How to Make Money with your Game or What I Learned at Casual Connect
Wow! What a week. I just caught back up from a week in Seattle for Casual Connect. It was my first visit to this conference, and well, wow. Let me say, as a newcomer, it is a hard not to be star struck at first. When you are sitting at a table with a guy who developed one of your favorite games, you fight from asking “How do I get past this level?” It is hard to concentrate on the business at hand.
Anyhow… after my initial impression, it was back to business.
There were two words that were frequently discussed. I was expecting them to be six and ninety-nine (the “new” price of games); and, while those were popular, the two most prevalent were mobile and friction.
Mobile
Because mobile is not currently a focus for W3i, I did not invest a lot of my time in mobile presentations at Casual Connect. However, there were some interesting tidbits that I couldn’t help but learn.
First is the idea of platform agnostic; the idea that no matter what platform you are on, you can be gaming with someone. This really rang true with the Facebook Connect presentation, a game should be able to cross from desktop to mobile seamlessly.
The second was a twist on trial ware. Rather than free trial ware, create a low-cost mobile application, get the user hooked, and upgrade them to a full-featured desktop application at a full-featured price.
Friction
Friction, however, struck a chord with me. I think that every presentation I sat in and each conversation that I had about W3i’s process, the word friction came up. Friction is not always a negative thing, because a little friction can drive the need for the game to be even greater.
The idea behind preventing friction wasn’t that friction must be avoided at all cost, but that the amount of friction must not be significant enough to dissuade the user from the game.
Business Model
Another thing I noticed at Casual Connect was that there were limited choices in how to create a revenue-generating business model. If you were one of the big aggregators like Oberon, Wild Tangent, Microsoft, Real, Big Fish, etc., you were the only way to get a game into the world. It also seemed that the predominant monetization method was for the user to pay-to-play. (Most popular numbers at Casual Connect $19.99, $9.99 and $6.99). That is not to say that there were no conversations about ad- supported games, but they seemed minimal (at least to me). Of course, there is something to be said that the model discussed is the model the industry grew on.
Other monetization possibilities
Another model that I heard about was micro transactions –everything from ads at each level to purchasing Farah’s hair for your avatar to buying seeds and land. This also led to the idea of real to virtual currency, coins of every flavor.
There were other business models as well, basically new twists on old ideas, like promotional placement within the game (much like everyone’s favorite DeLorean commercial – Back to the Future) or video pre-rolls or post-rolls, which feel just like TV commercials in a game (at least to me).
My own observation
Whether the model chosen by the games is try-and-buy, retail, or micro-licensing, the price points seem to be getting squeezed to the point where it will be imperative for game developers to supplement their revenue with additional business models to be profitable. This provides a great opportunity for a company such as W3i to work with casual game marketers. W3i can help monetize games and open up more opportunities for them to be discovered.
Whether you attended Casual Connect or not, if you are interested in a unique revenue or distribution model, drop Josh an email at josh.fiedler@w3i.com. W3i can show you a new way to increase revenue or distribution for your game.
Kristin Oberhaus, Product Manager, W3i Holdings, LLC
Kristin has over 13 years of product management experience and is a certified usability analyst. She is an avid believer in pragmatic marketing.
Find Out More on How W3i Can Grow Your Consumer App Business
RSS Feed
