Fizzy.com opens doors to developers

Fizzy is now about 9 months old. There have been several upgrades to the site itself in that time, and plenty of new content, but this latest update is by far the most significant. Fizzy has now launched its developer portal. If you are a Casual Game developer (in Flash), you can now sign up to become a Fizzy Developer and start using the developer portal right away. When you start using it to distribute your content, you get a 50% share of all revenue your game(s) generate. Visit www.fizzy.com/developers

The portal has everything you need:

• Comprehensive Documentation
• Personalised SDKs
• Add Free games (web games) and Download game (for sale)
• Testing enviroment
• Online reporting (keep track of plays, downloads, sales, etc)
• Online statements
• Public Developer profiles on Fizzy
• and more…

The developer portal has been built from the ground up to maximise revenue for Casual Game developers, with built in game marketing all part of the deal. Take a look at the reach of Fizzy already (still only 9 months old, remember).

If you are a Flash Games developer, then you should certainly have a look at this as a potential source of significant additional revenue

To Free or not to Free

There seems to be an unending amount of comment about casual and online games and whether they should be free to play. On one side the users or the casual game player, who would like all of the games produced to be free and available for all and on the other, the businesses who try to make enough money so that they can flourish and develop more and more games.

So who is right? Well in my opinion everyone and no-one. I think for the industry to really grow there has to be a sensible mix of the free and pay-to-use casual game.

Casual games sites can not grow by surviving on advertising revenue alone. But these games sites need to offer content that is free to play. Even the biggest casual games portals offer free trials of their games for sale. After all it is sound business practise to encourage users to play the game before they part with their hard earned cash.

For new and innovative games to be created the developers need to know that there is the ability for them to earn a living from doing what they love.

We have experienced the backlash from users in the free vs pay debate. Our sequel to Swords and Sandals was offered free as a demo, but the full game was only available to paid subscribers or as a download. Yet we offer over 180 free games on our website of which about 50 of them we developed and built in-house. To call a business greedy and selfish for trying to earn a living is short sighted and ill-educated.

With the revenue generated from games sales companies are able to develop bigger and better games, employ more games developers and generally help the industry grow.

In my opinion, free content is great and it should be encouraged but to disparage those who are looking to provide more is just wrong.

Casual games = Increased productivity

It’s always a good thing when surveys are conducted about the casual games industry, especially when they highlight the positives of fun and games.

Casual game company Worldwinner recently conducted a survey amongst 500 of its customers specifically asking about perceived benefits of playing casual games. What they found was that around 76 percent said that it improved productivity while 72 percent revealed that they rely on game breaks to lessen job-related stress.

The most prevalent games to play seem to be puzzle and card games and these have long been the most popular of all casual game categories. It seems amazing that as casual games become more sophisticated, games like solitaire, three in a row puzzlers, spelling games and bubble shooters remain at the top of most popular games lists. Even larger games companies are recognising the benefit of games that stimulate the mind. Two of Nintendo’s biggest games for its DS system are Brain Age, and Big Brain Academy.

The majority of respondents (66%) in the survey said they played casual games for around 30 minutes during the working day. The survey shows that more and more people are seeking out casual games for more than just entertainment.

I still think it is amusing large companies are quite happy to lose productivity by allowing employees to go for a smoke or a coffee, yet frown upon the use of a computer to play a game and take a quick time out. The US recently calculated it loses 92 billion dollars worth of productivity every year from smoking.

I don’t expect this survey will change the preconceptions large employers have about computer games, but at least a few of them will take notice, and that’s a good thing.

Sit up and take notice

Business Review Weekly (BRW) is a high profile business magazine based in Australia. It is a conservative magazine, not a publication we would have expected to publish a profile piece on casual games and advergaming. Even when they interviewed 3RD sense for the article we weren’t really sure the piece would actually be published.

It is certainly pleasing that the casual games industry is drawing greater attention from the mainstream business community, but it is hard to know whether as an industry we have reached a maturity where other business sectors see us as a major business opportunity, or just another business fad of the moment.

My thoughts are that any exposure we get as an industry is good, and when it comes from respected mainstream media publications, online or not, we should accept that as a move in the right direction.

I like to think that the recognition we as an industry are getting from this increased exposure is as a result of the hard work invested by the thousands of creative people that work in our industry. We love what we do and we think it’s worthwhile, and millions around the world agree with us.

It’s early days, but it seems the business community is finally sitting up and taking notice.

Who are you calling casual?

I was thinking last night, is being referred to as a casual gamer a put down? Are casual games less important than hard-core games?

Labels are funny things. By adding casual to the title does it make us sound less serious, less committed? Well the statistics being released of late seem to indicate the opposite.

Casual gamers are some of the most dedicated gamers out there. And unlike the young male dominated world of the ‘hard-core’ gamer, casual gamers are made up of all demographics and all ages. The dominant group of casual gamers are in fact women over the age of 30, a fact that comes as no surprise to those in the industry. However it’s not the demographic or age group that immediately jumps to mind of the general public when you talk about computer games.

The beauty of the casual game is its simplicity, and that’s why the worldwide audience of 100 million* continues to grow. Sometimes you just need a little diversion to get through the day.

We at 3RD sense are extremely proud of the games we create, and we thank the lord that people like them and keep coming back to visit. We don’t consider our games casual, and I bet to the majority of Playaholics gamers out there, casual is not even a term they use.

Of course casual games are as important as the more traditional hard-core games. If they were not, then people wouldn’t play them and our industry wouldn’t exist. I just wish we had a better name.

* source: Jupiter Media Metrix

Our Web 2.0 awakening

If you were talking to marketers and you wanted a sound bite, you’d probably say Web 2.0 was about unleashing the power of the community. This is a grand statement, but what does that mean? The best way we can explain it is by drawing on our own experience.

Some time ago, we decided that we wanted to create a directory of online casual games. There were two ways we could go about that, really. The first route would have been to try to build and create that directory ourselves. The second route — and the one we chose — was to build an environment that allowed the users to create their own directory.

We launched Millions Of Games (MOG) five or six months ago, using techniques that were pioneered by sites like Delicious and Flickr. MOG is still in beta. It’s not finished. We haven’t really launched it at all yet. But in that period, over 1400 people have created what is now the world’s biggest directory of online games — something that would have been impossible for us to achieve on our own.

So how does that work? When they come to MOG, players have the opportunity to sign-up for free and create a list of their favourite online games. We call this “mogging”. What makes MOG a Web 2.0 application is that this list is shared with other people. Very quickly you can see who else is playing the same games as you, and you can see what else they are playing.

Very quickly, users create a powerful array of data that would have been impossible to assemble in any other way. That’s an important part of Web 2.0.

New Playaholics

It’s been about a year in development, and it is finally here.

A casual games portal with over 150 games (all with integrated high scores), a free membership service, a subscription service, an avatar system, a forum, competitions, and more is a big project. The first thing I need to do is thank the team. They have done an awesome job. Playaholics is now an incredible casual games portal.

Proibably the best thing to do is to have a play. www.playaholics.com

By all means tell us what you think.

The Little Gamer

10 moments in time

The last 20 years have been a hectic ride in the world of casual games. We’ve tried to distill the milestones into a top 10 list, presented here in chronological order:

1. The development of Authorware (1987), Shockwave (1990s) and Flash (1996), which dramatically increased our ability to create complex games that load quickly.

2. The Nintendo deal in 1989 to include Tetris with the Gameboy. The deal cost between $5 and 10 million, and followed the gaming license squabble of the century between Mirrorsoft, Atari, BPS and other players.

3. Nokia’s inclusion of the original monochromatic version of Snake on its Nokia 6100 phone in 1997. Many a thumb was jarred and mobile casual gaming became a reality.

4. Microsoft’s inclusion of Solitaire with Windows 95 in May 1997.

5. The creation of J2ME in 15 June 1999. The inclusion of a Java Virtual Machine on mobile phones made it easier for developers to create and emulate mobile games on a PC before uploading them to phones.

6. Electronic Arts’ purcase of Pogo.com in March 2001 for a whopping $50 million, after the site was left in the lurch by Excite. In this move, one of the world’s most succesful hardcore game developers recognised the value of, and invested in, casual games.

7. PopCap’s launch of Bejeweled in August 2001, originally as a browser-based game named Diamond Mine. The original has inspired countless casual games in this format.

8. RealNetworks’ purchase of Gamehouse in January 2004, turning this leading distributor of digital content (including games) into a casual game publisher in its own right. This trend towards vertical integration will continue.

9. Microsoft’s launch of Xbox Live Arcade in late 2004. Since then, 3 million Xbox Live Arcade games have been downloaded and at least 600,000 have been purchased.

10. The first casual games conference: Casuality, in Seattle, US, in July 2005.

The Little Gamer

Casual community

Let’s start with the obvious: people enjoy playing casual games because they are, well, casual. They require no commitment. They offer instant gratification. There is no need to read manuals and no need to buy the latest hardware.

It’s no surprise then that casual gamers seem to steer clear of community — all that human/online interaction can be a bit too much like hard work, a bit too much commitment. Most casual game sites have no community features whatsoever. There are notable exceptions, like Pogo’s Club Pogo and Puzzle Pirates — you could even argue that Habbo Hotel represents the merging of social software with casual gaming. But on the whole, casual game sites keep it casual.

Here at 3RD sense, two of our sites — Playaholics and Chickstop — have optional community features, but of their million or so� players per month,� less than 10%� them are registered members.

So, why then have we spent the last nine months creating new versions of these sites that, when they are launched, will focus on providing new community features? Would it have made more sense to just plough the money into writing more games?

Soon, these sites will offer:

• An integrated high-score system that is consistent for all games, so you can measure your performance against others
• Personal stats so you can see how well you do on each game and how you improve
• User created mini-leagues so you and a small group of people can play against each other for a highest score over a 24-hour period
• Avatars that can be personalised with millions of different combinations and options
• Public profiles so that players’ performances will be on display
• Forums so you can discuss games, locate cheats and talk about how to get a higher score

Of course, both sites will still be open to ‘casual’ visitors, who don’t want to join a community in order to play some casual games. However, at 3RD sense we think that social competition can be one of the most attractive aspects of a game. Rightly or wrongly, we have faith that with the right community features, more and more players will be prompted to become members over time, which would be tremendously beneficial to our business.

The Little Gamer

Is it time for pay-to-play?

At some point in the future, game developers will look back on moment when the “pay to play” model for online games burst into the mainstream. The tipping point might be tomorrow or it might be 10 years from now, but at some point a casual game developer is going to step up to the mark, bet on the “pay-to-play” model, and win. In my mind, there is no question this will happen. In fact, aside from “Who will do it?”, the only real questions are: “Why?”, “When?” and “Why did it take so long?”

Let’s answer each question in turn.

“Why?” is the easy question. Pay-to-play will eventually take off because other casual game business models have their limitations

For example, many of us are willing to download and install game — either paying upfront or after a trial period — but some of us find downloads to be too big a commitment. Casual games, after all, were meant to be casual. Likewise, the download models generally rely on credit cards, but some are still concerned about credit card security, and teenagers cannot get credit cards at all. So the download models are perfect for some, but not for all.
Likewise, many of us are willing to tolerate sponsorship or advertising that is wrapped around or placed within casual games, but ads can be distracting. Also, game publishers are vulnerable to market forces that affect the price of ads across all web sites, not just ads on casual game portals.

So all the current models are worthwhile, but none are perfect for every player and every publisher in every situation, and that leaves the door open for pay-to-play.

“When?” is a little harder to answer, but there are certainly pay-to-play models in the digital space that are pointing the way.

For example, while pay-to-play is not yet common for web games, it’s already an option for pay TV and mobile phones. In the UK, the pay TV operator Sky uses the pay-to-play model for its Gamestar service, which attracts almost 2 million users a month. Users play games on their TVs using their remote controls and the system charges them by dialling a premium phone number. Depending on the game, users pay 50p – £1 each time they play.

Micropayments models are also starting to point the way. While not strictly pay-to-play, micropayment allows users to buy pieces of content for small fees by grouping together a number of transactions into one larger purchase. istockphoto.com and the iTunes Music Store are good examples of this.

Also, we know micropayments are popular in virtual worlds like Second Life and some Korean and Japanese casual games like Kart Rider. However, in these cases you pay to add features to your avatar or kart, not to play the game. These examples show micropayments can work, but they are not “pay to play”.

Another model from the UK that’s interesting is UKash. With this system, customers buy tokens from regular retail outlets with cash, and then redeem the tokens when purchasing products or services online. Users don’t register, so there’s no risk of fraud or invasions of privacy. It’s almost as free and simple as a cash transaction.

The final question, “Why has it taken so long?”, serves as a reality check. There are still significant barriers we must overcome and most of them are to do with barriers posed by payment systems.

We need global micropayment systems, not just one-country systems like UKash.

We need micropayment systems that work for every internet user, not just the customers of one mobile phone network or pay TV channel.

We need micropayment systems that are so popular that the game developer can assume many customers are already using them — instead of having to explain the system to every new customer and requiring them to jump through hoops before they can get started.

We need micropayments systems that pass almost all of the revenue through to the game publisher, rather than keeping a hefty slice of the action for the mobile phone operator.

And we need to create a gaming culture that values and is willing to pay for the experience of playing a great casual game.

Ultimately, “pay to play” will take off when a game portal embraces a simple, affordable micropayments system that bills the customer once for a session and then lets them play as many times as they like. But none of this will happen of its own accord. Someone will have to bet their business to create this universe. When they do — if they get it right — the rewards will be incredible.

The Little Gamer

What’s ‘Hot’ and What’s Not?

One of the perennial issues in the casual games industry is what constitutes game idea theft – there’s been a bit of discussion recently on IGDA’s Casual Games mailing list. For every hit game there are any number of rip-offs produced in a short space of time. I have no evidence for this, but I would guess that Bejewelled is� one of the most copied games� of all time, there are a lot of hot versions out there.

Some developers (and I’m not one of them) argue that the sheer volume of ‘imitations’ of Bejewelled indicates that the game concept is almost in the public domain. Popcap, the original creators, probably wouldn’t agree, but it does raise the issue of what constitutes a rip-off and what is a new game - inspired by an original, but with enough new game play to be considered an evolution of the form.

Of course, to some extent, pretty much all games are an evolution of another, older form. Bejewelled, as is argued by Jesper Juul on his blog The Ludologist, took its inspiration from Nintendo’s Panel de Pon. In fact, it could certainly be argued that the entire industry is based on evolution rather than revolution - its pretty unrealistic to expect every game to be completely new and original - rarely is any art or entertainment form truly a first.

At 3RD sense, we’ve evolved our own Bejewelled-inspired game, Sea Jewels. We’ve taken the basic Bejewelled idea and added some new game-play features which we believe makes Sea Jewels different enough to be new . We haven’t attempted to hide our game’s influence - in fact, we’ve very deliberately nodded towards its Bejewelled heritage in the name - but we think we have made enough changes to the game to make sure the player gets a quite different game-play experience� from the original Bejewelled.

But that’s our opinion. Take a look at Sea Jewels. Do you think we have put enough ‘new’ in the game? Where should a game developer draw the line? When can you sleep at night, comfortable in the knowledge that you have put something into the industry rather than taken something out?

We know that copyright laws aren’t sufficient to deal with this problem, and when developers go down the patent route, it just stifles ongoing development and creativity. As an industry that’s growing up, shouldn’t we be pulling together our own set of guidelines for developers new and old to help them understand what is and isn’t acceptable? At least then we’d all have something to work from.

Tell us what you think is and isn’t acceptable and what you think should be included in the guidelines. Then we can maybe work out if we did enough with Sea Jewels.

The Little Gamer

Cash for content

The casual game sector is the darling of the media, the geek-o-sphere and the investment community. Every week, another articles appears in Forbes or the New York Times (free registration required) saying our little world is going through a massive growth spurt. And it’s true. Whether we look at diverse multinationals like Microsoft and Electronic Arts or casual game (and advergame) specialists like ourselves, suddenly we’re finding that last year’s school uniform doesn’t fit anymore.

But that doesn’t mean we’re ready to grow up.

The Little Gamer