Photics.com » Site News

Tapscape Reviews Commove

Photics — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:48:22 +0000

Tapscape.com has posted a review of Commove (for iPad). It’s an excellent critique that highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the puzzle game. Lauren Proctor says, “the overall game experience is extremely fluid and enjoyable.” She also mentions the “excellent soundtrack” and explains the game as, “a story that puts you into an alternate universe.” It appears that the play at your own pace design of the game was appreciated by the reviewer. You can read the full review at the Tapscape.com website.

Photics.com & GuildWars.us January 2010 Web Report

Photics — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:01:16 +0000

With the launch of a new website and a new game, I thought it was important to take a look at the Photics.com / GuildWars.us web traffic reports. Last month was actually a successful month for the website. Thanks to my online game designed for Android phones, there was a lot of website activity and a lot visitors. It wasn’t record breaking traffic, but the reports showed that I made some good decisions in the management of this website. Yet, this is only a beginning. There’s a lot more work to be done. March 2009 still stands as the benchmark to surpass.

First up, the GuildWars.us stats. The site is still new. The traffic will increase gradually as more and more websites link to the site. Eventually, and more and more Guild Wars fans will start visiting the site.

Hits
Total Hits...............................161,980
Visitor Hits.............................154,926
Spider Hits................................7,054
Average Hits per Day.......................5,061
Average Hits per Visitor......................43
Cached Requests...........................12,120
Failed Requests............................1,356

Page Views
Total Page Views..........................58,491
Average Page Views per Day.................1,827
Average Page Views per Visitor................16

Visitors
Total Visitors.............................3,604
Average Visitors per Day.....................112
Total Unique IPs...........................2,315

Bandwidth
Total Bandwidth..........................2.56 GB
Visitor Bandwidth........................2.26 GB
Spider Bandwidth.......................314.24 MB
Average Bandwidth per Day...............82.03 MB
Average Bandwidth per Hit...............16.59 KB
Average Bandwidth per Visitor..........656.54 KB

The February report for GuildWars.us should be interesting to see, as I’m planning to switch back to VBulletin tomorrow. WordPress MU was fun, but then the spammers started running amok. I could easily swat them away, but there was another big complaint. The GuildWars.us blogs were hard to find. The new system should improve the situation. Considering that I’m bringing back the forums, I don’t want to manage two content management systems.

OK, now for the main course. Photics.com had a decent month. This is mainly because of the relaunch of Guild Wars: Conquest. The game is still in the beta stages, so this is encouraging.

Hits
Total Hits.............................1,464,999
Visitor Hits...........................1,381,027
Spider Hits...............................83,972
Average Hits per Day......................45,781
Average Hits per Visitor......................45
Cached Requests..........................134,552
Failed Requests...........................41,993

Page Views
Total Page Views.........................830,054
Average Page Views per Day................25,939
Average Page Views per Visitor................27

Visitors
Total Visitors............................30,918
Average Visitors per Day.....................966
Total Unique IPs..........................13,877

Bandwidth
Total Bandwidth.........................13.66 GB
Visitor Bandwidth.......................12.41 GB
Spider Bandwidth.........................1.25 GB
Average Bandwidth per Day..............437.12 MB
Average Bandwidth per Hit................9.78 KB
Average Bandwidth per Visitor..........420.92 KB

With approximately 50,000 player attacks last month, I feel a little bad. The most active part of my site is where people from all over the world attack each other. Seriously, there’s like no downtime. Every hour of the day, there’s fighting going on.

With traffic so constant, there isn't a clear window for site maintenance. Even at 5 AM, it could annoy a lot of people.

I created Photics.com to rid the world boredom, to add creativity to my life and others. This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. Yet, I can’t argue with the success. With 2500+ accounts, that’s a pretty good start. In February, a significant update to the game should occur. A mass email is planned, perhaps before and after the update. But unfortunately, these numbers don’t surpass the March 2009 highs. 31,000 visits is a pretty good number, but it was much higher last March. I’m not going to be satisfied until I pass those earlier highs.

But wow, when you really think about it, these numbers are insane. Online, I’m like a rock star. These kind of numbers fill sporting arenas. But as web standards go, it’s not that great. Photics.com / GuildWars.us has to get better.

The Ultimate Guild Wars Fansite

Photics — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:42:13 +0000

ArenaNet has been tremendously supportive and loyal to this website. For six years, Photics.com has been part of the fansite program. The hard working people at ArenaNet have shown creativity, patience, a sense of humor and dedication. I feel that I too should exhibit these traits. That’s why I’m aiming to build… THE ULTIMATE GUILD WARS FANSITE. I’ve ordered some new technology. I’m preparing to create something awesome. If you’re interested in volunteering to be part of this project, you can post up a comment. Editors, writers, illustrators, web designers and translators are welcome.

Photics.com October 2009 Web Report

Photics — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:17:22 +0000

I worked on a lot of projects during the last two months. With another full month of data to review, the successful projects are emerging. While I may have more time to work on my website, I do not have an infinate amount of time. I’ll have to focus on what works. Some results were expected. But with some others results, I was quite surprised by the way things turned out. But most importantly, things are improving. Month-Over-Month website activity roughly doubled in October. There were more visitors – like you - and they’re staying longer. That’s encouraging!

Hits:
Total Hits........................1,686,592
Visitor Hits......................1,625,939
Spider Hits..........................60,653
Average Hits per Day.................51,108
Average Hits per Visitor.................41
Cached Requests.....................181,517
Failed Requests......................24,595

Page Views
Total Page Views....................835,143
Average Page Views per Day...........25,307
Average Page Views per Visitor...........21

Visitors
Total Visitors.......................40,108
Average Visitors per Day..............1,215
Total Unique IPs.....................14,886

Bandwidth
Total Bandwidth....................55.50 GB
Visitor Bandwidth..................53.66 GB
Spider Bandwidth....................1.85 GB
Average Bandwidth per Day...........1.68 GB
Average Bandwidth per Hit..........34.51 KB
Average Bandwidth per Visitor.......1.37 MB

First, the bad news. My iPhone development appears to be a failure. I’m thinking it’s “little fish, big bowl” syndrome. With 85,000 apps to choose from, my three apps and one demo got lost. Even though I released the exact same apps for the iPhone, they’re performing better on Android. It might be too early to be sure. Maybe I have to change tactics. But so far it hasn’t been worth the trouble.

The good news is that Android activity is moving back towards March 2009 levels. I probably should focus on my Android Apps. Although, that statement is meaningless. It’s not too much trouble to convert my Android apps to the iPhone. So even though the iPhone is an overwhelming disappointment, I’ll probably be releasing new apps for it… but that’s only because of the success from Android.

But I shouldn’t be too quick to give up on the iPhone.
Sometimes, something unexpected happens…

What surprised me was the activity on the main Photics website. I’ve been playing Guild Wars again. I threw together some new content. It made the website more popular. Even though Issue #35 wasn’t too popular, referral traffic from GuildWars.com increased. I checked two separate sources to see if there was a traffic spike with the official website. Nope… things looked normal. Regina has been doing a good job as Community Manager, and my content updates received great coverage, but why Guild Wars content getting a second wind?

http://www.guildwars.com (2,519)
http://fr.guildwars.com (723)
http://gw.univers-virtuels.net (491)
http://www.guildwars.pl (486)
http://guildwars.pl (368)
http://de.guildwars.com (307)
http://wiki.guildwars.com (272)
http://es.guildwars.com (218)
http://images.google.com (139)
http://it.guildwars.com (135)
http://eu.guildwars.com (65)

Most of my top referrers are Guild Wars related. That’s insane! I have more referrer traffic coming from France and Poland than I do from most search engines – AOL, Bing, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves. Last month, Google sent 1,153 visitors to Photics.com. That’s less than half of the main Guild Wars website. This tells me two things… 1) Review search engine optimization for this website. 2) Don’t give up on Guild Wars! I have been having fun with the game, so I have some new ideas for content. As for SEO, I have been a little sloppy. I’ve been so focused on mobile apps that I’m forgetting basic maintenance for the main website.

The whole site grew, but traditional content (rather than mobile content) performed better than expected.

While focusing on the main site is important, I’m probably going to avoid downloadble content… PDF, ZIP… it just doesn’t seem to work. My “Bluish Victory” WordPress theme is an excellent example. While 1,469 visitors looked at the download page, only 89 visitors actually downloaded it. I wasn’t expecting huge numbers from that file, but I haven’t found a site that’s actually installed the theme. That’s always been the trick with Guild Wars content… and running a Guild Wars fansite in general… it’s not too hard to get the fans to visit your website. The problem is making them repeat visitors. I’ll have to improve my strategy as Guild Wars 2 nears release. What would make the players want to stay?

Conclusions:

Mobile content is huge, but don’t sacrifice the main website.
If Guild Wars is popular now, it’s going to be huge with GW2.
For Photics.com, the iPhone is secondary to Android.
Stay away from downloadable files. PDFs/ZIPs underperform.
An improvement with SEO is necessary.

Photics.com September 2009 Web Report

Photics — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 21:45:22 +0000

There’s something that I always found amazing about my website… time does not necessarily equal success. I dedicated a lot of time to Photics.com last month, but I did not see an increase in traffic. Actually, traffic went down… shocking! What happened? What went wrong? A good review of the stats could help, but I already know what happened. Developing apps for the iPhone and iPod touch consumed a lot more time than anticipated. The main site was neglected.

Hits:
Total Hits............................837,773
Visitor Hits..........................777,406
Spider Hits............................60,367
Average Hits per Day...................27,024
Average Hits per Visitor...................24
Cached Requests........................39,130
Failed Requests........................23,381

Page Views
Total Page Views......................463,357
Average Page Views per Day.............14,947
Average Page Views per Visitor.............15

Visitors
Total Visitors.........................32,512
Average Visitors per Day................1,048
Total Unique IPs........................8,759

Bandwidth
Total Bandwidth.......................8.17 GB
Visitor Bandwidth.....................6.47 GB
Spider Bandwidth......................1.70 GB
Average Bandwidth per Day...........269.98 MB
Average Bandwidth per Hit............10.23 KB
Average Bandwidth per Visitor.......208.72 KB

What bothers me the most is the talking to robots. Artificial intelligence consumes almost a quarter of the bandwidth. It gives a glimpse into the future… humans and machines… my site has to serve both. If I ignore the machines, real visitors won’t be able to find my content. There are a lot of evil robots out there too. My logs show some nasty activity. Computers, armed with malicious instructions, are trying to find vulnerabilities in my website. There’s a lot of planning and work involved in running this website. The web reports remind me of things to look out for. So, if you’re thinking about running a website, watch out for the good and evil robots. It’s not science fiction. There’s a real battle going on out there!

For the most part, not much has changed. My mobile games and books are dominating the traffic report. Some additional traffic comes from Guild Wars related referrals and searches.

Maybe this graph will change significantly next month. I’m still waiting for Photics: Conquest to be approved on the iPhone. I’m starting to feel more like a game developer than a Webmaster. Except, the platforms aren’t by Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft. It’s Apple and Google. I’m running a cross-platform, online strategy game. There have been thousands of downloads on the Android Market. Looking at my stat reports, and knowing that I’ve mainly been playing retro games on my PS3, I’m really starting to wonder about the future of gaming. I’m thinking that there’s a lot of growth in mobile gaming. I’m still fairly confident that I’m onto something big. Yet, September’s report was discouraging. The numbers were lower than I expected. Will the time and money spent in developing iPhone / iPod Touch apps pay off? Next’s month’s report should be more telling. September was more of an investment in the future!

Photics: Revisions – iPhone App – Ready For Sale

Photics — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 22:48:47 +0000

I was bracing myself for a long wait. On September 17, 2009, I submitted my first iPhone Application to the app store. I was restraining my enthusiasm, figuring that some small technicality would blight my success. I read some discouraging stories online. It seemed that it might be weeks before Apple approved my app. I was even planning to blog about the long waiting. Instead, I was surprised. Apple approved my app! I nailed it on the first shot!

Less than nine days after submitting Photics: Revisions to the app store, my app was published.

Now don’t get me wrong. After experiencing Android development, I’m accustomed to instant publishing. It doesn’t work that way with Apple. It’s almost like hazing for developers…

You need a 57×57 pixels icon, and then you need a larger version of that icon – precisely 512×512 pixels. You’ll need a screenshot. Your app needs to adhere to Apple’s design guidelines. Digitally signing my application was also a little tricky. You’ll need to fill out the online forms. You’ll need to determine OS version compatibility. You’ll need to get a contract if you want to sell your app. There were lots of license agreements to read. Death by a thousand cuts… the process is so tedious, so grinding, so slow, that I often felt the urge to give up.

This is tremendously difficult for one person to master. You’ll need to a graphic designer and a code warrior. I was working on my app for one week straight, with only minimal breaks to eat, sleep and play some PS3 games. I’m not here to brag. I’m surprised that I got it done in one try.

Working with Android helped a lot. Even though they’re two different programming languages, they’re more similar than different. Sticking with a Webview app helped. There are still lots of things that I have to understand, on the Apple side of things. I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out reachability, orientation, external links and loading local files. I’m still stuck with a lot of the same problems. Yet, somehow, I managed to forge my first app.

Basically, I published a book for the iPhone / iPod Touch

Photics: Revisions on iTunes App Store

Mike's To-Do List!

Photics — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:43:53 +0000

It’s pretty awesome running your own business. The hours are great and the commute is wonderful. The best thing about running photics.com – I have a great boss. Now some might think that running your own business makes you the boss. No, it doesn’t work that way. The customer becomes the boss. That means YOU are the boss. Heh, but don’t ask me to get you a cup of coffee. I’m way too busy with the main objective of this site – creating web content. I decided to share some of that process with you.

When I woke this morning, I realized that I had a lot to do. The next issue of Photics is due tomorrow. Whoa, I’m such a slacker. I barely started work on it. I’ve been so busy with creating the iPhone apps that I didn’t start working on the ezine until now. Plus, I have lots of other projects going on. I like being busy! But when it comes to scheduling, I usually like to keep things in my head. Today, I felt the need to write down my list of things to-do. This is more for motivation and keeping me focused. That’s when I thought, “Why not share this is list with you?”

Review Moo’s article for Issue #35
Write articles for Issue #35
Grab screenshots & artwork for Issue #35
Create Photics Store with Guild Wars products
Create advertisements
- Store
- Guild Wars: High Ground
Layout Issue #35
Review Issue #35
Publish Issue #35
Mail out pins for those who contributed

When I’m done, there are other projects to complete…

Guild Wars: Conquest – Bring it back online, perhaps with a new game engine
Create iPhone app for Photics: Conquest
Create iPhone app for Guild Wars: High Ground
Photics Arcade – The Return?
Guild Wars WordPress Theme
Virtualization Article

Lofty Goals

Guild Wars Cartoon
iPhone RPG

I also thinking thatI should add some more PlayStation 3 content too. I’ve been playing with my PS3 a lot lately. That system has really turned a corner. I think that the same could be said for this website. I’m enjoying the new direction for Photics.com. There’s lots of cool stuff going on. While I’m waiting to see what Apple does with my Photics: Revisions apps, I can get back to some Guild Wars stuff.

Will I make my deadline? We can find out tomorrow!

Folding@Home Photics: Team Winners (August)

Photics — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 14:34:43 +0000

Since this contest started, the Photics Team contributed 707037 points to Stanford University’s Folding@Home distributed computing project. The idea is that by using many computers collectively, the work gets done much faster than a single computer can do. The work – to better understand protein folding. This knowledge could lead to cures for diseases that are related to this matter. To encourage participation in this lofty endeavor, Photics.com has been hosting competitions for Photics: Team members. The results are now available.

The Photics Team put their extra computer power to good use!

The August winners were chosen randomly, based on the amounts of points that were contributed. It was little surprise to see Oracle win again. His contribution represents slightly more than half the total amount of the team’s contributions. Oracle won the City of Heroes game code. The second place prize went to Chrisrod3091, who won the Wii Points code.

…and everyone won, for the best gift of all is life! If this research helps increase the lifespan of all humans, then that makes us all winners!

Remember, NVIDIA CUDA capable graphics processors are much more powerful for this task than just using the CPU. If you have a new NVIDIA GPU, or even a multi-core CPU, you might want to check out the High Performance Windows Client Download Page.

Photics.com August 2009 Web Report

Photics — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:50:17 +0000

Perhaps I’m being too generous with my information. NAH…. ha ha… I love this stuff. I don’t see why I need to keep it secret. Photics.com is not just my blog, it’s a focal point for an online community. I think it’s important to share the strength of this site, to inspire and encourage those that visit here. The Photics.com stats are not that great now, but I’m fairly confident that they will be soon. See, this month marks a special moment in history. I’ll be working on Photics.com full-time. That makes the August 2009 report a benchmark. How badly will I beat these numbers by the end of the month?

I’m looking for hints that my plan will work. Traffic is up slightly from last month and Android Apps are still the most popular part of this website.

Hits
Total Hits............................864,486
Visitor Hits..........................794,976
Spider Hits............................69,510
Average Hits per Day...................27,015
Average Hits per Visitor...................22
Cached Requests........................45,512
Failed Requests........................73,171

Page Views
Total Page Views......................521,374
Average Page Views per Day.............16,292
Average Page Views per Visitor.............14

Visitors
Total Visitors.........................36,047
Average Visitors per Day................1,126
Total Unique IPs........................8,789

Bandwidth
Total Bandwidth.........................11.49 GB
Visitor Bandwidth........................9.09 GB
Spider Bandwidth.........................2.40 GB
Average Bandwidth per Day..............367.72 MB
Average Bandwidth per Hit...............13.94 KB
Average Bandwidth per Visitor..........264.46 KB

Photics: Conquest is in decline though, as I haven’t updated it in a while. That’s because I’ve been focusing on my next book – Guild Wars: High Ground. It should be released this month, along with iPhone/iPod Touch versions of my mobile apps. If I can keep to schedule, next month’s report should be amazing.

The other new project is Issue #35 – the Guild Wars fansite magazine. It’s brought in traffic from all around the globe.

I didn’t need to run the report to know that. I’ve received messages from players all over the world, eager to help with the next fanzine. This created a dilemma for me. While the magazine will likely be popular, I don’t think that it’s going to be as popular as the mobile apps. How do I fix that? I’m not sure. I’ll be looking into ways to make the magazine profitable. Currently, I’m planning to launch a new magazine with the change of every season. With four issues a year, the time investment isn’t that great. With the Guild Wars 2 hype starting to grow, I feel almost obligated to create more Guild Wars magazines.

Team Up With Photics To Create A Guild Wars Magazine

Photics — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:46:42 +0000

Photics.com is one of the oldest Guild Wars Fansites out there. Back in December of 2003, I had a unique idea for a Guild Wars fansite. Instead of focusing on a forum or cheat sheets, what if I made an electronic magazine? After dozens of issues, and thousands of visitors, the idea brought lots of popularity to Photics.com. However, I realized that something was wrong. It was mostly a solo project. The Internet is more for collaboration. Issue #35 aims to fix that problem. The Guild Wars community is invited to contribute content for the Tuesday, September 22, 2009 issue of Photics: The Guild Wars Edition.

What would you like to see in the 2009 Autumnal Equinox edition of Photics Guild Wars Fansite magazine? Just post up a comment on this page. If you want to contribute, simply post your email address with your comment. (Don’t worry, your email doesn’t appear with your comment.) There is a wide range of ways to participate…

Cartoonists – Can you make a funny and well illustrated Guild Wars comic?
Translators – Hey, the game’s global. This publication should be too!
Writers – Do you have strategy guides or other interesting articles about Guild Wars?
Copy Editors – Someone has to look out for typos and grammatical errors.
Illustrators – New Guild Wars artwork is running low. Maybe your art could be on the cover!

This is strictly a volunteer thing. (At least, for now.) Although, I do like to show my appreciation. While supplies last, I can send out a skill pin to every contributor.

ArenaNet sent me a bunch of skill Pins to share with photics.com volunteers. I also have some of my own Guild Wars pins to give away.

Other things to consider…

Your content could be seen by thousands of people. That’s a nice ego boost.
This is good practice if you’re interested in a career in publishing – a possible resume boost.
This helps strengthen the Guild Wars community.
It’s something to do while waiting for Guild Wars 2.

Issue #35 is scheduled to be released on Tuesday, September 22, 2009. If you are interested in volunteering, your content will have to be submitted by Friday, September 18, 2009. Not all content will be published, or it may be edited from its original form. No content from the Guild Wars Wiki is permitted. This is to be a magazine of original work. (If you’re not sure that your content is good enough to be published, send it in earlier. Maybe I can work with you to make your content better.)