|
|
|
List of forums -> Main forum of the online business game "Virtonomics" -> Competition: Best Blog about VirtonomicsDiscussions on our virtual business game, your ideas and game mechanics
|
||
| Topic: |
|
Modreator
|
|||||
 Virtonomics presents a new contest - best blog about Virtonomics with very valuable prize fund of 190 points! Blogging skills will come handy in many ways, so it can be the time for you to try yourself in writing. Participants Support our writers! Read their blogs, leave comments, click "like" and + G_Money33 Marloan_Morris TyStuFF paulotec Stages Stage 1 - duration 1 month Stage 2 - duration 1 month Stage 2 - duration 2 months Total duration - 4 months 1st stage will end Feb 5th, 2nd stage - Mar 5th, 3rd - May 5th Prize fund 1st place - 100 points 2nd place - 60 points 3rd place - 30 points Prizes for each stage 1 - 50% (50/30/15 points) 2 - 25% (25/15/8 points) 3 - 25% (25/15/7 points) Example: If your blog take 2nd place in 1st stage, 1st place in 2nd stage and 3rd place in 3rd stage, you will receive (30 + 25 + 7) 62 points. Even if you not going to make it into TOP 3 in 1st - 2nd stage you always have a chance to do better and take higher place in the next stage! Additional rewards Combo award. If a participant takes 1st place in all 3 stages he will get additional good prize of his choice. More information about combo award you can find in this topic at the end of January. Participation award. All participants who take 4-5 places in any stage will get award with small bonus to qualification. Blog Requirements - Minimum of 2 messages per week with screenshots from the game (uploaded to a place where they will be stored forever, like google pics or something). - Using key words in every blog's post such as: Virtonomics, online game, browser game, games for learning economics/economy, economic simulation game, Tycoon game, turn-based online browser strategy, etc. - Using links to Virtonomics main page, forum and pages in the game. Some links may (and better be) referral - Good language, connection to real economy and recent news, connecting between Virtonomics and real economy theories, etc. - Valuable and interesting information. You blog should be interesting to read. People should learn new things from your posts and discover game deeper. You can talk about new things in game, post news, political events, goals and achievements. Recommended blog platforms: WordPress Blogger Tumblr Medium Quora All from this list: What should i write? The ideal blog would be about starting a new company and starting playing from the You should teach player about game's rules, mechanic, principals and tricks. You should encourage them to play in team. You can even make new corporation of bloggers and start playing together, this would be awesome  ). Give people links to forum guides and tutorials, show examples, etc. All these is not obligatory (but what i previously said is preferable to get good marks for you blog). You can also make your blog about your current and developed company but in this case it would be nice if you going to set up specific goals to achieve for limited time (1-4 months). Make 5-10 goals, 5 long term (3-4 month) and 5 short term (1-2 month). Also you can come up with some totally different new idea about you blog and ask me here, if this is a good one. For example the great blog would be - Virtonomics Newspaper, where you will write about what is happening in the game, make reports and predictions, collect and analyze game's data, etc. Example: You can do something like this: How to start? 1. Choose what your blog will be about. If you not sure yet, ask in this topic. 2. Choose a blog platform from the list above. 3. Start writing  4. Leave the link to your blog in this topic so other people can see it, read and comment your messages. Determining winners - Number of messages is a key factor. Minimum is just 2 posts per week but you can do 5-7 and more, as long as quality of each message stays good. - Following basic Blog Requirements - Size of you posts. Long post are preferable if they have good quality - Connection with social network (twitter/ Facebook/Google +) is an advantage. So you made new post in your blog, share it (or give link to it) in your social pages. If you doing that, don't forget to let us know you social page address. - Number of visitors and traffic. It is very hard to make your blog popular for 4 month but you should deferentially try. Give links to your blog in different places, tell your friends (and people in Virtonomcis) about it. If you can make your blog a bit popular with natural traffic after 4 month - this is a major factor which going to determine a winner on 3rd stage. You should provide a screenshot with statistic to prove your success. - Comments. It is good if you blog will have valuable comments. That is why we reccoment to play this competition together, so all people who doing blogs will help each other and leave comments - On the first stage of competitions the main advantage have people who follow the basic Blog Requirements. For the second stage the most important factor us length and number of posts (with following the basic Blog Requirements and with good quality of posts). For the last stage all factors are taking into account. 100 friends Virtonomics has very nice referral reward program called "100 friends". Each player has his personal link and if someone register in the game by clicking on this link, player may get additional income. It can be hard to attract a person who will bring a lot of income to you but it is possible. This competitions fits perfectly with 100 friends complain. When you leave links to Virtonomics in your blog, make sure to make them referral links. For example my link is You can find you special ID for invitation in: Office => Invite friends All successful blogs which going to be started might be additionally awarded with later in case you not going to stop blogging after the competition ends. Good luck to everyone! |
|||||
| Message list: |
|
|
|||
| I decided to make a contest within the contest.... for further details view this forum post:
Enjoy and be Nice! 
Abso----listen to me----lootly! |
|
|
|||
| Disregarding fear of getting a negative I'll give my opinion. I'm in the middle on some of these comments. Isn't giving a contest like this just propaganda for the game? I mean if you want affiliate sites blinding pushing the game just pay them. It seems you are trying to get "free" advertising from people in a disguise of a contest.. Most of these type of blogs just peddle misinformation or plain lies to get people to play. I actually have a blog for browser games that defuses some of the myths of those games....stopped it because it took so much time. In essence the players are doing the work for little profit.
There are many good things about the game, but I see problems too, if someone writes something you don't like then i'm guessing they won't win? One thing I hate about games is the massive crap people put out when they are getting paid for it....Butt kissing and such. Writing a blog about this game is pretty short term, most of the posts on here are Questions/Answers (the few that there are). What are you going to fill days or months with? How many times can you blog about starting from scratch? I know how to do a blog but that's a lot of work/effort to keep up for a long time and pointless for gamers if people stop. If I was doing all the work for the game I'd rather just do pay-per-click or something to that effect. What is the point of this if you are gathering "friends" who already play the game to inflate your views/likes/comments? I like the line, it is good if you have valuable comments....kinda in the eye of the beholder. It's a good chuck of points, it would be nice to do more in game stuff across all levels instead. Word of mouth is always the best advertisement IMO, because it comes from someone you know and maybe trust. Build it and they will come as the movie says. Without more GUI to the game and less insane prices for points and things blogging doesn't do much to get new players IMO. I understand that by blogging the games name floats around more but unless the sites are high on the search list no one who doesn't know about it will see it anyways. Don't get me wrong it's nice to read G_money's blog but I'm not sure how that makes you guys more money, or how a "true" winner is picked unless the community votes which really isn't conclusive either. 
.......Hmmm....maybe I should start another blog! |
|
Modreator
|
|||||
| Well, what can i say? 1 - We doing what we can to promote and improve the game 2 - If people like to blog and they write interesting stuff, why not to make such competition? How can it be bad? They not lying when they say good things about the game (there are a lot of good things in this game and game is hugely underrated). Actually i don't read a lot good things in those blogs because there is no need to write thinks like: VIRTONOMICS IS AWESOME AND AMAZING GAME!!! PLAY IT NOW FOR FREE!They just write about the game and things they do. They share their thoughts. I don't think that anyone even doing direct advertising. 3 - I think this competition is successful even if we would only get G_money's blog. Having great stuff from Marloan_Morris, TyStuFF and paulotec made it worth it 100%. To be honest i expected 5+ people, but 3-4 if fine. Even when we made similar competition in Russian forum with 1000+ players, only 3 people participated there as well for the same prize fund. So for me this is success. 4 - If you don't like the rules/contest - don't participate I feel like some people think that giving out such huge prize fund is unfair. I can tell you that competition with such prize happens very rarely (next one might be few years later). It was hard to convince administration and to make this happen. And i think it is great that some people will receive quite some points for their fare work. After 1st year of playing in Vera there was a similar competition - best tutorial about Virtonomics and i won it. I v got 100 points. This 100 points really pushed me up in the game and i still appreciate it. I would never write such tutorial for 10 points and game would not have my tutorial attached so more then 1000 people have read it now. So i am asking: why are such competitions bad? It helps game, it helps old players who want to participate, it helps new players to understand the game better. 5 - if someone writes something you don't like then i'm guessing they won't win?Bad advertising is also advertising. Even if you make blog "i hate Virtonomics" and will write only bad things, if it is good written, you could win  Why? Encyclopedia dramatica comes to my mind. They write bad things about everything but things they write about get attention. People wanna go and check if this is all true and game is actually that bad. Although writing only bad things about Virtonomics would not be fare. Game still has very decent economy simulation which is really hard to find in internet. So you can write your blog fare way, talk about problems this game has but also mention good things in this game. For example: it can be hard to get enough resources on the free market to supply your factories and prices could be high. What you can do is to use independent suppliers who provide raw materials for $1 with unlimited quantity. So you said about a problem but you also proposed a solution. You being fare and helpful. This can totally work for a blog. 6 - Winners will be determined by Virtonomics team (Mainly by Diska). We will look on what it says in Determining winners section in the initial topic message. We can't determine winners by votes from players because... 
"Word of mouth" is great and everything but somehow sometimes it does not work. Look, game is out there 9 years, some Russian players playing for 8-9 years almost every day. They said nothing good about the game for all this time. I don't know why. If game is that bad why do they play it this long? I think the problem with "Word of mouth" is that it works only for Viral things. What are Viral things? Often those are simple and easy to get games. Those are what a kid can play. Kids can't play Virtonomics, therefore there is almost no Word of mouth effect. Most of our players are old and smart. They not going to post in twitter/Facebook/wherever things like: "i just made 1 trillion in Virtonomcis". They not going to tell their friends about it. They just quietly play and play, for years... Actually i i kinda know what you talking about. I v seen recent fallout 4 release and there were a ton of good reviews and videos all of which said: "fallout 4 is great!" (i am a big fan of fallout 2) So i am watching all that and... i keep hating Bethesda fallout more and more (even thought i love morrowing and the elder scrolls series). In the mean time if we look at steam reviews there are a lot of negative stuff. I don't like when 30-50% of the game's budget goes to promotion. This is just wrong (same thing with modern movies). Virtonomics is totally not like that. We not paying people for good reviews in blogs and not forcing them to tell only good things about he game, we just need the real game experience to be in internet and additional attention. |
|||||
|
|
|||
what a darn good answer... two thumbs up on that post!!!! @ jeka_igla 
PS: I hate fallout 4 ... it distracts people from Virtonomics... good part is... it has an end! 
PSS: I put a little encouragement contest out 2 days ago ... with Virts and Prices to win... PEOPLE: playing in silence... and their eyes cant see... good that the contest last for months... also good, cause its about the length of breath of a blogger not to become a blabber. |
|
|
|||
| There are multiple players who don't like this as a competition. It's basically free promotion for the game. The prize fund is very low for a good blog, if you look at the needed time for it.
Besides, I feel "forced" to get a certain amount of posts with a certain quality to be able to win. I like blogging, but as a competition I get bored of it after a while I think. If for example I get 3rd place I would say bye bye blog, 15 points for the hours I have put in it is not very motivating. 3rd place, more than 20 hours, 15 points. 15 points which isn't even enough to be able to produce the best new tea product from the smallest plantation ever. Imagine you just get 4th place, a minor qualification bonus, is that enough for these efforts? I guess being a volunteer to help old people is more fulfilling
And I care about this community. I post on the forum on a regular basis, trying to help out new players, and I like it. But nothing is given back to people like me. A few people had some penguin/owl award for their contributions, basically nothing, just a fancy creature. Actually giving something to the community doesn't happen. Only what is given are new products which need hyper inflated resources. And if there are discount actions it are resources we don't need. There is a huge corn surplus on the market and still they offered discounted corn farms a while ago instead of resource we actually need. |
|
Modreator
|
|||||
|
|
|||
Here: I still stand by what I say but not meaning it as you are bad to do it or anything, Not against advertising either. I understand the reasoning, just not a fan of it. I am blunt in my responses...just how I am. Keep trying!  |
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
I read and understand most of your points but I don't agree with this part. Some advertising helps, but I don't download/buy a game based on ads, I'm much too wise for that. Any online game I've played I constantly hear "I tried this game cause my buddy plays it". Not sure I've heard "well, they advertised the crap out of it, so it must be good!". In fact, just the opposite. People are skeptical of games that have all the "critics" praising it. Need I mention SWTOR or ESO? People would rather have a good game with little advertising verses a bad game that's popular. There is also nothing wrong with saying I get paid by whatever means to promote this game. I understand and partly agree when people see a browser MMO Business game they will do a double take. The fact of the matter is you can promote this game all you want and you won't hit big numbers because it's not in most people's interests. These games take a little more thought than a MMORPG, not many people want to think in life let alone a game. That is in no way putting this game down, but when you deal more in a niche market you obviously have a smaller audience. The smaller the target, the less money, features and advertising you can afford. IMO, most of that advertising money that games and companies spent is wasted. How many times do we get tired of seeing the same stupid ad on the same website more than once?? If they saved half of the advertising time and cost they spent on SWTOR they may have had a decent finished product that would have kept more people playing. Instead they ran a huge PR campaign, hyped the game up, and couldn't live up to it. I lasted a few months before I quit from bugs and boredom. This has been rinse and repeat so much over the last 5-10 years I have a hard time even putting the money and effort into games anymore. There is a reason forums get so popular, people like to see what actual players of the game think. When Sim City came out I was looking forward to it because it's one my all time favorite series.....I never bought it because of the secrets they held back from people. You have to be online all the time to play....no single player mode....bugs galore, Very small worlds. If I followed the advertising, didn't use my brain and read reviews of people that play, I would have wasted my money. 
My point is, you can add features, advertising, hype up games, but in the end if you don't have a product that has substance that keep people around it's all a waste anyways. Players will not stay around for boring and bad games (except WOW for some reason). On a side note, you have to be careful also of reviews as they also can be skewed. If a lot of people complain about the same thing it's pretty much a given that's it's the issue with the game. |
|
|
|||
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
the contest is becoming kind of interesting... regarding what the requirements for the first stage are, which is past soon... The Good Guys Story (my blog) has become very interesting, actual political events told with charm and comedy. Also the next weeks postings contain the manifesto of the Don.... be exited for this... Btw. I just looked who I am talking to. @ windps ...almost only highest end materials, stacked in warehouses but still just 190mio profit. Hmmm Who am I talking to....? "In Sicily, there would be a choir chair for you. Where you can sing like a bird. And the last question, before you walk in concrete boots off the planks of a fishing boat, would be: Who are you working for!?!" - just a little excerpt (cut) from the good guys story to give you an idea of the colorful writing style and the touch of realism. |
|
|
|||||
|
Chairman of the Board
|
|||||||||||
 First stage of blogging contest is over. First of all Virtonomics team want to say thank you to all participants for great job you have done!
After tense competition we had a hard time to determine winners. We really liked Marloan_Morris and G_Money33 blogs so we decided to give first place to both Marloan_Morris and G_Money33. Each blogger (Marloan_Morris and G_Money33) going to receive 50 points!  Their blogs were really close to each other in terms of quality and content and they are too different to pick a leader. As we understand worked with and wanted to split the award so Marloan_Morris will get 25 points and luisk2 will get 25 points to their Mary accounts. going to receive 50 points to his Lien account. It was also hard to determine who going to take other places. Paulotec's and TyStuFF's blogs were quite equal but they were behind Marloan_Morris and G_Money33. We decided that we going to give 3rd place to both and so both will get 15 points to their Mary accounts. In addition to awards in points we would like to give for "For contribution to the development of Virtonomics" to all bloggers! We really appreciate your work and you deserved this award! Congratulation! are not over yet so you might get a farm with a good discount
Thank you all last time for your great work and let the stage 2 begin! Now is good time to enter the contest |
|||||||||||
|
Modreator
|
|||||
| Some additional information and clarifications. Each participant was evaluated in a scale of 0-5 for each criteria by 4 members of Virtonomics team and average total marks were:
G_Money33 - 25 Marloan_Morris - 25 TyStuFF - 16 paulotec - 15 As you can see marks were quite close, that is why we gave 1st and 3rd place to 2 people. Instead of (50/30/15 = 95 points) we gave away 130 for the 1st stage
Here are some advises for bloggers on how they can improve their score/marks G_Money33 Strengths: Connection to real economy, Numbers of posts, Quality and passion, Grammar and language Weaknesses: Social Media Connection, Traffic and SEO We really enjoyed reading your blog and it can be interesting even to people who don't know anything about Virtonomics which is great. We wish you to keep your great level of passion and quality. Mi might suggest to change template and design (although we didn't evaluate this when we marked blogs) and just save up energy to keep your passion longer so people would enjoy reading your blog for all 3 stages and may be even longer Also you might need to do a bit more work on SEO and traffic, maybe cooperate with other bloggers and promote your blog in some places but this is actually not that necessary.
Marloan_Morris Strengths: Social Media Connection, Traffic and SEO, Numbers of posts, Quality and passion, Grammar and language Weaknesses: Connection to real economy We understand that Connection to real economy criteria is out of the format of your story, that is why we struggled a lot to determine a winner. We liked your blog and story a lot and we can just wish you inspiration and to keep your good work! TyStuFF Strengths: Quality and passion, Grammar and language, Size of posts, Weaknesses: Connection to real economy, Social Media Connection, Traffic and SEO, Numbers of posts Actually we thought that by Quality and content TyStuFF's blog is very good, detailed and well written but there were some important factors which reduced total score. The main factor was SEO and traffic (int/ext links, page authority, domain authority, links to Virtonomics, etc.). We think that one of the reasons is the fact that you used your own domain instead of trusted by google blog services. With your quality of the content you don't really need a lot of posts because yours are actually the most helpful to a new player which is really great for this contest. You might consider to transfer your blog to blogspot or to some other trusted domain and to pay more attention on SEO/key words. We think that your blog has a lot of potential to be in top 1-2 even if you will write the minimum of 8 posts per month and keep the quality on same high level. We hope that you will continue this competition and we wish you a good luck! paulotec Strengths: Numbers of posts Weaknesses: Grammar and language, Connection to real economy, Social Media Connection Your blog is decent! There are some interesting information and you made a lot of good posts. Also you have been active all the time and we respect that. The big Weakness is Grammar and language but we understand that this can be hard to improve fast. What you can do to improve results is to stay active and to pay more attention on your Weaknesses and keep producing good content. Good luck in next stages! We hope that all participants going to stay with us for 2nd and 3rd stages and if anyone wanted to join the contest, you are welcome! Now is good time to start from the 2nd stage
ps Award "For contribution to the development of Virtonomics" should appear in your profiles tomorrow. If we transferred it to a wrong realm, please let's us know in this topic. |
|||||
|
|
|||
| Huh , 3rd place , I think it's actually ok . Thank you so much , that even if I'm fourth , I became some points What I can say about my content , is that I play since November 2015 . I am not a broker or at least working in this large domain , called economy . I'm just 19 and I'm competing with the giants of this game .
sooo happy
Cheers ! paulotec |
|
|
|||||||
List of forums -> Main forum of the online business game "Virtonomics"-> Competition: Best Blog about Virtonomics |
Copyright © Simformer Inc. 2024. || @ Virtonomics | Business simulation game
The use of any materials and articles from our website is possible only with a direct link to the Virtonomics website. When mentioning our business game in publications, please use the names "Economic game Virtonomics" or "Tycoon game Virtonomics".
