J. Michael Monahan, II, Attorney, Pattishall, McAuliffe, Newbury, Hilliard & Geraldson
Shane McGee, lawyer in DC for Blizzard
Michael H. Pinkerton, COO, Metaverse Mod Squad
Neal Black, General Counsel, Live Gamer
Metagaming: a broad term usually used to define any strategy action of method used in a game which transcends a prescribed rule-set, uses external factors to affect the game, or goes beyond the supposed limits or environment set by the game.
Why is metagaminf an important issue when discussing MMORPGs? Most MMORPG designers work within a carefully designed virtual universe, precisely balanced to give every player an equal opportunity to play and enjoy the game. Metagaming can upset that balance -- or enhance the experience -- depending on foreign of the designers and the type of metagaming at issue.
Not talking about cheating, hacking, or exploits. Doing things for motives that exist beyond the scope of the game.
Metagaming is not an evil trap, but you must consider whether you want to include it in the game space. Games that have an open sandbox feel encourage this. If rewards are given for PvP combat, then players are going to want to find out about their opponents and will create elements of the game beyond the game. Good use: content creation. Bad use: gold farming, bots.
www.virtualgoods.com: "Virtual goods in Asia: it's even more than you think!" April 9, 2009.
Virtual items + scarcity + collectability + ability to display socially to other users --> user demand for real-money trading (RMT). Itembay and ItemMedia sold $974M in v goods in 2006. How will users fulfill this demand?
Unsanctioned RMT, especially when dealing with overseas interests, is very difficult to control. Hernandez v. Internet Gambling Entertainment (2007) -- RMT in WoW by gamer versus IGE. Theory of interference. Hardcore gamer who sued that IGE was allowing others to level faster due to gold. Tried for class action, but settled.
Playfish Ltd. v. Gosumall Digital Entertainment (2009). Trademark and copyright infringement.
One solution is to join them. Regulatory landscape for sanctioned RMT:
financial services laws
illegal lotteries (gambling)
auction licensing
income taxes (third-party information reporting)
sales tax laws
data security standards
privacy practices
export control
unclaimed property
ownership of IP
TOS/EULAs
Metagaming comes down to TOSs and EULAs and how you license IP to your users. The reason the TOS is a focus for metagaming is that they delineate the game experience. Eve Online is the benchmark for metagaming since big mercantile component, trust no one, PvP environment. TOS says that players can lie to eachother. So a player can tell you they will give you a lot of money for something and this is just part of the game. You have no recourse to this. It results in a lot of media for them. CCP made this decision early on, that they wanted a "wild west" experience. So the TOS describes how they deal with these complaints.
Game communities
Important to engage the kids who may be members of your gaming community. Give a social networking outlet that forwards the experience and builds community outside the game. In forums, there is virtually no liability to the operator who provides this type of forum (Communications Decency Act). Section 230 of CDA: Immunity if operator did not create or develop the offending content.
Ex: Matchmaker.com invasion of privacy case. Profile made on matchmaker.com for another person that was derrogatory. Victim got threatening phone call. Difficult to track down anonymous poster, so victim filed suit against matchmaker. Court said no liability for matchmaker.
One exception: Roommates (fair housing). Site had drop down menu that was so restrictive that the users actually had to specify certain info including gender and sexual orientation, violating the CA fair housing act.
General rule: if you have an open forum and do not create or develop the content, you have immunity for what is posted there.
COPPA: sites directed to kids under 13, any site that collects personal info from children are covered by COPPA. Requires posted privacy policy, verifiable parental consent before collecting personal info from kids. ME prohibits predatory marketting to minors.
Cyberbullying
Digital harassment (anonymous, unsupervised, difficult for kids to separate themselves from it). Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act (pending).
Bots, Examples of Metagaming
Communicating outside of a game: phone calls, IMs? IP comm? Giving away the location of another player. Disclosing the strength of an enemy fortification. Communication across factions (Horde vs. Alliance). How do you limit communications?
Exploits: Terrain glitching, gold/item duping. These happen outside of the rules of the game.
Cheats and Bots: (ex: WoWGlider, developed to run over WoW, designed to play in your absence) can "see" through terrain and other obstructions. Complete situational awareness. Reflexes of computer. Not subject to the RW issues of a player (i.e. sleep, lack of time to play, etc.). Gold farming.
To what extent do you try to police this stuff?
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Thursday AM: Best Practices in a Worst Case Scenario: How to React Intelligently to a Security Breach
Steven Davis, CEO, IT GlobalSecure Inc. & SecurePlay
Benjamin T. Duranske, Attorney, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
Books:
"Virtual Law: Navigating the Legal Landscape of Virtual Worlds" by Durankske
"Protecting Gamers: A Security Handbook for Game Developers and Publishers" by Davis
Davis has blog called "Play No Evil."
Eve Online had someone break into the game itself, company wasn't sure what they were doing, took game offline for a few days. Earlier today or yesterday, they had a smaller incident where someone got into online volunteer service. Again, took it down. No accounts compromised.
Dramatic breaks versus ongoing problems.
One free-to-play game had a SQL injection that allowed backdoor. Copied entirety of server-side software. Able to create pirated servers. Selling in world v goods for much cheaper in the pirated world.
Evaluate your privacy promises/standards. Understand the scope of your risks. Prioritize your privacy resources based on risk. This policy is generally set up pretty early in the start-up process. Privacy law is among the most complex areas of law since it is state-distributed. They are constantly under revision. Ex: MA will require encryption, impacts paper and electronics records. Compliance with 50 states very difficult, but most states require you follow their privacy policy if you have users in their states. If you are honest and up front about the data, you can actually do a lot of things.
Many companies keep zip code, DOB, and gender, which can determine 60-87% data. Advocated for over-disclosure.
For a security breech, there is probably a section that says "In the event of a data security breech, this is what we are going to do ..."
BBB certification, if done properly, gives you a safe harbor under European privacy law. If you are deploying to Europe, you must be very careful about what you are doing with that data. Privacy policy needs to say things like "It is OK for us to export this data to the US."
European perspective: the government is good and we should give them all of our data (very opposite to the US).
For a compromised record, they are typically valued at $600-800/record. You frequently have to offer them free credit counseling, free credit monitoring, etc.
Marketers will approach start ups to get their data. This can include valuable things like chat logs. Who did someone talk to? What did they talk about? What type of relationship do they have? This must be addressed in a privacy policy.
Why encourage companies to maintain this data for a long time? Document retention policy. Reality is that it is not always in the companies best interest. There are some things you are required by law to keep: COPPA. You should keep user transaction records for a little while. Good idea to not keep everything indefinitely due to security breeches and ability to respond to a subpoena. Ex: LL retains data regarding users involved in lawsuits on trademark infringement. Were able to provide a lot of data on that user in response to subpoena. Retrofitting systems that did not anticipate what people would do can be very difficult and expensive.
Bragg v. Linden. After new subpoenas, are LL continuing to hold that much info? Any trends on what they are holding? Bragg sued LL for being banned on how he purchased land. Bragg put the discovery online, which shows a great deal of what LL keeps.
What to worry about: 7 Figure Security: (AKA "world killers")
If there isn't at least $1M involved...
Fraud (payment fraud)
Personal information disclosure (CA disclosure law)
COPPA (gives you a legal safe harbor if you properly comply)
Piracy
In-game fraud/scams
Banning (cheating or griefing)
Proprietary data discloser
...and (at least) $2 for $2 ROI
If your game or the marketing in it appears to be geared towards children, then you are subjected to COPPA.
Who compromised the data? Who is accountable for it? From a legal perspective, if you have registered the copyright in your software (costs $35 and takes 20-50 pages of the source code), you instantly have a far more powerful legal tool than if you had not done it. Registered copyrights give you access to attourney's fees and damages. This should be done every time you update, or at least quarterly.
To ban or not to ban? You really want to avoid it. If you can design the game that there is nothing they can do that is bannable, that is lower customer support costs, a paying customer that stays a paying customer. People who are interested enough to do something bannable are people seriously invested in your game.
Know the laws/regulations and track changes. Hundreds of them in the US alone, even more internationally.
Trademark your v goods and register those trademarks! If you are not actively policing this, you can actually lose the trademark. So don't let it slide.
Glider in WoW. Had a legit copy of the game, editing memory space. Worked b/c it was specifically applied to WoW. But Cheat Engine is not as capable since it is a generic memory editor. Copying a piece of software into RAM can be considered copyright infringement.
Things fall apart when it can be argued that the company is doing too much or making things too big.
ABA Science and Technology Law is a co-sponsor of the Digital Law Conference. They have programs like this all the time. Intersection between law and tech. Webcasts, telecons too.
Five Steps to Security Breach Response:
1. Incident Response Team
2. Be prepared, anticipate problems
3. Discovery and investigation
4. Consumer notification
5. Post-mortem, learn from mistakes, apply best practices
Legal, business, technical, and PR should all be involved in #1 who are senior enough to speak for organization. Have rough plans in place. Make it easy for the customer support guy to rapidly get to #1. "Do not disturb the scene of the crime." By stopping things and closing loop holes, they can actually do more damage. Escalate it to the IRT quickly.
Benjamin T. Duranske, Attorney, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
Books:
"Virtual Law: Navigating the Legal Landscape of Virtual Worlds" by Durankske
"Protecting Gamers: A Security Handbook for Game Developers and Publishers" by Davis
Davis has blog called "Play No Evil."
Eve Online had someone break into the game itself, company wasn't sure what they were doing, took game offline for a few days. Earlier today or yesterday, they had a smaller incident where someone got into online volunteer service. Again, took it down. No accounts compromised.
Dramatic breaks versus ongoing problems.
One free-to-play game had a SQL injection that allowed backdoor. Copied entirety of server-side software. Able to create pirated servers. Selling in world v goods for much cheaper in the pirated world.
Evaluate your privacy promises/standards. Understand the scope of your risks. Prioritize your privacy resources based on risk. This policy is generally set up pretty early in the start-up process. Privacy law is among the most complex areas of law since it is state-distributed. They are constantly under revision. Ex: MA will require encryption, impacts paper and electronics records. Compliance with 50 states very difficult, but most states require you follow their privacy policy if you have users in their states. If you are honest and up front about the data, you can actually do a lot of things.
Many companies keep zip code, DOB, and gender, which can determine 60-87% data. Advocated for over-disclosure.
For a security breech, there is probably a section that says "In the event of a data security breech, this is what we are going to do ..."
BBB certification, if done properly, gives you a safe harbor under European privacy law. If you are deploying to Europe, you must be very careful about what you are doing with that data. Privacy policy needs to say things like "It is OK for us to export this data to the US."
European perspective: the government is good and we should give them all of our data (very opposite to the US).
For a compromised record, they are typically valued at $600-800/record. You frequently have to offer them free credit counseling, free credit monitoring, etc.
Marketers will approach start ups to get their data. This can include valuable things like chat logs. Who did someone talk to? What did they talk about? What type of relationship do they have? This must be addressed in a privacy policy.
Why encourage companies to maintain this data for a long time? Document retention policy. Reality is that it is not always in the companies best interest. There are some things you are required by law to keep: COPPA. You should keep user transaction records for a little while. Good idea to not keep everything indefinitely due to security breeches and ability to respond to a subpoena. Ex: LL retains data regarding users involved in lawsuits on trademark infringement. Were able to provide a lot of data on that user in response to subpoena. Retrofitting systems that did not anticipate what people would do can be very difficult and expensive.
Bragg v. Linden. After new subpoenas, are LL continuing to hold that much info? Any trends on what they are holding? Bragg sued LL for being banned on how he purchased land. Bragg put the discovery online, which shows a great deal of what LL keeps.
What to worry about: 7 Figure Security: (AKA "world killers")
If there isn't at least $1M involved...
Fraud (payment fraud)
Personal information disclosure (CA disclosure law)
COPPA (gives you a legal safe harbor if you properly comply)
Piracy
In-game fraud/scams
Banning (cheating or griefing)
Proprietary data discloser
...and (at least) $2 for $2 ROI
If your game or the marketing in it appears to be geared towards children, then you are subjected to COPPA.
Who compromised the data? Who is accountable for it? From a legal perspective, if you have registered the copyright in your software (costs $35 and takes 20-50 pages of the source code), you instantly have a far more powerful legal tool than if you had not done it. Registered copyrights give you access to attourney's fees and damages. This should be done every time you update, or at least quarterly.
To ban or not to ban? You really want to avoid it. If you can design the game that there is nothing they can do that is bannable, that is lower customer support costs, a paying customer that stays a paying customer. People who are interested enough to do something bannable are people seriously invested in your game.
Know the laws/regulations and track changes. Hundreds of them in the US alone, even more internationally.
Trademark your v goods and register those trademarks! If you are not actively policing this, you can actually lose the trademark. So don't let it slide.
Glider in WoW. Had a legit copy of the game, editing memory space. Worked b/c it was specifically applied to WoW. But Cheat Engine is not as capable since it is a generic memory editor. Copying a piece of software into RAM can be considered copyright infringement.
Things fall apart when it can be argued that the company is doing too much or making things too big.
ABA Science and Technology Law is a co-sponsor of the Digital Law Conference. They have programs like this all the time. Intersection between law and tech. Webcasts, telecons too.
Five Steps to Security Breach Response:
1. Incident Response Team
2. Be prepared, anticipate problems
3. Discovery and investigation
4. Consumer notification
5. Post-mortem, learn from mistakes, apply best practices
Legal, business, technical, and PR should all be involved in #1 who are senior enough to speak for organization. Have rough plans in place. Make it easy for the customer support guy to rapidly get to #1. "Do not disturb the scene of the crime." By stopping things and closing loop holes, they can actually do more damage. Escalate it to the IRT quickly.
Thursday AM: When Virtual Worlds Meet the Real World at Chevron (Keynote)
Kevyn Renner, Senior Technology Consultant, Chevron Global Manufacturing
"Work is something you DO...not someplace you ARE."
Archaic work processes, limited situational awareness, ...
RAVE: Refinery Asset Virtualization Environment
Too much data, not enough actionable information.
Can we use an immersive VW for optimizing performance?
Collaboration is not just about putting people together in a room. But you need to have a contextual environment. Don't put a maintenance guy in a room without a maintenance context and something to fix.
Issue: how to bring aging workforce into new space? Massive data volumes, but not capable of extracting useful information from it. Stacks of technology.
Situational awareness: the conciousness of farther facts. There are 2 forms of perception: active and passive. Passive is discreet-oriented: take in input, process it, do something about it. Active is constantly adjusting based on what is happening around. SA does both: observe, orient, decide, act.
Virtually InVisible Cloud of Context
Immersive Operations Intelligence: be able to walk into your spreadsheet or dashboard. Aggregate data, data discovery.
Refinery units scanned via point clouds. Models must be kept up-to-date. Any changes to a RW item require rescanning.
Persistence is important. People can come in and see where other people left off.
Immersive nature is tough to get across to most people. Why do you need avatars? "You have to use it to feel it." Once you have used an avatar in a virtual room, you have really entered that room. You do not get this with a web-X or web meeting. It is disconcerting as humans b/c you are used to the tactile feel of a real room.
Interaction in real time, immediacy. You do not get this in WebX.
Nothing really new or engaging in this session. This guy made training in a VW. Nothing new.
"Work is something you DO...not someplace you ARE."
Archaic work processes, limited situational awareness, ...
RAVE: Refinery Asset Virtualization Environment
Too much data, not enough actionable information.
Can we use an immersive VW for optimizing performance?
Collaboration is not just about putting people together in a room. But you need to have a contextual environment. Don't put a maintenance guy in a room without a maintenance context and something to fix.
Issue: how to bring aging workforce into new space? Massive data volumes, but not capable of extracting useful information from it. Stacks of technology.
Situational awareness: the conciousness of farther facts. There are 2 forms of perception: active and passive. Passive is discreet-oriented: take in input, process it, do something about it. Active is constantly adjusting based on what is happening around. SA does both: observe, orient, decide, act.
Virtually InVisible Cloud of Context
Immersive Operations Intelligence: be able to walk into your spreadsheet or dashboard. Aggregate data, data discovery.
Refinery units scanned via point clouds. Models must be kept up-to-date. Any changes to a RW item require rescanning.
Persistence is important. People can come in and see where other people left off.
Immersive nature is tough to get across to most people. Why do you need avatars? "You have to use it to feel it." Once you have used an avatar in a virtual room, you have really entered that room. You do not get this with a web-X or web meeting. It is disconcerting as humans b/c you are used to the tactile feel of a real room.
Interaction in real time, immediacy. You do not get this in WebX.
Nothing really new or engaging in this session. This guy made training in a VW. Nothing new.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Wednesday PM: Redefining Design: It is Not about Being There, It is about DOING There
Randy Hinrichs, Chief Executive Officer, 2b3d (moderator)
Emily Chung, Mgr, Scalable Learning Solutions, WWSE - Sales Force Development,
Cisco Maribeth Black, Senior research Scientist, FX Palo Alto Laboratory (a subsidiary of Fuji Xerox)
Celeste DeVaneaux, IT Project Manager, Club One
UW is now offering a certification in VWs
2b3d Principles
It's not about me, it's about we
It's not about the technology, it's about the neurology
It's not about revolution, it's about evolution
It's not about being there, it's about doing there
It's not about the electrons, it's about the physics
It's not about the theory, it's about rapid feedback
It's not about the application, it's about the integration
It's now about the database, it's about the human race
It's not about the instructional design, it's about the experiential design
It's not about globalization, it's about localization
Emphasize agency...it is one of the core differentiators. Do your avatars act and interact and do they do it with collaboration and consequences? How will things be taken from pilot to implementation?
Maribeth Back: The Virtual Factory Project
Mixed reality project working with real factory in VW as a collaboration, learning, visualization, touring space. Each different type of user needs to see a different type of data. Mobile as well. Walked through the design process of this factory.
Celeste DeVaneaux
Club One Fitness. <20% of people stay involved in fitness. Looking for connection with people who need fitness. Think that people are mostly not sticking with it due to psychology. Use a VW as a second door to health and fitness.
Emily Chung, Cisco
To train salespeople. Explored many different VW platforms, trying to start with the solution. Then tried to define the business need. Lots of starts and stops. Why use a VW instead of just a video? The difference is the interactivity between peers and assets. Create a learner/participant-centered, action-oriented training. Multimedia people do not have the training required to create the VW.
This session is so boring!!!
Emily Chung, Mgr, Scalable Learning Solutions, WWSE - Sales Force Development,
Cisco Maribeth Black, Senior research Scientist, FX Palo Alto Laboratory (a subsidiary of Fuji Xerox)
Celeste DeVaneaux, IT Project Manager, Club One
UW is now offering a certification in VWs
2b3d Principles
It's not about me, it's about we
It's not about the technology, it's about the neurology
It's not about revolution, it's about evolution
It's not about being there, it's about doing there
It's not about the electrons, it's about the physics
It's not about the theory, it's about rapid feedback
It's not about the application, it's about the integration
It's now about the database, it's about the human race
It's not about the instructional design, it's about the experiential design
It's not about globalization, it's about localization
Emphasize agency...it is one of the core differentiators. Do your avatars act and interact and do they do it with collaboration and consequences? How will things be taken from pilot to implementation?
Maribeth Back: The Virtual Factory Project
Mixed reality project working with real factory in VW as a collaboration, learning, visualization, touring space. Each different type of user needs to see a different type of data. Mobile as well. Walked through the design process of this factory.
Celeste DeVaneaux
Club One Fitness. <20% of people stay involved in fitness. Looking for connection with people who need fitness. Think that people are mostly not sticking with it due to psychology. Use a VW as a second door to health and fitness.
Emily Chung, Cisco
To train salespeople. Explored many different VW platforms, trying to start with the solution. Then tried to define the business need. Lots of starts and stops. Why use a VW instead of just a video? The difference is the interactivity between peers and assets. Create a learner/participant-centered, action-oriented training. Multimedia people do not have the training required to create the VW.
This session is so boring!!!
Wednesday PM: Lessons from the Front Line: Implementing Virtual Social Environments at IBM
Chuck Hamilton, Center for Advanced Learning, IBM
Affordances: what make a VW a VW? How can it be used? The term comes from Donald Norman (the design of everyday things). Use things for what they are best at. Presence and reputation. Space and scale. Practice and simulation. Blending of place. Co-creation and collaboration. Observable behavior and performance. Self and anonymity. Enrichment of experience. Mass connected innovation. Universal visual language.
In a VW, they are things that couldn't be done before -- good things they do.
Space and Scale
Blending of Place
In India, geography is now history. The notion that you don't have to reach into a place in the world, but you can actually just be there. Sitting around a campfire. The design of the space is part of the story being told.
Practice and Simulation
Holoscenes from Trek for vacation. Opportunity when you combine the above things. The more you can practice, the better. Fail often and quickly.
Presence and Reputation
Presence converges around the avatar. You are there (presence) as your avatar.
Self and Anonymity
Interesting when combined with P&R. Why would you use anonymity and self in an example? AIDS community in Vancouver...we can attract a lot of people in a conversation about something that has a stigma associated with it and they never have to reveal who they are. Can one avatar be run by 24 people? Ex: have a doctor avatar played by 24 different people, once per hour. The people they interact with feel like they are talking with the same doctor.
Universal Visual Language
Put someone on a path and I don't have to tell you about how to get there. (Ex: virtual footprints on the ground.) Everything done can be done in a graphic format as a metaphor that people get right away. Put in a chair and people will sit on it. Trust that the users understand this and are applying this (an affordance).
Co-Creation and Collaboration
Completely maleable learning space. People working in the context of each other. Being able to just point at something.
Observable Behavior and Performance
The ability to observe, track, and model behavior. Speed mentoring facility. Put mentors in a pod. Go through a pod as 15 min/pod. Watch and model behavioral change. Play with behavior and performance in this way. Machinima is a good thing to do b/c it captures the whole model for after-action reviews.
Mass Connected Innovation
In China, they like to bring 400-500 people into a room. In this culture, mass collaboration is very common. Wikinomics. Great innovation opportunity that we have yet to leverage.
Enriching the User Experience
When a class is over, how can you measure what someone has learned? Pull in other corporate technologies and incorporate it into VW. Try to make the experience richer. Build experiences, not banquet halls. Tie them to everything that everyone is doing. The richer the experience, the more value you bring.
Final message: dig deeper. We look to VWs to augment what is already going on. Educators see things come and go. e-learning is an example of that...fail. Must get over the gaminess. Discussing affordances did not happen with e-learning.
Affordances: what make a VW a VW? How can it be used? The term comes from Donald Norman (the design of everyday things). Use things for what they are best at. Presence and reputation. Space and scale. Practice and simulation. Blending of place. Co-creation and collaboration. Observable behavior and performance. Self and anonymity. Enrichment of experience. Mass connected innovation. Universal visual language.
In a VW, they are things that couldn't be done before -- good things they do.
Space and Scale
Blending of Place
In India, geography is now history. The notion that you don't have to reach into a place in the world, but you can actually just be there. Sitting around a campfire. The design of the space is part of the story being told.
Practice and Simulation
Holoscenes from Trek for vacation. Opportunity when you combine the above things. The more you can practice, the better. Fail often and quickly.
Presence and Reputation
Presence converges around the avatar. You are there (presence) as your avatar.
Self and Anonymity
Interesting when combined with P&R. Why would you use anonymity and self in an example? AIDS community in Vancouver...we can attract a lot of people in a conversation about something that has a stigma associated with it and they never have to reveal who they are. Can one avatar be run by 24 people? Ex: have a doctor avatar played by 24 different people, once per hour. The people they interact with feel like they are talking with the same doctor.
Universal Visual Language
Put someone on a path and I don't have to tell you about how to get there. (Ex: virtual footprints on the ground.) Everything done can be done in a graphic format as a metaphor that people get right away. Put in a chair and people will sit on it. Trust that the users understand this and are applying this (an affordance).
Co-Creation and Collaboration
Completely maleable learning space. People working in the context of each other. Being able to just point at something.
Observable Behavior and Performance
The ability to observe, track, and model behavior. Speed mentoring facility. Put mentors in a pod. Go through a pod as 15 min/pod. Watch and model behavioral change. Play with behavior and performance in this way. Machinima is a good thing to do b/c it captures the whole model for after-action reviews.
Mass Connected Innovation
In China, they like to bring 400-500 people into a room. In this culture, mass collaboration is very common. Wikinomics. Great innovation opportunity that we have yet to leverage.
Enriching the User Experience
When a class is over, how can you measure what someone has learned? Pull in other corporate technologies and incorporate it into VW. Try to make the experience richer. Build experiences, not banquet halls. Tie them to everything that everyone is doing. The richer the experience, the more value you bring.
Final message: dig deeper. We look to VWs to augment what is already going on. Educators see things come and go. e-learning is an example of that...fail. Must get over the gaminess. Discussing affordances did not happen with e-learning.
Wednesday AM: The State of Social Media, Market Size and Key Trends
Michael Cai, VP of Research, Video Games, Interpret, Panel Director plus...
Nick O'Neill, Founder, Social Times
Barry Gilbert, Vice President, Strategy Analytics
Nick nick@socialtimes.com (can ping him to get the statistics)
Social advertising paradigm: consumers are willing to give up some privacy for more-targetted advertising.
80% of recruiters are using LinkedIn as their primary source of finding employees.
World map of social networks...FB is spreading through everywhere, although still growth needed in Asia and S. America. Mobile growth. Average American teen received 2272 texts/mo. FB has > 65M mobile users.
V goods growth...$2.2B in v goods sold, 25x as many in Asia than US. By 2013, >$6B.
Shift towards multiple screens (i.e. simultaneous computer, TV, phone use). 10% of people watching TV are simultaneously browsing social networks at the same time (acc to Nielsen).
Best practices...
(1) iterate quickly (short product devel cycle)
(2) talented sales team...people who sell tech products well have good sales team
(3) listen...monitor customers on SNSs and participate in conversation
(4) build relationships
Michael
Consumer data
Interpret does quarterly tracking survey of 9000 US consumers to look at consumption of all media to educate advertisers and ad agencies. Only been tracking social media for a few quarters. Projected to US population to get idea of size of different sites.
>120M US access social networks on a weekly basis. 64M have 2+ accounts. FB is leading in US. 89M active users at end of 2009Q2. 66M on MySpace. Explosive growth on Twitter...19M end of Q2.
Both VW and SNS industries have the problem of bringing the opposite genders together. WoW 85% male. FB an MySpace have nearly-balanced male/female ratios. On FB, female users are more active. This is why they have been so successful in scaling up. FB trends older than MS (drops off at 35). Females are also more active in their SNS activities such as viewing photos, sending messages, etc. This includes monetizeable activities.
Younger demographics more likely to have adopted SNS. But once an age group is on an SNS, the behavior converges. This is the viral effect. Except for updating status and posting comments on friends page, self-expressive actions have less-active older demographics. For everything else, they are equally active.
35% of iPhone users access a SNS from their phone. Motorola who lead the market a few years ago is seriously lagging. They are moving towards phones to allow SNS access.
Barry bgilbert@strategyanalytics.com
"The Digital Native": people looking at the behaviors for the past 10 years. They will carry this forth to their working environments in the next 5-10 years. Engagement metrics.
Where do VWs fit in social media ecosystem? System has at its core information sources, communities of interest, etc. all circling the core of VWs and embedding the core of VWs in the elements of SNS, gaming, etc. The single most interesting aspect of VW to users is gaming. People interpret it largely as a gaming experience, then an immersive experience. Their participation is morphing. We will see VW elements embedded in SNS environments. VW and Web 2.0 are coming together quickly. WiiWorld. Critical success factor is digital rights management, portability, interoperability.
Expecting 187M unique global users on social VWs by end of 2009. The active users are actually a small percentage...23M. (Active = those who participate in a repeated way > 1 time/week) These are the people who spend money on digital goods, microtransactions, etc. Premium market (subscriber-based) is a very small percentage. Relative to overall growth, relatively small. V goods marketplace is doubling in 2009 over 2008.
2.6M global subscribers to a VW. (Question: this cannot include WoW, right? See below...no.) Expect 19.6M by 2014 as payment methods evolve.
Where participants are from: 26.7% N. Am. 4.0% Latin, 28.5% W. Eur. 25.5% N. Asia, 3.2% W. Eur. 9.4% S. Asia.
Active VW users not at the 1/2 of internet users. Will be 5% of the fixed broadband users by 2015 (NOT including mobile). 25% of VW users with logins are active. Converting people logging in to active user involves making the entrance in world easier. (These are the social VWs, not the gaming VWs.)
Revenue for VWs, advertising was 10% of market. V goods and microtransactions was > 66%, remaining in membership fees. This is changing...marketting will double by 2015. Biggest growth will be v goods....9.6B by 2013. (Conservative forecast is 6.5B.) Advertising has dropped 20% in the past year.
$20/mo is a breaking point for adoption...includes US and Asia.
Nick O'Neill, Founder, Social Times
Barry Gilbert, Vice President, Strategy Analytics
Nick nick@socialtimes.com (can ping him to get the statistics)
Social advertising paradigm: consumers are willing to give up some privacy for more-targetted advertising.
80% of recruiters are using LinkedIn as their primary source of finding employees.
World map of social networks...FB is spreading through everywhere, although still growth needed in Asia and S. America. Mobile growth. Average American teen received 2272 texts/mo. FB has > 65M mobile users.
V goods growth...$2.2B in v goods sold, 25x as many in Asia than US. By 2013, >$6B.
Shift towards multiple screens (i.e. simultaneous computer, TV, phone use). 10% of people watching TV are simultaneously browsing social networks at the same time (acc to Nielsen).
Best practices...
(1) iterate quickly (short product devel cycle)
(2) talented sales team...people who sell tech products well have good sales team
(3) listen...monitor customers on SNSs and participate in conversation
(4) build relationships
Michael
Consumer data
Interpret does quarterly tracking survey of 9000 US consumers to look at consumption of all media to educate advertisers and ad agencies. Only been tracking social media for a few quarters. Projected to US population to get idea of size of different sites.
>120M US access social networks on a weekly basis. 64M have 2+ accounts. FB is leading in US. 89M active users at end of 2009Q2. 66M on MySpace. Explosive growth on Twitter...19M end of Q2.
Both VW and SNS industries have the problem of bringing the opposite genders together. WoW 85% male. FB an MySpace have nearly-balanced male/female ratios. On FB, female users are more active. This is why they have been so successful in scaling up. FB trends older than MS (drops off at 35). Females are also more active in their SNS activities such as viewing photos, sending messages, etc. This includes monetizeable activities.
Younger demographics more likely to have adopted SNS. But once an age group is on an SNS, the behavior converges. This is the viral effect. Except for updating status and posting comments on friends page, self-expressive actions have less-active older demographics. For everything else, they are equally active.
35% of iPhone users access a SNS from their phone. Motorola who lead the market a few years ago is seriously lagging. They are moving towards phones to allow SNS access.
Barry bgilbert@strategyanalytics.com
"The Digital Native": people looking at the behaviors for the past 10 years. They will carry this forth to their working environments in the next 5-10 years. Engagement metrics.
Where do VWs fit in social media ecosystem? System has at its core information sources, communities of interest, etc. all circling the core of VWs and embedding the core of VWs in the elements of SNS, gaming, etc. The single most interesting aspect of VW to users is gaming. People interpret it largely as a gaming experience, then an immersive experience. Their participation is morphing. We will see VW elements embedded in SNS environments. VW and Web 2.0 are coming together quickly. WiiWorld. Critical success factor is digital rights management, portability, interoperability.
Expecting 187M unique global users on social VWs by end of 2009. The active users are actually a small percentage...23M. (Active = those who participate in a repeated way > 1 time/week) These are the people who spend money on digital goods, microtransactions, etc. Premium market (subscriber-based) is a very small percentage. Relative to overall growth, relatively small. V goods marketplace is doubling in 2009 over 2008.
2.6M global subscribers to a VW. (Question: this cannot include WoW, right? See below...no.) Expect 19.6M by 2014 as payment methods evolve.
Where participants are from: 26.7% N. Am. 4.0% Latin, 28.5% W. Eur. 25.5% N. Asia, 3.2% W. Eur. 9.4% S. Asia.
Active VW users not at the 1/2 of internet users. Will be 5% of the fixed broadband users by 2015 (NOT including mobile). 25% of VW users with logins are active. Converting people logging in to active user involves making the entrance in world easier. (These are the social VWs, not the gaming VWs.)
Revenue for VWs, advertising was 10% of market. V goods and microtransactions was > 66%, remaining in membership fees. This is changing...marketting will double by 2015. Biggest growth will be v goods....9.6B by 2013. (Conservative forecast is 6.5B.) Advertising has dropped 20% in the past year.
$20/mo is a breaking point for adoption...includes US and Asia.
Wednesday AM keynote session
Virtual Worlds and Video Games Team
And now, a word from our sponsors...
Mixer tonight after reception, tickets at booth #61.
Pillsbury VWs and video games team (legal), chairs legal committee on Association of Virtual Worlds, founded SL bar association
Most of legal cases fall back on TOS and EULAs. Successful cases are because the company has a good TOS. Data privacy and COPPA (Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act).
Taxes...China announced a tax on the sale of virtual goods. Helping companies with money laundering issues.
Visit booth to get free copies of virtual book on VW law.
Boku product and marketing guy
Mobile payments...allow people check out online and pay using mobile phone. No PII required...just telephone number. A text is sent to user, user replies "y" and then bill shows up on mobile phone bill. Live in 50+ countries. Over 1000 social and free to play gaming.
Keynote speakers: Jeremy Liew (Lightspeed Partners VC)
Korea and other Asian markets started virtual good sales. Only just starting to take off in US. Reasons: software piracy in Asia made it difficult to sell packaged software. Started moving towards server-based model...even if you got client for free, you still needed to interact with the server. Start with pay-for-free so you can tell if you are going to like it before you have to spend a dime. Makes marketing more compelling.
Took off in Asia first b/c different use case for gaming...mostly takes place in internet cafes. How do you get someone's money who wants to pay you? In a cybercafe, it is simple...handled at the counter of the cafe. This is nice b/c it can be done for cash and not credit cards (good for kids). In US, different use case...people are playing games at home. So if you have cash to put into game, you can't do it since there is no counter to give that money to. It took a while for the payment mechanisms to be put into place.
Drivers: mobile payments (also common in Korea). Prepaid cards at retail. Author providers. Has happened over last 12-18 months.
People buy digital goods for the same reasons they do in the RW: to do more, build relationships, and establish identity (in Wall Street op ed).
Use cases for virtual goods:
(1) increased functionality. Allows you to do more in game than you otherwise would be able to do. Direct item or currency sales. Usually associated with games, but not always.
(2) convenience and saving time. If you want to buy a v good, you can grind and level or you can short cut it by buying the good with some cash conversion. The ability to level up faster. Ex: Manager Zone (soccer management game), get texted scouting reports from opponents.
(3) attention. Ex: digital gifts. When you get 40 wall posts versus one virtual gift, the gift is what stands out in your mind because someone actually spent money. Consider the online dating environment...gifts signal a higher level of interest. Good job done by Foobar (world's biggest online happy hour). Can host a happy hour on your profile page. If you are building for attention, you have to have a very clear way of people seeing how much attention they are getting. This happens with variations in pricing too, unlike FB. Both recipient and sender must understand the protocol: "I like you X dollars." This communication must be clear...a wide variety of v goods with a wide variety if price points looses the ability to understand the protocol.
(4) self expression. Convey to other people the things that are important to you. Requires a more closed platform since it is hard to charge a premium for these things on MySpace. If you are building for self expression, you want to have a very wide catalog of v goods.
Rise in popularity of social games impacting proliferation and acceptance of v goods:
Attitude of gamers towards v goods:
Very accepted in Asia. People do not self-identify as gamers in US...many people identify this as cheating. Gets people who are not hard core gamers to play games. Places that have no cheating/not convention are much more accepting. Mindset of casual gamers is that they only have so much time and would like to enjoy it as much as possible...maximize time having fun versus time spent.
A lot of game companies look at social games as not being very serious games. Social games are expanding market and production values are increasing. Game publishers are starting to shift a lot of development towards this, especially iPhone. Probably will become like xbox.
Broader, untapped applications for consumer services that might marry well:
"If I knew, I would not be a venture capitalist and would be an entrepreneur."
MySpace is much more open from a profile perspective than FB. It is much harder to charge for a premium skin on FB. The whole point of spending money so others can see you spent money is lost on more closed systems like FB.
Future of social networks (closed environment) versus destinations on the open web:
It depends on what you mean by the open web. On a site-by-site basis, there has to be developer control to sell v goods. Social games could spread on the open web, largely drive by FB. Client-based games have spread much faster in Asia than here. Probably will happen in US as well.
VC industry and conversations with entrepreneurs, interesting developments in microtransactions:
Growth of companies is remarkable...going from zero to $10-100M overnight. Important aspect is to bring non-gamers to the market. This will drive sustainability. Now that infrastructure pieces are in place, this will bring new players to this market.
Closing thoughts on v goods and social media:
All the action and most growth is in games right now, particularly in-browser games. But other categories are exciting too...client-based games. Challenges with distribution. They have not shown the same viral growth. QQ has driven its revenue growth with v goods, but not true yet in the west.
One corporate opportunity: training.
Branded v goods: if intent is so that people go into rw and buy the v good, then you need a lot of people associated with these goods. Think about it more like advertising rather than v goods. Make it free so people don't have the friction of payment to get the thing. Don't regard it like a revenue stream in this case.
Tweens and kids most negatively impacted with v goods sales since they usually require a credit card. Mobile may not be an option depending on the age of the child. Need payment cards through retail. However, this is largely happening with branded cards and not cross-game cards. Do you have a VW with enough users to drive foot traffic through the retail stores so the store wants to sell your card?
If you do not control the secondary market (i.e. people reselling v goods), then you are opening yourself up to the Russian mafia doing so. This stuff will happen and you have to figure out how you are going to deal with it.
Next speaker: Trip Hawkins (Digital Chocolate)
Started career at Apple, founded EA, 3DL, Digital Chocolate. News to define upcoming news.
DC started on the mobile side...100M web game sessions, 40M iPhone downloads (6 different titles, 1M customer reviews, no marketing done). Couldn't force mobile to be interesting on the web, so went beyond mobile. Then to FB. Took off virally. (I think people are using this word too much without knowing what it means.)
Everyone gets a new phone approximately every 1-2 years. What is the next phone?
Omni Media Revolution:
5-6 years ago, most people did not identify themselves as a hardcore gamer, only about 100M people in this category. Most of public was phobic about computers, games, phones, etc. It was not a digital mass phenomenon. Now it is > 1B and phone is a mobile social computer. Affects everyone including hard core gamers. Gamers have purposefully dumb down hard core experience to allow more friends to try it (ex: PS1 and PS2 and then buy Wii and Guitar Hero). These gamers are now equally happy to spend their money on v goods than their games. This is being driven by social media and the social value of the thing.
Disruptive Products:
Dumb down the quality of something for simplicity and convenience (ex: Flash...not great graphics but allows in-browser gaming. One-touch interfaces.) Consumers are seeking the social experience and how to create a new village. We could go to movies, but we don't b/c it is not the most social experience.
Virtual Items are not New:
Strat-O-Matic fans
EA sports data discs...you didn't have to keep buying the new game, just the new players. But the move away from floppies to CDs (read/write versus not) made this come back.
Trading card games ($2B/yr)...kids who grew up playing Pokemon now have jobs and incomes. People would spend thousands on CCGs and a small stack of paper and be very happy with it!
Investment thesis...allow the mind and wallet to follow where the heart is.
New Strategic Factors:
Avatar marriages resulting in RW marriages. "People are clearly starved socially." "People are looking for love in the hard-core role playing game, AND THEY ARE FINDING IT!" There are a whole lot of reasons why it is hard for people to get social value in real life, so why shouldn't they turn to a VW to find it? Do not be skeptical about what people are going to be prepared to spend. $1000 to be the king of the world is worth it! People will pay 10x more for social value than normal entertainment.
V goods are about $2B/year
Digital distribution...anyone can reach the public through online distribution. Y
We don't have to build a VW trying to knock of WoW or Penguin, but we can guild a social network to reach out to the socially starved.
Now there is more WiFi, WiMax, 3G...mobile web. Big shift here. If you are socially motivated, you want to be connected 24/7. Your social life cannot live just on the PC. The mobile side will be much more fragmented. You won't need to filter things through a social network.
Offer networks...new ways of monetizing, games as a service. When people are playing a free game, they don't want to provide PII. But if they can get a coupon to play, then they are more likely.
One-touch billing...Android is not monetizing, iPhone is. Apple: your phone will be dumb until you give us a billing arrangement. Need to provide a mechanism for impulse purchases. Hook things up to carrier billing. Apple leveraged 100M iTunes accts. Faster start on monetizing content. Carriers already have this too, but must leverage it.
Issues with virtual items:
People churn in and out of a game really fast. If people only play a game for a few weeks, those v goods are not worth much. Hard to get emotionally attached to a lifeless object like kids did with Pikkachu. Why not start up with a CCG principle? These were designed to be played face-to-face...this does not translate to online play. Cannot design an online experience this way.
NanoStars:
Virtual characters, not objects. Ex: Batman. Suppose you buy a packet of NanoStars and you get a Batman. Then you own that personality. This then unlocks an exclusive ringtown, screen saver, Batmobile outside of v home, etc. You go into a game (perhaps with a Batman theme) where you have to bring in your best characters. Batman has different functionality in different games...cross-platform. Emotionally-charged character. Unlock special features. Can trade Batman. Customers will come to this because they are playing a free game. But the free version will not let them do all of the stuff paying customers will have. Customers will want to spread this virally since they can get their friends into it too (unlike the problems some CCG people have).
Game uses standard 52 card deck. Start with 4 cards. Via draws and discards, try and get the best 4 card hand. NanoStars are power-ups/modifiers. They go into a deck of their own that you draw every turn. They affect your hand or the hand of your friend. For the advanced player, they can spend money and get more of the rare ones. Pokemon for grown ups.
Casual games not as expensive as hardcore games. Social games not as expensive as VWs. Design for viral spread, social engagement, v items. Create big funnel for trial. Cross platform.
And now, a word from our sponsors...
Mixer tonight after reception, tickets at booth #61.
Pillsbury VWs and video games team (legal), chairs legal committee on Association of Virtual Worlds, founded SL bar association
Most of legal cases fall back on TOS and EULAs. Successful cases are because the company has a good TOS. Data privacy and COPPA (Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act).
Taxes...China announced a tax on the sale of virtual goods. Helping companies with money laundering issues.
Visit booth to get free copies of virtual book on VW law.
Boku product and marketing guy
Mobile payments...allow people check out online and pay using mobile phone. No PII required...just telephone number. A text is sent to user, user replies "y" and then bill shows up on mobile phone bill. Live in 50+ countries. Over 1000 social and free to play gaming.
Keynote speakers: Jeremy Liew (Lightspeed Partners VC)
Korea and other Asian markets started virtual good sales. Only just starting to take off in US. Reasons: software piracy in Asia made it difficult to sell packaged software. Started moving towards server-based model...even if you got client for free, you still needed to interact with the server. Start with pay-for-free so you can tell if you are going to like it before you have to spend a dime. Makes marketing more compelling.
Took off in Asia first b/c different use case for gaming...mostly takes place in internet cafes. How do you get someone's money who wants to pay you? In a cybercafe, it is simple...handled at the counter of the cafe. This is nice b/c it can be done for cash and not credit cards (good for kids). In US, different use case...people are playing games at home. So if you have cash to put into game, you can't do it since there is no counter to give that money to. It took a while for the payment mechanisms to be put into place.
Drivers: mobile payments (also common in Korea). Prepaid cards at retail. Author providers. Has happened over last 12-18 months.
People buy digital goods for the same reasons they do in the RW: to do more, build relationships, and establish identity (in Wall Street op ed).
Use cases for virtual goods:
(1) increased functionality. Allows you to do more in game than you otherwise would be able to do. Direct item or currency sales. Usually associated with games, but not always.
(2) convenience and saving time. If you want to buy a v good, you can grind and level or you can short cut it by buying the good with some cash conversion. The ability to level up faster. Ex: Manager Zone (soccer management game), get texted scouting reports from opponents.
(3) attention. Ex: digital gifts. When you get 40 wall posts versus one virtual gift, the gift is what stands out in your mind because someone actually spent money. Consider the online dating environment...gifts signal a higher level of interest. Good job done by Foobar (world's biggest online happy hour). Can host a happy hour on your profile page. If you are building for attention, you have to have a very clear way of people seeing how much attention they are getting. This happens with variations in pricing too, unlike FB. Both recipient and sender must understand the protocol: "I like you X dollars." This communication must be clear...a wide variety of v goods with a wide variety if price points looses the ability to understand the protocol.
(4) self expression. Convey to other people the things that are important to you. Requires a more closed platform since it is hard to charge a premium for these things on MySpace. If you are building for self expression, you want to have a very wide catalog of v goods.
Rise in popularity of social games impacting proliferation and acceptance of v goods:
Attitude of gamers towards v goods:
Very accepted in Asia. People do not self-identify as gamers in US...many people identify this as cheating. Gets people who are not hard core gamers to play games. Places that have no cheating/not convention are much more accepting. Mindset of casual gamers is that they only have so much time and would like to enjoy it as much as possible...maximize time having fun versus time spent.
A lot of game companies look at social games as not being very serious games. Social games are expanding market and production values are increasing. Game publishers are starting to shift a lot of development towards this, especially iPhone. Probably will become like xbox.
Broader, untapped applications for consumer services that might marry well:
"If I knew, I would not be a venture capitalist and would be an entrepreneur."
MySpace is much more open from a profile perspective than FB. It is much harder to charge for a premium skin on FB. The whole point of spending money so others can see you spent money is lost on more closed systems like FB.
Future of social networks (closed environment) versus destinations on the open web:
It depends on what you mean by the open web. On a site-by-site basis, there has to be developer control to sell v goods. Social games could spread on the open web, largely drive by FB. Client-based games have spread much faster in Asia than here. Probably will happen in US as well.
VC industry and conversations with entrepreneurs, interesting developments in microtransactions:
Growth of companies is remarkable...going from zero to $10-100M overnight. Important aspect is to bring non-gamers to the market. This will drive sustainability. Now that infrastructure pieces are in place, this will bring new players to this market.
Closing thoughts on v goods and social media:
All the action and most growth is in games right now, particularly in-browser games. But other categories are exciting too...client-based games. Challenges with distribution. They have not shown the same viral growth. QQ has driven its revenue growth with v goods, but not true yet in the west.
One corporate opportunity: training.
Branded v goods: if intent is so that people go into rw and buy the v good, then you need a lot of people associated with these goods. Think about it more like advertising rather than v goods. Make it free so people don't have the friction of payment to get the thing. Don't regard it like a revenue stream in this case.
Tweens and kids most negatively impacted with v goods sales since they usually require a credit card. Mobile may not be an option depending on the age of the child. Need payment cards through retail. However, this is largely happening with branded cards and not cross-game cards. Do you have a VW with enough users to drive foot traffic through the retail stores so the store wants to sell your card?
If you do not control the secondary market (i.e. people reselling v goods), then you are opening yourself up to the Russian mafia doing so. This stuff will happen and you have to figure out how you are going to deal with it.
Next speaker: Trip Hawkins (Digital Chocolate)
Started career at Apple, founded EA, 3DL, Digital Chocolate. News to define upcoming news.
DC started on the mobile side...100M web game sessions, 40M iPhone downloads (6 different titles, 1M customer reviews, no marketing done). Couldn't force mobile to be interesting on the web, so went beyond mobile. Then to FB. Took off virally. (I think people are using this word too much without knowing what it means.)
Everyone gets a new phone approximately every 1-2 years. What is the next phone?
Omni Media Revolution:
5-6 years ago, most people did not identify themselves as a hardcore gamer, only about 100M people in this category. Most of public was phobic about computers, games, phones, etc. It was not a digital mass phenomenon. Now it is > 1B and phone is a mobile social computer. Affects everyone including hard core gamers. Gamers have purposefully dumb down hard core experience to allow more friends to try it (ex: PS1 and PS2 and then buy Wii and Guitar Hero). These gamers are now equally happy to spend their money on v goods than their games. This is being driven by social media and the social value of the thing.
Disruptive Products:
Dumb down the quality of something for simplicity and convenience (ex: Flash...not great graphics but allows in-browser gaming. One-touch interfaces.) Consumers are seeking the social experience and how to create a new village. We could go to movies, but we don't b/c it is not the most social experience.
Virtual Items are not New:
Strat-O-Matic fans
EA sports data discs...you didn't have to keep buying the new game, just the new players. But the move away from floppies to CDs (read/write versus not) made this come back.
Trading card games ($2B/yr)...kids who grew up playing Pokemon now have jobs and incomes. People would spend thousands on CCGs and a small stack of paper and be very happy with it!
Investment thesis...allow the mind and wallet to follow where the heart is.
New Strategic Factors:
Avatar marriages resulting in RW marriages. "People are clearly starved socially." "People are looking for love in the hard-core role playing game, AND THEY ARE FINDING IT!" There are a whole lot of reasons why it is hard for people to get social value in real life, so why shouldn't they turn to a VW to find it? Do not be skeptical about what people are going to be prepared to spend. $1000 to be the king of the world is worth it! People will pay 10x more for social value than normal entertainment.
V goods are about $2B/year
Digital distribution...anyone can reach the public through online distribution. Y
We don't have to build a VW trying to knock of WoW or Penguin, but we can guild a social network to reach out to the socially starved.
Now there is more WiFi, WiMax, 3G...mobile web. Big shift here. If you are socially motivated, you want to be connected 24/7. Your social life cannot live just on the PC. The mobile side will be much more fragmented. You won't need to filter things through a social network.
Offer networks...new ways of monetizing, games as a service. When people are playing a free game, they don't want to provide PII. But if they can get a coupon to play, then they are more likely.
One-touch billing...Android is not monetizing, iPhone is. Apple: your phone will be dumb until you give us a billing arrangement. Need to provide a mechanism for impulse purchases. Hook things up to carrier billing. Apple leveraged 100M iTunes accts. Faster start on monetizing content. Carriers already have this too, but must leverage it.
Issues with virtual items:
People churn in and out of a game really fast. If people only play a game for a few weeks, those v goods are not worth much. Hard to get emotionally attached to a lifeless object like kids did with Pikkachu. Why not start up with a CCG principle? These were designed to be played face-to-face...this does not translate to online play. Cannot design an online experience this way.
NanoStars:
Virtual characters, not objects. Ex: Batman. Suppose you buy a packet of NanoStars and you get a Batman. Then you own that personality. This then unlocks an exclusive ringtown, screen saver, Batmobile outside of v home, etc. You go into a game (perhaps with a Batman theme) where you have to bring in your best characters. Batman has different functionality in different games...cross-platform. Emotionally-charged character. Unlock special features. Can trade Batman. Customers will come to this because they are playing a free game. But the free version will not let them do all of the stuff paying customers will have. Customers will want to spread this virally since they can get their friends into it too (unlike the problems some CCG people have).
Game uses standard 52 card deck. Start with 4 cards. Via draws and discards, try and get the best 4 card hand. NanoStars are power-ups/modifiers. They go into a deck of their own that you draw every turn. They affect your hand or the hand of your friend. For the advanced player, they can spend money and get more of the rare ones. Pokemon for grown ups.
Casual games not as expensive as hardcore games. Social games not as expensive as VWs. Design for viral spread, social engagement, v items. Create big funnel for trial. Cross platform.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)