• Empire Avenue

    Empire Avenue – Why you shouldn’t delete your account

    One of the reasons I’ve seen people give for leaving Empire Avenue is that they weren’t going to be active online for a while and didn’t want their stock price to crash and ruin their friend’s portfolios. While this shows their admirable character, they really shouldn’t worry. Stock prices don’t really crash from low activity. I don’t know the details behind the scenes (I still have not met the mathemagics entity who controls Empire Avenue) but there is a stabilization effect that comes into play. If I haven’t met the entity, how do I know this, you ask? Simple. It happens to me all the time. I have spurts of…

  • Empire Avenue

    The Twitter Index

    Today Empire Avenue rolled out the Twitter Index. Previously users could only buy shares in other Empire Avenue users. But now any Twitter person can be bought and sold… and it has spurred activity on Empire Avenue! I’ve talked in the past about how much I like the buy-and-sell gameplay system of Empire Avenue and am delighted to see it extended to users outside of the Avenue. Basically an emphasis has been put on making Empire Avenue’s strongest feature (the buy and sell) even stronger by removing some artificial roadblocks to network growth and expanding the user base. With the Twitter Index, users can expect even more growth, and hopefully…

  • Empire Avenue,  My Life

    Empire Avenue – Community Discussion

    For those Empire Avenue users out there who started using communities for topic-specific discussion but stopped there’s some good news. At the top of the community page there is now a summary of which communities have new topics in them. This will definitely help me (I’m in a boatload of communities) easily figure out which ones to check in to. Hoping this will start encouraging more conversation in the communities.

  • Empire Avenue,  My Life

    Now an Empire Avenue Consultant

    As some readers may have noticed I have joined the Empire Avenue team as a consultant. After I left BioWare I decided that I would only spend my time working on projects that I thought were interesting and fulfilling… which primarily meant my writing career but I remained open to the idea of contributing to worthwhile endeavors that I felt have relevance. Why Empire Avenue? I was writing my first novel last winter when I joined the family and friends beta for Empire Avenue. I figured I’d take a look at it and provide some feedback — I like to help out former colleagues when possible. But I got hooked.…

  • Empire Avenue

    Empire Avenue – Recommended Influencers

    Last week the social network Empire Avenue added a new feature highlighting other users on the site that you might be interested in following or buying shares in. I’m really liking this new feature. It has been several weeks since my last Empire Avenue post but I’ve still been active on the site though maybe not as active as before (mostly because I’ve been getting better at staying of focused on writing — sorry Internets). But my gameplay on Empire Avenue has also changed, I’m mostly spending my dividends on established stocks, trying to increase my nightly dividends. And I had stopped buying newcomers to the site. Originally I spent…

  • Empire Avenue

    How to have fun on Empire Avenue

    Noticed some people on the #EAV channel on twitter discussing Empire Avenue. As often happens there are some people upset with share price dropping. I previously discussed ways that influencers could stop me from selling them; see post#1 and post #2). This time around I thought I would explain how I’m playing the game now that I’ve passed the million-dollar mark in wealth. The Avenue has multiple levels of user engagement. An influencer’s share price is a biggie — everyone loves to be on the leaderboard, right? Increasing your share price involves buying shares in people and hopefully being ‘interesting’ or aggressive enough that other users buy you. But there…

  • Empire Avenue

    Empire Avenue – Two Ways to Advertise?

    Empire Avenue has a built in advertising system. To this point I’ve had some success with it — and I know there are improvements to the system coming in the future and I’m excited to check them out. One nice thing about it is that ingame cash (eaves) is spent on this advertising so unlike other online advertising the only investment for ad space is time. But there is a second form of advertising on Empire Avenue (that is also free) and I think is often more effective. (Insert long dramatic pause). It is the ‘buy and hi!’. Huh? Basically whenever anyone buys shares in me I check their portfolio…

  • Empire Avenue

    Bring on the Robot Minions!

    Anyone reading this for my writing or game design insights you can safely ignore this post. It is all about Empire Avenue. So I’ve had a Robots community on Empire Avenue for a while now that I have never really recruited anyone into. I just like robots. I think they are Neat’O. Given that discussion in the group has been me talking to myself for a while I’ve decided to change the focus. And why do we care? (See that, that’s me talking to myself. Creepy, eh?) Now the group is known as Robot Minions. Because I’m uber-eave-rich I now need Robot Minions to help inflate my airships (and my…

  • Empire Avenue

    Congratulations to the Empire Avenue team

    I’ve blogged occasionally about Empire Avenue and up until today it was an invite-only beta. Now it has opened its doors to everyone — yes, that means you, everyone. Please encourage the hard working team to continue to, well, work hard, by signing up. Let me know you joined and I’ll buy a piece of you (non icky translation — I’ll buy some shares in you). Why am I enjoying Empire Avenue so much? It is the ease of making connections with people I don’t know but with whom I am destined to get along with (or argue with, but respectfully). I love putting a score to people, in regards…