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Posts Tagged ‘social game’

Females are big casual gamers, but don’t ask them to pay

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

A new study released by Q Interactive further confirms the results from their earlier study released last November, indicating that women are big social gamers. But don’t call them gamers, nor ask them to pay to play.

770 women were surveyed in January and questioned about their knowledge of online gaming and virtual worlds. 36 percent indicated that they regularly play games on Facebook, with 54 percent admitting that they play at least on social game per day. Mafia Wars and Farmville scored top ranks on female gamers’ choices.

“This provides a terrific opportunity for brands to serve as a trusted, valued partner to them. By having a presence in the game and app space, brands get the benefit of reaching an influential consumer set,” said Ian Johnson, Director, Social Media World Forum. “With the support of brands, advance in games and apps and we’re finding also get information from brands they value.”

And while women may be huge consumers of casual games, please do not refer to them as ‘gamers’. Less than half of those surveyed (42 percent) would call themselves a ‘gamer’. However, these ‘non-gamers’, 67 percent of them, consider between 1 and 5 hours per week a socially acceptable amount of online play time. Likewise, when asked if they would pay (i.e. use real money transactions) to play, over three quarters of them (77 percent) indicated that they would pull the plug on their ‘non-gaming’ addiction playtime. 97 percent said that they would rather ‘earn’ virtual currency through games rather than investing actual, real-world money.

Tags: casual gamers, casual games, Facebook, farmville, female gamers, Ian Johnson, mafia wars, Q interactive, real money transaction, social game, virtual world
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Facebook games come of age – first FPS arriving soon

Monday, February 8th, 2010

Farming and Fish Tanks have been a massive success for a number of casual games developers on social networking platforms, primarily Facebook. Mafia type games have also seen their fair share of success, and while they do contain an element of violence, they’re still grounded to a static, turn based, game style. If these games may be viewed as ‘all encompassing – all inclusive’ styles, it looks like social games on Facebook might be taking a step towards segmentation, as 3G Studios plans to bring a browser based first person shooter directly to your Facebook gaming addiction enjoyment.

Titled “Brave Arms”, 3G Studios says that they plan on bringing, “a real video game experience,” to Facebook. While full details are currently scarce, those available indicate that the casual game will feature solo as well as team play style, and will include a microtransactions based monetization component.

A quick visit to the Brave Arms official site reveals that the game will feature 3D characters set in a variety of environments. Neither one of these images, however are very descript, one featuring a (what looks like stock digital imagery) warehouse, while the other shows a snowboard mountain setting. Additionally, screenshots show a few different weapon options; dual wielding handguns, assault/sniper rifles with scopes, as well as a futuristic looking weapon which may shoot (frickin’) laser beams!

Brave Arms has a great linage behind it. Developed by 3G Studios which is responsible for the original Rock Band, and handful of PSP games, and most recently Jillian Michael’s Fitness Ultimatum 2009 for Wii. Given these past projects, it should be interesting to see how 3G will make the transition from console and portable titles to the social gaming world.

And now for the biggest question – why is 3G Studios the first on the scene with a FPS for Facebook? With EA’s massive investment in social gaming, did 3G simply beat them to the punch? To be honest, even the Brave Arms logo is not only similar to, but I’d venture close enough to tug at consumers’ vague recollection of another free-to-play, first person shooter title they might already be familiar with: EA’s Battlefield Arms. If Battlefield Heroes, or id Software/Bethesda’s Quake Live are or aren’t in development for a Facebook port, well then….fair enough, hats off to 3G Studios for getting to the market first. For now, neither company has indicated that they’re planning on making this move. Perhaps this new offering from 3G might light a few fires at a few corporate offices quite soon. As CEO James Kosta puts it, “Our new title, Brave Arms, will bring first-person shooter games to the masses.” My alternate suggestion might be, “You snooze, you lose big boys.”

Brave Arms is slated for a March release, but enthusiastic players can reserve their nickname in advance at Facebook.

Tags: Battlefield Heroes, casual games, Facebook, first person shooter, fps, social game, social gaming
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Another day, another boatload of $$ for Zynga

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

Social game leader of the pack Zynga has recently landed yet another influx of cash. This time however, the majority of the investment is coming from Russian investor Digital Sky Technologies. If this name sounds vaguely familiar, you might remember them as a $200 million investor in Facebook. They’re also the same firm that we covered less than a month ago with their $5 million investment in a homegrown social strategy game and gaming platform.

If you’ve not been keeping score, and admittedly in this blister paced market, it can be quite a challenge, Zynga is currently the king of social gaming on Facebook. They’re the makers of FarmVille, arguably the one that started the farming craze, which launced in June and counts 72.9 million active monthly users. And while this number alone is enough to make any investor sit up and take notice, Zynga also stables Mafia Wars, FishVille, YoVille, Café World, and Texas HoldEm Poker. Combined, Zynga’s active monthly usage amounts to a massive 232 million. To put that in perspective, there are only three countries on the planet (China, India, and the United States) that are larger.

Looking at Zynga in the overall social gaming space, again, they’re clearling leading the pack. The second largest player on the Facebook gaming page is Playfish, which counts 59 million users. Obviously nothing to sneeze at, but when compared to Zynga – peanuts. Playfish was recently acquired by EA, as the traditional games giant is seeking to make a shift towards current market preferences.

And while massive numbers are good, many, if not all, investors in social gaming have recollections of a former internet boom that was fueled by views, and never bothered to look at the solid bottom line. Fast forward 10 (or so) years, and it looks like both investors and startups have learned a lesson. Zynga is not only covering their costs, but bringing home the bacon – in loads. While on paper, it seems like free-to-play gaming in general wouldn’t make sense. Giving games away and waiting for players to make a microtransaction purchase wouldn’t have been a solid solution pre-social gaming explosion days. However, rumors are circulating that Zynga’s 2009 revenues are pushing the $250 million mark. The company employs either full time or part time 712 employees and is constantly growing.

Again, these figures are enough to make any investor take notice, and it’s clear that Russian firm Digital Sky Technologies is clearly putting it’s vote of confidence into the social networking/gaming area.

With respect to the new investment, Zynga’s founder and CEO Mark Pincus commented to the New York Times, “The opportunity every quarter is proving to be bigger than we imagined and we always thought it was prudent to keep adding to the capital of the company as we grow.”

Tags: Facebook, Mark Pincus, PlayFish, social game, Zynga
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Ohai seeks to make social gaming platform not so casual

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Game developers Ohai have been working on an unnamed project for quite a while now, and yesterday they announced the official title: City of Eternals. A vampire inspired free-to-play title that incorporates social gaming elements, Twitter and Facebook logins, for example, City of Eternals has been in a closed beta for the past two months, and has seen some pretty impressive figures. On average, beta testers, all 10,000 of them play around 65 minutes per day, and log in approximately 10 times per day.

So far, the project sounds like any number of popular Facebook games. However, where Ohai seeks to separate itself from the pack is through synchronous play (something that EA recently started exploring with Spore Islands, as well as Tencent’s ‘market research’ project via synchronous gaming). The goal of Ohai is to create a “real” MMORPG within a social gaming platform read:Facebook in a 2D virtual world where users interact via avatars. Sounds like a “real” MMORPG thus far – only the platform has changed.

Set in the Pacific Northwest, and possibly tapping into the current Vampire driven market – i.e. Twilight, Underworld, True Blood, etc., city of New Valencia, the complex storyline currently features over 20 unique missions for players to engage in. As with any MMORPG, players create their characters, customizing looks and clothing. Battles take place in combat zones, and players level up and gain virtual goods through these battles and quest completions. Check off the “real” MMORPG tenets, and enter the social side. Grabbing elements from other popular social games, City of Eternals also incorporates players’ home base, which of course can be decorated with any number of purchaseable virtual items. Players may also grow items to keep or sell, specialize in a trade, and become a member of one of four vampire houses – aka clans. Another social feature adaptation – players may also recruit their real life friends to join their fight and become a member of the main player’s vampire army.

Due to the recent shakeup of virtual goods offers being a scam, Ohai CEO Susan Wu stated in a TechCrunch interview that City of Eternals will not be incorporating ad offers, but will offer a strict ‘cash-only’ virtual currency purchase plan. Something female gamers might not take to. While Ohais, the company’s proprietary virtual currency, may be purchased while playing directly at the City of Eternals website, since the game in build in Flash, it’s possible to embed the game practically anywhere else on the web, thereby opening the door for potential virtual currency sales from just about anywhere. City of Eternals’ current virtual goods catalogue prices range anywhere from $.02 right through to $20.

While the games does not yet have an official Facebook page, Ohai states that it’s on it’s way very soon. They’ve also stated that an iPhone version of the game is currently in the works. While it won’t be “exactly the same”, Ohai states that the iPhone version will still allow users to interact with other players.

Build over the course of only 9 months with a staff of approximately 12 (including only 3 engineers), City of Eternals has the potential to be a true resounding success story, considering the title’s breakneck speed development, and limited resources. And they’ve already got a lot going for them – tapping into the once highly popular vampire genre of Facebook games, exploring the synchronous gaming method that has recently piqued the interest of two gaming giants, as well as creating a genre that seems to have found a place in recent pop culture.

Tags: casual game, City of Eternals, Facebook, MMORPG, Ohai, social game, Spore Islands, synchronous gaming, tencent, vampire
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Ngmoco acquires iPhone and Facebook game maker Miraphonic

Friday, November 6th, 2009

Late 2009 has been a banner time for games maker ngmoco. Granted, a lot of their success has been leveraged buy Apple giving the green light to microtransactions in free-to-play games on the iPhone, but obviously the ngmoco team had to have a product in the works that would fit this model perfectly – as they did with their recently released Eliminate first person shooter.

Building upon their push for social gaming, ngmoco has made it’s first acquisition, buying out Miraphonic, makers of iPhone and Facebook titles Epic Pet Wars and Epic Soldier Wars.

Announced via twitter from ngmoco CEO Neil Young, “Delighted to announce that Miraphonic, creators of the awesome Epic Pet Wars have been acquired by ngmoco!” No financials of the deal have been disclosed.

Epic Pet Wars is (yet another) virtual animal training and fighting MMO that Miraphonic states has over one million users. Fitting in-line with ngmoco’s strategy, the game is free-to-play/download but monetizes via sales of in-game currency ‘Respect Points’ which are used to purchase virtual goods. Respect points cost anywhere between approx. $1 right through to approximately $40. Miraphonic’s Epic Soldier Wars operates under the same premise.

If ngmoco’s commitment to developing and publishing quality free-to-play/microtransactions monetized social games was in question, this purchase should certainly seal the deal. Clearly, the company’s acquisition of former MySpace SVP of business development, Jason Oberfest, back in September is already starting to pay off. Charged with “negotiating deals to drive revenue and support the launch of innovative new products…”, it’s fair to say that Oberfest can now call his first deal done.

Granted, ngmoco is receiving a bit of press hype as of late, but they’re still swimming in very competitive waters. Social games makers including Zynga and Playfish are still raking in the profits, but it’s good to see an up and coming player in the field, as the next 6-12 months at ngmoco will really put their new business model to the test.

Tags: iphone, Jason Oberfest, MMO, Neil Young, ngmoco, PlayFish, social game, twitter, Zynga
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SGN splurges on hiring binge – bags more than a few industry heavy hitters

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

If the question of the rise and dominance of social games has ever come into question, a perusal through the past years headlines, and the associated talent defecting to smaller, up-and-coming social games firms should give a pretty clear picture as to what’s going on. Chalk up another major shift in the social gaming industry, as SGN has recently announced that they’ve been on a bit of a hiring binge as of late, and have netted some serious talent.

Former Electronic Arts and LucasArts executive Randy Breen will now be reporting to SGN’s CEO Shervin Pishevar, in his new role as Chief Operating Officer. Breen, a long time and founding executive at EA, was responsible for the Road Rash series of games, one that’s sold million of copies and spawned a number of sequels and off shoots. Likewise, at LucasArts Breen was the man in charge of overseeing product developments within the Star Wars and Indiana Jones license lines.

Serving as new Director of Game design at SGN is Randy Angle, another industry veteran, who’s worked on a number of projects, most notably the Lord of the Rings. Another EA vet, Margaret Foley-Mauvais has been hired to serve as Art Director, while Dan Brazelton joins the SGN team in the role of Executive Producer. Brazelton brings to the table 17 years of gaming and film industry experience. And rounding out the new netting at SGN is Adriana Gasoigne, formerly of Hi5, who will be serving as the company’s Director of Global Communications.

“We’ve experienced tremendous growth over the past year, and I’m thrilled we have attracted a leader like Randy Breen to SGN and assembled a world class team to capitalize on our position within the booming social gaming industry,” said Shervin Pishevar, CEO of SGN, in a statement.

Based in Palo Alto, California, SGN has now topped over 100 hires, and has been in operation since 2007. Owing their success to the rise of social gaming, SGN has also served as a primary influencer in and producer of such titles in the social gaming space. Their first success can be attributed to a Facebook app, Warbook, and SGN quickly followed up this success with a number of additional titles. Quickly spreading their reach to Myspace and Bebo applications, SGN started focusing on iPhone games over the past year.

While they may have had a decent following and interest in their work with social network based games, this expansion into iPhone games is what truly put the company on the map. SGN has sold over 400,000 copies of it’s F.A.S.T. jet fighter game, and approximately 24 percent of all iPhone and iPod touch users have a copy of the firms successful iBowl app on their device. And lest we forget that it was SGN that was the very first to bring the successful Mafia games genre to market.

Again, it’s quite clear to see what’s going on here. A number of execs and non-execs alike are either fed up with, or see greater opportunities in social gaming then the traditional stalwarts of the industry. Granted, a number of larger games development firms are now interested in, and/or beginning their own exploration of social gaming, but is it already too late?

Tags: Adriana Gasoigne, Dan Brazelton, EA, electronic arts, Facebook, hi5, LucasArts, Margaret Foley-Mauvais, Randy Angle, Randy Breen, SGN, shervin pishevar, social game
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Casual Games maker Zynga trumps 100 million users on Facebook

Friday, September 4th, 2009

With more than 250 million users, there’s no doubt that Facebook is truly a powerhouse to be reckoned with. With this massive amount of users flowing through the site, cornering the lucrative casual gaming market would be a triumph. While I’m not sure we’re ready to proclaim a flag raising winner, Zynga is clearly leading the charge, and recently announced that they’ve surpassed the 100 million user mark. Doing a quick look at the numbers, that means that almost half of all Facebook members are, or have at one point, used a Zynga built application.

Released on June 19th, Zynga’s current runaway hit FarmVille is primarily responsible for this boost in usership. Just last month, Zynga proclaimed that FarmVille was the “largest and fastest growing social game.” Two points to Zynga for being dead on with this statement. In a new chart published by Inside Social Games, Zynga claimed 4 out of the 10 top spots in most active games on Facebook.

With over 12 million active daily users, or roughly 5 percent of the entire Facebook population, FarmVille has almost doubled the previous ‘farming’ based app record help by Slashkey’s Farm Town. To this end, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: Farming is big business. As with iPhone apps, previously the hot spot to be was the ‘Mafia’ wars type games. We’ve seen a number of derivations (or, less politely; copies) of this form of play, right through to market saturation. Whether it was consumer complacency, or this market saturation, over the past few months, there’s been a shift away from bullets and bombs to water and seeds.

We could now be on the verge of another ‘derivation’-fest, as Zynga borrowed more than just the name from Slashkey, and likewise, casual games maker Playfish has launched their own farming app titled Country Story. In just under two weeks, Country Story has gone from 1.4 million active monthly users to 4 million. With 9 farming based titles now in the Facebook application store (within the top 109), in total there are 72 million active monthly users on Facebook, or approximately 29 percent.

Zynga is already the current app developer for Facebook, and these new numbers are just another award on the shelf for the firm. If measured by the typical benchmarks used for startups: audience, page views, growth, etc., it’s a fair statement to make that Zynga is an overwhelming success. What’s even more impressive is that the casual/social games maker is managing to do inside Facebook what the company has yet to do itself: be profitable. Remember, Zynga leverages the power of microtransactions to generate revenue, while at the same time allowing users to purchase any number of character customizations. Estimates place Zynga’s annual revenue around $100 million for this year alone, while Facebook’s estimated value is around $500 million. However, as stated above, Facebook isn’t making any money. So when viewed through these glasses, who’s really getting the better deal here?

Tags: casual games, Facebook, farming, iphone, mafia wars, microtransactions, PlayFish, social game, social games, Zynga
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SOE Seattle studio execs ready to Detonate

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

We’ve all heard about an exodus or two from EA, but not so much from Sony Online Entertainment. Well, reset the brain drain clock, as Eurogamer recently spotted a few names missing from SOE’s Seattle studios register.

Studio Director and Executive Producer Matt Wilson, Art Director Corey Dangel, and Producer John Smith officially called it quits at the Pacific Northwest SOE studio at the beginning of July. The trio has struck out on their own with Detonator Games, a new player to the Facebook, MySpace, Bebo (amongst others) social gaming category. From the company’s recently launched site:

Detonator Games takes social game play to new and explosive levels. We build high quality games that unite multiple social platforms in a common goal of fun. We’re totally dedicated to creating entertainment overflowing with the attitude, emotion, and fun that drive players together. In short, we connect people through play.

Wilson and Smith were founding members of the Seattle SOE studio, an original acquisition by Sony of the then titled Fireant. Previously, the team had been involved with Microsoft’s developed, but never brought to market MMO Mythica. In the interview with Eurogamer, Matt Wilson comments, “It’s true that Corey and I no longer work for SOE. This was a very hard decision to make, but it’s the right decision for both us and the project. There were a variety of factors into making this decision, but we wish SOE and The Agency the best success.”

Ah yes, The Agency. This anticipated spy/James Bond –esque title has been in the works since early 2005 at the SOE Seattle studio. There’s even been microtransactions talk surrounding the game. Originally aiming at a 2010 delivery date, some sources in the Seattle gaming community are speculating that the studio will need to regroup, have a think, and perhaps revamp and modify the game, ultimately delaying the launch.

Conversely, SOE comments, “The Agency is not undergoing a reboot of any sorts – that is incorrect. The team in Seattle is still working diligently on this project and we’re looking forward to showing you new content in the future.”

While there are only three guys and one corporate megalith that know the full details of the departure from, foundation of, and the status of The Agency, I believe what we’ve got here is nothing more than a team of entrepreneurs that didn’t want to work for the Man any longer, saw a lucrative market, recognized their skills and knowledge, and went for the opportunity to create something of their own. Detonator Games has been wisely building anticipation of their initial release via a facebook fan page, as well as regular updates on twitter.

Are there already too many social games developers out there at the moment? It really depends on how you look at it. However – how many social gaming companies out there can boast three former SOE execs at the helm? Exactly. We’ve joined the Detonator Games fan page, and will be keeping a close eye on what the folks in the Emerald City have in store for us.

Tags: Corey Dangel, eurogamer, John Smith, matt wilson, mythica, social game, soe, Sony Online Entertainment
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Analyzing to find the Sweet Spot in the free-to-play market

Saturday, September 6th, 2008

Osma over at fishpool.com has recently written an outstanding article on finding the ‘sweet spot’ in the free-to-play, pay-for-stuff market. Writing with expertise gained for his 5 years of experience with Habbo, Osma brings to light some interesting details regarding exactly what players will pay for in the free to play market.

I don’t want to steal any of his thunder, but would rather post some selected highlights. To read the entire story go and visit fishpool.com.

And now for those juicy highlights:

Providing a basis for the article and why he’s chosen to publish this knowledge:

I’m sharing this with the world because while it’s been an interesting ride to build an online social game with an end-user business model, breaking pretty much every conventional rule in the process (”games have to have objectives”, “there is no profit in micropayments“, and so on), it’s still better for our business if people understand why it works. If this allows a competitor to fix a problem in their product and get off the ground, so be it – there’s plenty of growth to go around here, and failures don’t help anyone.

Looking at two assumptions behind the flexible pricing model:

…the number of customers grows as the cost of goods drops, and second, that the maximum consumption is unrelated to the minimum. There is no average customer who would spend more than half of others, and less than half of the rest.

Applying these principles to the free-to-play, microtransaction marketplace:

Cheap purchase price attracts more customers out of the existing free users, and transactional item-based sales allows repeat purchases of theoretically unlimited amount. Those who are willing to buy more will do so, up to some practical maximum of consumable goods and discretionary spending.

Using the sales of chocolate bars as an example, Osma argues the point effectively:

…how many chocolate bars of standard quality would you expect to sell for $1? How about for $2? More or less than half? How about for $10 for the exact same package? I’d wager chocolate bars sell at least 10x better at the price of $1 than at the price of $10 each, and the increase of customer base more than covers the lower per-unit revenue.

Factoring in packaging and marketing costs to the chocolate bar producer, Osma is quick to point out the obvious differences in a physical, consumable bar of chocolate, and digital entertainment:

…of course there is a minimum profitable price for a bar of chocolate that does not become near-$0 even at very high volumes, unlike purely digital products, so increasing chocolate-sales revenue by dropping prices does not necessarily increase profits, and I’m completely ignoring the effects of packaging and marketing on the perceived value of items. For digital sales, where packaging is more flexible and material costs are effectively non-existent, we still have to consider not-unsubstantial fixed development costs, a certain amount of costs associated to servers and bandwidth, some transaction-related pricing friction, and so forth, but certainly the minimum value (and price) of one unit of digital sales can be driven much lower than a bar of chocolate.

Again, to view the article in full, including some VERY interesting pricing graphs, please go visit fishpool.org.

Tags: business model, chocolate bars, fishpool, Habbo, micropayments, microtransaction, pricing model, social game, sweet spot
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