because the ladies love them some Facebooks -as simple as that. Hook a game app up to Redneck Truckers .org and you get some stats like …damn son, redneck truckers love to play this here blood vampire application –hooyah! FB appeals to a large segment of women, like Oprah.

[Hamlet Au]

Actually, Mycroft, more users log-in through Cityofeternals.com, not the Facebook app, and it's very different from most social games, as it's a true MMORPG. To your other point, no, I'm not writing about it because it's a paid gig; I think the demographics are genuinely interesting (though of course I state my biases up front so you can take it or leave it as you prefer.)

[Mycroft]

Wagner,

Okay, I hear your point about logins. Perhaps that is true for first time sign-ups though, where the majority of original sign-ups come from FB traffic. For the record, no harm really with attaching to FB, sounds like a smart business strategy (as NWN has done several pieces about what a good idea leveraging FB IDs have been for easy registration). And I must have assumed that heavy FB connection because I noticed FB mentioned in most posts you regularly write about this well funded start-up).

Also, props to you for not deleting my sarcastic slogan change comment.

[Rodion Resistance]

In my opinion, people would only associate their real identities with their SL/online identities, if that act somehow benefits them, esp. if it benefits their inworld business. In my case, I make no effort in hiding who I am in RL because it seems to help in bringing in people who require my services. In turn, the ability to gain profit out of being in SL, became the driving force for making me stay here. Of course, there are those who say "if it doesn't benefit me in any way, why should I bother to tell anyone who I really am in RL?"

-RODION

[Mari]

So... as a female who has been playing CoE off and on since the end of the alpha test, I salute you and the team for making a game to which I am now addicted. I am not a PC gamer at all; even my gamer points on systems are mostly from Rock Band. I just can't get enough of CoE. I think it has to do with the addition of elements like harvesting and making - leveling up in skills that aren't just fighting - that makes this game so appealing to me.

[Hamlet Au]

Thanks very much, Mari!

[Terri]

While I am not a fan of the vampire genre myself, I am REALLY not a sword and sorcery fan so COE's modern day backdrop appeals to me immensely. The other big draw for what can only be described as my COE *obsession* is the ability to do quests/missions alone. I'm not one for teaming up with strangers in order to play a game, the way that most MMOs are set up. COE, which I learned about on this blog, has all of the elements I need to come back again and again.