fatfoogoo’s own Stevie Case has recently been interviewed by the Avault.com podcast team. Speaking with Chris Micieli, Bill Bolton, and Mark Turcotte, Stevie joins the crew to talk about everything ranging from Stevie’s career as a pro gamer to micro-transaction powered games are how they are the future of gaming.
Speaking first to her role as Vice President of Business Development and Sales with fatfoogoo, Stevie lays out our technologies and how and why game development studios should be talking to fatfoogoo when they are ready to monetize their product. Noting that microtransactions are a relatively new way to monetize gaming, Stevie goes on to explain that with the current state of the economy, combined with falling advertising rates, microtransactions are a great place to be.
“It’s a good way to get users to not only spend small amounts of money, which isn’t as intimidating, but it also makes games sticker and doesn’t really break game play,” explains Stevie.
Stevie also highlights a quintessential point of microtransactions: user generated content, “I think it’s really cool to see users be able to create their own content and then actually sell that; have it become a part of the game, and become a part of the world.”
When asked about how microtransactions and user generated content could effect the overall balance of a game (i.e. the ‘pay to pwn’ theory) Stevie comments, “It’s a valid concern; I think that the key is you’ve got to have great game design upfront, and you’ve got to take all that stuff into account. A lot of people have tacked on this notion of a virtual economy later because it sounds like a good way to make money, but if you don’t design it in upfront, it can be challenging for those reasons.”
Coincidentally almost mirroring David Perry’s remarks at DICE 2009, Stevie says that when you create a virtual economy based game, you’re putting a large amount of power in the hands of your users, thus game design should be held to even higher standards.
Speaking briefly to microtransactions in the mobile space, specifically the iPhone, Stevie points out, “Microtransactions are prohibited within iPhone applications.” She continues on to discuss what iMafia is doing with their unique “if you go buy our other app we will give you points in this app” approach, but “as of today microtransactions are not officially supported.”
When asked about fatfoogoo’s list of clients, Stevie talks about our European clients, our involvement with Sun Microsystems via project darkstar, and hints at our upcoming release with a major US partner, and our involvement with a European based FPS/MMO. But more on that later….
Give the podcast a listen in it’s entirety at Avault.com (episode #20).
