Virtual Pets Blog

Creating a virtual pet site and succeeding part 2:
In our first article about creating a virtual pet site and succeeding, we covered games, pet features, promises, art, and social networking, however; we forgot to include a few things that’ll help your virtual pet succeed and we’re going to cover it in this edition.

Economy: the success of your virtual pet game all depends on its economy. Is it hard to make points? Is it hard to get rich? Is it easy for a newbie to become rich? We can build an economy easily by supply and demand. Are items selling for more than they are worth? Quests help establish an economy and if the rewards are good or well balanced - users will do them and continue to do them. You need at least 5 quest games on your pet site if you hope to establish an economy. If the items aren’t selling for more in the user shops than they are in the main shops, then you’re in trouble. Have you tried to implement an economy like the world? Do you have a stock market yet? A stock market helps bring points into the game as well give the users something to do. A stock market can be company-based or based on how the shops are doing. Is a shop doing bad? Make its stock go down. If the shops are doing well, then the stocks will do well. Does a lot of items stock in the main shops? Are rarities in place? If not, check them.
A good rarity system would be something like 1 - 100.
With 1 being the most common and 100 being the rarest. If you do it like that, then if its rarity is 1, then it’ll most likely restock all the time, but if its 100 then it’ll most likely restock once every 100 restocks. Restocks could be every 15 minutes or 30 depending on how successful your current economy is.

Users building content: Do you have an art gallery yet? What about a newspaper that provides users with an editorial, stories and more? An art gallery helps your users show off their art - and can be very rewarding. If you do create an art gallery, then be sure to update it all the time and make it an important feature of your virtual pet site. Users are always creating new content for your virtual pet site by chatting on the forums, by creating new blogs, and if you give your offers the abilitiy to create their homepage, then there’s even more content for you. Content is the key to a successful virtual pet site and if you don’t allow your users to create their own content - within your pet site’s rules, then you’ll have a tough time succeeding in this community.

Referral system: the referral system is a big feature on any virtual pet site and ca be very rewarding. Why should your users refer their friends? Are they getting rewarded for doing so? If you want to create a successful referral system, then make sure it has good prizes from points to custom-items that are only obtained from the referral system. Attractive banners are also good for this. Do you have plain banners? Well have an artist creat a new one that’ll attract a ton of new users. If your referral system sucks, then don’t expect users to refer - because they’ll do it for the prizes and do support your pet site.

Easy to navigate: Is your site easy to navigate? Can users fly passed each page and know where they’re going? You can do this by building homepages for certain sections - like a pets.php, make that page include every feature for your virtual pets and if you have a games section - make sure to split it into categories so its like flash games, luck/chance, and whatever else you have. If your pet site is easy to navigate, more people will join and your pet site will continue to grow. Navigation is the key and if you don’t have it, then you’ll have a tough time of becoming a big pet site.

The pets: What can users do to the pets? Can they customize them? Are they able to play, feed, and talk to them? A talking feature has never been released on a pet site yet - and if you were to create it, then you could create a dialog between the pets and the users. The user can type something in, and the pets would respond. The pets feature is an important feature for your pet site because it is a pet site and its main focused should be around the pets, however; you can create even better features that’ll help your virtual pet site succeed.

If you guys know of any other ways to help your virtual pet site succeed then feel free to post a comment!