Community
November 2009
Giving Thanks
Wed, 2009-11-25 16:43 — HerInteractive
Tomorrow a lot of us are planning to sit down with friends and family for a great Thanksgiving feast! We had our own feast at Her Interactive today - the Pancake breakfast! It's a time for all of us to come together to share food and memories with each other. I know it sounds a little cheesey, but we get so busy with our aggressive development schedule that we don't get to talk to each other about other things sometimes. We're thankful that we have such great fans that helped our Nancy Drew games becomes a successful franchise. We're thankful thankful that we get to make two games a year and that our fans love our games.
So to thank our fans on this Thanksgiving, we have a special code for 50% off one of our most beloved games - The Secret of Shadow Ranch. Our fans love working in a ranch, interacting with the horse, and of course, Dave. The download is available exclusively on Her Interactive - enter SHA50 during checkout and you'll be able to download the game for just $9.99. This coupon code is only valid through Monday 11/30/09.
We wish you a Happy Thanksgiving and we'd like to give thanks to all of our fans for supporting us!
PS. Here's an interesting fact - did you know that the President receives a turkey every year during Thanksgiving and the chosen bird is spared the fate of being the main course?
So to thank our fans on this Thanksgiving, we have a special code for 50% off one of our most beloved games - The Secret of Shadow Ranch. Our fans love working in a ranch, interacting with the horse, and of course, Dave. The download is available exclusively on Her Interactive - enter SHA50 during checkout and you'll be able to download the game for just $9.99. This coupon code is only valid through Monday 11/30/09.
We wish you a Happy Thanksgiving and we'd like to give thanks to all of our fans for supporting us!
PS. Here's an interesting fact - did you know that the President receives a turkey every year during Thanksgiving and the chosen bird is spared the fate of being the main course?
Reflections
Tue, 2009-11-17 12:56 — HerInteractive
Here at Her Interactive, it's time for self evaluations. We make a list of all our accomplishments for the year and then another list of all the things we want to work on for next year. It's important to look at the good along with the 'needs improvement' so we can continue to grow. So here's Her Interactive's list that we came up with:
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
1) launched our first Hardy Boys game
2) launched our first game on the Nintendo DS
3) launched three PC games - Warnings at Waverly Academy, Ransom of the Seven Ships, Nancy Drew Dossier: Resorting to Danger
4) wrote our first Twitter soap opera "Watching Waverly"
5) made 6,273 friends on Facebook
6) found 1,780 followers on Twitter
7) started the Amateur Sleuth blog
8) redesigned the message board and website
9) created our own YouTube channel
10) created microsites for our games at www.TreasureOnTheTracks.com, www.RansomOfTheSevenShips.com, www.ResortingToDanger.com, and www.WarningsAtWaverlyAcademy.com
NEEDS IMPROVEMENT
1) getting feedback from fans - we need to do more surveys to ask about how our fans felt about the game
2) updating the Dare to Play blog on a weekly basis - it would be nice if we could be more consistent with our posts
3) work toward getting back to the 'classic games' - fans keeps saying we're missing that little bit of magic that got them hooked on the games
4) promote the Nancy Drew game soundtracks better - they're kind of hidden on the site
5) create more downloads and content for the games we release - more wallpapers, screen savers, bookmarks, etc. for our fans to use
That's our list in a nutshell - do you have anything to add in their the ACHIEVEMENTS or NEEDS IMPROVEMENT section? Let us know!
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
1) launched our first Hardy Boys game
2) launched our first game on the Nintendo DS
3) launched three PC games - Warnings at Waverly Academy, Ransom of the Seven Ships, Nancy Drew Dossier: Resorting to Danger
4) wrote our first Twitter soap opera "Watching Waverly"
5) made 6,273 friends on Facebook
6) found 1,780 followers on Twitter
7) started the Amateur Sleuth blog
8) redesigned the message board and website
9) created our own YouTube channel
10) created microsites for our games at www.TreasureOnTheTracks.com, www.RansomOfTheSevenShips.com, www.ResortingToDanger.com, and www.WarningsAtWaverlyAcademy.com
NEEDS IMPROVEMENT
1) getting feedback from fans - we need to do more surveys to ask about how our fans felt about the game
2) updating the Dare to Play blog on a weekly basis - it would be nice if we could be more consistent with our posts
3) work toward getting back to the 'classic games' - fans keeps saying we're missing that little bit of magic that got them hooked on the games
4) promote the Nancy Drew game soundtracks better - they're kind of hidden on the site
5) create more downloads and content for the games we release - more wallpapers, screen savers, bookmarks, etc. for our fans to use
That's our list in a nutshell - do you have anything to add in their the ACHIEVEMENTS or NEEDS IMPROVEMENT section? Let us know!
On A Scale of 1-5...
Fri, 2009-11-06 16:03 — HerInteractive
Every year we like to look back and reflect on how we've done each year. This year is no different and we have a lot of questions to ask our fans. We generally like to survey our fans and ask what they think about each game at the end of the year. So look for our 'post-mortem' surveys soon.
We have lots of questions in mind, such as
1) Which game is your favorite?
2) Who is your favorite character?
3) How would you rate Ransom of the Seven Ships on a scale of 1-5.
4) Who is your favorite character in Warnings at Waverly Academy?
5) Did you like the new user interface in Resorting to Danger?
We have to make most of our questions multiple choice, so users can pick one of the answers we provide. We call these quantitative questions - meaning they give measurable numbers and provide specific answers. Otherwise, a lot of people will have the same answer to a question but give the answer in a different way. For instance, we may ask question 5 - who is your favorite character from WAC and we'll get: Corine, Cornie, Corine Meyers, CM, Corine M., Corrine - but they're all trying to say the same thing and that makes it very difficult for us to count how many people liked Corine the beset out of 2,000 responses to the question.
There are also qualitative questions that are much harder to measure but give us great information about what our users want to tell us. Sometimes we ask why questions such as,
6) Why did you like Ransom of the Seven Ships?
7) What can we improve for the next game?
These 'why and what' questions can be helpful, but we have to read through 2,000 responses and try to figure out the main point of each one and tally up the number of response for each main point. Some firms specialize in this type of online survey they have statisticians and market research specialists on hand to help analyze the data. Here at Her Interactive, we undertake that tasks ourselves as just another part of marketing. We look at the numbers and figure out what they mean to try understand what our fans are trying to tell us.
So, if you were writing a survey for our fans, what questions would you want to see on it?
We have lots of questions in mind, such as
1) Which game is your favorite?
2) Who is your favorite character?
3) How would you rate Ransom of the Seven Ships on a scale of 1-5.
4) Who is your favorite character in Warnings at Waverly Academy?
5) Did you like the new user interface in Resorting to Danger?
We have to make most of our questions multiple choice, so users can pick one of the answers we provide. We call these quantitative questions - meaning they give measurable numbers and provide specific answers. Otherwise, a lot of people will have the same answer to a question but give the answer in a different way. For instance, we may ask question 5 - who is your favorite character from WAC and we'll get: Corine, Cornie, Corine Meyers, CM, Corine M., Corrine - but they're all trying to say the same thing and that makes it very difficult for us to count how many people liked Corine the beset out of 2,000 responses to the question.
There are also qualitative questions that are much harder to measure but give us great information about what our users want to tell us. Sometimes we ask why questions such as,
6) Why did you like Ransom of the Seven Ships?
7) What can we improve for the next game?
These 'why and what' questions can be helpful, but we have to read through 2,000 responses and try to figure out the main point of each one and tally up the number of response for each main point. Some firms specialize in this type of online survey they have statisticians and market research specialists on hand to help analyze the data. Here at Her Interactive, we undertake that tasks ourselves as just another part of marketing. We look at the numbers and figure out what they mean to try understand what our fans are trying to tell us.
So, if you were writing a survey for our fans, what questions would you want to see on it?
