SmallWorlds Blog
One Million SmallWorlds Citizens!
July 24th, 2009 - SmallWorlds Chronicle
BING!
That’s the sound of the registered citizens counter. It’s sitting in the middle of the office here at SWHQ. We all wander by during our working week, looking at the numbers growing. That particular tone of “Bing” is one we’ve all been waiting for with great anticipation. It’s the very big “BING” that announced to us all that SmallWorlds now has One Million Citizens!
It’s an exciting day for SmallWorlds. A fantastic achievement for us as a business and a great step up for the growing SmallWorlds online community. Yip Yip Yipee!
It’s a little hard to get one’s head around just how big 1 Million really is… for instance, do you know how long it would take you to count up to a Million? Well, added together, the numbers between 1 and 1,000,000 contain a whopping 13,219,006 syllables. If you stayed on task with no distractions… doing nothing other than counting… it would take you around 50 days to reach the one million mark (including taking a short breath between numbers). Phew!
Who is Citizen 1 Million? Welcome Mariska Dinii!Our 1 Millionth citizen, Mariska Dinii from Ohio in the USA, arrived just a few days ago.
Before we passed on the exciting news to her we gave her a little time to orient herself, do a few missions and have a good look around.
Yesterday, SmallWorlds co-founder Mitch Olson and Chronicle reporter Kent Kronkite invited her to meet with them. They passed on the happy news, and presented her with her ‘Millionth Citizen’ prize, a 12 month VIP membership package. Mariska was both surprised and delighted!
Mitch then went back to work, leaving Kent to interview Mariska. Let’s meet her!
A short interview with citizen #1,000,000
mariska dinii Kent: Congratulations Mariska! How does it feel to be our millionth citizen?
Mariska: Really exciting! When i first received the email saying I had won “something” I felt a little wary.. I never win anything! At best I thought maybe I had won a few tokens!
Kent: How did you hear about SmallWorlds and what were your first impressions?
Mariska: I was on the computer and saw an advertisement… it looked interesting so I signed up. I’ve really just been getting my feet wet in the world. Its been great! I love the missions and all that stuff. I really liked the Breakout (all 3 of them) and Ahmoses Gem Hunt was really fun as well. All the people I have talked to so far have been really nice and friendly too.
Kent: What do you do in real life, Mariska?
Mariska: I’m between jobs just now, but I normally work as a teachers assistant in high schools.
Kent: Is there anything about SmallWorlds that you feel makes it unique from other virtual worlds you’ve tried?
Mariska: I like virtual worlds because I like to meet all sorts of different people and I love playing the games and missions. SmallWorlds is much more of a “real life” type of virtual world; not so much based in fantasy. I like that.
Kent: Thanks so much Mariska- I am happy your first few days on here have been so positive. Do you have any final comments that you’d like to make to the SmallWorlds community?
Mariska: The people I have met are great, that’s given me a wonderful introduction to SmallWorlds. I’m still shocked that I won, and thanks for letting me have such a great prize!
After spending some time with Mariska, I felt very pleased that our millionth citizen was such a nice person! My congratulations once again.
~Kent Kronkite
SmallWorlds - a Brief History …
SmallWorlds began back in late 2005 with a very animated conversation between co-founders Mitch Olson and Darren Green. They were both avid gamers with a keen interest in the virtual space and wanted to put their heads together to create something unique in the Virtual Worlds arena. After 18 months in development, SmallWorlds launched in Beta in June ‘08, and launched Version 1.0 in December ‘08. Since then we have made 3 major new content releases (as well as many smaller ones), not to mention the much anticipated V2.0 due out very soon! Each major content release has further secured our position as an important player in the virtual world space, offering a totally unique entertainment experience to our now 1 million citizens.
SWHQ is located in Auckland, New Zealand. It has a great team of 25 full time staff (developers, artists, operations and management) and approximately 40 part time online staff.
We pride ourselves on creating what we believe to be the best browser-based online entertainment experience currently available on the web.
Snapshot of SmallWorlds…
Ever wondered where SW citizens come from? Perhaps you’d like to know what our highest virtual item transaction was? Here’s a few interesting facts about SmallWorlds!
Who are you, SmallWorlds citizens?The table below shows how the SmallWorlds population is divided up as a percentage by country. As you can see, our most dominant nationality is the USA which is why we’ve celebrated more US holidays than those of other nationalities. We’d love to have more New Zealand holidays celebrated, but first we’re going to need to bring our score up a little from 0.39% (one day we’ll have you all celebrating Waitangi Day!)
Are you Male or Female?SW citizens are made up of 33% Male and 67% Female players.
How old are you?13 – 20yrs: 66%
21 – 30yrs: 20%
31 – 40 yrs 8%
40+ 6%
Who visits SmallWorlds the most?
Random SmallWorlds Facts
1 - Highest selling item: Oaken Chair, Voodoo Magic
2 - Most popular monthly collectible: Woods the Tiger with over 2000 sold. But the Snow Fox holds the highest value, selling at around 225,000 Gold! (SmallWorlds monthly collectibles really are a great investment! Released in Decmember ‘08, the Snow Fox suit has increased from 2,000 to 225,000 Gold over that period)
3 – The top 3 most played missions: Pet Training by Rakel Vmk 49,000 visits. Build a Candy Bar by Milkyway Midnight with 34,000 visits. Swine Flu Testing by Salad Fingers with 33,000 Visits.
4 – Number of times Kent practiced in front of a mirror the first time he asked Honesty out on a date: 36 times
5 – Busiest times in SmallWorlds: 2pm - 8pm SWT
6 – Number of staff working at SWHQ: 25 full time
7 - Total Number of Moderators: Around 40
8 - Total Number of Helpers: Around 70
What an exciting week for SmallWorlds! One million registered citizens is a huge milestone and there’s been a lot of excitement around SWHQ this week. Thanks to each and every one of you for being one member of that million. We create this virtual world for your enjoyment, and we’re grateful to have your support.
Onwards to our second million!
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Topic: 7/24/2009**One Million SmallWorlds Citizens!** (Read 4662 times)