Inselkampf

[Harkins]

A friend gave me a link to http://inselkampf.com because she recalled me talking about browser games when she heard of it.

Inselkampf has no tutorial, one non-obvious help page, almost no graphics, no layout, no integrated forum or chat, maybe no inducements to interact with other players, gameplay entirely based on farming, and (what I think is killer) the first thing you do in the game is click a tiny icon to start an 80 minute build - with nothing to do until that completes.

Poking around in the rankings, it has 31,000 signups and 99.97% of the accounts have a score of 0, implying they never even started the first building. (Maybe they did and the game allows buildings to be destroyed; either way those accounts are abandoned.)

Seeing dozens of games like this with tens of thousands of signups and almost no players are why I thought there must be a market for a good game.

[jannesiera]

But the bloody simple layout makes you sign up though.

[toxin]

http://inselkampf.com/ (Daily Pageview 264)is not the first site for them from what i can tell the game was a German one first.
Inselkampf =Island battle  (Google translator )
The German site http://inselkampf.de/ (Daily Pageview 2835)may be more active. Not sure did not sign up

More info on  inselkampf.com   

More info on  inselkampf.de

[Scion]

I think this is repeated in many many PBBG's. It shows that PBBG designers and developers have a long way to go in terms of conversion.

Ok well conversion isnt just a problem for PBBG Designers its an issue on the Web full stop. But its something that a lot of games do very poorly.

Im sure that there is no end of literatur out there about how you can improve conversion, Perhapes its a something that the budding PBBG designer should take into account when they are designing their game....see if you cant combine some of the conversion techniques into your game from the start so you too dont end up with the first action being an 80 min build during which you cant do anything else.