Official logo of Fusion Fall
FusionFall hit 4 million accounts a few weeks ago, and celebrated with a press release and a free bubblehead helmet. I am not entirely clear on what that is, but you only have until May 1 to get it, so you'd better hustle.
Anyway, I read that press release, and because I am old and bitter and cynical, I thought "Yeah? So how many players do they actually have? No one ever tells us that."
I went to the website to see if I could puzzle out the answer, and got nowhere... but I realized the game itself looked really fun. The more I looked the more intrigued I got. I ended up shooting the community director (the mighty Rich Weil) a few questions, and he very kindly responded. He didn't answer my first question, mind you, because nobody answers that question unless you have some kind of edged weapon held against a major artery. But he did give me - and therefore us - a little peek behind the development curtain.
Enjoy the Q&A!
SW: So, we all saw the exciting news that a kajillion accounts had been created. But really, the only people who care about the "accounts created" number are the people who write press releases and company stakeholders. Don't be hatin' because I tell you the truth, now. Tell me what a player wants to know. How many warm bodies do you have playing, or if that's too hard to tell, what's your peak simultaneous player population looking like?
Rich Weil: Well, we just launched in mid-January of this year and are pretty excited to have more than 4 million registered accounts already up and running. As for subscriber and concurrent numbers, like most other MMO’s who have been live much longer than we have been, we can’t currently share that information, but we are happy with the response so far.
SW: I was talking to Pirates of the Caribbean guys at one point, and they told me one of their biggest surprises was how popular the game was among adults, considering they'd assumed the base would be tweens and teens that loved the flicks. The buzz I'm hearing about the new Sony kid game, Free Realms, is that adults are eating it up. FusionFall was aimed at kids, but what would you say is the percentage of actual kids?
RW: One of our biggest surprises in beta was definitely how many adults, especially college-aged girls, got into the game. They were a big part of our beta community and still are a very active and important part of our playerbase now that we’ve launched.
That being said, the vast majority of our players are kids, though we still have a significant portion of adult players (almost 1/3 of our total playerbase) because many families have also started playing the game together. It’s not all that surprising, since the properties represented in FusionFall span almost 15 years. Naturally, we have people of all ages playing FusionFall who literally grew up with some of the characters in the game.
Families are always looking for fun ways to play games together online. FusionFall challenges the kids, but unlike most kids games it’s also entertaining and engaging for adults as well.
SW: We've all seen a lot of MMO’s launch, and every single one of them has held a major surprise in the first six months for the development team.
What was your big surprise?
RW: There have been several surprises since we launched. First of all, the resourcefulness and imagination of our players has really been something to see. They make up riddle contests, hold dance parties, play their own versions of hide-and-seek and have their own scavenger hunts. Also, they have built up an extremely vibrant trading community, with lots of interest in all the various items in the game. We planned for an active community, but the levels of participation and creativity from the fans to date is pretty astounding.
Because it would be crazy not to pay attention to what our community shows enthusiasm for, we're already working on building new features that build on this enthusiasm.
SW: What's the most popular thing about the game?
RW: The “Infected Zones”, where players do most of the platforming gameplay, and the Nanos have been two of the more popular aspects of the game.
Platforming [Note from Sanya: Platforming is jumping/moving/puzzle solving like you did in Super Mario Brothers back in the day] is an aspect of FusionFall that we spent a lot of time and effort on, and the feedback so far has shown that players really enjoy the autonomy and different ways of navigating those areas.
Nanos are extremely popular for many reasons. First and foremost they are a reward for leveling, but they are also a collective aspect of the game that players have really responded to. Also, the Nanos being Cartoon Network characters in miniature that help the players fight their battles and complete quests, have personalities of their own that they bring to the table. It’s like having your favorite Cartoon Network characters are your personal sidekick in battle, dancing along with you when you triumph
SW: What would you like to do over from the development process?
RW: If we had to do it again, one thing we may have done differently is timing of the beta roll-out. We had a pretty large player base in closed beta, which is always great for real time feedback from players, discovering bugs and other issues, as well as testing the stability of the game. Ideally having more time between closed and open beta to hammer out some of the game’s stability issues would have made for a better player experience during our Sneak Peek weekends. Since the sneaks/open beta and launch, we have made several improvements to the game and encourage players to check out all the new updates.
SW: What is the Next Big Thing FusionFall fans have to look forward to?
RW: We are continually adding new content to the game, more recently in the form of new missions and collectible gear items. We also plan on some major updates and expanding the game internationally this year. The updates will include more characters, more missions, more equipment, more Nanos and, most importantly, whole new features and systems that will expand the way the game can be played. Players will get the chance to weigh-in on some of those updates, so fans of the game should watch our forums in the near future for some fun events associated with the coming updates.
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