Sep 7, 01:32 AM

AGC Day 1

Well, AGC is off to a great start. The most interesting things I heard today are:

1. Austin Mayor Will Wynn’s opening remarks: It’s great to see a politician who supports the game industry and realizes that it can be can play a critical role in economic development. Austin is bigger city than Denver, Atlanta, and Boston? Who knew?

2. The idea of new MMOs cannibalizing existing ones is overrated. New games actually tend to grow the total number of subscriptions. (Bruce Woodcock, MMOGCHART.COM)

3. “Dormant Gamers” are a very interesting potential market. They have high disposable income, high interest and enthusiasm for gaming, but are also very constrained in their gaming time. Because of this, they pay a higher ratio of $/hour for online games. (Michael Cai, Parks Associates.

4. MMOs don’t have to be huge (WoW) to be successful. A small, independent team can make a successful MMO focusing on niches and a small player base. It all depends on deciding what your scope and scale will be up front. (Bill Money, David Reese, and Brian Green in the “Joy and Pain of Running your own MMORPG panel)

5. Game developers enjoy bitching about publishers. (MMOG Rant panel)

6. A successful launch is extremely critical for an MMO (MMOG Rant).

7. Fansites and blogs are becoming more important to the PR of a new game – you just have to manage and balance them well along with more mass-market targeted media. (Emerging PR Strategies Panel)

8. MySpace can be a useful tool in MMO PR. (Emerging PR Strategies Panel)

-Jon
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