Mar 3, 2015

Mafia Wars Metrics: Feb-March 2015

Share:

The first post I ever made about the Mafia Wars metrics was in June of 2010 [1]. At the time there were about 20 million monthly active users and we were concerned that there was a loss of about 3 million players in a month! This was the start of a rapid decline that has never stopped. Looking at the metrics today is scary but not surprising. There are less than 100,000 daily players and only 330,560 monthly players left. For years players have provided the necessary feedback for Zynga to do something about this but for years Zynga has done the opposite. It’s their game to lose and with all the loading issues and difficult events that cater to script abuse, it’s probably going to get worse. A new destination isn't going to fix this. I see very little excitement over this new destination and launching it before fixing the game will most likely cause further decline.

metrics1metrics3metrics2
These are the metrics for Vampire Wars right before Zynga shut it down. The monthly player metrics are very similar to Mafia Wars but Mafia Wars still has a lot more daily players. This is most likely explained by the rampant number of alternate accounts.
vampirewars4

13 comments:

  1. And I'll be willing to bet that Zynga won't upgrade the game to accommodate the new Facebook API on April 30. Unless they plan on moving MW to a mobile platform, which if that's the case I'll be gone because I am not paying one red cent on any games, especially ones that run like sh*t

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's not about the player metrics though it all comes down to money. When they closed Vampire Wars with Petville and about a dozen or so other games at the end of 2012 some of them Ville titles they closed had MORE users than MW has now. Yet they closed them anyway. MW is being updated faster than ever we can't go a whole half a week without crap loads of events being released at one go. This week is just another example of that. Look At the Vampire Wars wiki that game only ever had I'd say maybe 2 or 3 dozen events in it's entire life span. We probably get that a month as well as VIP loot arena loot war loot fight loot some new crates that Vampire Wars never got updated and they sponsor dozens of player made mock wars with specially made loot items as well.

    None of that might not sound like much as most the events are copy/paste but years ago Pincus went on video for an interview somewhere and said MW loot items take half an hour of a designers time. Designers don't come cheap. Yet Zynga have them making hundreds of loot items for various different releases at a time. 24/7. Vampire Ward on the other hand only ever saw maybe one little event every few months without even crate refreshes. If it was ever profitable it would have seen a whole lot more time spent on it being a text based game like MW it would have costed the exact same amount of money to make anything for it.

    Then again I'm not surprised. They sell bundles and people buy them even though it's a $$$ amount rather than costing RP. How many thousands of VIP subscribers has the game got paying monthly? All them whales listed on Mafia Tornado always maxing out on the latest Marketplace loot and anything else released. Then all the people who just buy RP on a smaller scale. Monthly game card deals topping it all up get lots of people spending. I bet this game is a nice little cash cow for them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Its the fighters who are the spenders in this game, not the serial levellers.
      MW will survive as long as it generates more money than it costs to keep it running.
      Unfortunately the fighters are being driven away with the increasing performance issues and the emphasis on events requiring massive amounts of energy.

      Delete
    2. I wasn't trying to say it wasn't the fighters keeping the game alive or anything but I'd be guessing on the arena is meant for fighters now more than anything.

      When the Ice Seasons where still fairly knew you could see the issues in server performance on the weeks one was active over the weeks that there was nothing. The fight list has always taken a battering server performance wise. batch clicks high health then once a page is empty and to be fair that's every 2 seconds X 20 for the different servers people are on it'd have to quickly find more targets.

      Yes jobbers can quickly build up server calls as well but no different lists per server ID number nothing that needs refreshing it's a lot less leg work for the hardware. And at that I'm not even looking at the work it does for the player getting hit. They lose health money have there fight losses build up the player updates needs updating and so does the rivals tab.

      I imagine the arena was the great answer to how to make the fighters happy. Restricting stamina pissed them off when energy wasn't. Restricting energy meant the free serial levelers would stop getting free health refills when they leveled and mean no targets for the fighters. but having all the stamina around meant things like unlocked MW running around doing 7 clicks a second and the servers going into meltdown not updating the player updates.

      Now with the arena the servers don't need to update player logs and people break from clicking when the targets are all dead and stamina is used a lot faster. Fighters still have to build att/def to be strong. Better attack means more points when attacking and better def means less people attack you and you can spend more time attacking again building points for more of the time. More points higher ranking and a higher ranking in return is a better XP ratio.

      While the fighters are doing what they do and don't have to worry about the fight lists it'll make money. And as you said money means it's still open for business.

      Delete
    3. Metrics is tied to money at the end of the day. Part of the appeal for the whales for spending money is so that they can beat up on all the lower levels/non paying players. If those players continue to leave the game then why would they spend money to beat up on no one?

      Delete
    4. No I'd say that's more likely the appeal to the thousands on VIP membership. Little advantages over the regular free players. The whales are the people who spend thousands and they could never spend another penny on this game and most would be able to beat all the free players from now until the game does close down and never have to worry about it just from all the money that they have spent on the game already.

      The whales continue to spend so that they can compete against rival whales. And them rival whales continue to spend for the same reason also. Nothing more nothing less. They've already spent so much no free player will beat them now. Not ever.

      It's the whales competing with each other that are keeping this game afloat and nothing else. They are the sole reason the free players still have a game to play on.

      Delete
  3. less than 100K daily users, and how many of those daily users have 1 or more accounts they use daily as well? I myself have 3 accounts, and most people in my MW family have at least 1 mini and we have 40 members. so when you factor that in, reality says there are probably 50K or less actual real daily active users left

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ive been a daily player for over 4 years now. VIP since it came out, but ill be cancelling VIP next month. The game is broken and it doesn't appear like we will get a fix for it. With less than 100K players we and it are last on Zyngas list and probably have been for some time now. If things continue in the direction they are the chances of me still being a daily player by the end of this year are very slim and still playing at all are very good. Its just a daily chore now filled with aggravation of page loading issues, game loading issues and broken features and its not worth my time of VIP money anymore. Quite frankly anyone that dumps money into something that's broken and does not work half the time should look themselves in the mirror and question how they spend their money.I've done that, and I cant justify it anymore, its insane.

    ReplyDelete
  5. When I click a button in the game, it routinely takes 10 to 20 seconds to respond. It's like they're *trying* to get rid of me because I'm not a paying player. How can a game possibly be this slow?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Everybody is seeing it. they just don't care, as long as Big money players keep paying for something that's broken, there will be no incentive for them to fix it

      Delete
    2. I have the same problem, taken to receiving gifts in one window and playing Arena in the other to get MW done.... and it's a chore, not fun anymore.

      Delete
  6. I have two VIP accounts, but I also regularly bought extra rp, usually for stamina refills. In November, after more than a month of having to hit reload several times every time I tried to help anyone, I decided to keep the VIP (as I'm almost topped out on those weapons), but I have not bought anything else, and I've not participated in the events that require rp to buy weapons to fight bosses, etc. The crappy fighting from the fight list won't make the arena appeal to me. I'll fight there once a day, with the boosts I have on hand, only to get my family requirement. I won't camp out there spending reward points for weapons and stamina refills. It's just another money hole.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Any idea how many VIP players (at any level) there are? Is MW retaining VIP players? Just wondering...following the money $$$

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated and will not be published until they are reviewed. Please don't use bad language or insult others. For faster feedback on questions, visit our fan page.