Pages tagged gamasutra:

Gamasutra - Features - Intelligent Mistakes: How to Incorporate Stupidity Into Your AI Code
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3947/intelligent_mistakes_how_to_.php

How to the design a chees/poker AI without frustrating the player
An interesting Gamasutra article on how to introduce human-like stupidity into your AI by making your AI smarter rather than dumber.
Gamasutra - Features - What Are The Rewards Of 'Free-To-Play' MMOs?
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4046/what_are_the_rewards_of_.php
He admits he really didn't know what to anticipate in terms of revenue; there was nowhere to go to research how well microtransaction-based MMOs did elsewhere. "We just jumped in," he recalls. "There were no data points and, frankly, every game is different, every play population is different, and extrapolating from one developer's data to your own is, well, an interesting intellectual exercise but it doesn't necessarily tell you what to expect." Four and a half years later, James has learned a lot -- that the average revenue per user (ARPU) is between one and two dollars a month, but only about 10% of his player base has ever paid him anything. As a result, he says, approximately 5,000 gamers are generating the $230,000 in revenue he sees each month.
What Are The Rewards Of 'Free-To-Play' MMOs?